One Week in the Private House (8 page)

The chauffeur had said nothing as he whipped Julia. The strokes had been painful, each one making Julia gasp and tense her muscles. There was never quite enough time after each stroke for the burning sensation to die away before the next stroke landed. The chauffeur had concentrated on Julia's buttocks, usually alternating between them but occasionally striking one of her thighs, or her shoulders, to prevent her becoming accustomed to the punishment.

Between her muffled cries of pain Julia had realised that the chauffeur was restraining the force of his blows. Her writhing bottom, she had thought, must be glowing with red lines, but there would be no weals. She had felt perspiration breaking out all over her body, and she had been aware of another wetness gathering at the apex of her widely parted legs.

When the chauffeur had stopped, Julia had remained leaning against the side of the car. Her buttocks had felt hot and prickly. She hadn't been able to resist the urge to roll her hips as if in an erotic dance. She had wanted more - more of anything, just as long as someone paid attention in some way to her sensitised buttocks and her hot, moist, yearning sex.

She had been able to hear traffic passing on the road they'd just left. She had known that at any moment another vehicle might pull off the highway and stop in the same clearing as the Rolls Royce. The thought had only made her wetter.

Julia had been spread-eagled against the side of the car for ten minutes before the chauffeur had re-appeared. He had said nothing as he had looped lengths of rope round each of Julia's wrists and each of her stocking-clad ankles. From time to time his gloved hand had touched her, abruptly and then gently: a smack and then a caress to her right buttock; a thrust and then an inquisitive circling within her outer labia.

Suddenly he had picked her up and laid her across the bonnet of the car. The smell of the engine had been momentarily overwhelming; she had felt its heat pushing against her stomach.

Her left wrist and left ankle had been tied to the car's massive headlamps; her right wrist and ankle were tied to the lower hinges of the front doors. She had been unable to make any purchase on the gleaming coachwork, but the ropes had been pulled tight and she was completely immobilised. Her thighs were pressed against one side of the engine housing, her ribs and stomach against the other. Her long dark hair almost reached the leafy ground. Her bottom, now the highest part of her body, was lifted clear of the bonnet. Julia was very uncomfortable.

When the chauffeur had started to whip her again, the blows had been a little harder, and much more concentrated. He had aimed all the strokes at a circular area containing Julia's anus, the lower and inner slopes of her buttocks, her vulva, and the insides of the tops of her thighs. Each searing point of her pain had been momentarily enough to drive from Julia's mind the discomfort of her situation: her bound limbs and her straining muscles. And when the chauffeur had started to masturbate her between each stroke of the crop, Julia had found herself unable to concentrate on any of the sensations that were pursuing each other round and round like a pack of demented hounds. The heat of the sun above and the car engine below; the opening out as a leather-clad finger brushed her clitoris; the breathtaking burst of fire as yet another whip-stroke landed on her hot flesh; the vertiginous sensation as she automatically tried to flail her legs but couldn't move them an inch; these and a dozen other thoughts had circled faster and faster in Julia's mind. She had heard something panting like an animal, and then realised it was her. The panting had changed into long, drawn-out sobs.

The whipping, the heat, the bondage, the shame, the finger was touching again, touching her just there -

And Julia had climaxed, suddenly, slumping against the black metal and heaving great ragged breaths. Her tears had dripped on to the forest floor just behind the car's massive white-walled tyres.

'Clear evidence of copious weeping,' the chauffeur had then said. 'What a pity my instructions explicitly forbid anything more.'

'A good job well done,' Julia had managed to say between sniffs and deep breaths and inexplicable laughter. 'Would you release me now, please?'

'Certainly, Madam. Welcome back to the Private House.'

And even as the chauffeur had been untying the ropes, Julia had known she had been right to return. Laid out before her was another country: a wild, unpredictable place, exotic and mysterious, and yet a landscape in which she felt completely at home.

