Judgment II: Mercy (6 page)

Sometimes she could hear the muted echoes of their voices ricocheting off the dark stones of the cavern-like halls, their cries of pain accompanying the whucks of distant rods. But face-to-face, Mary saw only the guards and masters, and Master Boyden in particular.

From the door across the field, a sharp whistle split the quiet. Mary glanced over her shoulder to see Boyden at the shower's entrance waving her in. Her time was up.

She turned immediately, jogging to the edge of the track before slowing to a walk. She knew better than to run in the snow. Not long ago, a turned ankle had laid her up for almost 50

Judgment II: Mercy

by Denise Hall

a week, and four blistering welts from Boyden's cane had taught her the benefits of caution where her physical well-being was concerned. She might not be Product, but her body still belonged to Tane until he decided otherwise. Damaging a master's property was a major offense, and not one that was easily forgiven.

Mary walked but quickly back to the shower's entrance, only once daring a quick glance to the right when she heard whispers from the privately fenced garden and aviary nook a good distance away. If there was one thing to be said of Judgment, the stone walls carried sound exceedingly well.

Figures in hooded, fur-lined parkas ducked behind snow-covered bushes too late to avoid being seen. The Personals, the favorites of the masters, cloistered in their private rooms, a harem of willing submissives whose only purpose for existence was to please.

Mary paused at the shower's threshold, her breath steaming the air. Sometimes she envied them.

Holding the door for her, Master Boyden said as she drew closer, "Come on, Blonde. It's cold out here."

Ducking her head, not wanting to be caught staring where she shouldn't, she hurried on inside.

"Don't think I didn't notice what direction your eyes were wandering," Boyden said as he let the door close behind her.

"You know better."

"I'm sorry, M-master Boyden." While outside, after the first half lap, Mary had stopped feeling the cold. But now, as the warmth of the shower room enfolded her, she found herself struggling to get her suddenly uncooperative fingers 51

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coordinated enough to unzip the windbreaker and hang it back on the peg. She stomped her feet up and down. Her toes she could feel just fine, but there was an unnerving lack of sensation between her hips and her ankles.

"You know better than that, too," he growled. He slapped the switch he always seemed to carry these days against his leg. "You're not sorry until I make you so. Get in the shower and this time I want to see steam!"

This was the worst part about coming in from the cold. The track's shower was set three steps down in a square bowl large enough to entertain an entire barracks of Product, or Lessers as they were called by the masters. The shower heads grew up from the tile floor like a forest of stark pipes, each having only a small basket for soap, shampoo and conditioner.

Her partially numb hands fumbled with the faucets to turn on the water. She knew by experience now how far to turn the knobs of hot and cold, and though she knew the temperature wasn't anywhere near as scalding as it felt, she still had to brace herself to step under the hard spray. As the water hit the icy skin of her chest, Mary shrieked as though she were being boiled by it and grabbed onto the pipe to keep from twisting away.

"I don't see steam!" Boyden shouted over her cries.

Standing in the sunken shower's open doorway, he slapped the switch against his leg again.

Clenching her teeth, Mary turned up the flow of the hot water until she saw wisps of vapor beginning to rise from the shower head. By now, her chest was warming and the water 52

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didn't hurt near as much as it first had. But her back and buttocks still felt very cold, and the occasion rivulet of hot water that spilled back over her shoulders, felt like burning knife points slicing down her skin.

"Turn around," Boyden drawled. "I want to see pink skin when you come out of there."

Knowing how much this would hurt, Mary clenched her teeth. She took a deep breath and made her self turn. Her cry of pain was more a guttural growl as the heat of the water washed mercilessly over her. Though she knew it only lasted a moment, the sensation of being scalded went on forever before her body heated enough to register the heat as the comfortable temperature that it was.

Panting, Mary closed her eyes. She tipped her head back under the spray and ran her fingers through her hair in relief.

Boyden checked his watch. "Two more minutes, Blonde.

Move it now. Let's go."

She washed herself quickly, careful not to miss any part, especially while pinned so under Boyden's hawk-sharp eyes.

"Ten..." he called out. "Nine ... eight..."

Mary shut off the water.

"Seven..."

She grabbed her long hair and squeezed a hand down the length before wringing the excess water from the wet tresses.

"Six ... five..."

She grabbed a towel and hastily scrubbed at her skin, wrapping it tight around her as she hurried to the door.

"Four ... three ... two..."

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Her feet slipped on the wet tiles and she cracked her toes against the steps as she scampered up them.

"One!" Boyden announced and, as she flew past him, the switch hissed through the air and snapped a line of fire across the tops of her thighs just below the hem of the towel.

"AH!" Mary grabbed the back of her leg with one hand, but dared not stop to rub either her throbbing legs or her aching toes.

The normal procedure was for her to stand at attention at the shower's exit, ready for him to led her back to the barracks, but when she ducked past him to do this, he froze her in her tracks with a sharply called out, "Hold it! You know better."

Clutching her towel closed in front with one hand and the back of one leg with the other, feeling the welt rising into being between her fingers, Mary came to a reluctant stop.

She should have been at the door before he counted to one.

Perhaps had that been her only mistake, he might have let it slide. But when she turned around, the look on his face said clearly that Boyden was in a mood to forgive her of anything.

"Assume the position," he said, using the switch to indicate the Lessers' changing bench against one wall.

Bare feet padding softly over the tile, Mary approached the bench reluctantly. She let the towel fall to the floor as she bent at the waist, took hold of the unadorned wooden plank, and pushed back her hips to offer herself to him. As hard as it was, she made herself relax.

"Repent your sins," Boyden said as he came up behind her.

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Lately, that had become his favorite thing to say, especially when he was preparing to be severe. After five weeks alone under his tutelage, she had grown very good at judging his moods.

