(Continuing Straight on from ‘The Running‘)
I got back to the courtyard as the end of the maze nearest the pool had been cleared and the MC’s little podium had been moved to the side, near the row of whipping posts. Earnestine - and her owners - were nowhere to be seen, but the crowd was gathering again near that end of the courtyard.
I wasn’t paying too much attention as I wondered along with them. Noreen’s reaction to the first event was troubling. As far as I could remember it was the first time she’d actually asked me for anything, and gone so far as to impose on the supposed debt of a promised reward. Sending her home was the right decision, I thought, along with the implicit promise that I wouldn’t partake of the meal. The question was, whether I had gone far enough?
The MC broke me out of my revere as he cracked a whip over our heads.
“Ladies and Gentlemen! While we give Earnestine a brief respite - in order to catch her breath - it is my very great pleasure to introduce to you our master leatherman, our artiste with the crop, Henri Avignon!”
A tallish man came out of the end of the building at the far side of the pool, trailed by five slaves. He was dressed in the same smart casual as the MC and some of the other staff members. The slaves, nude save for their collars and scars, were each carrying a different style of whip or flogger. They were all relatively well marked, although I didn’t recognise either of the two who’d taken part in the first event.
They followed Avignon in a procession across the courtyard, one stopping at each of the five whipping posts, where they placed their implement on the ground, and were locked into shackles hanging from the top of the post.
“Mesdames et Monsieur’s,” he started in a moderately strong French accent. “For this brief interlude, I shall demonstrate the proper - ze artistic - use of some of the minor tools here. Oui, oui, I know most of you already know how to use them, but we have some new friends here, and even the best of you can learn some new tricks, no? Frankly, Madam Winters, your technique has gotten stale. I should add you to my dolls here, to remind you what a good whipping is. But No! We shall save that for another time.”
He paused to allow the light laughter to die out, while a tall blonde in a dress suit waggled her finger at him.
“Zis is Sophia,” he said as he stepped to the first of his ‘dolls’, who was facing us, “And zis is a riding crop.” as he bent down to pick up the implement. “It is ze basic tool of the slave owner, used both for guidance, and for correction. It is painful, oui, but does little serious damage. As such, it can be used with impunity on the sensitive parts of a slave, such as the nipples and the clitoris.” He struck her strongly on each nipple to emphasise the point and then waited as she lifted her right leg in a standing split. She managed to catch her heel behind her wrist just as he unloaded on her clitoris. She gasped, but managed to hold the position until he motioned her down. “It is also light enough that you can make ze amusing patterns with it. Turn around my cherie.” He laid down a rapid flurry of strokes on her back, and then stood aside to reveal a stylised, but recognisable Fleur de Lys.
He bowed slightly to the applause, then waved it down and moved along the line of posts. “Now we come to Mercy, and her leather strap.” The strap he picked up looked to be about six inches wide and half an inch thick. “This tool, also is painful for ze recipient, and does not do too much damage to the skin. It is wide enough to spread the impact out, you see. It is much heavier, of course, and so, it can leave deep bruising that will take days to fade. Ze trick is to overlap your blows, so that the damage compounds.” He looked at the strap. “With a fifteen centimetre strap like this one a skilled user can get fifteen strokes in side the mark of the first.”
“How many have you done?” someone heckled from the audience.
Avignon gave a very Gallic shrug. “Thirty-two. Ah Rachel, Cherie. I do hope you let me help in your Grand Finale.”
“Like fuck!” called a voice from the back. “If I’m going to spend that long letting you paddle my ass, I want to be around afterward to appreciate it.” Rachel, the Doll who’d helped chase Earnie came through the crowd to kiss the Frenchman on the cheek. “I literally couldn’t sit for a week.”
He shrugged again as everyone chuckled. “So crass. You can see why she needed to be ‘paddled’, as she says, no? One last thing about this strap. It can damage the soft tissues, so it is safest not to use it on the stomach, or around the kidneys. Unless you wish to cause such damage, of course. Now cherie, you will help me with young Mercy here, oui? Count my strokes, and make sure that I stay within the first mark.”
