A Gentlemen's Agreement (20 page)

After a minute, she began
struggling to breathe. The tension in her arms and chest strained her diaphragm
and she could only draw a full breath when she pushed with her toes hard enough
to reduce the strain on her chest.

Irene understood the mechanics
perfectly, having suffered crucifixion in this frame a few months earlier. She
cringed to see anyone, even Nickel, suffering as she had suffered.

The professor set the hand on a
large dial to point at fifteen. “The timer has been set to fifteen minutes,” he
said.

“Wait a minute,” a voice called
out. “Irene, I was at an entertainment a few months ago where you lost a game.
You were crucified on this same frame, were you not?”

“Yes, Lord
Licht
.
I can testify from personal experience that Nickel is suffering terribly
already and that her suffering will only increase as time passes. She already
regrets that she was unable to satisfy you better.”

“No, that’s not what I’m thinking.
As I recall, you were crucified for half an hour. Is that not correct?”

“Yes, sir. I was. I still quail
inside when I think about that.” She prayed that Lord
Licht
wasn’t thinking that she should take Nickel’s place in the frame after her time
was up. Maybe he had not enjoyed this entertainment and wanted to see her
punished, too.

“I say that what was good enough
for you should be good enough for this slave, too. If you suffered for half an
hour for losing your game, this slave should suffer for a full half hour for
losing her game.”

Irene noticed that Lord
Licht
was still wearing his Team Hawk armband. He was on
the team that Nickel had let down with an inadequate performance. Chances were
that he had lost a significant amount of money betting on her.

Several other gentlemen shouted
their agreement, and not only members of Team Hawk. “Yes,” and “Half an hour,”
and “It’s only fair.”

Lord Snow spoke up. “If that is
the consensus, then so be it. Professor, set the timer for half an hour.”

The professor cheerfully reached
up and moved the hand on the timer from fifteen to thirty.

Nickel whined in protest.

Irene shuddered at the memory of
her own torture.

A few gentlemen stepped to the
frame and began fondling the slave who was stretched taut and helpless. They
caressed her breasts, thrust their hands between her legs, and squeezed her
knotted calves.

Nickel struggled constantly to
raise herself to take a breath and then relax to let herself hang by her aching
arms before repeating the cycle. After a few minutes, she had worked some of
the tension out of the straps and her heels had descended to within two inches
of the floor.

The professor corrected that by
turning the crank and raising the handles another couple of inches to put her
high on her toes again.

Nickel screamed in protest as her
shoulders were pulled to near the point of dislocation.

The hand on the timer pointed to
twenty-five. She had only endured five minutes of crucifixion. Before the timer
expired, she would have lived through an eternity in hell.

Irene couldn’t bear to watch. She
wandered about the room, noting how eagerly the remaining seven slaves were
servicing all comers. There was nothing like the prospect of torture to spur a
slave to her best efforts.

Lord Snow was lounging against the
wall by the door to the manor.

She joined him. “Your guests seem
satisfied. I would be happy to take a poll to determine if I should be starved
for the next three days as punishment for failing to please them.”

“I told you, no more voting. You
produce wonderful entertainments. I don’t need my guests punishing you with
bullshit votes. If you fail, I’m quite capable of making the decision to punish
you on my own.”

“I expect nothing less.” Irene’s
ass twitched inside her steel panties as her muscles remembered the terrible
beating that Lord Snow had inflicted upon them.

Lord Snow looked at Nickel
stretched, arms akimbo, on the other side of the room. “I assume that is as
painful as it looks.”

“You can’t really believe the
amount of pain until you experience it. I pity her that she has to endure it
for half an hour. It will be the longest half hour of her life.”

“I guess that you’d like to see
your lover get a measure of mercy.”

He didn’t sound like he was
speaking sarcastically. “My lover?”

He looked at her quizzically. “I
know what I saw.”

“You saw me being forced to
service your
whiphand
. That’s the life of a slave. To
give service to anyone in authority no matter her feelings.”

“You weren’t enjoying that?”

“I have no interest in women. I
like men, exclusively. I detest servicing Nickel.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So,
basically, she was raping you.”

“Basically.”

“I never authorized that. My
whiphand
is authorized to enforce my will, not to please
herself
. You are not to service her like that again.”

“I will not.”

Lord Snow watched Nickel
struggling in the frame. “Maybe I should add another half hour to her
crucifixion. Or we could just leave her there until the entertainment is over.
The gentlemen seem to be enjoying her predicament. She’d probably survive until
midnight.”

Irene thought about that for a
while. “She is your property. You can do what you like to her. And I, too, am
your property, so my feelings on the matter are irrelevant.”

“But you do have feelings on the
matter. What are they?”

“I have no love for Nickel. If
there is anyone that I’d like to see punished, it’s her. But it hurts me just
to watch her being crucified. My own shoulders ache thinking about how hers are
suffering.”

“So you think that I should let
her down right now and end it?”

The hand on the timer pointed to
fifteen. That was Nickel’s original punishment. But Irene had endured a half
hour.

She was seized by an unexpected
thrill of cruelty.

“Damn her. We promised your guests
a half hour. I’d hate to see them disappointed.”

Lord Snow laughed. “Me, too. So
I’ll leave well enough alone. Let the clock
time
her
out.”

Nickel’s calves were beginning to
falter. She would spend most of the next fifteen minutes hanging by her
outstretched arms. Her agony was about to increase dramatically.

“Good,” Irene said, remembering
all the times that she had been forced to bury her face in Nickel’s crotch.
“She should have tried harder to please your guests.”

“At least as hard as you were
trying to please her when I saw you.”

“I would try far harder to please
you, if you would permit me.”

He tapped her steel-clad ass.
“This isn’t to protect you from the guests. It’s to protect you from me.”

