One Week in the Private House (35 page)

'Who is she?' Jem whispered.

'One of our field operatives,' Headman said. 'She works on the outside mainly. She's been brought back here for punishment. Her punishment is your reward, Jem. She's yours to play with.'

'Thanks a million,' Jem said, ignoring the tingle of excitement that she felt in spite of herself. 'What's she done wrong?'

'You should know better than to ask,' Headman said. 'I don't need an excuse to offer her to you as a present. But in this case, she has committed a very serious offence. A sin of omission, you might say, and one that could have had disastrous consequences. She failed to report a sighting of a woman who might have been crucial to one of my plans. But I'm sure you'll teach her the error of her ways. Shall we arrange her on the saddle?'

'Saddle?' Jem looked round the room. Headman kicked the plywood and wrapping paper aside, and dragged a metal frame from a corner to the centre of the carpet. It was indeed shaped like a saddle: a curved, concave pad of black leather, supported at an angle on a rigid
framework
of tubular steel. There were wide straps hanging from the mid-point of the concave curve, and stirrups dangling from the higher of the two ends.

'Help her to hobble into position, Jem,' Headman said cheerily. 'Stand her at the higher end, and then we'll tip her forward on to the saddle.'

Jem touched the glistening rubber that was stretched round the woman's shoulder. The woman started, and almost fell, as if she had been unaware of anyone near her. Jem realised that the black suit insulated its wearer from almost all sensory input. The naked breasts and buttocks suddenly seemed excitingly vulnerable: the woman's every sensation would be concentrated in those pale globes of flesh.

Jem touched her again, very gently, and steered her towards the metal frame. The woman, breathing in quick, shallow gasps, took tiny steps on her hobbled high heels, until the front of her thighs touched the end of the saddle. Headman came to stand beside her; considerably less gently than Jem, he put a hand to the small of her back and pushed her forward, ignoring her wail of fear as, bound legs flailing, she toppled forward and came to rest with her pelvis resting on the higher end of the saddle and her breasts hanging over the edge of the lower end.

'Hold her still, Jem,' Headman cried. I'll strap her in. This is fun, isn't it?'

Jem stared at him. What had gotten into Terence Headman? Had he finally flipped? She rested her hand on the woman's craning neck, trying to impart some sort of comfort, while Headman tugged enthusiastically at the leather straps, binding the woman's arched back against the concave surface of the saddle.

'Now, Jem! I'll undo the leg separator, and then it's feet into stirrups!'

The metal rod fell to the floor, and Jem grabbed one of the woman's ankles and pulled her foot towards the hanging stirrup. She saw that Headman was simply hooking the other stirrup into the arch of the woman's high-heeled boot, and she did likewise. It was clear that the woman would be unable to unhook either her toes or her heels.

'Now we raise the stirrups!' Headman announced, buckling together two straps underneath the frame; as the stirrups rose to a level just beneath the higher end of the saddle, the woman's legs were bent almost double and her knees were lifted alongside her ribcage. Her pale, rounded, upraised buttocks almost glowed with naked defenceless-ness.

'There you are, Jem,' Headman said, 'a perfectly-wrapped present.'

Jem shook her head. 'Couldn't I just have book tokens?' she said. 'What am I supposed to do with her?'

'Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth, Jem.' Headman's voice was suddenly serious. 'I wouldn't take kindly to that. You can do what you like, my dear, but I would strongly suggest that you think of something that involves both a riding crop and this young woman's arse.'

Jem took the crop Headman offered her. She had been surprised to discover within herself the sexual excitement of wielding power and inflicting pain, but Maxine had been a willing and adoring recipient of her lashes, and Maxine's own excitement had been the greatest part of Jem's pleasure; this was very different. Jem knew, as she took up a position to strike the first blow, that there could also be pleasure in beating this helpless and anonymous woman. 'What are you going to do, Master?' she said.

'Oh, I'll just sit and watch,' Headman said. 'You carry on, I won't be bored. I'll clap any particularly telling strokes.'

