### HIT-0178 ###
Thorn
By F.E. Campbell


CHAPTER ONE - PRISONER OF WAR

The sounds of jungle warfare had become distant as Thorn struggled back to 
consciousness. Whatever had hit the truck had left it shattered and tilted enough its seat of 
comfort. But there was more than that. In striving for recollection, the girl remembered rough 
hands and rough voices and something being done to her before the darkness.

Miss Thorn Thurston blinked and shifted against discomfort to revive a memory of strong, 
hard fingers and the bit of cord. Someone had threaded her right arm through the steering 
wheel, crossed her wrists behind her back and bound them tight. Then he had gone away to 
leave her to reconstruct the aftermath of battle and to free herself as best she could. 
Awareness struck like a blow and the quaintly bound girl shifted her arm in disbelief at being 
thus held. In panic she twisted against the binding on her wrist only to chaff her skin. All of her
was hurting, there was no comfort to be had. The door had been blasted from its hinges and 
lay upon the ground. Her feet were braced against the side of the seat and she lowered one in
tentative exploration. But, even though freedom beckoned, she was strangely captive, denied 
any worthwhile movement. Under a fearful compulsion Thorn Thurston struggled and twisted 
but without avail. Whoever had bound her had done it cleverly and well. Panting, she leaned 
against the steering wheel and stretched her legs, one after the other, against cramps for 
inaction. She tried for a degree of modesty with only small success.

The girl in the cab of the shattered truck savagely condemned herself. “Serves you 
damned well right, Thorn Thurston,” she muttered. “If the bunch back home could see you 
now … ! A journalistic scoop to make you famous … ! I’ll be lucky if I don’t get anything worse 
than being raped.” It was easy to suppose that while she was dazed and bewildered from the 
blast some soldier had bound her thus with intend return and collect his spoils of war. After 
he’d used her, he’d turn her loose to find her own way. It was the best she could hope for. 
Thorn shuttered at more graphic imaginings.

The answer to everything was to free herself. Thorn had never in her life been bound and it
seemed inconceivable she should be forced to stay in this uncomfortable contortion by the 
twisting of a bit of rope around her wrists. Girls in the movies always wiggled free, surely she 
could do no less! With grim determination she went to work. At the end twenty minutes she 
knew there was no way she could slip her bonds, she would be still there when some oaf 
returned to claim his live booty. A tear escaped her eye and in its falling drew attention to a 
new disaster. A bare, white breast peeped coyly at its owner from a broken bra and a torn 
dress to drive Thorn to further convulsions and strivings to get it covered before someone 
came. The pretty sphere with its pink nipple defied her efforts as if it desired a view of the 
devastation around the truck. Pink-cheeked and panting, its owner slumped awkwardly to 
wait.

The two men slipped silently in heavy army boots out of the jungle into view. Their battle 
dress was the one the rebels used to give credence to their Cause, both carried their heavy 
weapons carelessly as if they were a part of their being. They advanced purposefully to stand 
and admire the captive of the wheel.

“Bloody good thing I had that bit of rope,” one said with satisfaction. “She’d be long gone 
by now if she weren’t tied. We can do ourselves a bit of all right with this one. What’s you say, 
McCaffey?”

“You’re damned right, McTeer. Aiming to sell her or screw her?”

“Hell, why not both! What’s your name, lass?”

“I’m Thorn Thurston. Please let me loose.”

“Damned fool name for a gal. That’s a pretty tit you’re showing.”

The owner of the nipple was showing one vast blush. “If you’ll untie me, I’ll make myself 
respectable,” she pleaded. “Please, this is hurting.”

“Oh aye. Naye doot ye’re right, lassie, bit o’ pain is good for a girl. Gentles ‘em down you 
might say.”

“So, okay, I’m gentled down. Now untie me. I promise I won’t run.”

“My, my, bit haughty, ain’t ya, all things considered.” He turned to his companion. “This 
one’s gona need her ass whipped a few times.”

“I don’t need my ass whipped. All I need is to be treated like a human being - or is that 
asking too much.” Thorn was sure she was in deep trouble but kept her silence as McCaffey 
reached up to untie her hands. Freed, her fingers flew to her truant breast but her arms were 
roughly grabbed and her wrists were once again tied. McCaffey turned her around to flip the 
torn fabric with a finger and inquire, “This what’s bothering ya, lass?” His laugh was raucous. 
“That ain’t no problem. See, I just tears away that bit that’s flapping loose and there you are, 
all neat and tidy.”

