Judgment (13 page)

I looked up at the dais just as Master Deaton leaned toward Tane to ask, "What is your fascination with that one? I have never seen you so affixed."

They did not bother lowering their voices, and we sat so close that everyone at our table heard them clearly. I dropped my eyes to my plate and stared at it, feeling a slow, burning humiliation suffuse my entire body.

"I happen to know you are equally affixed to a certain Midpoint named Desire," the Mountain Lord countered. "What is your fascination there?"

"Point taken." Deaton glanced down at me and one corner of his mouth turned upwards. "Do you share?"

"With you? Absolutely. I didn't know you had a taste for redheads."

"She's held your interest this long. There must be something there worth investigating."

As if the attention of one master wasn't bad enough ... I covered my face with my hands and wished the earth would swallow me whole.

Being Primaries, we were served our food last. It was hardly gourmet, but I do believe I ate better as a slave than I ever did free. Baked chicken, mashed potatoes for Primaries (baked with butter for Midpoints and Elites) and green beans, and a fresh salad with dressing.

Despite the fact that I could barely sit down, I ate every bite and then spent the remainder of the meal hour fingering 114

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my knife and fork, knowing that I hadn't a prayer of smuggling either from the table. In all likelihood, I would only be disciplined that much more harshly for the trying. So I lay both utensils on my plate and gave up on that idea all together.

Before the end of the meal, the dreaded Demerit list was posted at the back of the dining hall. It was put up where we could all see it as we filed out of the room, as if those of us with Demerits needed a list to remind us. But for those not faced with eminent discipline, there was much pushing and shoving as the Lessers jostled one another to see who was due the cane tonight. For them it was a gleeful event. For me, it was hard to imagine anyone being here for so long that they began to look forward to the suffering of others.

I hung back until nearly everyone had left before making my way to the list. There were six names on it. Mine was the second to last.

"It will be a royal caning, I believe," a soft voice spoke into my ear.

I turned my head to see Tane standing as silent as an apparition at my shoulder. He smiled, his eyes on the list, and bent slowly to my ear. I closed my eyes, shivering as the warmth of his mouth enclosed the sensitive lobe in a kiss of stark intimacy. "I have invited Master Deaton to join us tomorrow. Be prepared to please two masters then, instead of one."

"Please don't," I whispered.

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His hands briefly cupped my shoulders. "What a tender morsel you are. I should have named you weeks ago, it's so obvious. You are Mischief."

Then he was gone, back down the hall to his quarters and the Lessers that lingered around the list now stood staring at me with something akin to horror and pity. I had attracted the attention of a master. And not just any master, the Mountain Lord himself. I saw no end to the torment I would endure at his hands.

After dinner we had two hours, which that we could spend in the pursuit of anything we desired. It was during the latter half of this that the Black Master would collect together those of us from the list for punishment. But between dinner and then, we had sixty minutes that felt like a lifetime in which to dread it.

Most Lessers congregated in a huge room filled with bookshelves and chairs, an immense underground library of sorts. Some played card and board games, some read or talked. Some signed up for permission to learn other skills—

variety in our days being a luxury. I tried to hang myself in one of the empty barrack rooms.

My chosen implements of self-destruction were a bedsheet about the neck and the top stairway banister. But instead of breaking my neck and leaving me nicely dead, my thick leather collar—as well as my ineptitude with knots—botched the job. I was left to dangle, choking slowly, until a Midpoint discovered me and ran blabbing to a nearby master.

I was cut down and, needless to say, went to my Demerit Caning with a heavy heart, a bruised and sore throat, and 116

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red, blood shot eyes. To add insult to injury, I also had a second Demerit added to the front of my uniform. This one read, 'AMP': Abuse of a Master's Property.

Among the youngest of Judgment's masters, virile and spry and usually in a good humor, Master Wilhite had handsome features with short curly black hair and square shoulders on a thick body. He neither smiled nor frowned as he watched us file into the Demerit Room and line up, one behind the other, along the wall.