The riding crop was short and springy, and covered from handle to tip in a skin of black leather. As she ran it across the palm of her left hand Jem found the slim cylinder surprisingly smooth. The oval thong of folded leather that extended from the tip seemed to be large in proportion to the switch itself. Jem brought the switch down on her palm. The blow stung, but the resulting line of redness disappeared almost immediately. Jem suspected that the instrument had never been intended for use on a horse.

'The core of the whip is a thin cyclinder of whalebone,' Headman said, 'set into a wooden handle.
I
assume
you
're interested in these details. The whalebone is covered in plaited strips of rather inferior leather and then, rather unusually, the entire crop has been clad with a thin layer of very fine black kid. The additional thong consists of a folded flap of stiffer hide, trimmed to a shape that can tickle the parts other riding crops simply fail to reach. All in all it's very light, very flexible and very effective even when used in awkward corners. It stings, I'm told, but I find I have to whip quite hard to raise a weal. Are you going to use it, Jem, or just play with it?'

Jem flexed the crop. 'Just getting used to it,' she said. The handle sat easily in her hand. She whisked the switch through the air experimentally, and it made a satisfying hiss. She looked down at her target: two rounded, pale, quivering moons of female flesh, pushing upwards as if glad to be free from the constriction of tight rubber, between them a blushing valley containing a puckered pink crater, and hanging beneath them a pouch split by glistening coral lips.

Jem leant forward. Behind the sharp smell of the rubber she detected the sweet musk of arousal. The woman's sex-lips were glistening because they were wet. Jem felt a thrill in her crotch, and knew that her own juices were beginning to flow.

'Remember to keep your legs apart, Jem, at all times when in my presence.' Headman's voice came from behind her.

She lifted one booted foot and moved it away from the other. She felt Headman's hand on her left thigh, where the flesh bulged slightly at the top of the leather boot; it touched her corseted waist; then his finger slid slowly down the small of her back, on to her naked skin, and into the furrow between her buttocks.

Jem felt herself blushing as she pushed her bottom back to meet Headman's touch. His finger pressed against her anus, and she shivered. Then his caress continued downwards, discovering the secret depths of heat and wetness inside her.

'I do believe you're going to enjoy this,' he said. 'And it appears that your victim has the same idea. That will make everything much more entertaining. But remember, Jem: this woman is here for your pleasure, and my pleasure,
not
hers. She must be severely chastised. If she happens to enjoy it, so much the better. But that's not the objective.'

I'd love to know exactly what your objective is, Jem thought. You're up to something, Headman. But, for now, like the man says, let's enjoy.

She stroked the switch across the woman's right buttock and then raised it into the air. The woman's muscles tensed, then relaxed, and Jem struck. The whippy crop moulded itself to the curve of the buttock, leaving a fiery line from side to side. Jem repeated the stroke, a little lower, and then placed two on the left buttock. She watched the lines fade away, to be replaced by a general pinkening of the skin across the whipped areas.

Headman had returned to his armchair, which was positioned on the woman's right, opposite Jem. He had an oblique view of the woman's bottom, but could still see her pendent breasts and what little of her face was visible. Jem glanced at him.

'Entertaining, isn't it?' he said. 'Wielding the whip is almost addictive, I find. Now carry on, Jem. A little harder and a little faster, if you please.'

Six more strokes were applied to each buttock. The woman was breathing heavily now, and the areas of her skin that were visible were beaded with tiny droplets of perspiration. Jem had spaced the strokes across the bulging hemispheres, which were now uniformly a slightly pinker shade than before the whipping. They felt warm when Jem ran her hand across them, but not as warm as the
woman
's sex, which Jem cradled in her hand and rubbed gently. The woman moaned softly at Jem's touch, and Jem felt another surge of desire in her loins.

'You can whip her there,' Headman said. 'In fact, I
insist
on it. It's a very sensitive area, of course. But then, she has merited severe punishment. Vertical strokes are useful to get at the inside surfaces of the buttocks, on either side of the anus. That's another very sensitive area, and well
worth concentrating on.
You can use the tip
of the
crop on
the arsehole itself, of
course.
Well,
get on
with it.'

