Teena: A House of Ill Repute (11 page)

I also spent some hours with the shoemaker, who was more than happy to accommodate some of my more extreme ideas and even came up with a few modifications and improvements of his own. A very creative and perceptive man was Milton Faraday, and a craftsman who took the most impressive pride in the finished quality of his work.

'The ladies who wear these,' he said, presenting me with one pair of very long and particularly high-heeled boots, 'must be very special indeed. I would very much like to meet them,' he added with a sly smile.

'Oh, you shall,' I promised him, 'and I just know they will be especially delighted to thank the man whose work they are so certain to enjoy.' That particular penny was anything but slow in the dropping, and resulted in an immediate ten percent discount not only on the boots in question, but on everything else I proceeded to commission.

I had arranged with Erik for him not to return to Arundel for at least three weeks, for I did not want to attract undue attention by billeting two or three additional 'ladies' at the inn, and he could not have timed it better. Twenty-three days into the project, our builder had succeeded in getting the kitchen serviceable, the first sitting room at least draught proof, and two of the bedrooms up to a stage where they needed only rugs and furniture. He was also able to direct me to an auction at a farm about ten miles away where the grand total of six pounds purchased four beds, three chests of drawers, an assortment of curtains and a selection of floor coverings, all of which the sales agent agreed to have delivered the following day for an additional three shillings. As I said, the timing couldn't have been better.

The same afternoon my purchases were installed, our carriage trundled into the High Street with Erik perched on top, and when it finally came to a halt, it disgorged three rather unusual lady passengers. I had given Erik explicit instructions, which he had carried out meticulously, and so the girls did not immediately appear to be what they were. However, a good bath and decent clothing will only cover so many sins, so I thought it best to move them on to the house without further delay.

As they filed into the one usable sitting room, I had to admit Erik had done well, for they were indeed young and, in their new finery, more than passably pretty. They told me their names in turn and then I selected aliases for each of them.

'Best no one knows who you really are,' I explained, and they all nodded knowingly. Even at their tender ages, and with their careers still in the equivalent of the nursery stage, they were experienced enough to know a good idea when they heard it, and so Milly, Molly and Mandy came into being.

Milly was the eldest, though she was only just twenty-one, a tall brunette with a narrow waist and slender neck. She had large green eyes and a ready smile and in many ways reminded me of my real self, except that even I wouldn't have used some of her language under the severest provocation. I resolved to work on that part of her and without wasting too much time, either.

Molly and Mandy were actually cousins, as it turned out, both nineteen and with only three or four weeks between them. Neither was entirely sure of her actual birth date, but that didn't seem to worry them so I decided it shouldn't worry me. One was blonde and the other a sort of reddish-brunette. Both were pretty enough, although Mandy had one slightly chipped tooth, and both were bright and alert, causing me to wonder what a decent educational system might have made of them. I suspected that if my plan eventually worked and I was able to send them on their way with a decent nest egg, then the world outside might have to look to itself.

And speaking of nest eggs, Erik had excelled himself with the necklace. Four hundred pounds he gave me, and well pleased he was, too.

'Five different places tried I,' he explained proudly. 'One man fifty pounds did he offer, but fooled was I not. The eyes were giving it away, for greedy they were and too anxious he was to go up to seventy when first said I not. Knew I then that more was it worth.'

'You've done really well, Erik,' I said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

He blushed, and then beamed like a child.

I found it all but impossible to accept that this was the same man who, only a few weeks earlier, had been... but then you already know about that, so I won't go into it again. Suffice it to say that Erik really did appear to be bent on atonement, and I decided there and then he was due at least some sort of special reward I could also use to introduce my little bed companion to a few joys of which she was as yet totally ignorant.

'Right,' I said, looking around at my five companions, 'in the morning we start cleaning and organising the usable rooms, and over the next week we should be able to get the rest of the house in order. After that, once I figure out the best way to get the word out in the right places, we start getting down to business.'

A moment later I found myself back in the crypt again, surrounded by flickering lamplight and a gathering crowd of fetishists who would have frightened the very life out of their Victorian ancestors.

4.

I suffered the distinct impression I had been out of my own body for more than a few seconds, perhaps not all that long in relative terms, but definitely my absence had to be measured in minutes, for the crypt was beginning to fill with figures. There had to be at least fifty people present now, not including the alcove statues, whose claim to humanity I had not yet been able to establish.

That mystery was not long in being resolved, for as I watched I saw the lanterns were now giving at least a semblance of illumination to the main nave area. They were being carried on curious curved frames strapped to the backs of a number of rubber-clad forms, that rose up in sort of large shepherd's crook shapes so the lamps hung about twelve inches above their heads as they moved about, with their arms strapped behind them in a peculiar single-sleeve arrangement.

A group of less hampered rubber figures was busily attaching the harnesses and frames, moving along one side of the wall and pulling forward each of the statue-like alcove figures in turn to adapt them as lamp holders. The green-tinted filters in front of my eyes gave the whole scene an even more surreal aura than it already possessed, making the black silhouettes milling about the place look like predatory alien insects. I glanced up towards the stage area. The figure was still strapped to the slow turning wheel and the red and blue lighting behind it was a reassuring contrast to what was happening nearer to me, which was beginning to feel more like a dream with every passing minute.

I felt a hand caressing my buttocks and instinctively tried to turn my head, but the stiff collar about my neck meant I had to more or less swivel my entire body from the hips up. I saw Carmen's skeletal mask, the white-rimmed lips drawn back into a permanent grimace, her eyes shining dully behind the slotted leather above.