After that, she enjoyed every minute. The Private House seemed unchanged since her last visit; she recognised some of the other staff. Her room had oak wainscotting and furnishings of brown and gold fabrics; from the east-facing window she saw an avenue of chestnuts that disappeared into a belt of woodland beyond which, she realised, was hidden the health club that had been for her, as for so many others, the first experience of the Private House. At the edge of the panorama, not far from her window, she could see just the easternmost tower of the old castle, ivy-covered and mysterious, ominous and yet picturesque. Her little room already felt like home, and she was so delighted that she hugged the buxom maid who had escorted her there. Then, remembering where she was, she laughed, and changed the hug into a passionate embrace; she pulled the giggling girl by the nipples towards the four-poster bed.

'What's your name, you hussy?' Julia said, sitting astride the maid and unbuttoning the girl's blouse.

'Maxine, Miss,' the girl said. She wriggled, but only sufficiently to help Julia free her large and milk-white breasts, ill do everything I can to make your stay enjoyable, Miss. I'm so happy to have such a pretty mistress.'

Julia folded aside the maid's blouse and shifted her weight further up the girl's body. Maxine's arms were trapped under Julia's legs, and the maid's grinning face was between Julia's knees. Maxine's plump breasts were quivering between Julia's thighs. Julia smiled, and stroked the trapped mounds, circling the palms of her hands over Maxine's hardening nipples.

'Do you like to have your breasts played with, Maxine?'

'Oh, yes, Miss. I love it.'

'I think we're going to get on very well,' Julia said. She pinched the maid's nipples. 'And your breasts are completely at my mercy. I should think a mistress can do anything she likes with her maid's breasts, shouldn't you?'

'Yes, please, Miss,' Maxine whispered. She glanced away from Julia's face for the first time, and suddenly looked bashful. 'Can I say, Miss -?'

'What is it, Maxine?'

i like my titties to be hurt, just a little.' Her cheeks were
red
and her brown eyes were shining, if it's by a mistress I like.'

Julia grasped the maid's left breast and squeezed it, and then thoughtfully pinched the puckered flesh all round the nipple. 'And you like me, don't you, Maxine?'

The girl closed her eyes and tossed her ringleted hair from side to side, i adore you, Miss,' she gasped. 'Don't stop.'

Half an hour later the maid said that it was time for Julia to prepare herself to report for duty, i seem to be undressed already, Maxine,' Julia said, 'but do please stay and help me on with my things.'

With much tickling and kissing, Julia first dressed Maxine. The maid wore the standard uniform that Julia remembered: a black voile blouse with white collar and cuffs, and a short flared skirt of stiff black satin, both worn over a black waist-length corset with open bra cups and long suspenders to hold up black fishnet stockings. Pointed-toed ankle boots and a head-dress of white lace completed the outfit.

It's quite wrong for her, Julia thought. I'd look marvellous as a French maid, I've got the right sort of looks. But she's lovely anyway.

She turned Maxine to face away from her, buried her face in the girl's mass of deep brown hair, and reached forward to cup the huge and heavy breasts that jiggled so delightfully beneath their thin covering of voile.

'Don't be starting all that again,' the maid said. 'We've still to dress you in your finery. Although I don't know that a maid's uniform wouldn't suit you best of all.'

'I'll be your maid, Maxine. Would you like that?'

'Don't tempt me, Miss. Let's get you dressed.'

It was only as Maxine was pulling tight the laces of Julia's boots that Julia's fears about the Private House started to resurface. She inspected her reflection in the Wood-framed full-length mirror and wondered what her role would be. She had
_A
been looking forward to a few Weeks of continuous sexual activity, but she knew that the courtesans were usually clothed in gloriously-coloured silks and satins; she didn't understand her new uniform at all.

The black lace added a touch of refinement, she thought, but it was only a touch: the full-length gloves consisted only of black lace, but the material was used elsewhere merely as a decorative frill. The tunic was of soft black leather, as were the thigh-length boots, the rather uncomfortable choker, and the wide belt that constricted her waist as tightly as any corset. The entire ensemble isn't even very sexy, she complained to herself; the tunic can be buttoned all the way up to my neck, it's got this ridiculous tall stiff collar, and it almost covers my bottom. If it weren't for the cutaways at the thighs no one would be able to see any of my naughty bits.

