Madeleine (5 page)

“Oh, no, they’re not allowed to practice it on our girls, but there would be plenty of interest in someone like you.” Madame Ruskova smiled thinly.
“Walter is a good client, of long standing, and has always respected our limits scrupulously, but has made no secret of his inclinations.
From time to time a girl, who has committed a serious breach of the rules, is given the option of being dismissed out of hand, or taking a session with Walter.
I asked him to explore your limits and he was impressed.
Quite a testimonial, coming from one as experienced as he.
How did you find out about your ‘talent’?”

Madeleine squirmed again.
She hoped she wasn’t opening up any of the cuts that had bloodied her sheets in the night.
They might be staining her skirt through her underwear, if she wasn’t careful.

“I only found out in the last few days, but the decision, when I came to it, left me with no doubts,” and she went on to share the considerations she had thought through so carefully in her bath, only twenty-four hours previously.

How she’d become aware of an unfulfilled, but unidentified, need in herself, of the frustrations of her career and of the golden offer from ‘Hell’s Bells’.
She explained how she’d gone to find herself in the wilderness, and had succeeded, though not quite what she had expected.

“It was not so much a conversion on the road to Damascus,” she quipped, “as on the road to the Isles.”

The older woman listened with great interest to her description of the events on the islet, and her reactions, and nodded from time to time as Madeleine described her feelings, and her analysis of them, soaking her bruises in her morning tub.

“So here I am.
I intend to make a career of this, with or without your help, but I think it could be messy on my own, and I would like your protection, if I can get it.
I’ve already burnt my boats, as both my present and my prospective employers have my resignation now.
I did not think that I was likely to be able to keep up a full time job against a background of irregular nights, or longer sessions and, additionally, I could foresee frequent occasions arising when I might be too much the worse for wear to go to the office.
I will be freelancing though.
I’m very good at my job and there are plenty of people who will give me work, which will provide me with an ostensible means of supporting my life-style.”

“I don’t think your life-style is going to suffer any,” Madame assured her; “the trouble may be in making your legitimate earnings seem adequate.
I accept your own valuation of yourself, and you are likely to become a very rich young woman.
But only on my terms,” she added, with a slight steeliness to her voice.
“Firstly, you will take any client we send you, without question.
You may rely on me to ensure your protection.
Our clients, however wealthy and powerful, know better than to cross me.
Some of my friends are not very nice at all, and even they are careful not to offend some of their friends.
We’ve very seldom had a client offend. and no-one has survived to try a second time.”

Madeleine shuddered.
What was she getting herself into?
Well, whatever it was, it was too late now.
She was committed now, if only to herself and her need.

Madame Ruskova pressed on with defining her conditions of work.

“Secondly, you will obey the client absolutely, relying on the same protection.
As to the frequency of your sessions, we will decide that and, although I will listen to anything you have to say as to the condition of your body, it will be my decision alone as to whether you are fit to perform again.
There may be times when a client wants you unmarked, and you can look forward to a rest of several weeks, but there are others who would have no objection to you bearing the signs of an earlier beating.
In addition there are some men who would have you even with an embargo on actions that leave durable markings.
The imaginative client, and especially the women, can think up a dozen ways to hurt and humiliate without raising spoor on your hide.”

“I would be expected to serve women too?” She hadn’t considered that possibility, but why not?
As Madame had hinted, a female would understand her vulnerable points, physical and mental, better than any man.

“Of course.
Did I not say any client?” came the swift retort, “and we have many female clients on our books.” She returned to her list of requirements.
“I think it must be obvious that you will have no dealings with any client other than through me.
That includes giving out your address or phone number. Finally, you will be subject to the same discipline as all our other girls.”

Madeleine could not prevent a wry smile at the thought of yet more beatings on top of what she had contracted for.
How could they be construed as punishment?
As if she could read her thoughts, Madame Ruskova continued.

“Don’t run away with the idea that you would be unable to distinguish between punishment and pleasure.
There are more ways of punishing a girl than by beating her bottom, a procedure which, in your case would be totally counter productive.
I have an enforcer who is quite capable of making you feel deep regret at transgressing the rules, without any of the satisfaction that is the motivation behind your choice of career.”

Madame’s dire words, delivered as they were in a flat tone, all the more threatening for its quiet matter-of-fact-ness, had wiped the small smile from Madeleine’s face, and she sat in grave attention, even the soreness in her bottom failing to distract her.

