Golden Girl Ch. 04

Chapter 4: Penance

Many young women in Dorée's position would have wept and cried out, "What have I done to deserve this?" It was a harsh situation indeed. She was chained by her neck, wrists, and ankles to the stone wall of the chateau's oubliette. She was naked, without a shred of cloth on her body but for a black ribbon that tied back her long, golden hair so that she couldn't hide her face. Her bonds allowed her to stand or to sit against the wall with her head back and the collar snug at her throat, but not to lie down or to move a step in any direction. Even if she could walk, there was no place to go. The room was barely five paces long each way, tucked away in a secret prison under the floors with a trap door that let down through the ceiling of the tiny room.

It was a lamentable position, but Dorée knew very well what she had done to deserve this. She talked too much. She had backtalked, debated, and criticized the Duc, upon whom her life and freedom should depend. The chambermaid Berenice had warned her and tried, in her cruel way, to keep Dorée from temptation by gagging her with a handkerchief. But Dorée had pushed out the loose gag, unable to stay silent, and called the Duc unjust, his staff perverse, his manor corrupted. She could barely believe her own audacity, now that she thought back on it. No, the question was not "what have I done to deserve this?" but "how can I atone for what I did?"

When the guards had first brought Dorée down into the oubliette, a dark-haired young man in a dark, high-collared jacket like a lawyer's had come to the edge of the trap-door to read her sentence. His tone was curt as he looked down upon her shivering body and tear-stained face from above.

"Verbal Offence against the Duc. Punishable by up to one week in the oubliette."

He squinted at the roll of parchment he carried.

"There is a special addendum from the Duc. He says you must do penance."

Penance.

Dorée now thought this word over and over as she huddled against the wall. Clearly she had to repent her sins and undergo a mortification of the flesh in order to be forgiven. It seemed perverse to perform this sacred rite for a mere mortal man. And yet he was an aristocrat, a being far above her, in a class with the King. And was not the King ordained by God Himself to hold absolute power over the land and all its citizens? Dorée had heard that some of the men in her village opposed the King and called for revolution. But her step-mother had told her they were nothing but rabble-rousers who would "get what they deserved" when the time came. Understanding little of the world of men, Dorée still thought that the King must truly possess a God-given right to rule, a power no mortal could take away him.

So why had she questioned the Duc, who was in a position of rightful authority?

Dorée shook her head. To begin thinking about that was to open up once again all her doubts about the obscenities the Duc and his guests had engaged in at the Feast of the Fall, which still seemed unholy and unjust to her. When she found herself growing indignant about it once again, she tried to focus instead on the one thing that was absolutely clear to her: it was wrong of her to attack him with her words, and she must now do penance in atonement. She prayed for the Duc's forgiveness.

She also used this time to ponder the strange words he had spoken to her about the Law of Nature and her own desires. He said she had an ability to experience more than most, to know ecstasy in suffering. He said that it wasn't wrong, that it was even right and natural for her to feel as she did. When she thought about how he touched her while whispering such strange, seductive thoughts into her ear, her body responded once again as it had then, growing warm, vibrant, and flushed, especially between her legs. Sometimes in the deepest part of the night, as she crouched against the wall and drifted in the twilight of slumber, her fingers found their way to her cleft and, stroking it, came away moist. Then her muscles trembled with a delicious weakness that was more than simply fatigue. In a way, these times were more difficult than her moments of anger, for she felt herself almost luxuriate in her bondage even as she wondered how she could feel this way.

Perhaps it was right to surrender to the mortification of the flesh. At the very least, her penance would be true if she was not fighting it in her own heart. That, she reflected, was the difference between punishment and penance. A punishment may be inflicted on someone who has not repented but suffers as an unwilling victim, learning nothing and changing not at all in their heart. But a true penitent embraces the suffering of the body for the purification of the soul.

Dorée supposed that her time in the oubliette was the act of penance she had to perform, so she bore it mildly. She did not bite at the servants who passed down trays of barley gruel and bone broth to sustain her. She did not scream or sob when doused with water from above to sluice away her waste. She did not even call for mercy when the trapdoor opened so that shadowy figures silhouetted against the too-bright light could gaze upon her at their leisure. She assumed that if she showed that her repentance was sincere through good behaviour, she would earn her release and be forgiven with no further penalties. In this assumption, however, she was quite wrong.

On the seventh day of her imprisonment, the hatch in the ceiling opened to reveal a shadowy group of courtiers. At first Dorée merely looked away from the light, which hurt her eyes. The hatch had been opened several times before to let people see her, and nothing had ever come of it. This time, however, there was a loud creak and a sturdy wooden ladder was lowered into her cell. The severe young man who had read her sentence descended the ladder with another parchment in hand. Sensing that something momentous was about to happen, Dorée stood up and faced the man, observing him through shaded eyelids. He hardly fit the classic image of a dungeon-keeper, which she imagined to be someone muscular and coarse-featured, maybe even wearing a mask or hood, like a hangman. On the contrary, this man was slender and fine-featured, almost intellectual in appearance, though he was quite a bit taller than Dorée, and, she had no doubt, quite a bit stronger as well. He had short, wavy black hair and an expression of haughty dignity.

