Sinful Seduction (20 page)

For a start the room was like nothing she had ever seen in her life before. The walls were bare of ornament, painted to look like slabs of rock and draped here and there with drifts of black silk, that hung like dirty cobwebs - but what was most horrifying was the array of strange implements ranged against them. A rack of whips and paddles stood against one. Chains and manacles dangled from another, as if awaiting their next victim. Maggie gasped at the blasphemy; there was even a cross!

But strangest of all was the scene that was being played out before her eyes. The ingredients were the same: the same half-naked bodies; the same squeals of distress; the same pain and humiliation - but this time the roles were reversed.

In the centre of the room stood a tall girl, her fair hair pulled back tightly into a long plait, exaggerating her high cheekbones and the harsh planes of her face. She seemed to radiate power and cruelty like some pagan goddess or warrior queen - an impression heightened by her bizarre costume.

She wore nothing but gleaming black leather that hugged her body like a second skin. Her heavy breasts bulged from the complicated harness of straps that bound her chest.

More straps twisted round her narrow waist and curled down between her thighs, revealing and concealing the lips of her sex as she moved. Her long muscular legs were cross-gartered to the knee, and her arms and hands were covered in long leather gloves that reached almost to the shoulder. From one hand drooped a wicked looking cat o' nine tails.

All her attention was focussed on her victim. His wrists were tied to a chain attached to the ceiling, pulling his arms above his head and forcing him to balance on his toes or have his shoulders dislocated. He was blindfolded, and a gag tied so tightly that it cut into his cheeks muffled his cries. His scrawny body was already covered in marks from the whip, and as Maggie watched, the girl lifted her arm and lazily flicked it at him again. He whimpered as each lash curled round his cringing form like a tongue of flame, leaving another weal behind.

But if the rest of his body was trying to cringe away, his John Thomas had a mind of its own. It was huge! Purple-red and grossly engorged, a tear of pleasure weeping from its bulbous tip, it seemed to grow bigger with every delicious bolt of pain.

As Maggie watched in fascinated disgust, the girl strode across to the rack of implements, laid down her whip and picked up something else. She frowned in bewilderment. What on earth was it? It looked like one of those children's puzzles, where you had to untangle the length of wood from the string. Then her jaw dropped as the girl shook it out and began to fasten it on.

She could hardly believe her eyes; it... it was an enormous black artificial...

The dildo firmly strapped in place, the girl dipped her fingers in a jar of oil and greased it. Approaching her client from the rear, she pulled his buttocks apart, inserted the tip in his anus, slid it home and began to thrust. Maggie watched, spellbound, as it rammed in and out of his arse. Even oiled it must have been agonising.

As if in answer, every muscle in his body clenched. Arching his back like a bow he strained and shuddered, his cock jerking. A stream of milky-white spunk jetted across the room and he sagged against his bonds, his dribbling John Thomas shrinking rapidly.

Maggie pulled away from the peephole and gazed at Millie in bewilderment. ‘I don't understand,' she complained. ‘Why on earth would anybody want that done to them?'

‘And pay for it too, remember,' Millie reminded her. ‘There's one or two of our gentlemen what likes to get a bit of pain themselves instead of handing it out.' She sniffed. ‘Comes from going to them posh schools if you ask me. All them masters with their canes. They gets a taste for it when they're nippers. That's why the Frenchies call it the “veece onglay”.'

She chuckled. ‘And when it comes to giving a good hiding, you can't beat our Ingrid. Her dad was a Swedish sailor - so her mum says - and she's like one of them bleedin' Vikings. Nothing she likes better than laying into some toff's fat arse. Lucky cow,' she added wistfully. ‘Wouldn't mind being on that end of the business for a change.' She giggled, mood changing with the mercurial rapidity of the drunk. ‘“That end”... “arse”... get it?' she asked, digging Maggie in the ribs with a sharp elbow as she ushered her out of the claustrophobic little cupboard. ‘That's a good ‘un, though I do say so meself.'

The ‘tour' continued from room to room until Maggie was dizzy with what she'd seen. Each set of peepholes seemed to give another glimpse into the depravity of mankind. It was like gazing into the anterooms of hell. Finally - and mercifully - it was over and Millie led her back to the room where it had all begun.