Staring straight down at the floor, Mary swallowed hard.

"This one looked upon the Personals, sir."

"Is that ever permitted for one such as you?"

Her thighs tightened as she felt the light touch of the switch settle across the center of her bottom, but she forced herself not to clench. Experience had long since taught her that clenching would not only earn more licks from Boyden, but it would make each cut of the switch hurt more. On a bottom as tender as hers constantly seemed to be these days, the last thing she wanted was for a whipping to hurt more.

"No, sir."

Despite her effort to hold still, the first hard snap against her backside made her jump.

"Oh!" Her cry echoed through the empty shower room, reverberating off the cold tile walls. She bit down on her lip in an effort to stay silent as she heard the hiss and felt the sting of the second, then third, then fourth strokes cutting into her soft flesh.

Since her arrival, she had suffered not one day of neglect.

Boyden took her across his knee every morning and warmed her thoroughly with the palm of his hand. The rest of the time, she provided him with no shortage of reasons to punish, either because of language lessons, for which she had very little aptitude, or her ineptitude in the skill room, where she 55

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showed a lamentable lack of any kind of marketable ability.

The only thing she had ever been any good at was keeping Richard's house, and there wasn't much need for that here.

Mary jumped beneath each fiery slice of the switch.

Though she tried her best to hold still, the cuts pushed her further and further up over the bench, and the squealed-out cries she tried so valiantly to hold back grew higher and higher pitched as the strokes fell hard across the bruises and welts of a good many previous whippings.

Boyden gave her eight fearsome swipes, then stopped. He waited for her to catch her breath and, trailing the switch lovingly through his fingers, said, "And?"

Panting even harder, Mary slowly propped herself back into position. She shifted her legs apart to better her balance and pushed back her hips to offer herself to him for more. "This one is laggardly and dawdled too long in the shower when she should have hurried. This one apologizes for keeping the master waiting."

There was another hiss, and there was no keeping back her shout as the whippy length burrowed into the tender seam between her bottom and thighs. She shrieked, the lash sinking in with such vehemence that it felt as though it were flaying her skin away. She collapsed on bench, her fingers clawing at the wood as she fought to keep her hips up and her bottom offered back for him to whip.

Her flesh burned. Her whole bottom felt as though it were on fire before he stopped at—eight again? Or was it more?

She'd lost count.

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Mary blinked back tears. Stifling a groan, she forced herself to stand once more. Forcing her legs farther apart, she fixed her eyes on a spot of the floor and gripped the bench tightly.

"And?" Boyden drawled.

And? Mary felt a flicker of panic. She already hurt so much; she had to swallow hard to bite back her pleas for mercy. What else had she done? As much as she didn't want to bear another cut from that switch, she knew it would be much, much worse if she couldn't recount her wrongdoing. He would assume she hadn't been paying attention. Or worse, that she was attempting deception.

"Blonde," he warned, and measured the narrow switch menacingly across the lower swell of her bottom. She could already feel a number of welts there already, all pulsing and burning, the skin feeling swollen and stiff.

"Th-this o-one," she panted and shifted her legs a little further apart, struggling to brace herself to take what he would no doubt give her without moving. "This—" As her weight hit her damaged toes, a jolt of pain shot back through her foot. She gasped, then stammered out, "This one's carelessness damaged the Master's Product."

The switch lashed a rain of absolute agony all across her buttocks. From the clenching base to the juddering summits, it flicked and slapped every inch until the end of it began to fray and bits of the length broke away.

Mary howled, dancing on her tip toes, shrieking into the bench for all she was worth. All the years of her marriage had not prepared her to take the fury of a Judgment master.

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Compared to Boyden, Richard had been naught but a novice.

And as the experienced master took her right to the brink of breaking control, as her hands began to claw the wood, barely able to keep from snapping back, palms up to protect her blazing hinds from the fiery wrath of the switch, an errant thought dashed through her mind. For an instant, two years of neglect didn't seem quite so bad.

The damn of Mary's determination broke, and she fell sobbing to her knees. The edge of the bench jabbed into her hips as she heaved herself up over it. Her feet kicked out, her toes scraped the floor behind her.

"I don't mean it!" she shouted to the floor as the fire of the switch lashed down the backs of her legs. She threw back her head, screaming at the top of her lungs, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!

Ooowww!"

The switch broke, but Mary still scrambled against the tiles, fighting herself to hold still while her body struggled to get away from the pain. The respite brought a wave of heat flaring all over her buttocks and her thighs. For a long time, her sobs mingled with his ragged pants of exertion in the otherwise quiet of the shower room.

"Kneel," he ordered.

Mary more fell off the bench. Gasping for breath, not bothering to wipe the tears from her flushed cheeks, she rolled onto her knees and crawled to his feet. She pressed her forehead to her hands upon the tile floor.

With uncharacteristic gentleness, Boyden asked, "What didn't you mean?"

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Sniffling, her breathing ragged and uneven, Mary felt her face flush as hot as the fire emanating from the pulsing welts along her flanks. "The time before here," she faltered and her voice softened miserably as she admitted, "it wasn't better than this. I'm sorry I thought it. I didn't mean to."

"No?" He studied her quietly. "How many switches will it take, do you think, before you do mean it?"

Mary stared at the floor in front of her nose as he walked away from her. Then a soft cloth fell over her neck and back.

"Put that on. You'd be a Primary if you were a Lesser. But since you're not even Product, who knows what we'll end up calling you."

Mary sat up slowly, looking down at the tunic that fell to the floor beside her hands. It was green. The color of split pea soup, sleeveless and ugly.

"You've got two seconds to get dressed," Boyden told her.

"Tane wants to see you."

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