Discipline of the Private House (28 page)

Jem had hardly had time to realise that she was being held aloft by six pairs of strong and intrusive hands before she was lowered into a shallow copper dish as wide as a bath. The vessel had a flat bottom, and apart from Jem contained only a few fingers' depth of warm cooking oil. She had been placed on her back, which she found uncomfortable because her arms were tied behind her. When she tried to sit up, however, she succeeded only in sliding across the floor of the pan: her bottom skidded sideways, and she toppled slowly on to her side.

'Let's turn her a few times,' the brown-eyed man said, 'and make sure she's coated all over.'

The young men formed a circle around the copper vessel. Some of them pushed Jem with their feet; others flicked her with the long switches. She wriggled and squirmed to avoid the stinging lashes, and was soon rolling over and over in the oil.

She was grateful, now, for the tightly fitting helmet, which was protecting her hair from becoming drenched in the viscous fluid. She presumed, as she tossed and writhed in the slippery vessel, that the helmet had been provided for precisely this reason. Rolling over and over in oil was, she decided, a pleasant interlude: her sore breasts and bottom, in particular, felt soothed by the emollient sweet-smelling oil.

The hissing switches fell silent, and the men stooped towards her. 'Get the oil worked well in,' she heard one of the men say, and suddenly hands were all over her body.

She was turned on to her back; her legs were lifted into the air; and two of the men started to massage oil into her bound breasts. Others began work between her raised legs, pushing oily fingers again and again into her vagina and anus. A rhythm started to develop, and Jem found herself gasping with pleasure as the insistent rubbing and pushing started to ignite sparks within her. She gave herself up to the sensations, and was disappointed when the brown-eyed man said, That's enough. She's ready. Let's get her on to the spit.'

With difficulty, slithering and ribald laughter the men took hold of her and pulled her from the copper dish. As they carried her towards the fireplace Jem began to worry that the conceit of preparing her as a bird is prepared for roasting was becoming too realistic; did they really intend to impale her on a spit and cook her on an open fire? She would have no choice but to object; the Chatelaine would have won; and she would have endured for nothing her rough treatment by the six young kitchen-slaves.

When she saw the cunningly wrought metal frame that was suspended between the two fire irons, however, she felt a wave of relief. The long, black structure, while it looked sinister and uncomfortable, was obviously not designed for cookery.

It was, she supposed, something like a spit, in that it was long, its core was a black iron rod, each end of which was resting on a soot-darkened support, and it was situated in front of a fire - although not close enough for roasting.

Welded on to the central rod, however, were a number of ornate curlicues of wrought iron, some of them padded with cushions of black leather. Hanging from the structure at various points along its length were leather straps. Jem recognised it as a framework to which a person could be secured, and she was in no doubt that she was destined imminently to be bound to it.

Jem's body was still slippery with oil, and the young men took great care as they lowered her on to the spit. Her hips, stomach and ribcage rested in a shaped, upholstered cradle that was fixed horizontally and lengthways atop the central pole. Jem found it comfortable enough, although the men did nothing to loosen her bondage or to ease the strain in her shoulders caused by the tying of her arms behind her back. In fact, Jem soon found herself tied even more tightly: a broad strap was placed across the small of her back and tightened, to keep her in place in the cradle.

Like the arms of an armchair, two leather-upholstered spurs projected forwards and slightly upwards from the main part of the cradle to provide support for Jem's shoulders, and then curved towards each other to create a padded rest for her breastbone. Jem's tightly constricted breasts, still stinging and aching and feeling more sensitive than ever, hung unencumbered below her with the central bar of the spit running between them. When she lifted her head Jem found herself looking down the length of the spit to where one end was supported on a fire iron.

At first Jem had been allowed to keep her feet on the floor and bend forwards on to the padded leather in order to have her body secured to the spit. She had noted, however, that the cradle held her hips tilted up at the back, and that attached to the spit behind her were projections from which hung stirrups and straps; she knew that soon her legs and feet would be arranged in a much more revealing and uncomfortable position.