"I am the Executor of Justice for minor offenses at the Chateau. You have now passed seven days in the oubliette. Before your release, however, the Duc has decreed that you are to perform an additional penance that suits your trespass."

Dorée bowed her head obediently, but her heart was pounding in her breast. Dozens of questions hung unasked on her lips. What was an Executor of Justice? What were Minor Offenses -and what Major ones? What additional penance? Who was watching them from overhead? How was she to understand the rules and customs of this place? She bit them all back, fearful of offending again.

"Have you come to understand that nature of your transgression, Dorée?" The Executor asked.

Dorée's voice came out rusty after so many days of silence.

"V-verbal Off-fence." She croaked. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Verbal Offence against the Duc. It means I talked back to the Duc. I criticized him. But it was not my place to do so."

"Correct. And do you understand what your penance is to be?"

"No, Sir. I thought...no, I know not."

"Well, since this offense was committed with the mouth, it is your mouth that must be absolved. Open."

The Executor seized Dorée's chin. The pressure of his fingers at the hinge of her jaws compelled them to open. In one swift movement, he inserted a strange metal contraption into her mouth that forced her lips apart on all sides and held them open wide. He buckled a leather harness like a horse's bridle around her head, holding the metal gag in and ensuring that it wouldn't move around too much. Dorée tried to clamp her teeth down, but found it impossible. Metallic-tasting saliva began to pool in the bottom of her mouth. She struggled to swallow it with her mouth open, but the more her throat worked, the more saliva her mouth made. She shook her head in panic. Her chains rattled, and when the Executor reached over to still her she jerked away, unable to control her impulse to run even though she could move only a step or two.

"We'll need the stocks, at least for the legs," the Executor called up.

There was a commotion from above, and then another servant of the Chateau came down the stairs carrying a wooden board with two large holes in it. Working quickly, the servant undid the shackles from Dorée's ankles and spread her legs. He opened the wooden board at its hinged end and closed the two cut-out circles around her thighs. Then, her wrists were unchained from the wall and re-chained to the board. She gripped the edges and found them worn smooth by previous use. Other girls had been held like this, with their legs spread and their hands chained at their sides, bearing up the mechanism that bared their most shameful parts. Dorée shuddered to think of it -but her exposed sex pulsed with heat. Her throat worked again to swallow. A thin strand of saliva escaped her mouth and dripped onto her chin.

The Executor gave a wry, knowing smile. His eyes stared directly into hers like a hawk pinning a mouse with its predator gaze. His hand was at his member, stroking. Then he broke from her gaze for a moment to glance upward at the silhouetted figures above.

"Shall I proceed, your Grace?" He asked.

"Administer justice, my Executor." The Duc's voice replied. A murmur of anticipation from feminine and masculine voices rose around him. Dorée quailed to realize her penance was once again a matter of public spectacle.

She had no time to think more on it, though, for in that instant the Executor pushed Dorée down to the floor. Hobbled at the thighs, she fell hard onto both knees at once. The chain around her throat snapped tight, causing her head to come up. Through the dazzle of light in her eyes, she could see the Executor's sizeable cock, glistening already at the tip, as it pressed toward her forcibly opened mouth. The cock slid in deep from the very first stroke, filling her mouth and pressing down her tongue. She tried to pull her tongue back and then to push him out with it, but he only ground down harder, clearly taking great pleasure in her inadvertent lapping motions. He pushed even deeper into her throat, cutting off her breath. She made a muffled "mmph!" sound, begging for air, but he only thrust his hips in tiny movements, pressing into her without withdrawing until stars began to burst behind her closed eyes.

Just as she thought she would swoon from lack of air, the Executor pulled back. Dorée took several heaving breaths around his cock, which still throbbed rigid in her mouth. He began to thrust in again, touching the back of her throat, but this time never staying long enough that she couldn't get her breath momentarily. She found a pattern of breathing that let her gasp in air before it was cut off again. He found a rhythm that matched it and used her mouth steadily, gripping the harness at the back of her head.

"Use the chain on her." The Duc's voice came from above.

The Executor's cock withdrew. Dorée's mouth was overflowing with saliva and her wet face felt cold without a body there, but she also felt disconnected from the unpleasant sensations. It was almost as if her spirit were floating in space, linked to her body only by a thread of sensation. She kept her eyes closed and let her head loll to one side. A strange calm came over her. She was drifting...fading away...