“You’ve uncovered me more. Oh, please don’t be so mean.”

“It’s you that’s mean, gal, trying up cover up the first white tit me and McTeer’s seen in a 
long while. Shame on you!”

Thorn’s heart was thudding, her breathing irregular as she stood before the lewd Scots’ 
eyes. She could have shed tears over the fresh binding of her hands behind her back. She had 
never felt more helpless, more uncertain of her fate. She flinched at the next question.

“You got any money, lass? I’m talking about ransom.”

“No, I’m terribly sorry … “

“Aye, and so ye should be, lass. Means we’ll have to sell ya up the coast a ways. Ye’ll fetch a
good price.”

“Why don’t we put her in the cage with the bitch that’s waiting to be ransomed now,” 
McCaffey said thoughtfully. “Leave the two of them behind bars for a while. And maybe that 
Lemaire dame can pull a string or two and get her old man to buy this one back. Sort of hate 
to see her screwed the rest of her life in a whore house.

He could have been teasing, his tone was jocular enough, but these were men who daily 
made a joke of death and the fate of a girl who was only the prize in a jungle skirmish would 
mean little to them. Whatever they did with her, they would make a joke out of it. It was 
hateful to stand there with tied wrists and helpless arms, and to know these two renegades 
could do as they wished with her. Their eyed fed hungrily upon the breast she could not cover.

“Oh aye, put her in the cage by all means,” McTeer agreed casually. “You and me get 
enough tail out of the coffee colored ones, and damn me if I don’t think their the best.”

“Are you talking about Giselle Lamaire,” Thorn ventured timidly. “News releases say she’s 
close to being ransomed.”

“You best pray you get ransomed right along with her,” McTeer suggested sagely.

“They’ll be more than us you’ll spread your legs for if you don’t.”

“You’ve made your point. Could we change the subject, please.” Thorn found courage to 
make her voice as icy as possible.

“Well, look who’s talking!” McCaffey laughed. “We should have whipped that little ass of 
yours right quick before you got uppity. What you say, McTeer.”

It was done in moments. The captive girl refused to struggle or run as her hands were 
untied and brought from back to front. When they were again firmly tied, she was hoisted 
high to put her joined arms over a convenient branch and then allowed to hang from her 
wrists, her feet bare inches from the ground. Thorn struggled now at the indignity and the 
thought of what was to come. Swinging just inches from the ground, eyes darting fearfully 
from left to right. When rough, gleeful hands freed her belt to lower her jeans, and then to rip 
away her panties, she moaned in partial surrender.

“Okay, okay, so I spoke out of turn. I’m sorry. But, look, you can’t possibly whip me. I’m not
a child, I’m a grown woman.”

“And very nice stuff, too, if I may say so,” McTeer agreed. “That’s a lovely little ass.”

She watched them cut the short branches with which her bare flesh would be beaten. The 
hot tropical air felt almost cool upon the freshly bared parts of her anatomy no man was ever 
suppose to see. She knew words were useless but they were an involuntary remnant of the 
sanity she felt behind.

“Please don’t whip me. I beg of you, don’t do it. I’m sorry if I sounded flip. I’ll try and do 
better, honest I will. I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

“Ye’re coming along fine, ye are, lassie. And we ain’t even started yet. Ye’ll be a proper 
good little girl ya will when we get your rump properly warmed up. Come now, tell me what 
you think of this one.”

There had been no warning save the swish through hot air. For Thorn the pain was 
indescribable and beyond belief. The green, unpeeled branch had cut her squarely before 
wrapping its tip around her hip. Despite determination she emitted a shrill sound of horror 
and lifted herself by bound wrists to kick and sway in the pain. Catching her breath, she 
managed to say, “It’s cruel, it’s wickedly cruel. I can’t stand it, I simply can’t.”

The second swish cut her as she was still formulating words and caught her unaware, still 
disbelieving in such agony. It seemed to the suspended maiden that the bare portion of her 
was engulfed in flame. She wiggled and contorted from her bound wrists as though actually 
believing she could evade the limber branch. Before number three left its mark upon her flesh,
she managed only, “Stop it, stop it! You must … !”

“How ‘bout a couple up between your legs, lass?” McTeer said.