‘Time's getting on,' Millie said with a shiver. ‘Better get meself ready for his lordship.' She tugged the bell-pull and after a few minutes Gladys shuffled in. ‘Fetch us another bottle, love,' she said, and once it had arrived she helped herself to a brimming glass, seated herself in front of the mirror and began to repair her maquillage. Maggie watched fascinated as she applied more powder and rouge. ‘There,' she said finally, ‘that'll ‘ave to do.' Her lips quivered. ‘I'll need a damn sight more than that by the time that bastard's finished with me.'

The words were barely out of her mouth when Mrs Wilkes glided silently in and stood waiting.

‘All right, all right, I'm coming,' Millie said, and drained her glass. ‘Here's to a short life and a merry one.' Swaying slightly she exited, head in the air, leaving Maggie alone with Mrs Wilkes.

‘Rose is almost finished with her gentleman,' the woman informed Maggie. ‘She'll show you to your room. You may settle in before you begin to earn your keep.'

 

For the next few days Maggie was in a kind of limbo, slipping into the strange nocturnal rhythms of the house, but not yet a full-blown whore. Even her room reflected this. It wasn't as spartan as her old room in her previous existence as a maid, but nothing like the luxurious bedrooms frequented by the gentlemen on their visits.

There was no sign of Millie for two days after her appointment with Lord Anston, and when she did reappear she was bruised, limping and, despite Maggie's anxious questions, refused to say why. She too joined Maggie in limbo as she recovered from her ordeal.

If the threat of beginning to ‘earn her keep' hadn't been hanging over Maggie, she might actually have enjoyed this strange period. Ironically, it was rather like being in an exclusive girls' boarding school. They were joined by other girls who were entertaining their ‘monthly visitor', and spent the time laughing, chatting, reading or playing board games.

Maggie wasn't allowed out - in case she did a runner, Millie informed her - but she could listen to the girls who were and admire their purchases when they returned. If she tried hard enough, she could almost forget why she was there.

But one afternoon the pleasant idyll was shattered by the appearance of Mrs Wilkes. Silence fell as she bustled into the common room, holding a pile of cards. ‘The invitations are back from the printer's,' she announced, passing one round for approval. When it reached Maggie, she stared at it in puzzlement, running her fingers over the embossing on the deckled gilt-edged card. It reminded her of the expensive invitations that used to sit on the mantelpiece at Lady Georgina's, announcing a ball or a wedding - but there the similarity ended. She gasped; Lady Georgina had never held an event like this!

 

Mrs Emmaline Wilkes cordially invites you to attend the auction of a prime young virgin on Saturday, September 6th, 1894.

 

Pity washed through her. What a dreadful fate - and Saturday was only two days away. ‘That's shameful!' she exclaimed. ‘Poor thing... who is she?'

For a moment Mrs Wilkes stared at her as if she was mad, then her hard face broke into a cruel smile. ‘Why, my dear,' she laughed. ‘How charmingly naïve. Don't you understand yet? It's you.'

 

 

 

Maggie stared at her in total disbelief. ‘What?' she blurted. ‘Me? That's impossible. I'm not a... a...'

‘A virgin?' smiled Mrs Wilkes. ‘Good heavens, child, what difference does that make?' She snorted derisively. ‘For all their money and breeding, our gentlemen are as stupid as any other man. Most of them couldn't tell a virgin from the village doxy. Why, I could sell your maidenhead ten times over if the notion took me.'

‘But I'm not some green girl,' protested Maggie. ‘How do you expect them to believe I'm a virgin? They may be stupid, but they've got eyes in their heads, haven't they?'

Mrs Wilkes looked at her pityingly. ‘You've still got a lot to learn, my dear. It's not what's in front of their face that counts - it's what goes on in their head. We don't just peddle flesh here; we sell dreams. Every man who walks through our doors, no matter how old or ugly, is an omnipotent sexual god with the power of life or death.' She raised her eyebrows. ‘Why do you think they pay so much for the privilege? Besides,' she added, ‘by the time we've finished with you, even your own mother would swear you were as pure as the driven snow.'

