Puppet On A String (11 page)

      
“Bring me the weights,” Madame finally turned around, delivering her order. Victor assisted once again, emerging from the crowd and handing her two shiny stainless steel balls attached to thin chains. “Bind her feet,” Madame ordered. “I want them wide apart.” The girl wore shackles on her ankles that were effortlessly attached to eyebolts that had been cemented into the ground. With her feet wide, her body was more vulnerable than ever. “Perfect,” the Madame said once Victor stepped away.

      
From where
Shelby
stood, she could see between the girl’s thighs that she’d been pierced with what looked like two rings that dangled from her labia. To these, the Madame attached the steel balls, weighing down the sensitive flesh.

      
“Oh, please, Madame, no!” The first intelligible cry from the sobbing girl rose up as an angry shout.

      
Countering back, the woman slapped her ass, then pulled in tightly, her voice loud enough for all to hear this time. “You think I would have mercy on you, you foolish little traitor!” The Madame turned again. “The paddle, Victor,” she blared. Scurrying to the sidelines, Victor found the black bag he’d brought with him. From it the nastiest of wooden paddles was withdrawn, one with holes drilled across the six inch wide surface. The business end was a good ten inches long and attached to a sturdy leather handle.
    

      
Swinging freely, Madame delivered blows that connected with the girl’s behind and with each, the heavy steel balls stretched the girl’s pussy further downward. Madame Pavlenco worked into a steady rhythm that had the girl writhing in torment, the sounds of her woe intensifying in the morning air with their unmistakable message of anguish.

      
The two females became one amazing show of pain and passion and sadomasochistic pleasure. The more the girl suffered, the more zealous the Madame became.
Shelby
even wondered if the woman orgasmed as she beat her victim. Certainly, the way her face lit up and her body shuddered toward the end of the session suggested that she’d thoroughly enjoyed the sadistic display of her power over this pitiful creature.

      
And Jessup had said that the brothel would be less sadistic than his detention center!
Shelby
recalled that promise clearly. But, of course, Jessup was prone to lie when it suited him. His voice rang inside her head…

      
I say a lot of things that I don’t mean. I wouldn’t bother trying to find out which is true and which
is bullshit
.

      
The woman was as brutal as the Colonel, which only reinforced the fact that
Shelby
had no desire to be tied up and tortured as this young woman had been. If it hadn’t been clear to her before, it was clear to her now – she would step on no one’s toes in this new place. She’d make no waves. She’d go submissively into this next ordeal, knowing that only divine intervention could save her. There would be little way to save herself while under the jurisdiction of Madame Stafania Pavlenco. If
Shelby
correctly understood the next steps in her captivity, ones Jessup alluded to in their last conversations, she could only hope that whoever purchased her would have some degree of mercy, a trait obviously lacking in the ruthless Madame.

When Madame Pavlenco finally finished with the girl, she turned and walked away, offering up a triumphant smile to her company of friends, or followers, or whoever these strangers happened to be.
Shelby
could only guess. Then, almost as an afterthought, Madame abruptly stopped her trek toward the house and turned toward
Shelby
. After a few moments of careful inspection, she strolled a little closer to the newcomer.

      
“So, I suppose you’ve learned something?” she asked. Her cool reserve had returned, her manner as placid as still water.

      
“Yes, ma’am, I have,”
Shelby
replied in her most submissive voice.

      
“Very good.” Madame peered at her more closely, lifting
Shelby
’s chin for a closer scrutiny. Then she managed a cool smile as if she liked what she saw.

      
She turned away, and without further comment, Madame disappeared into the lavish house. The brief moments that followed allowed
Shelby
her first real look at her new home. The walls were a pale pink stucco and the roof was tiled in blue like a French country house. The windows and doors were rounded at the top and surrounded by fieldstone, while on one side of the building, a rambling vine of ivy climbed upward toward the chimney. What might have looked like a forbidding mansion was softened by the erotic vine, making it appear as charming as a quaint country inn. The surrounding area was dotted with fruit trees and fields of maturing grapevines, completing an innocuous pastoral setting for the Madame’s house that would belie the kind of harsh reality that was apparently a way of life at the brothel.