“I don’t want to be protected from
you.”

“You’re property. I don’t care
what you want.”

And that’s more the pity
, Irene thought, but she said nothing more.

When the clock timed out, Nickel
was lowered so that she was standing firmly on the floor. The handles loosened
so that her arms were no longer taut. But the straps were not released from her
hands. She was forced to stand in the frame with her arms held apart, her
entire body visible to inspection, for the remainder of the entertainment.

She was exhausted and wanted to
sag in the frame, but she couldn’t tolerate any more strain on her shoulders so
she swayed a little in place and forced herself to stay conscious.

The occasional gentleman wandered
by and fondled a tit or squeezed her ass.

She could only endure whatever was
done to her until the room finally cleared and she was released.

* * *

“Get in here and get licking.”

Irene stood in the doorway and
shook her head. “No. Lord Snow has given me orders not to do that any more.”

Nickel’s face flushed red. “I
don’t give a fuck. You’re going to get down on your knees and you’re going to
eat out my cunt like a pro or you’re going to feel my strap.”

Irene walked away.

Nickel caught up with her in the
kitchen.

All the slaves were sitting around
the table, chatting.

“Irene just earned a pussy
whipping,” Nickel said. “Put her on the table and spread her legs.”

The slaves stared at Nickel in
shock. They knew that Irene was Lord Snow’s favorite. They couldn’t imagine
that he would sanction her being strapped.

“You heard me,” Nickel said. “You
do as I say or every single one of you will get your own pussy whipped for
disobedience.”

That, they believed. Peach moved
first. She tapped Apple and said, “Help me get her ladyship up
here
or you’ll take her place.”

Apple helped Peach grab Irene by
the arms and drag her onto the table.

Irene didn’t help, but she didn’t
resist either. Fighting with the other slaves wouldn’t do any of them any good.

“Lime, grab her ankle,” Nickel
said. “Cherry, get her other one.”

Now that Irene was on the table,
the other slaves took their usual places when one of their
number
was to be punished.

 
Lime and Tamarind were on one ankle, pulling that leg wide
and Apple and Cherry were pulling the other in the other direction. Peach was
holding her hands above her head, grinning down at her. Peach had been looking
forward to seeing the ex-lady get her cunt beaten since the first day she’d
arrived in the kennel.

Nickel took her place beside her
waist and told the other slaves, “For obstinately refusing to obey a direct
order, this piece of property has earned severe discipline.”

Nickel unfastened her strap from
her corset and raised it high.

Irene flinched in anticipation of
the approaching pain and tried to close her legs. She wasn’t trying to fight
against the slaves that were holding her; it was purely an involuntary reflex.

The slaves expected the reaction
and held her tightly.

The strap snapped hard down the
length of Irene’s vulva.

The pain was instant. It was the
most intense pain that she had ever felt from a strap. It hurt more than the
cuts to her ass that a former owner had inflicted with a cane.

She howled and thrashed.

And the strap struck again.

And again.

Nickel didn’t bother pausing
between strokes. It was the accumulation of damage that was going to cause the
greater suffering so she piled on the punishment.

As Irene’s clit suffered damage
and swelled, it peeked out from beneath its protective hood and took the full
force of the blows. As her outer lips puffed and stiffened, they separated so
that her inner lips were exposed to the force of the strap.

Nickel kept laying the heavy
leather down with expert precision.

Irene howled until her voice was
hoarse.

Tamarind broke away and fled the
room but the other slaves held their places.

Vessels burst and blood began to
accumulate on the strap.

The other slaves wilted in horror
as they realized that Nickel wasn’t going to stop until Irene had been
permanently damaged. She intended to render Irene unusable for service ever again.
But they kept their grip on Irene for fear that they would suffer the same
fate.

Peach lost her grin and had to
avert her face.

“What the hell is going on here?”
Lord Snow bellowed.

Nickel paused in mid-stroke. “This
slave refused a direct order. I am administering the requisite discipline as
you authorized.”

Lord Snow looked at Irene’s crotch
in horror. Then his voice fell low. “Did I authorize you to destroy my
property?”

Nickel looked defiant.
“Maintaining property requires correction. Extreme disobedience requires
extreme correction.”

“And what order did Irene
disobey?”

“She refused to provide service.
That is the most critical function of any pleasure slave. To provide service as
required.”

“Service to you?”

“Service to anyone who requires
it.”

“Service to any
person
.
Property
cannot require service.”

“Slaves can be required to
practice giving service so that they are prepared for whatever is needed.”

“I’m not arguing with a piece of
property. Get to your cell.” He turned to Tamarind who had followed him into
the kennel. “Lock her door.”

The other slaves released Irene
and backed away, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Irene crossed her
arms to hold herself and closed her legs as much as possible without putting
pressure on her brutalized cunt. She whimpered piteously.

Before Nickel left the room, Lord
Snow said, “Wait. Leave your strap and corset here. You’ll not wear them
again.”

Nickel let her bloodstained strap
and spattered corset drop to the floor and left the room naked. She was no longer
whiphand
.

Lord Snow looked again at Irene
who was quivering in agony. “Don’t try to move her,” he told the other slaves.
“I’ll be back.”

He left the kennel.

He returned a few minutes later
and sat at Irene’s head and dabbed at her face with a cool, damp cloth. “You’re
going to be all right,” he said. “We can all be grateful to Tamarind for
fetching me in time.”

Shortly afterward, a
kennelman
arrived with a medical kit. He sat between
Irene’s still spread thighs and began probing delicately. “There’s considerable
damage,” he said to Lord Snow. “But it’ll heal. I don’t think there’ll be too
much scarring.”

“Nerve damage?” Lord Snow asked.

“We won’t know until it heals, but
I think she’ll still be able to provide service.”

“Will she enjoy it?”