In attendance to him was Sub-Master McPherson, a Scotsman with shocks of red hair that stood out in bright contrast against the black of his form-fitting uniform. At the moment, he was in the process of selecting a number of canes from the wall rack. A man who normally liked to flirt with the Lessers, he was anything but smiling now as he whipped the canes through the air, testing their flexibility.

"Not that one," Master Wilhite directed, and gestured to a slightly thicker rod. "Let me have that one there."

McPherson drew down the one he indicated and brought it to Wilhite.

The Demerit Room wasn't particularly large. There were only two articles of furniture: the first being a roman-style pedestal upon which sat a huge black book that, when closed as it was now, measured two feet long, eighteen inches wide, and was at least four inches thick; the second was the Rack.

The Rack looked nothing like its namesake, but was rather an upside down 'L' shaped structure built of wood and black leather. Painfully simple in design, utterly inescapable when caught in its indifferent hold. It crowned the head of the 117

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cavernous chamber leaving plenty of room for the Black Master to dispense his correction from behind.

After handing the cane to Master Wilhite, McPherson retreated to the pedestal near the head of our penitent line of soon-to-be victims. He opened the book to a page in the middle, marked with a slender black ribbon, and took out a fountain pen. As Wilhite called out our names and demerits, and sentenced us to the number of our count, McPherson dutifully recorded us into that book.

"Joy."

A tall, black woman at the front of the line, lifted her chin a little. From the way she shivered as she looked at the Rack, I knew she'd been here before.

"Failure to Posture," Wilhite said. "I'll give her six. The same for Treasure. Argumentative. I'll do them first. It's been a while since I've had you under my cane, Treaz. This will be a pleasure."

The petite blonde, second in line, said soft and tremblingly,

"Yes, sir."

"Mimic. Back Talking. This is twice in as many months.

Twelve should ensure there is no third time."

Poor Mimic, she wavered faintly on her feet. She bit her lip, something she was probably wishing she'd done earlier before earning her demerit.

For Laggardly Behavior during exercise in the Crater, Tawny received a count of three, the smallest given. And for Ebony, the Outright Defiance of a Master's Command earned her eighteen. Ebony was the female right beside me. A beautiful woman, with skin the color of coffee and cream, her 118

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bottom as round as a bubble, she began to cry when Master Wilhite pronounced her sentence.

Then Master Wilhite looked at me, "Red?"

"Mischief," the Sub-Master interjected.

"What?"

McPherson raised his head from the Black Book and said,

"He's just named her. It's Mischief."

"How very apt." Lightly taping the cane against his leg, he came down the line to stand in front of me. "We haven't had a Runaway in years. I'd be inclined to give her two dozen for that alone, but that—" He tapped the cane against my second white Demerit button. "The Abuse of a Master's Property is a serious offense and should have gone to the Assembly Block."

He pressed the end of the cane under my chin and gently forced back my head so he could see the strangulation bruises where they already marred my throat.

"Maybe because she's so new," McPherson suggested.

"Maybe because he's got plans for her bottom that don't involve its being ruined first. It's vastly more interesting to pump a woman until she groans, than to have her already groaning and in so much pain she doesn't even notice your pounding. I'm in the mood for generosity. Twelve for running, but it will be a walloping eighteener for the AMP." Wilhite turned and headed for the Rack. "Let's get started, shall we?

Joy, my luscious dark-skinned beauty, bring that saucy bottom of yours over here. I mean to teach it a lesson."

Voluptuously formed, Joy meekly followed Master Wilhite.

That she had been through all this before was blatantly obvious when, without waiting for instructions, she stepped 119

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up to the Rack. She held his pro-offered hand for balance as she slipped her feet into the padded ankle-stocks that ran across the bottom. She held perfectly still while McPherson adjusted the height, raising the pommel until it nestled right up against her groin. Thus 'saddled,' they strapped her legs to the vertical part of the Rack, and Joy lay her torso down along the padded horizontal 'L' stretch.