He laid his first stroke across the top of her ass, and then proceeded to lay eleven further strips before Rachel announced that he’s gone outside the first. Mercy yelled and jiggled in place with each one, but didn’t break her basic position
He shook his head sadly. “A poor effort. You have upset me, cherie. Shall we try again?” Everyone laughed at Mercy’s groan. “Non,” he said smiling. “Mercy is her name, and mercy she shall have. Let us move on.”
I watched rapt as he went on to describe the characteristics of the cane, the full sized maritime cat’o'nine tails and the single-tailed stock whip. I’d started on my own torture slave with the crop and the cane and had picked up some of the technique from my reading, but this was a master at work, enjoying his work.
Once he was finished he announced that there would be a brief opportunity for members of the audience to try out the tools he’s demonstrated.
I quickly stepped to the queue for the strap. So far I’d focused on causing my Traci - my Debbie, rather - intense pain, rather than anything long lasting. I’d obviously not been completely aware of the possibilities short of permanent injury.
When my turn came, I took the strap from the previous guest and hefted it gently.
“Ah, le sinistre.” I jumped to find Avignon standing beside me. “Bien, it will do her good to have some balance.”
I looked from the strap to Mercy’s backside and back. Given that the strap was a foot and a half long, I couldn’t see any sign that one side had received any less punishment than the other.
“Monsieur Avignon,” I started, wondering, “What would be the effect if I were to, say, whip only one thigh with this strap?”
“Ah? You like the asymmetry? Like ze Picasso abstracts, oui? This is not really the position - it is best if you isolate the target you want. Hmmm. If you do it well, the bruising is like a pulled muscle, yes? It restricts movement, and she cannot put the weight on it when she sits. She will lean, to put her weight on the other side. Mercy, turn around, and give the master your left foot. If you would hold it level, monsieur, at about waist height.”
With me holding her leg out straight, he struck her evenly down the thigh about ten times, with a little bit of overlap each time. They weren’t gentle blows - as well as feeling the weight through her foot, I watched her knee lock up each time.
“Like that, two or three times. Better if you hit the muscle down the back directly. Watch her this afternoon, but it might be the knee rather than the thigh.” With that he handed me the strap and headed off to the next post.
Likewise, I handed the strap over to the next person in line and went in the other direction; to watch the tall blonde - Mistress Winters - offer advice to another woman on the use of the crop.
A little while later, the MC rapped sharply on his microphone. “If I could have your attention, please!”
When he had all eyes - and staff members were letting the Dolls down from their posts - he continued: “It is now time to welcome Earnestine back to Center stage. For this part of the festivities, we like to prepare our stars for their final showing. After tenderisation, we need to season our star. Henri will assist us in that process by applying his delicate touch to her skin, and then our hosts will baste her in our own special blend of herbs and spices, and letting them soak in.”
As he spoke, Earnestine was wheeled out to the area of the whipping posts. She was stretched tightly between the corners of a vertical frame that was cleverly designed so as to be able to rotate in both the vertical and horizontal axes: Earnie could be spun backward, forward and even upside down. From what I’d seen of Henri’s work he wouldn’t bother. He would just make the tip of any whip he chose curl around and hit whatever part of her he wanted.
Cov and Hun escorted her out, and greeted Avignon surprisingly formally, both bowing as they presented their slave to him.
The Doll Rachel brought out a wooden case, and some of the audience members sighed reverently as he opened it and withdrew a long single tailed whip.
“For those of you who haven’t seen her before,” the MC ‘whispered’ over the public address system, “that is an eighteen foot bullwhip that Henri has named Marie, after both the French noblewoman Marie Antoinette, and the first woman he ever killed with it. It has a reputation here at the Faded Lotus of being capable of the most exquisite pain, and the most stunning artwork. Many of the Dolls here today have had their major patterns created by Marie.”
Henri finished shaking the whip out and swung it gently a couple of times to make sure he had room. He bowed briefly to the Hosts and then began.
It was a virtuoso performance.
He started at the extremities: Clever bindings presented both her palms and the soles of her feet and he hit all four with the first four blows, leaving bleeding welts. The fifth, he placed around her right side, just below the ribs, the popping tip leaving a gash under her left breast.