Jem whipped each buttock six more times, rather harder than previously. The woman tossed her rubber-shrouded head, but when Jem went to the front of the metal frame she found that the woman's lips, the only expressive part of her face that was visible, were curved in a smile. Jem touched the woman's breasts, and she started, then relaxed. Jem fondled the hanging globes, feeling them expand and tighten, feeling the nipples hardening against her palms. She took up the crop again, and rolled it against both nipples simultaneously. The woman gasped. It sounded to Jem as if she had whispered 'Yes.'

There wasn't much room to swing the crop; Jem now appreciated the subtlety of its trim design. The slim black cylinder whipped round the woman's right breast, sinking into the firm flesh a little before springing back with its own momentum, as if it was keen to strike again. Jem gave the crop its head, delivering a succession of swift, short lashes, alternating between breasts, trying to place most of the strokes on the swelling slopes below the nipples, and placing roughly every fourth stroke straight across one or other of the erect nipples.

The woman's mouth was slightly open, but Jem was lashing her too rapidly to allow her time to vocalise. When she stopped the whipping, Jem leant forward and covered the woman's mouth with her own. The woman's mouth tasted of lipstick and mint. Her lips moved against Jem's. Jem reached out and grasped the woman's left breast. She felt the woman gasp in her mouth, and then pushed her tongue to meet Jem's.

Soon it became clear that the woman's neck muscles were tiring, and Jem broke away as the woman lowered her head. The woman's breasts were glowing as pinkly as her buttocks. The sight gave Jem more pleasure than she would have thought possible.

Must be something to with wearing this corset, Jem thought. And the boots. The leather collar and cuffs. And holding this sweet little whip. And knowing that Headman's watching. And the smell of rubber. And knowing she's tied up so tight she can hardly move a muscle. This whole scene is getting to me.

She click-clacked to the other end of the frame and whipped the woman's arsehole. First she flicked the tip of the crop almost at random into the valley between the buttocks, leaving little ticks of fading redness wherever the leather struck. Then she applied vertical lashes, alternating between buttocks, starting at the highest point of each pink mound and moving inwards and striking harder with each stroke, ending with half a dozen lashes all of which landed in the very deepest part of the cleft.

'Bravo!' Headman called out at this point.

When the woman had stopped gasping, and the muscles of her buttocks and thighs had stopped flexing, Jem thrust her fingers between the woman's parted sex-lips. The woman's vagina was wide open and dripping. Jem's fingers slid deep inside, and came out covered with clear, musky-smelling secretions. Jem sniffed her hand, grinned, and returned to flicking the woman's anus with the tip of the crop. She grinned again as she steadily increased the frequency and severity of the blows.

The woman's gasps turned into little yelps. Jem was dimly aware that Headman had stood up and was pushing his chair towards the front of the frame. She stopped whipping to watch him fingering controls set into the arm of the chair: its legs grew, lifting the seat higher. Headman adjusted the chair's position so that the seat was
almost
touching the woman's rubber-encased head. Then with an undignified wriggle he pulled himself up into the chair.

'Don't stop, Jem,' he called out. 'I thought she was getting a bit noisy. I'll give her something to do with her mouth.'

Jem heard him unbuckling one of the many belts he was wearing, and then the woman's muffled exclamation of surprise. Jem peered round the frame to see Headman sitting forward in his high chair with the shiny sphere of the woman's head nestled in his lap.

Headman waved cheerily. 'More fun than a ball gag,' he said.

Jem shook her head and turned her attention back to the woman's punished rear end. The entire area was suffused with a rosy glow, with some patches that were an angry red and others a dull, deep pink. However the skin remained unbroken and unbruised, and there were only a few raised red weals. Jem was reluctant to administer any more punishment to the woman's anus, which she thought must be very sore by now, but she didn't want to start yet on flicking the most inviting area of all: the circle of soft flesh containing the tops of the thighs, the creamily smooth skin at the lowest, innermost curves of the buttocks, and the split sex-pouch itself.