And she was as good as her word. For the next two days, Maggie was spoilt and pampered. Her skin was bleached even fairer with lemon juice, patted all over with rose water and smoothed with expensive creams until it was baby soft. Even her hands now looked as if she hadn't done a day's work in her life. One or another of the girls would spend hours brushing her hair and polishing it with a scrap of silk until it cascaded like a silky waterfall down her back, and all this unaccustomed attention would have been thoroughly enjoyable - if Maggie hadn't known why she was getting it. As it was, apprehension of what was to come lay like a heavy weight in her stomach, poisoning everything. She wished she could put Saturday off forever.

But regardless of her wishes it dawned bright and clear, and Maggie was woken by the sound of Gladys puffing and panting as she dragged a hipbath into the room.

‘Piece of nonsense, if you ask me,' she grumbled, hauling it into place and giving it a kick for good luck. ‘All this running up and down stairs with cans of ‘ot water is enough to kill a body.' Her expression became pious. ‘And if the good Lord wanted us wet all over, we'd ‘ave been born in the sea.' Piety disappeared again as she gave Maggie a lewd wink. ‘In my day a man liked a woman to smell like a woman, not a bleedin' chemist's shop.' Her smile became reminiscent. ‘I remember one of my chaps as didn't want me to wash for a week afore his visit,' she said, with a gleeful cackle. ‘Liked a bit o' fish, ‘e did.' Maggie pulled a face at the vulgarity of Gladys' remark, but the old woman was off again.

‘Well, this won't buy the baby a new pair of shoes,' she announced cheerfully. ‘Can't stand around listening to you chatter all morning. Better start fetching the ‘ot water to fill this bleedin' thing up, before ‘er ladyship ‘as conniptions.' She sniffed again. ‘But I ain't breaking me back,' she warned. ‘I'll get some of them bone idle young sluts to gimme an ‘and. This time of day, they ain't got nothing better to do.'

The bath gradually filled up as the girls traipsed in and out with the water cans, chattering nineteen to the dozen as they did so. Maggie sat silently on the edge of the bed, watching them, her stomach an icy ball of fear. Finally the bath was full and they fluttered off like a flock of brightly plumaged birds leaving only Millie behind.

‘Come on,' she coaxed, tugging Maggie's hands. ‘Yer can't sit there all day.'

‘Oh yes I can,' muttered Maggie, mutinously refusing to budge. ‘You just watch me.'

‘This ain't going to do any good,' sighed Millie. ‘If you don't get into this bath yerself, old Ma Wilkes'll just fetch Jebediah and Arthur to give yer a hand. They'd enjoy every minute of it too, the bastards,' she added bitterly.

At the very thought Maggie leapt off the bed like a scalded cat. Slipping out of the petticoat she'd been sleeping in, she dipped a tentative toe in the hot water. She'd carried God knows how many cans of water for Lady Georgina's bath, but this was the first time she'd actually had one herself. She shivered with pleasure as she lowered herself into it, forgetting her fears for a moment as she revelled in the delicious sensation of the warm, perfumed water against her skin. It was lovely, and a far cry from the spartan experiences of her serving days. She smiled; what was it Emily used to say as they hastily took their sponge baths in the icy water from the ewer? ‘Wash up as far as possible, wash down as far as possible - and let possible take care of itself!'

With a sigh of sheer contentment she slid beneath the surface and wiggled her toes. Her breasts peeped out like rosy islands from a sea of bubbles and her hair floated like tendrils of seaweed round her head. She sighed wistfully; if only she could turn into a mermaid and swim far, far away - out of reach of everyone...

‘Don't just lie there,' ordered Millie, interrupting her pleasant daydream. ‘Start scrubbin'. Ma Wilkes wants you as clean as a new pin, and the dirt ain't going to float away by itself. Here,' she added briskly, ‘sit up and I'll do the bits yer can't reach.'

With a sigh Maggie hauled herself into a sitting position and allowed Millie to wash her back, then squawked in outrage as she pushed her forward and ducked her head under the water. ‘What was that for?' she spluttered, surfacing again with water dripping down her face and into her eyes.