Suddenly, all her awareness came crashing back in on her as something brutally hard and cold was pulled up between her legs. The Executor had taken one of her chains and threaded it through the gap between her legs where the stocks held them open. Now, he stood again and pulled. The chain pressed into her tender sex hard enough to make her cry out through her gag. The moment she made a sound, the Executor plunged his cock into her mouth to plug it and began thrusting in again, all the while pulling on the chain between her legs. In a flash, Dorée understood why this was her penance: her offending mouth must be filled, her doubts silenced, in order to truly experience the ecstasy of the mortification of he flesh.

Her body rocked with the force of it. And yet, as her warmth heated the chain, the sensation began to change. It hurt her, but at the same time it compelled her. The chain's links began to slide, slippery with the queer wetness that formed when she allowed her darkest impulses to surface. Her hips squirmed. She wished she could close her thighs around the metal and grip it to increase the slick friction. Her breath came in shallow gasps as the Executor's cock once again ravaged her mouth and throat. She could hear his breath speeding to match hers. Dorée's body flexed without her knowing it, her head straining forward against the chain that still linked her neck to the wall. Her vision began to tunnel, to go black, but still she was arcing, reaching, pushing for something...

"Finish it, and let the penance be done." The Duc's voice commanded.

The Executor pulled the chain in short, sharp jerks, smaller and faster than before. The sensation flooded Dorée's core, driving her frantic in torment against him. In that moment he thrust all the way to the depths of her throat and jerked into her with the same fast, sharp rhythm. Dorée's tongue convulsed against his cock as is spurted hot and thick into her throat. Shocked but beyond any stopping, her sex convulsed as well and her body shook ecstatically. Clear fluid dripped down the links of the chain between her legs, spattering the floor of the oubliette.

The Executor of Justice pulled out of her mouth and dropped the chain that bound her sex. Dorée had just enough will left to lean back against the wall so that she wouldn't choke herself by falling forward. There she knelt, with the board clamped against her buttocks and the chain now loose between her legs. No coherent thought could make its way into the haze of mingled astonishment and elation that filled her. She was only distantly aware of the hands that unbound her throat and wrists, that pulled her legs out so the stocks could be removed. She was unfettered, but she felt no impulse to flee. All she wanted was to stay still and let whoever was there do whatever they would with her.

*********************************

A finger touched her face.

"Exquisite."

Dorée's eyes opened. They met the fascinated gaze of the Duc. She breathed out, the faintest sound of confusion vibrating in her breast. Where was she? She had no memory of being taken from the oubliette. She had merely closed her eyes for an instant in the darkness. But now it seemed that a considerable amount of time had passed. It was light out, broad daylight that filtered in white through the room's drawn muslin curtains. She was lying down on something soft. A palette? No, a proper bed, in a room rather like the one she had stayed in the first night, only more simply furnished. Dorée's eye ranged around the small, spare chamber, then returned to the Duc. Remembering her faults, she did not question him about what had happened or where she was. She waited for him to speak first.

"Ahh, I see that you've understood the object of your lesson. Or, should I say, you've made a true penance?"

Dorée nodded and whispered, "Yes, your Grace."

"Very good. You will now begin your life in service at the Chateau. My excellent nursemaid has seen to it that you've had all the rest you need to recover from your exertions. Once you've been fattened up again, you shall begin your work. I like my girls healthy and plump, and my boys as lean as whippets."

The Duc pinched Dorée's knobby elbow distastefully. She did not remind him that it was his treatment that had rendered her so pitifully bony.

He pinched her harder, this time on the tender inner elbow. A low moan escaped her.

"You haven't the slightest idea what you are, do you?" The Duc murmured,

Dorée shook her head.

"You are a desert saint, my dear. Destined for such suffering, and such transcendence."

"Am I, your Grace?"

"Yes. Unquestionably. We must now work to absolve you of your original sin: doubt. It is doubt that leads your anxious mind to speak over your innate knowledge, and deafens you to your own potential. It has been purged from you for now, but like a serpent it always comes crawling back. Whenever you doubt what you are, remember this time."

Dorée nodded.

"You will have many questions in the days ahead. You are to be tutored in the ways of my household, and many of the things that happen regularly here will seem new and perhaps even sinful to you. For instance, any of my staff may use you as they see fit, from the Executor of Justice to the lowliest servant."

Dorée was not sure what he meant by "use" in this context, though she had an inkling.

"Above all," the Duc continued, "do not heed the tutelage of your mind or your past experiences. Heed only the Law of your Nature. Do as your body commands you, and you will always be in line with the ways of this Chateau."

"May I ask one question?" Dorée ventured.

"I will grant it. But be careful, and do not be impertinent."

"When do...I mean, when may I begin in your service?"

The Duc smiled.

"Soon, little Golden Girl. Oh, quite soon enough."