As soon as the strap was fastened across her back, the men turned their attention to her legs. Grasping the slippery limbs in many hands, they lifted her feet from the floor and bent her knees as they parted her thighs. They placed her feet in stirrups, which they then moved upwards and outwards, so that Jem's knees were lifted to the level of her torso. With her hips uplifted by the cradle, Jem's private parts were now exhibited for all to see, and her rounded buttocks were raised high.

Jem knew that her bottom must by now be cherry red and covered in stripes; her anus, she knew well, was delicately formed and its crinkled skin was dark pink; her shaven outer labia were prettily plump, while her inner labia, which she was sure must also be visible, were exquisite fronds over which several of her lovers had enthused. Headman, she recalled, had liked to whip her there because it was, he said, the prettiest part of his prettiest woman. With every part of her glistening with oil, Jem decided with satisfaction that from the rear she must be a most delectable sight.

Jem knew that she was positioned well for either penetration or more punishment, and she wondered which it would be: the sudden sting of a whip laid across her buttocks, or the thrilling insertion of a phallus.

The next words she heard, however, were, 'Let's get the skewers into her,' which filled her with dread. Were they going to pierce her flesh?

She was slightly reassured when she saw two of the men attaching something to the spit in front of her. They slid the contraption towards her along the metal bar, and fixed it in place in front of her face.

Suddenly she felt her head being tugged back, and she realised that one of the men had pulled her helmet. The tugging ceased, but she found she could no longer lower her head: it was being held up, presumably by a chain from the top of her helmet to a ring on the strap across her back, so that she was obliged to look straight ahead and could not lower her face.

The two men in front of her were once more at work on the complicated bracket they had fixed to the spit. They moved it back a little and adjusted its height, and then began turning a crank. Slowly, and pointing directly at Jem's mouth, a torpedo-shaped cylinder began to emerge. It was a carved phallus, and it was clear to Jem that she would have no choice but to take it into her mouth. She opened her lips and tried to remain calm as the cold, solid cylinder filled her mouth. At last it stopped, before it reached the back of her throat and could make her gag. She could not close her jaws, however, or move her head, and she reflected that she had indeed been very effectively skewered.

The men had referred to more than one skewer, and so Jem was not at all surprised to feel the rounded nose of something hard and cold insinuating itself between the delicate membranes of her inner labia. She assumed that a second device had been fixed to the spit behind her, between her splayed thighs. The phallus felt huge - much larger than the one in her mouth - but she felt no discomfort: even if she had not been aroused by the morning's events, the oil that had been massaged into her would on its own have eased the entrance of the giant cylinder.

'She's well skewered,' one of the kitchen-slaves said. 'Can we baste her now?'

'Just a moment,' another replied. 'Chef likes his rump-meat good and tender. Maybe we'd better just give her arse one more turn.'

'You're right,' a third said. 'And in that position, the little whore's just asking for it, I'd say.'

Jem could not have argued that her bottom was other than perfectly exposed for a flogging. And she was in no position to prevent the young men from inflicting one on her. As the switches hissed once more through the air, and a new network of thin lines was laid over the marks that had begun to fade on her taut and reddened buttocks, Jem clenched her teeth against the phallus in her mouth and consoled herself with two thoughts: the men were using the switches, which stung wickedly but only briefly and could not leave lasting marks; and in her current position, unable to move or speak, there was no danger that she might renounce her vow of submission.

Jem's bottom had become no more than a source of throbbing heat, and she was not immediately aware that the whipping had ended. It was only when something warm nudged her cheek that she realised that most of the kitchen-slaves had gathered around her head.

'Let's baste the bird,' one of the young men said. Jem heard another snigger. She could not turn her head but from the corners of her eyes she saw that four of the men were standing around her, and each of them had lifted aside his apron and was grasping in one or two hands his erect manhood. They began sliding their hands, still slick with oil from her body, up and down their shafts. They began to count the strokes; they masturbated in unison; the movements grew faster, the strokes shorter.