      
However, as innocuous as the country brothel might have appeared at first, another cell awaited Shelby Ryan once she was led inside the house. Escorted by one of the men who had attended the whore’s whipping,
Shelby
was taken to her new home through a side door near the kitchen. She would see little of the rest of the house while she was there, again confined to a small secluded space. Her new cell was much like the one at Jessup’s detention center, although the air inside was far warmer, and there was a pallet bed on the floor, a pillow, a blanket and a chamber pot. Under dismal circumstances, one becomes thankful for small things.

      
Her escort didn’t say a word as he pushed her into the small space, and
Shelby
was too afraid to speak. But once the lock clicked shut and the fellow was about to walk off, the captive found her voice. “What’s to happen to me?” she called out in sudden desperation. Her hands clung to the cell’s bars, while a moment of panic swept her submissive calm away.

      
The man moved her way, taking a moment to appreciate her fine body, when it had not seemed to affect him before. “Hell if I know,” he answered. “But I imagine you’ll come in mighty handy for some man’s hard prick.” He cackled as he turned around and sauntered off.

There were two cells side by side, both close to the kitchen – something
Shelby
could tell by way the fine smells of cooking food wafted down the corridor and into her small space. In the distance, she heard the sounds of chattering voices, clanking pots and running water, the sounds of a busy kitchen preparing the
midday
meal.

      
A long time passed during which
Shelby
realized that she’d become very thirsty. Finally calling out for water, she was rewarded when not a minute later a barefoot girl in a skimpy costume came running down the corridor with an earthenware cup.

      
“Shhhhhhhh.” Her finger covered her lips as she pushed the cup of water between the bars and rattled on in a language
Shelby
did not understand.
Shelby
thanked the girl with a smile and her silence, having gratefully accepted the drink of water.

      
The girl smiled back and left in a hurry, leaving the scent of fear in her wake.

      
Later there was food – a small repast of meat and fresh-tasting vegetables – but still no Madame Pavlenco, and not word on her fate. It would seem that the wheel of bad fortune turned slowly in this place and for hours she would wait in dreary silence. That night Shelby fell soundly asleep, then toward dawn, when the light in her dank corner of the house began to lighten, she began to dream, moving in her consciousness back and forth from the present to the past…

She stood in front of Jessup naked, feeling his eyes intent on her, his hand grazing her body,
 
her limbs trembling, her pussy ravenous with sexual heat. He would whisper in her ear and she practically swooned against him. More of his hot breath and she sunk to her knees with lust, grappling for the cock hidden in his pants.

      
“You little beast…” he said, standing over her begging body, smirking.

      
Jessup’s face so clear one minute became another face in the blink of an eye. “Mr. Darcy,” she sobbed, looking up into the steely eyes of her owner with a face of fear.

      
“Please, please don’t sell me away…please…”

      
And then
Padraig’s
smiling eyes and handsome face appeared to her and she woke up sobbing, begging her mind to bring him back. But already his face had vanished and she could not even recall what he looked like.

Chapter Seven

“You are not right in the head, are you?”

      
Shelby
raised up from the pallet and looked across the cell, seeing the girl from the whipping post huddled before her, looking limp as a rag. She was such a small thing. So frail. Her wild mop of red hair overpowered her slight body.

      
“You?”

      
“Me? Yes, Eugenia. An’ you?” She spoke with only a slight accent, but one that was strangely familiar though
Shelby
couldn’t quite place it.

      
“I’m
Shelby
.”

      
“You were there, you saw it all, huh?” the girl wondered aloud, cocking her head. Her face was quite pretty now that the thick make up had been worn away from all her crying.

      
“I did. You must have made the Madame very angry.”