McPherson lowered a bracing bar across the small of her back, pressing her hips flat to the Rack and subsequently thrusting her bottom well up for Wilhite's cane. Then taking hold of her wrists in each of his hands, he braced his foot on the ankle stocks along the bottom and pulled, hauling her fully forward.

Her graceful back curved, her taut round buttocks parted, Joy was well and truly stretched for whipping.

Master Wilhite tossed back her yellow bib of an Elite skirt and gave a sharp bark of laughter. "Dear me, how did this happen? Joy," he declared, "You haven't a mark on you! How long has it been since your last thrashing?"

Her legs, all I could see of her, quivered and, as she briefly struggled and failed to clench, her dusky bottom hole seemed to wink back at those of us apprehensively waiting our turns.

"Six weeks, sir."

While Master Wilhite folded his arms across his chest and covered his eyes with one hand, McPherson grinned and said,

"We'll have to rip her barrack's master for neglecting this sweet little thing."

Wilhite glared good-naturedly at Joy through parted fingers. He smiled dryly. "I am her barrack's master." While 120

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McPherson threw his head back and laughed, he said, "How embarrassing. I'll never live this down. Joy, dear?" He tapped her hip with the end of his cane. "How have you gone six weeks without so much as a bottom warming? And don't say you were good. I'll never believe it."

There was no way to answer such a question. Master Wilhite tapped her hip again with the cane before she hesitantly said, "I d-don't know?"

"Hm." He tapped her flanks yet again. "My fault I suppose.

Well, can't undo the past, can only go forward, and all that.

How about an order of the birch every night for six nights.

That ought to make up for it."

Shakily, Joy said, "Y-yes, sir."

"Lovely! Now that that's settled..." He turned and strolled a few steps behind her, cutting the cane sharply through the air in a single, vicious practice swing. The sound and sight of that cut made me jump. Master Wilhite noticed and he winked at me. "I'll get to you soon enough, my dear. Soon enough,"

he said, and turned his attention back to his victim. "You know the drill. Let's go."

In a trembling voice, Joy said, "This one wishes to atone for failing to posture before the Master. This one begs the Master, please punish her for her disrespect."

"Heave her on over, McPherson. If she can clench like that, you haven't got her tight enough."

Joy grunted as the Sub-Master pulled her another inch closer towards him. Wilhite took one lunging step forward, and the cane became a bright yellow blur as he sliced it through the air. The loud, meaty whup as it landed had every 121

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female in line jumping half out of her skin. On the Rack, Joy's entire body registered the shock of the blow. She gasped, but the truly frightening thing, was the long, dark line that grew up where the cane had struck, turning her brown skin plum-colored all along the instant ridge.

"One," McPherson said cheerfully.

Beside me, Ebony began to shake. Mimic was crying softly There was a long pause as Master Wilhite measured the cane against her flanks and stepped back. He struck again, thumping into wobbly flesh, driving her buttocks upwards and raising a second instant dark welt almost perfectly parallel to the first, a bare finger's breadth higher.

"Two."

Joy panted, tiny mewling sounds punctuating her exhales as her muscles up and down her back and legs rippled as she struggled to flex. McPherson adjusted his grip and pulled her taut again.

At three, Joy garbled a long-drawn out groan, "Uuu-aaaggh!"

The Rack creaked as she threw back her head, eyes squeezed tightly shut, her face twisted in a grimace of acute pain. Four fell, then five, and Joy shouted. She was now panting as hard as if she'd run a minute mile and a fine sheen of sweat covered her all over. A ladder of purpling welts climbed her bottom from the chubby base to the summit, where he was measuring the last stroke.

"One more," McPherson said, and pulled her tight to receive it.

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The last was the worst of all, driving Joy well up onto the Rack and leaving her backside lividly marked.

"Very well taken," Master Wilhite congratulated.

Joy made a gargled sobbing sound. As McPherson let her go, she jacked up off the Rack as far as the bracing bar would allow and grabbed at her bottom cheeks with both hands.