“So there you have it,” Madame Ruskova concluded, “you can join my string and earn big money, but we demand absolute obedience, and will enforce it rigorously.
The choice is yours but remember, once you are in, you are in until we release you.
There is no turning back, or giving in of notice in this game.”

A daunting commitment indeed, but the candidate did not hesitate.

“I accept,” she said, “and on your terms, of course.”

“Very well, then,” Madame replied, “go home now and sort out your affairs in the light of the new life you will be leading.
In view of what Walter left on your body, I would think we would not be calling on your services for at least a few days, a week or two even if your first client wants to work his art on an unmarked canvas.
Line up your freelance stuff, but make sure you are free at short notice to take on an assignment.”

That had been three months ago, and now she was on her way to another client.
She’d been to nearly a dozen in that time.
Two or three really severe beatings and, in between, others, who had not minded her welts and cuts by other’s hands, and those whose tastes leaned more to humiliating her or torturing her in ways that left little trace to offend the hard men, who got their pleasure from watching blueberry tracks swelling on her white haunches, and thin red stripes lace her alabaster back.

She thought this was going to be one of those severe thrashings, the ones that left her hoarse with screaming, body aching and throbbing in a dozen places, her ears still ringing with the echo of her demented shrieks, rather than one of the exquisitely refined sessions of more subtle and degrading treatment.
She was never told what to expect, but it was over three weeks since she had been whipped to the blood, and her body was healed enough to be served to the more fastidious exponents of the whip and rod, who were prepared to wait, and to pay, for a pristine body on which to practice their art.

And they did pay, too.
As Madame Ruskova had admitted, she was worth her five thousand to the oil men, currency dealers, entertainment stars and other super-rich, and even more when she was sent to be a plaything for more than an evening.
She’d already served one twenty-four hour stint, and Madame had warned her that week-ends, or even longer periods, were possible, and could not be refused, if offered.

Meanwhile her bank balance grew, and she kept up her cover as a freelance creative writer.
She found that her talents were, indeed, much in demand, once free of Paragon’s shackles, and enjoyed the respect she won, and the social contact.
Moreover, desperately hard and long though her sessions were at the time, they actually took up very little of her week, and she was grateful for constructive employment to fill the days until she received her next cryptic instructions.

‘The Working Girl’

All she had was an address and a time.
This was not unusual.
Some clients gave a name, especially if they lived in an apartment block, and others had left instructions how to find the entrance to discreet penthouses, with private lifts tucked away in basement car-parks, or office foyers.
Once or twice she had received detailed instructions of what to wear, or how to behave on being admitted, but usually it was just an address and a time.

A solid town house not far from the river, no name on the brightly polished doorbell, but obviously well maintained, and well funded.
A male voice responded to her ring.

“Take your clothes off at the top of the stairs, and wait.” The buzzer released the door, and she pushed it open and entered, to find herself in a hallway with an elaborately carved mahogany staircase directly in front of her.
She ascended without haste, with the customary sensual traffic beginning to build on the erotic highway that linked her belly and breasts, her groin and her cortex.
Already she was vibrating with terror and excitement, while her vagina contributed its own lubricious signals of arousal.
She feared and hated what was to be done to her, but ached for the overwhelming waves of fulfilment that would sweep her when she was in extremis, and the deep satisfaction that would follow.

As instructed, she stopped at the top of the stairs and began removing her clothes, methodically, and without any attempt to add any further erotic element to her natural movements, themselves full of feminine grace and allure, laying her bag and garments on the one straight chair than furnished the landing.
Naked, she stood facing as she had when she reached the top of the stair, her fingers laced together behind her neck, and her feet placed about eighteen inches apart, a pose provocative, without being too blatant, for the watcher whom she was sure was observing her from concealment, possibly via closed-circuit TV.

She was not kept waiting long. Within less than a minute, a door before her opened to reveal a tall, middle-aged man, with thinning silver hair, austere features, and a thin lipped bloodless mouth that suggested its owner understood clearly the concept of pain, and did not associate it with the word mercy.
She shivered at the thought of how much suffering a man like this might inflict on her.

“So you’re Madame’s little Madeleine, who can take anything a man can give,” he observed in a tone that lost nothing of menace by its quietness, “we shall have to see if we can’t make her eat her words.”

“I can’t promise to take it indefinitely, there’s a limit to what the body will do, whatever the mind says,” she replied, as softly, “but I do promise to obey you in everything, including submitting to restraint, when I can’t maintain position voluntarily.”