      
“Ach! Madame always angry. Nasty bitch. Only when she makes love is she human.”

      
“And you’ve made love to her?”
      

      
She laughed. “Of course, everyone in this house is hers. We belong to Madame. We worship her. Then she tires of us and she sells us down the river.” Eugenia chortled in a strange sort of way. Frowning, her face looked miserable and disturbed, pale as a ghost. She fidgeted nervously with her clothes. With the bright halter dress long gone, she wore a thin white shift that hardly hid a thing from a discerning eye. Her heavy breasts pressed against the fabric, her dark nipples just small pebble-like shapes making clear indentations against the stark white.

      
“Is that what she’s doing to you? Selling you down the river?”
Shelby
wondered.

      
“Me. I’m just like everyone else. I try to be different. I try to love her, I try hard to love her and do what she wants. But, always she ends up hating us. Don’t bother with Madame, you end up scorned like all the rest.” She gave up a deep sigh and settled into the side of the cell, with her hands clutched to her breast, her eyes shifting, then her entire being drifting away for a long while.

      
Had she gone mad!

      
“So, what has my poor Eugenia told you, Ms. Ryan?” a sultry voice interrupted
Shelby
’s reverie.

      
She looked up, seeing that Madame Pavlenco had glided down the corridor unseen and had obviously been listening to the strange dialogue between her two slaves.

      
“Nothing, ma’am. Nothing that makes any sense to me.”

      
Madame stood in the corridor beyond the cell’s bars, dressed in her black from neck to toe, her hands on hips, her demeanor more benign than what
Shelby
had previously experienced.

      
“But maybe it will make sense to you after you’ve been here a while,” her voice was mellow and melodic now, quite different than the harsh one that had crackled in the morning air. “Eugenia is very astute. She will have lots of nasty tales to tell you about me. You can assume that her stories are true. If you think she’s mad, you’ll find that she only takes after her mistress. Some think I’m as mad as the mad hatter. I prefer to think of myself as wickedly brilliant. You see, those that think I’m mad haven’t had the opportunity to see me when I’m sane, or if they did, they didn’t realize what they were seeing. I find it exhilarating to be seen as eccentric and peculiar. I even get that lovely ‘mysterious’ label sometimes. I’ve spent a good deal of time crafting my persona. Years in fact. I studied corporate executives in the West for many years, which is why my English is so precise.” She laughed lightly. “It’s a bit daunting when my customers travel so far into the wilds of these shadowy places only to find a woman with Eastern blood speaking to them in the language they understand. All part of my craft.

      
“One thing you’ll surely learn is that for all the talk of madness and eccentricity, I rule my little kingdom here with an iron fist and no one crosses me. I think perhaps you got that point today.” Madame Pavlenco suddenly sighed heavily, a little sadly in fact, as if she felt some remorse clutching at her hardened heart. Suddenly, her mood shifted and she spoke crisply. “Well, now that you’ve heard my little speech, you can prepare yourself for tonight. I’m afraid that I need to call you into service immediately, since Eugenia is going through a spell, as you can well see.” In fact, Eugenia seemed to have passed out on the cell floor; she hadn’t budged or made a sound since the Madame had announced her presence. “You’ll take her clients tonight, standard fucking mostly, but if one of the men should ask for something out of the ordinary – which here would mean heavy bondage or beating – you will direct them to me first. I do make certain that my girls are protected from the thugs. Since you will eventually be sold, I don’t want to see your value slide. What I’m glad about is that you are amenable to the hard action. So many of the girls have to be sexually reprogrammed to endure pain. And that takes so much time, such a tedious thing. However, Col. Jessup assures me that won’t be necessary with you, that you have a natural predilection for masochistic sex. He also said your body heals fast. That’s very good. You don’t know how grateful I am that you won’t be out of service for too many days after a good session. But then that sometimes can’t be helped when most of our customers tend to prefer a clean slate on which to write their tales of power.”