Divine Cruelty (17 page)

'It's made me extremely sensitive,' Helena whispered. She swallowed twice before finding the energy to continue. 'There's so much pleasure that sometimes it feel likes pain. But I'm not complaining. It's heightened my response to every sensation.'

Enviously, Rachel pushed her face closer to Helena's pussy. She slipped her tongue against the skin, marvelling at the way it felt so polished and delicious against her mouth. Placing her lips over the servant's clitoris she wasn't surprised to feel her shiver. When she placed a more passionate kiss against the throbbing bead of flesh, Helena trembled dramatically. She lowered her body, as if the strength had been sapped from her, and the tips of her breasts caught Rachel's chain.

They gasped in unison.

Rachel barely noticed the servant's arousal, stung by her own excitement. When Helena's breasts jostled Rachel's chain again the movement was enough to spark a rush of discomfort from her clitoris. She was struck by how severe the sensation would be if Pearl ever subjected her to the process and she tried not to let herself dwell on the concept.

The thought was sickly exciting and, when Helena's stomach brushed Rachel's breasts, the stimulation was almost too much. The binding had become unbearably tight, the trapped blood making her nipples throb and pulse inside the clamps. Imagining her current anguish magnified to the degree that Pearl had threatened, Rachel threw herself back on the bed and groaned in ecstasy.

Helena tongued her cleft, burying her nose into Rachel's wetness. She caught the chain in one hand, slyly sliding the links through the piercings, and Rachel was buffeted by shock after shock as the cruel metal rings battered her towards a climax. She started to protest, wanting to tell the servant she was rushing things and taking it all too fast, but Helena wasn't in the right position to see her hesitation.

Using all her skills, she took Rachel to the brink of orgasm and then pushed her easily past that peak. The last image that stayed in Rachel's mind was the mesmerising sight of Helena's divine pussy lips hovering inches from her mouth. The scent of fresh musk, the warmth of swollen flesh and the sight of stretched pink skin stayed with her as her consciousness faded and the orgasm rendered her senseless.

She drifted back into awareness to find the servant had removed the clamps and the leather strap. Rachel guessed they had been returned to the space beneath the loose floorboard although she didn't know how Helena had been able to do so much without her noticing.

The servant had slipped back into her maid's outfit and she bustled around the bedroom, taking Rachel's ermine robe from the wardrobe and checking the perfumes at the dressing table. The rush of activity puzzled Rachel and, with the orgasm behind her, she could think clearly enough to ask the one question that had been disturbing her more than all the others. 'Why are you wearing a maid's uniform, Helena? And why have you been given a maid's chores? You're not a maid. You're my servant.'

Helena started guiltily. 'A lot happened while you were away. An awful lot.'

Rachel eased herself from the bed, her body still tingling with minor eruptions of pleasure, but nothing sufficient to distract her from getting answers. Frowning dourly she said, 'Everyone keeps telling me a lot happened but no one is giving me any details. Tell me the truth, Helena. What's been going on?'

'Some of the staff have gone,' Helena began. Her gaze refused to meet Rachel's eyes, and she busied herself with unimportant chores. 'We're all having to pitch in where necessary. I've been working as a maid for the past week because you were away and weren't here for me to serve.'

'Some of the staff have gone?' Rachel repeated. 'Do you mean they've left?'

'They've been sold,' Helena said reluctantly. Fixing Rachel with a meaningful glare she said, 'Pearl modified them and then convinced the master to sell them.' She studied the floor as she said, 'He did as she asked.'

'How many?'

'About half the staff. Maybe more.'

Rachel couldn't hide her fury. 'The sly little bitch. She'll sell all the master's stock before she's done.'

'You don't much care for Mistress Pearl, do you?' Helena observed.

Rachel sneered. 'I can understand why she wants us all to call her by that title. It must seem a lot more flattering than being known as the master's whore.'

