One Week in the Private House (33 page)

Could I ever be as obedient as this girl? Jem wondered. Would I be like this, if I spent long enough being trained by those thugs in Security?

The sight of Maxine's arse drove the speculations from her mind. The beautifully smooth, white, dimpled curves, framing the deep, dark furrow and the plump sex-lips, were an enchanting sight; and the sight of pink blotches and haphazard red lines covering the pale skin sent a jolt through Jem that made her catch her breath. She had only to extend her hand to touch the inflamed flesh, and as she made contact she and Maxine gasped in unison.

'How many?' Jem asked.

'I'm not sure I know, Miss. I wasn't counting. Perhaps you'd better count them.'

Jem smiled: Maxine seemed to be able to find an infinite number of excuses for Jem to touch her. Jem's fingertip traced a faded red line from the centre of Maxine's right buttock to the satin-soft hollow at the top of the inside of her thigh. 'One,' she said, and Maxine whimpered.

Jem forced herself to count slowly and carefully, following each stripe with the lightest, most lingering of touches. 'Twenty,' she announced at last, moulding her palm to the curve of Maxine's buttock as an indication that she had finished counting.

'Is that all, Miss?' Maxine's voice sounded distinctly disappointed.

'I guess maybe some of them have faded away,' Jem said, inspecting the maid's delectable bottom more closely as a suspicion formed in her mind.

'Anyway, Miss,' Maxine said, 'that means I get forty on my tits, is that right?'

'Yes, Maxine,' Jem replied absently, her hands straying across the pink orbs.

'Is that forty on each one, Miss?' Maxine went on, almost falling over in her eagerness to look back at Jem.

'No,' Jem said briskly, removing her hands and walking away. 'I'll have to think up something a whole lot more unpleasant than that. You haven't been straight with me, Maxine.'

The maid stood upright, and whirled to face Jem; then, suddenly remembering that she had not been given permission to move, she stood indecisively, her mouth open, her protest unvoiced.

Jem, chortling inwardly, contrived to look severe. 'You've been lying to me, Maxine. The Master didn't give you that rosy backside, did he?'

Maxine's eyes filled with tears. 'No, Miss,' she said in a dejected whisper. 'But how did you know?'

'For one thing, the Master likes things regular, and those stripes are all over your arse, going every which way. For another, he'd have given you more than twenty, and at least some of them would look a bit more serious than any of those. But the clincher is that if the Master had whipped you this morning, your butt wouldn't still be glowing like a brazier. Elementary, my dear Maxine. Who did it, by the way?'

'I asked Cook to do it, just before I came up here. I'm ever so sorry, Miss, really I am. It's just that - Well, you know . ..'

'What, Maxine?'

The maid took a deep breath. 'I thought you'd send me away, Miss, if you weren't going to punish me.' Her cheeks were blazing, her moist eyes were wide, her lustrous hair was wild about her face, and her magnificent chest was heaving with emotion. Jem pitied her, despised her, desired her, suffered with her, and above all felt delirious in the knowledge of her power over the girl.

'Come here,' Jem said. 'Kneel in front of me.'

A glimmer of hope appeared in Maxine's eyes. She knelt in front of Jem with her knees apart, her hands behind her back, her breasts pushed forward and her head lowered.

'Look at me,' Jem said, and thrilled as Maxine's wide eyes lifted to stare up at her face. 'What would you do for me, Maxine?'

'Anything, Miss,' the maid replied, as if the answer was obvious.

'If I told you to go to the Master, right now, and ask him to flog you all night -'

'I'd do it, Miss.'

if I told you to jump from the window - this window half-way up the Tower?'

'I'd do that, too.

'You'd die, Maxine. You couldn't survive a fall like that.'

'I know, Miss.' Two tears trickled down Maxine's face.

'But I'd do it, all the same, if you told me to. But please don't, Miss, not yet, please.'

Jem stroked the girl's hair. 'It's all right, Maxine, it's all right. I'd never tell you to do that. But never try to trick me again, you understand?'

'Yes, Miss. I promise, Miss. I only did it because I love you so much.'

'I know, I know. And I ought to spend all evening punishing you.'

'Please do, Miss,' Maxine said, burying her face between Jem's thighs.