“Brave words, girl, but we shall see if you can make them good. In the end, there can be only one winner in a contest between the rod and woman’s flesh.” He turned on his heel, and started to walk up the next flight of stairs. “Follow me,” he commanded.

He led her to the top floor, into a circular turret room with slit windows and open beams in the roof space, a quixotic relic of the Victorian Gothic Revival.
The room was decorated throughout in blood red, and contained little but what she was experienced enough now to recognise as a whipping frame and bench, and other apparatus for the infliction of pain, something this man was clearly very familiar with.
Well, she would give him a good run for his money, the great deal of money he was paying for the privilege of breaking her.

“We’ll start with very basic stuff, just to see what you are made of,” he announced, “touch your toes for one dozen with the cane.”

She looked at the yellow length, arching as he flexed it between his hands, and did not like what she saw.
It was as long as any she’d had so far, and looked to be a little thicker and heavier than most.
Obediently she turned away from the doleful sight, and bent to touch her fingers to her toes, feeling the now pristine skin of her vulnerable buttocks stretch ready to receive the scalding impact of the pitiless length
of rattan.

The air parted behind her with the familiar ripping sound, and a feeling like hot iron tore her hinds.
This was going to be bad, she knew at once, as the agony built and her initial gasp was followed by a low groan.
She crested the peak of the pain, and immediately heard the next stroke on its way.
It exploded in her underhanging fold, slightly lower than the first, but no less devastatingly, and she rocked onto her toes with the impact of the heavy stick.
Again she did not cry out, but she groaned at the sheer weight of the anguish that flowed from it.
She could feel the skin stretching, as the bruise began to swell and throb, and she could imagine what the thick purple ropes would be like already.
Later they would darken and raise themselves even higher.

The man had found his mark now, and continued to lay on the searching strokes at regular drawn out intervals, keeping them concentrated in a close band around the underside of her swelling haunches, and just above the faint crease which divided them from the creamy whiteness of her upper thighs.

By seven she was puffing and gasping with the effort of maintaining her position, and her gasps and groans had become strangled cries of torment at each searing impact.
She struggled through to the end, her bottom clenching and flinching, but she was conscious as she rose, stiffly, to his command, that she would be hard put to it to endure more than a few repetitions of that fearful dozen.
If he simply ordered her over for a second dose, he would probably achieve his aim of breaking her before the evening had even got into its stride.

It would appear that he too could see the danger of achieving his ends before an hour was up, and the anti-climax that might follow, if he was then to hew fettered flesh, with no element of contest of wills.
He did not press home his advantage, but afforded her a respite instead.

A respite that most women would have howled for mercy to avoid, for he had her mount a wedge topped trestle and sit on her mound, the sharp upper edge of the wood bruising her soft vulva and her pubic bone, as she sat with her hands obediently clasped on top of her head.

After fifteen minutes, he offered her the choice of a further session on the wedge or to resume the beating, and she elected to sit for another quarter of an hour on her hideously painful perch in order to spin out the time to the point where, inevitably, she would cry for mercy under the rod.

When he lifted her down, she had to crouch wide-kneed for a minute, clutching her ravaged vulva, before she could collect herself sufficiently to say she was ready to continue.
She had expected him to simply continue the assault on her buttocks, but cringed when he ordered her to stand, legs astride, and hands clasped on her neck, thrusting her firm white breasts, with their fear hardened coral points, prominently to the fore.
Her inward shrinking, for she held her delicate mounds out for him without reserve, was occasioned by the thin silver wire he held, its quivering tip bearing witness to its spring steel composition.
She had already discovered what this could do, and was not anxious to repeat the experience, but, welcome or not, she had to accept it, and she braced herself for what was to come.

What came was a wristy slash that cut a thin red line just above her right nipple.
It was followed by a second and a third, and each drew not only a scream of agony but a line of bright red droplets where the delicate skin of her breasts had parted.
And then three screams for the cuts on her left breast.
She stood for a moment, her upper body writhing as she tried to throw off the pain, and then her eyes and mouth both opened in horror as she realised that he had moved back to her right again, and stood poised to strike again.

Moaning with fear, she closed her eyes, and braced back her shoulders to offer her bubs again.

“Keep your eyes open,” he commanded, “I want you to see it coming.”

Obediently, she opened them, only to see the steely sliver descend in a silver streak, to strike into her puckered teat itself.
She let out a frenzied shriek, and bent from the waist, her elbows coming together in front of her to shield the tender bud from further assault, but in vain.