Testing a sympathetic smile, looking as though she didn't like Rachel's dissidence but was unwilling to argue against it, Helena sat down beside Rachel on the bed. 'Is it because she embarrassed you in her studio? Is that why you don't like her?'

'I despised her before then,' Rachel sniffed indignantly. 'And she didn't embarrass me: she humiliated me.'

Helena said nothing.

Lost in her own furious thoughts, Rachel said, 'Not that I'm complaining about the humiliation she made me suffer. In a way I'm glad she did that. I'm glad she made me feel so inferior.'

Helena looked confused. 'You're glad? Really?'

'It's hardened my resolve,' Rachel explained. 'It's made me more determined to do whatever I must to get rid of her.'

'Get rid of her?' Helena gasped. 'How do you think you'll be able to do that?'

Rachel's tight smile gave away nothing. 'I'm reading the tarocco for the master tonight. I think an opportunity might present itself soon enough.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

'Dammit, bitch!' Rachel gasped. 'Stop asking stupid questions and do like I fucking told you! There isn't much time.' A bolt of lightning speared the sky outside the antechamber and she was briefly captured in the blue-white brilliance of its aftermath. The moment left her with a sensation of deja vu but Rachel didn't allow herself to be distracted by the feeling as she glared at the servant. 'I've given you an instruction,' she growled. 'Don't make me repeat myself.'

'I'm meant to be preparing you for the reading,' Helena wailed plaintively.

'I'm prepared,' Rachel countered. She was already dressed in her ermine robe and clutching the cumbersome deck of cards. Helena had bathed her in sweet-scented oils two hours earlier and there was nothing to do except wait for the master's summons to the chapel. Considering his guests had only just arrived, and they were still enjoying the pleasantries of an early supper, Rachel thought it would be a while before she was called to give her reading. 'There's only one more thing I need before I work on the fucking tarocco, and that's for you to discreetly introduce yourself to Master Bernard.'

Helena moaned softly and shook her head.

Speaking as though her servant hadn't made a refusal, Rachel continued. 'Explain that you're my servant...'

'No,' Helena whispered.

'...ask him if there's anything you can do for him...'

'No.'

'...and then mention that you'll be seeing me before the reading.'

'I can't,' Helena sobbed. 'Master Vince would crucify me. And Mistress Pearl would...'

Rachel scowled menacingly and took a step toward her. The chain, suspended from her breasts, swayed like a pendulum. The thick links clattered together like the warning from a rattlesnake. 'Do you think either of those two could hurt you worse than I can? Do you think either of them will have the long memory that I've got when it comes to continually, cruelly punishing you?' She smiled wickedly and said, 'Your pussy lips are hyper-sensitive now, aren't they? The pleasure can be unbearable, but how do you think the pain will feel? Should we find out?'

Helena cowered away from her. Her eyes were glassy with nearing tears but she finally looked to have overcome her reluctance to obey. 'I'll do it then,' she snapped bitterly. 'But I'm not happy about it.'

Rachel watched her flounce out of the antechamber, wondering why the servant thought she might care about her happiness. The concept seemed so absurd it was almost enough to make her laugh out loud. Putting the distraction aside, knowing the time for the master's reading was inching closer, she walked over to the battered dresser at the side of the room and tried to clear her thoughts.

Too many times Master Vince had told her that the tarocco could only be interpreted when her mind was free from every earthly distraction. He had proved this point repeatedly by making her read the cards when she was in such a frenzy her body was unable to differentiate between pleasure and pain. Rachel knew it would have been easier to recreate the necessary suffering if she hadn't sent Helena on her errand but it was important that she make some attempt to communicate with Master Bernard and she also thought her unofficial reading was probably best done while she was alone.

She studied her reflection in the mirror, not forgetting the enormity of what she was doing. Her bare breasts trembled with an extension of her nervousness and the tremors worked their way through to the perpetually stiff tips of her nipples. Musically, the links of her chain danced together.