'Maxine, you're incorrigible,' Jem laughed. 'I don't have time tonight. I have other things to do.'

Maxine moaned, and collapsed to the floor, raining kisses on Jem's feet.

'OK!' Jem giggled. 'OK, you win. I'll whip your lovely big titties. Just a little bit. Now kneel properly.'

In an instant Maxine resumed her kneeling position.

'Unbuckle my belt,' Jem said. As the maid's fingers tugged at the buckle, thrills of sexual expectation coursed through Jem's body with renewed force. 'Fold it in half, Maxine. That's right. Kiss it, Maxine; it's about to kiss your breasts. How many would you like?'

Maxine, trembling with emotion, was unable to speak for a moment. She tore her lips from the loop of leather. 'Forty,' she said, thrusting the belt up towards Jem.

'Twenty will be enough for now,' Jem said, taking the belt and swinging it experimentally. 'There's always tomorrow, and the next day. Stand up!'

Maxine jumped up and spread her legs as far apart as she could without falling. She crossed her arms behind her back, pushed out her chest, and gazed steadily at Jem. Her eyes dared Jem to be merciless; only her quivering lower lip betrayed apprehension.

Jem smiled wryly. 'Never thought
I
'd find myself doing this kind of thing,' she said, half to herself. 'Leastways, I never thought
I'd
get to enjoy it. You've got the most beautiful pair
I
've ever seen, Maxine.' Thoughtfully, she
stroked
the looped leather in a W beneath the maid's breasts.

Maxine's nipples crinkled and stood out stiffly from her large pink areolas. 'Oh no, Miss,' she gasped, 'yours are much prettier. Mine are so big and fat.'

'False modesty,' Jem laughed, and swung the belt gently against the side of Maxine's left breast. The maid bit her lip, but made no other movement. Jem watched closely as the heavy bulb of flesh swung from side to side and then came to rest. A strip of fiery pink appeared where the belt had made contact, but it faded even as Jem watched. 'One,' she said, and raised her arm again.

Apart from rocking back and forth slightly, as if pushing her breasts forward to meet the belt lessened the unexpectedness of the blows. Maxine remained still and silent as Jem whipped her. Her breasts moved, though, independently of her body, as the band of leather struck them. At first Jem's blows alternated between the two pendulous orbs. She would strike at one of them three times in quick succession, from the right, from the left, and then upwards; and then she would pause to watch the trembling flesh come to rest and blush redly, before she started on the other breast.

She continued in this way until Maxine's breasts were as quivering and thoroughly pink as raspberry blancmanges, and her arm was beginning to feel tired, and Maxine was at last beginning to utter an
oh\
of pain or of pleasure at each blow. Then she stopped, flexed her wrist, and moved to stand beside the maid.

'Keep very still, Maxine,' she said, although she could hardly control the tremors that shook her own body. She aimed a succession of swift, sharp strokes that landed across the front of both breasts, striking the proudly jutting nipples until Maxine's gasps merged into a continuous sobbing cry and the girl began to topple forwards.

Jem dropped the belt, grasped Maxine's shoulders, and turned the girl towards her. 'How many was that, Maxine?' she said softly.

Maxine's breathing slowed. 'I - I don't know, Miss,' the rnaid said. 'I lost count." About ten, I think.'

Jem laughed, shaking her head in amazement at the girl's gluttonous craving and at her own bewildering lust. 'You've had enough,' she said, raising her hands to sink her fingers into Maxine's hot tormented mounds.

The maid stiffened, threw back her head, and released a long, raucous gasp of pain. Then she fell against Jem, who caught her in her arms. Maxine's burning globes smothered Jem's tight buds and their lips met; as the kiss developed into a mutual caress of hungry tongues, their hands moved downwards to paddle in the lakes of wetness beneath each other's arses.

Some time later, Jem remembered why she had ordered Maxine up to her chamber.

'Stop, Maxine,' she said. 'No, stop for a minute. I have to ask you something. Do you know where Julia is this evening? I can't find her.

'Sorry, Miss,' the maid said, looking almost sullen. 'She popped in for a bite to eat at the end of the afternoon, and I haven't seen her since. I suppose you'll be wanting her tonight?'