“Straighten up, and put them out,” he barked, “or are you crying ‘enough’ already?”

Mustering her resolution, she straightened, and exposed her points again, the right one now oozing redly.
It became even wetter as the second cut hit it, and then she was bullied and shamed into exposing the left nipple to the same dreadful treatment.
A rest on the wedge came as a welcome relief, and she sat wrapped in agony from breasts mound and buttocks, with tears streaming down her face, the racking sobs shaking her body adding to the distress in her vulva.
At the quarter hour, he gave her the choice of a further flogging, or staying on her perch, and she shook her head to indicate she was not yet ready to continue.
Fifteen minutes later he took her down and, when she could walk, led her to a frame bolted to the wall where he made her grasp an upper bar, standing on her toes.

With cruel deliberation, he flogged her across her alabaster shoulders with a black snake of a whip, until
a dozen livid weals scored the pale flesh.
She cried out at every stroke, and her upper body writhed from side to side, but she would not let go, and she would not plead for mercy.

In the end he broke her by sheer unwavering attrition.
He made her bend again, over the trestle this time, and accept his brutal cane across her lower buttocks.
He told her, before he started, that this was to be to the finish, and that he would give her a dozen cuts, and then a pause of three minutes to collect her strength and recover her breath, since such a tight bent position restricted the filling of her lungs.
He warned her that, after the break, she would have to put her buttocks out for the rod again, and that it would only stop when she begged for mercy, or failed to stick to her post.
Then he ordered her to her place.

She stuck it out through six frightful dozens.
She’d never faced an open-ended sentence before, one which must lead inevitably to defeat, eventually.
With no target, or safe haven to aim for, she simply gave herself up to the pain, letting each wave wash over her, as if she were a shipwrecked seafarer, lying in the surf where she had been washed ashore.
With her defences lowered, she no longer fought to keep from crying out, and shrieked out her torment at each stroke, and with it, seemed to expel a little of the cane’s vicious bite.

She knew she was being wounded behind.
The swollen plum coloured bruises throbbed and stung in the so brief respite allowed her, and she could feel the blood trickling down her thighs, as she knelt, exhausted, waiting the command to bent and accept more agony.
When the cane descended again, she could feel that it was impacting on wet flesh, and raw meat through her split skin.
Though she had managed to ride the pain up till now, these terrible cuts on an open wound lifted the hurt onto an even higher plane that not only was more difficult to endure, but sapped her strength.

And it was exhaustion, rather than lack of will to face further punishment, that finally undid her.
On command, she struggled to get her belly onto the trestle for the seventh dozen to her bleeding buttocks, and hung there, her screams audibly weakening, as he thrashed her with no diminution of the force he had deployed from the first.
When it was over, her backside now like uncooked beef, she sank sobbing to her knees.

At the order to present that raw meat for the eighth dozen, she made a desperate effort to raise herself, but got no more than her tender, striated breasts over the bar, only to scrape them painfully as her body gave up the struggle and slid back, first onto its knees and then, as her strength failed totally, collapsed onto its side, her mind only half conscious that the body had given up.

She was vaguely aware of being wrapped in a blanket, of a uniformed chauffeur and a large car, and of finding herself lying on her face on her own bed, her clothes in a plastic sack on the floor and her handbag and keys on her dressing table.

It had been a brutal, calculated and inhuman beating, devoid of any personal involvement or contact, designed simply to test the limits of her endurance and, in the process, break her.
Well, he had certainly found her physical limit, with the inexorable unending heavy thrashing to which he had subjected her, but she didn’t really accept that she had been broken yet.
When she had finally collapsed, she was still struggling to get her belly back on the bar in obedience to his command.
To have her spirit broken, as opposed to her body, was an experience yet to come, though she did not doubt that she would be made to endure it one day, on which happy note she slid into deep unconsciousness.

She woke, nine hours later, her mind relaxed, even content, but her body stiff, sore, aching all over.
As she turned to try and get up for an urgently needed pee, she found the sheet had stuck to the sticky congealed mass on her right haunch, and groaned as it pulled free.
She shuffled on stiff legs into the kitchen for coffee and juice, then rang Madame Ruskova, as was standard practice after a session, to report on her condition, and any matters bearing on the client’s practices and preferences for future reference.
She gave a brief resume of the night’s events and described the livid state of her behind.
Madame said she’d already heard that she had acquitted herself well, and told her to stay in bed while she sent medical assistance.