Earnestine shrieked with each blow, and gasped between. Cov and Hun looked satisfied as they watched, expressions very like those I’d seen the night before as they tormented their slave.
Back to the outside, now, and Henri laid three welts around the bound woman’s calves and forearms before stopping.
One of the staff members ran up to Earnie during the pause and quickly checked her pulse and responses before injecting a hypodermic of something into a shunt taped to the side of her neck.
I was surprised - I would have thought that this place wouldn’t ’shoot up’ its meat, that they’d insist on her stewing purely in her own juices - Organic Slave Meat, so to speak.
I mush have been obvious in my surprise because a quiet voice beside me said “It’s a mixture of adrenaline, stimulants, some other anti-shock compounds and a nasty little nerve toxin.”
I looked and saw the tall blonde I’d noticed earlier, one of the obvious regulars. I nodded for her to go on.
“Generally, it keeps you awake, alert and responsive. There’s little point in whipping a woman who has passed out, after all,” She explained. “The nerve toxin is an added extra. I’m told it increases the sensitivity of the pain receptors. Greatly.”
“Ah,” I said, intelligently. “George Page,” I added, holding my hand out.
“Claire Winters. That was your slave with the runners, wasn’t it?”
“Noreen. yes. I’m afraid that was a bit much for her though, so I sent her home.”
The eyebrow she raised made me feel about two inches tall, because I couldn’t manage my slaves. “She’s new,” I added defensively, “and I didn’t want to make a scene.”
Winters nodded knowingly and looked back toward where Avignon was getting ready to continue.
He started with a shot at her thigh that clearly wrapped right around, causing Earnie to howl piteously. This time he went around in a circle, slowly spiraling inward toward her body. Earnestine never really got a chance to catch her breath, each new mark would cause her breath to hitch and then she’d howl again.
I though back over what little I knew of biochemistry. It wasn’t enough, but that shit they’d shot her up with must be something really awful.
Another pause, and another hypodermic, and Henri went on to the body, laying a cris-cross pattern across her back - the first time he’d crossed his strokes - that bled at every intersection. Left to heal, I was sure that they would leave terrible scars - scars much like those on the various ‘Dolls’ that were watching, and moving through the guests.
After the back, he added half a dozen or so rings around her waist, and then he got fancy.
With a combination of backhand and forehand strokes, he snapped the tip of the whip around Earnestine’s front to the applauded approval of the people watching on that side. I looked, later, and he’d laid those strokes blind, right up and down the valley of her cleavage, without touching her breasts proper.
The last three strokes were the most skillful. One choked off her howls as it wrapped itself around her neck, incidentally tearing out the shunt, and the others laid open the skin of her face, across the cheekbones and just touching her nose.
Everyone applauded, and Avignon bowed as he coiled his ‘Marie’ and placed her reverently bank in her case.
When he was finished, and two of the Dolls ceremoniously carried the case back into the building, the MC returned to his stand.
“Now that she has been prepared, it is time to baste our star, and once again, our Hosts have graciously allowed us to share that with you. Please, form a queue, so that everyone who wants one gets a chance to help apply our special blend.”
I managed to get into the line near the front, so I was able to get to Earnestine before she was too splattered with the strong smelling paste. Heavy on both the spices and the garlic, I decided. I felt eyes on the back of my neck, and looked over to see Mistress Winters whispering to Cov, while the two hosts watched me.
On impulse, and to show that cow Winters something, I forewent the brushes everyone else was using and scooped up a small handful of the mess. and rubbed it into the side of her neck and jaw. She flinched away from me and whimpered, an animal look of hurt in her eyes.
I was surprised how level we were. I’m not an overly tall man, but even stretched in the frame our heads were at the same height. That made it easy to cup her chin and cheek and murmur ‘Tina’ before I had to move on. I fancied saw a glimpse of awareness return, just as I turned away.
“I, too, was a friend of Jamis,” I whispered as I approached the slaves holding towels. Aware that Winters and co were still watching, I waved away the towel and beckoned to one of the slaves instead.
“Come with me and lick this clean,” I ordered as I wandered over toward the hosts.