'Not for what you think,' Jem chided her, mentally crossing her fingers. 'A maid in the hand is worth two of her mistress not immediately to hand, or something like that. Let's get comfortable on the bed. Looks like you need to rub a little lotion into these poor nipples of yours.'

'Shall I fetch some cream, Miss?'

'Don't bother, Maxine. I've got some creamy ointment right there where your hand is. Come to bed and rub your nipples into me, girl.'

Every door was open to her; Chief Anderson had been absolutely right. Where there were fellow Security personnel, Julia had only to flash her Gold card and they would unlock the door and usher her through it; where there were automatic gates, she had only to insert her card in the slot, or tap in a code number, and the gates would slide apart. And when she had found herself in a maze of featureless corridors that she had never been in before, she had activated one of the computer terminals and had typed in passwords until the screen had displayed a map of the entire cellar network.

Thus she had reached the dungeons. Even now, at midnight, there were torches burning in brackets on the walls, and here and there prisoners were chained to humming machinery or were being intermittently whipped by tired guards. But most of the pits and platforms and galleries were in deep darkness, and anyway she had no reason to fear challenges: the fact that she was in the dungeons was in itself evidence of her high level of Security clearance.

She was at the end of her quest. She stopped in front of the final door. It was set into the stone wall and made of blackened wood strengthened with iron struts. The numeral 8 was screwed into the wood at eye level. Hanging next to the door was a bunch of enormous iron keys; Julia ignored them, knowing that they were only decorative, and inserted her Gold card into the barely-visible slot below the door's keyhole. Noiselessly, the door swung away from her.

At first Julia could see nothing in the darkness beyond the door. She plucked the flashlight from her belt and held her hand across its end, allowing only a thin gleam to penetrate the darkness. The cell was small, but in all other respects it was not what Julia expected. The walls were spotlessly white, the floor tiles were clean and soft and warm to walk on; in one corner of the room the flashlight picked out a shower cubicle, a toilet and a bidet.

At last the flickering beam of light found the bed, and on it, sleeping fitfully, the naked brown body Julia had come to rescue. 'Asmita!' she whispered from the doorway. 'Asmita, wake up!'

The figure rolled over on the bed, moaned, and started sobbing. 'No, no, please,' the Asian girl murmured, 'no more, please, no.'

'Asmita! Keep quiet! It's me, Julia.'

'Julia?' Asmita struggled to sit up. 'Julia? Is that you? Have they got you too?'

'Yes, it's me. And they certainly haven't got me. I'm jolly well here in my own right. I've come to take you out of this place.'

'No! Julia, please don't. There's nothing you can do. Go away, please.'

Julia was puzzled and alarmed by the urgency in Asmita's voice.

'Asmita, what on earth's the matter? What's that you're wearing? What have they been doing to you down here? Let me see you. I daren't come into the cell. I've avoided the cameras so far, but I know there's one trained on this doorway. You'll have to come closer.'

'All right.' Asmita's voice held a note of resignation that perplexed Julia. And Julia was worried by the metallic jingling she heard as Asmita sat up on the bed, stretched her arms above her head, stood up, rubbed her bottom, and at last took a few tentative steps towards the doorway.

When Asmita stepped into the torchlight that flickered from the corridor, Julia saw the source of the jingling noises. Asmita was wearing a costume of fine silver chains. Her thick brown nipples had been pierced and set with rings. A chain ran from each nipple ring to a circular necklace; the chains were just sufficiently taut to tug at the tips of Asmita's breasts and keep them pert. A central chain hung from the necklace and ended in a ring between Asmita's breasts; two chains ran from the ring and, following tightly the line of the underswell of her breasts, they connected to two smaller rings at the outer sides of her breasts, high on the ribcage near the armpits. Chains leading from these smaller rings disappeared behind her back, where Julia assumed they were connected to another large ring hanging from the centre of the back of the necklace. Two more short, taut chains ran from the small rings at the outer side of Asmita's breasts up to the necklace. And strands of very fine chains ran from points along the chains below the breasts, all converging on the two nipple rings. The effect was to create a bra of silver chains: each of Asmita's breasts was held tightly by the chains running on three sides of it, and was held uptilted by the chain through the nipple ring. Julia was delighted with the arrangement: she could see that even the slightest of Asmita's movements would cause a tug on her nipples and a rippling of fine chains across her breasts. She would be permanently aroused.