She ran her fingers along the choker, and swore. The pointed studs were really quite sharp. And she was not at all happy about the sturdy metal rings that were inset all round both the choker and the belt.

'Maxine,' she said, 'I've got a nasty feeling about this uniform. It doesn't look as though it's designed for having fun, does it? And I'm sure I've seen it somewhere before.'

'Well of course you've seen it before, you big silly. You've seen it here. And you're right to say it's not for having fun. That's the uniform that the Security wears. It looks like you're in the private army of the Private House this time.'

The Private House is a specific place, Jem - or, to be more accurate, it is several specific places. But it is also an institution and a frame of mind, and so in a sense it is everywhere. Mr Headman has invited you to the Private House as his special guest, and I don't think I can adequately emphasise that such an invitation is an unusual honour. But be warned; if you accept, and go to the Private House, you will find it very difficult to leave, and you will certainly not be permitted to make public anything that you find there.'

Such were the terms of Miss Morelli's offer. Jem had accepted, of course, and had kept her reservations to herself. I'm a reporter, she had protested inwardly, or at least I'm pretending to be one, and Mike McKenzie's depending on me to save Executive Environments by publicising something scandalous about Terence Headman. Mixed with Jem's exultation at her success in gaining access to Headman's inner sanctum were other emotions: intrigue and excitement about the mysterious Private House, to the extent that she had to admit to herself that she would have accepted the invitation even if she had had no ulterior motives. She had the disquieting feeling that the more she seemed to be closing in on Headman, the more their places were really reversed.

Jem had plenty of time to think and no opportunity to ask questions. Naked but for a fur-lined one-piece flying suit, she had been whisked in a limousine from Headman's office to his city heliport, where a small two-seater helicopter had been waiting for her. The pilot, wearing an expensive pin-striped business suit and an incongruous crash helmet, had said nothing as Jem clambered into the cockpit and had glanced at her only once, when handing her a crash helmet similar to his. He had said nothing since conversation was in any case impossible, because the all-encompassing helmets blocked out every sound except for the dull chatter of the rotor blades.

The helicopter had sped westward, towards the setting sun. Soon the glass towers of the city were replaced by the neat lines of suburban roofs, densely-packed at first but then no more than brick-red tendrils lying across green fields; and at last there was nothing unrolling beneath the helicopter but a rural carpet of woodlands, farms and villages.

Jem had pulled open the Velcro strap at her left wrist before she remembered that her watch, along with her clothes and all her equipment, was locked in a strongbox in the helicopter's tiny hold; she wondered when she would see it again. She wondered how long she'd been airborne. It Wouldn't help to know, she realised; she didn't know how fast the helicopter flew, and in any case the pilot had been following a zig-zag course that Jem suspected was designed to disorient her and to avoid recognisable landmarks such as motorways and large towns.

The helicopter was descending gradually, heading towards a dark green landscape of motley woods and parkland. Something crackled electronically next to Jem's ears - a radio built into the crash helmet, she realised, just as the pilot's deep voice boomed from the speakers.

'Welcome to the Private House, Jem. We're approaching the edge of the estate. Better take off that silly jumpsuit you're wearing - not the right sort of get-up at all.'

Jem was getting used to undressing on demand. She unbuckled her safety belt, tore apart the strips of Velcro, and wriggled out of the flying suit. Naked but for the crash helmet and a pair of sandals, she strapped herself into her seat, crossed her legs, and turned to look at the pilot. Her gaze met eyes as blue as hers. His face looked weather-beaten, and his thin lips were set in a half-smile that appeared habitual.

'You're Terence Headman,' Jem exclaimed, the words blurting from her lips as soon as the idea had sprung into her mind.