Jem heard their voices, and their increasingly loud cries of anticipation; she caught glimpses of pumping hands and glistening cock-heads. But she could do nothing except wait for the inevitable sticky climax.

With shouts and groans, they came. First one: Jem felt a splash of hot fluid on her forehead, and another next to her eye. Then another three reached their climaxes simultaneously, and Jem's face was deluged with spurts of hot, viscous semen. The musky smell was in her nostrils; the salty taste trickled over her lips and into her mouth, around the circumference of the phallus. She felt the cooling suspension begin to drip and slide down her face.

A moment later Jem heard more cries of ecstasy, and the two remaining kitchen-slaves shot their spurts of seed on to the pulsing, tender skin of Jem's buttocks. The hot fluid was soothing, and Jem was grateful when the two men used their hands to smear their semen all over the reddened, rounded surfaces.

Jem was confident that, when it came to tests of sexual endurance, she had as much stamina as anyone. But by now even she was beginning to feel tired, sore, used and uncomfortable. She was finding it difficult to keep at bay fantasies about hot baths full of scented bubbles. However, she reasoned, all six of the young men had now had their climaxes, and she knew that they would no longer be as diligent in their testing of her. Perhaps, she allowed herself to hope, she would shortly be released, and would be allowed a brief respite before she was obliged to submit herself to the next of the Chatelaine's ordeals.

She heard a door being flung open. A loud male voice filled the extensive space of the bakery.

Ts my bird ready, lads? Can I have her now?'

There were shouts of'Yes, Chef,' and 'Here she is, Chef,' before the voice of one of the kitchen-slaves emerged from the concatenation. 'She's trussed and tenderised, Chef,' said the brown-eyed kitchen-slave, 'and oiled, and skewered on the spit, and basted. Just the way you said you wanted her. All she needs now is the stuffing.'

'Sauces and stuffings, those are my specialities,' the Chef said. 'That's a nicely done rump,' he added, and the shock of pain as a heavy hand landed on her backside revealed to Jem that the Chef had come to stand behind her. She felt strong but nimble fingers tracing the lattice of lines on her buttocks, and exploring the folds of her vulva under the stretched membranes of her penetrated vagina.

'This one's good and juicy, too,' the Chef commented. His fingers moved to Jem's anus, into which, thanks to the oil, he was very easily able to insert two fingers. 'She's ready for stuffing,' he announced, and without further ado he withdrew his fingers and instead presented to Jem's prettily and pinkly crinkled arsehole the head of his manhood.

As he buggered her he stroked her burning buttocks with one hand and used the other to vibrate the shaft of the phallus in Jem's vagina. As a result, Jem soon forgot her discomfort and was about to reach a deep and slow-building climax of her own when the Chef shouted, and jetted hot lava into Jem's bowels.

'A very tasty morsel,' the Chef commented as he withdrew his shrinking penis. Jem groaned with frustration. Around her, the kitchen-slaves began to untie her bonds.

The ormolu clock that sat on the rococo cabinet next to the Chatelaine's desk had a tick that was barely audible. It could be heard clearly now, however, counting the seconds of silence since Barat's last outburst.

The Chatelaine used long silences such as these to unsettle miscreants and, she told herself, both Barat and Robert certainly we^e in need of a reprimand. But on this occasion the Chatelaine's silence was unpremeditated; she was genuinely too outraged to speak.

She had instructed Nicole to continue with Olena's training; Isabelle was sitting in Nicole's usual place, in the shadows beside the Chatelaine's desk. She had summoned Robert to attend her as soon as he had safely delivered Jem into the hands of the kitchen-slaves; he was kneeling, subserviently but with his habitual air of assurance, before the Chatelaine's desk in the circle of light cast by her lamp. Barat, still agitated and flushed, was kneeling beside him.