Master Vince expressly forbade her from reading the tarocco unless he was present. It was a rule she tried to adhere to but, knowing the tools for divination were within her hands, Rachel simply couldn't ignore the opportunity to find out if her future still looked bleak.

Winding her fist around the twin chains that dangled from her breasts, she bent over the table, not allowing the restraints to pull taut and gritting her teeth, tried to brush all minutiae from her mind.

It was a difficult task. She found it almost impossible not to fret over the fear of discovery, the worry of what the cards might reveal, and the wrongness of having to tell another lie to Master Vince. But she knew she wouldn't be able to read the cards if she was thinking about any of those potential problems.

'May the tarocco show my destiny,' Rachel whispered.

She was on the verge of tugging the chain - ready to clear her mind with the distraction of the blistering anguish that could always be wrung from her piercings - when she realised she wasn't properly prepared. Cursing furiously, knowing that she would need more stimulation before she began, she slammed the full deck against the dresser. The antechamber was pitifully unaccessorised and under-furnished and for a brief moment Rachel fretted that there wouldn't be anything she could use to help her create the right mood.

Her anxiety abated when she caught sight of a votive candle. About eighteen inches tall, and at least four inches in diameter, it sat in front of the dresser's mirror with dribbles of spent wax sticking to its thick length. Its orange flame flickered lethargically in the antechamber's draughts and, aside from the sconces on the wall and the occasional burst of lightning, it provided the room's only light. Wary that it might be too long, and sure it was too thick, she realised there was no other choice available to her and quickly blew out the flame. Whether it was too large or not, she knew what had to be done and saw there would be no advantage in shying away from the inevitable.

She believed the mood might have been easier to recreate if she could have allowed her memories to build her arousal. The entire day had been a frantic rush from one extreme of pleasure to another and Rachel knew that dwelling on any of those occasions would have heightened her excitement. From leaving Master Bernard's albergo, through to tasting Helena's engorged labia, Rachel had bounced from one satisfying experience to another and recalling each was enough to send delicious tingles sparkling through her loins. Even Pearl's domination, when the cruel bitch had made Rachel go down on her knees and lick the woman's pussy, inspired a shameful thrill of excitement. But Rachel refused to let herself think about that disquieting episode.

And she realised that a rush of simple arousal wasn't all that she needed to read the cards. In order to make an accurate divination she needed to be in a state of mind where pleasure and pain had melded and her prophecies weren't influenced by opinions, grudges or gratitude.

Reaching clumsily behind herself, bending forward to make the chore easier, Rachel gently eased the base of the candle against her anus. Its girth was infuriatingly thick, and Rachel felt sure it would prove too large for her sphincter, but she didn't dare surrender to the futility of that thought. Closing her eyes, spreading her legs a little wider and trying to relax, she pushed more firmly. The tight ring of muscle fought hard to resist the pressure and she knew it was going to be a struggle to insert the unlubricated candle into her rear. Admittedly, when Helena had been massaging the sweet-scented oils into her body she had teased some against both of Rachel's holes. But that light film of moisture was barely enough to facilitate the massive shaft of wax that now struggled to slide inside her anus.

Twisting the length from side to side, willing her body to relent and accept the penetration, she realised her thoughts had finally moved away from all the day's events and pleasures. She was no longer thinking about the orgasmic thrill that had come when Master Bernard said he wanted her; she wasn't remembering the pleasure she had found in licking and tasting Helena's freshly modified pussy; and she was no longer dwelling on the dark joy that had come from surrendering to Pearl's domination. Her thoughts were concentrated solely on the task of forcing the candle into her rectum and she knew she was going to achieve the penetration. More than that, she felt sure she would reach the state of mind necessary to properly use the cards for divination.

She felt movement between her fingers, briefly hoped that the candle had finally begun to slip inside, then realised her palms had grown sweaty and she was simply losing her grip on the smooth length of wax. Spitting a string of furious expletives she wiped her hand on the lapels of the ermine robe and tried again with more determination.