'I have plans for you two dollies this evening,' she hissed, her mouth close to my ear, 'but first I have to win the rights to you. I love your mistress dearly, but she is so naive at times, I think I need to take a hand in the next stage of her education. When I win our little wager, I'll have not two, but
three
love dollies for the night and maybe for most of tomorrow and tomorrow night as well.'

My eyes widened upon hearing this. I knew Carmen had been impressed with Andrea and myself at the club, for we had excelled ourselves - if that is the right term for our wanton show of abandonment - but now it seemed she wanted to take things further. I looked around for Anne-Marie, but could see no sign of her anywhere.

As if sensing what I was thinking, Carmen spoke again. 'She's gone to get properly dressed,' she said. 'Soon we shall have a little contest, Anne-Marie and I, and the winner will take all. I have two slaves of my own I have staked against you, but Anne-Marie and I are also part of the wager. The loser will join you dollies as part of tonight's entertainment for the guests. I'll not spoil things by telling you more yet, but you can be sure I have no intention of losing, so it should be great fun.'

She laughed and patted my backside before turning away and moving off between other figures, not at all concerned at leaving me alone, but then I realised she had no reason to worry. I was gagged, bound, and unlikely to risk the stairs unaided, even if whoever guarded the inner door would let me pass, which I doubted. Besides, I was hardly going to leave without Anne-Marie, and neither could I warn my mistress that she was almost certainly being set up. I wondered just how Carmen was intending to fix the coming contest, but I had to wait at least another hour to find out, an hour during which, separated not only from Anne-Marie, but now from Andrea as well, I was forced to wander aimlessly amidst the growing throng, a target for every prying, probing hand. I was groped, spanked and even kissed upon my inanimate lips by an assortment of the most bizarrely clad and curious people anyone could ever want to encounter in one place.

As at the club, the numbers were divided fairly clearly between what Anne-Marie had explained to me were 'tops' and 'bottoms', that is, dominants and submissives, or masters and mistresses and their slaves. Almost all were clad in either leather or rubber, the 'tops' mostly, though not exclusively, in the former, the 'bottoms', or slaves, mostly in the latter, although there were a few submissives whose outfits seemed to consist merely of leather harnesses that were both decorative and restrictive at the same time.

Many of the slaves were obviously with their masters and mistresses, either leashed or sometimes just connected to them by means of chains attached to belts or wrists, but others, like myself, were left to roam on their own, at the mercy of anyone who wanted to exploit their helplessness, though I noticed no one took any really undue advantage of me, merely contenting themselves with patting and pinching and the odd playful spank.

My doll face, however, seemed to draw more attention than most. Of course, like the majority of the other slaves here, my identity was hidden behind it, but unlike the others, my face did have features, no matter how inanimate. I was a sort of 'halfway' creature, and apparently quite a novelty, for there were several comments made, including one or two to the effect that they would have to find out where they could purchase similar masks for their own slaves.

Behind my mask I sucked and chewed the gag in frustrated silence. I wanted to find some way of warning Anne-Marie, but of course there was none, and neither would there be until well after it was too late. I groaned inwardly and tried to ease my way into the shadows between two of the pillars, backing up against the stonework in an effort to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Not that it would make any difference in the long run, I knew, and all I could do was continue waiting until the inevitable happened. I just hoped Carmen wouldn't carry out her threat to keep us all here until after the following night, for although I could still find my enforced bondage arousing, to endure it for perhaps another day-and-a-half was not a prospect I relished.

If conditions in the original kennel building had been harsh, those in which Maudie now found herself were positively grim. The rough cell in which she was incarcerated was barely six feet by six feet, and hidden away beneath the remains of an old watchtower the locals still referred to as Scartley Manor, although there were none now still alive who could remember a time when there had been a house on the small knoll on which it stood, nor even any who could recall when the tower itself had been more than the rubble-strewn ruin it now was.

Maudie herself had previously only seen the dark outline from the top of Tanley Hill, a good two miles away, across the marshland that was the result of a major shift in the courses of two local rivers, a phenomena legend had it was a warning from God to Henry VIII, whose soldiers, under Sir Hector Scartley, sacked several monasteries in the area some three centuries earlier. As a result, the Manor had been left on a small islet, cut off from the rest of the country by treacherous bogs and whirlpools and reachable only by boat. Over the ensuing century, the house had been left to fall into disrepair and eventually dismantled for salvage, leaving only the tower, which had steadily crumbled under the onslaughts of successive seasons.

It had therefore come as a surprise to Maudie that there was actually a way of reaching the tower by land, although how Megan was able to negotiate the winding pathway was beyond her, for there were no obvious signs among the reeds and swamp grass clusters, and several times they were actually wading through several inches of muddy water even though the ground beneath them remained firm enough.

'They'll not find you here, my little bitch,' Megan assured her, as she drew aside the trailing branches to reveal the dark entrance to what Maudie saw was a flight of stairs leading down into the earth. 'There are only three people who know the way out here and Master Hacklebury ain't one of them.'

The keeper, Burrows, however, obviously was, and it was he who visited Maudie daily in her subterranean cell, removing her mask and gag so she could eat and drink, and then replacing them and leading her above ground for a brief exercise walk around the outside of the tower. But always only when it was dark, so there was no danger of their presence being detected by anyone on the hills stretching into the distance on both sides of the marsh.

'Please, master,' she begged on her second night of captivity, 'can you not take pity on me?' She nodded towards the dog's head mask he had set aside on a large piece of stone rubble that had somehow found its way below ground and now stood against one wall of the cell. 'Must I endure that beastly thing when you are not here? Even if I cried out, there would be none to hear me, and I cannot escape from this dreadful place, for the door seems as stout as the day it was first made.'