“No, oh no! Not there … You mustn’t … !”

The two men slashed at the suspended nudity as they pleased, choosing their moving 
target and homing in upon the innocent flesh with terrible impact and pain such as their 
victim had never before experienced. By the fifth Thorn was promising lavishly both of 
obedience and humility. She would hate herself later for this betrayal of her flesh but was 
unable to endure this baring of her femaleness and the steady swish of the branch. He cries 
and pleadings were piteous but evoked no more than measured judgment from those who 
seared her skin.

“The local gals don’t make near this much fuss.”

“Remember that one that never let out a peep until after the first twenty?”

“We’ll get this pretty little ass hardened up within a week or two, being sadly neglected as 
it were.”

They lifted her from the branch after number ten, then rubbed her whipped flesh, not in 
tenderness but to revive the agony. Thorn whimpered under the course hands then, under an 
uncontrollable impulse, and before her wrists were once more bound behind her back, leaped 
away and down the dirty road to what she hoped was freedom. Strangely, none pursued. She 
heard Scottish laughter before a fresh sharp pain in her left buttock impinged upon her 
consciousness. The fleeing girl redoubled her efforts and felt herself soaring up and up as in a 
dream. After that there was nothing.

For the second time that day, Thorn struggled back into the awareness of an unkind world.
But she was laying upon something comfortingly soft and as her eyes focused they beheld a 
pair of pert bare breasts and two pink nipples, and heard a quaintly French voice.

“Ma pauvre petite, you are coming back to me from far away. It is not nice, these men shot
girls with dart guns, to make us sleep. Those horrible men - ugh!”

Beyond the prettiness of a girl’s concerned face Thorn beheld bars. She was surrounded by
bars which made the curved oval of a stoutly constructed cage set within a huge stone 
chamber, one side of which was open to daylight. Sleepily Thorn heard herself say, “I’ll bet 
you’re Giselle Lamaire.”

“And you are Thorn Thruston. It is so good to have with me in this cage a girl.” The voice 
was delightfully soft and feminine. “It has been of a great loneliness to watch through the bars
and wait and wait.”

Eager bare arms helped Thorn sit erect. It was not until them she realized Giselle Lamaire 
was entirely naked. Before she could comment on beauty thus bared, Thorn looked down to 
discover herself equally without covering of any kind. Giselle tinkled silver laughter. “They 
think to hurry much the ransom by taking away our clothes and putting us in this cage for all 
to see. They think to make us bare is to make us meek and obedient. Alas, it is true. I have 
been a most good girl since being locked within these bars. I shout no insults.”

Giselle was delightful. In a rush of tenderness at so charming a companion in distress, the 
newer captive sought to clasp Giselle in warm embrace but instead found herself gazing 
stupidly at joined hands while the French gal once more laughed softly. “They keep our hands 
like this so we do not slap their silly face,” Giselle explained. “I slap several faces very hard 
before I get put in this cage and my hands fixed so I slap no more.” She held up her hands for 
Thorn to view. “Are they not of a great cleverness the way they do this to our wrists?”

Thorn raised her hands beside those of her companion. They were indeed fastened with a 
great cleverness. A single heavy leather thong circled both wrists and was circled and cinched 
between with a heavy wire clamp.

“Think not of escape, cherie,” the French girl cautioned sadly. “My hands have been bound
for many, many days. I have tugged and twisted and chewed but the leather is still tight upon 
them. It is best forgotten.”

The two captives of the cage hugged and found comfort in each other’s hot, young flesh. 
For Thorn this strange fumbling intimacy was new and delightful, mingling their scents until 
Giselle cautioned, “You smell of much beauty, cherie. We can make the love if you wish but if 
we are seen, they make most cruelly the whip across our backs. Let us wait for night.”

The only furnishing within the cage were large, soft, flat cushions with which a girl could 
not cloth herself. When the ardor of the two girl’s discovery of each other had run its course, 
they sat back to face each other in eager conversation.

“We know what they intend with you, Giselle, but what will they do with me?” Thorn voiced
her fear.

“They have told me I must ask Papa to ransom you, too, when he ransoms me, cherie, and 
this I will do when they bring the phone for me to talk. Please not to worry.”

Thorn again held up fastened hands to exclaim, “Not to worry! Our hands are tied, we are 
stripped naked, we are locked in a cage - why wouldn’t a girl worry! I don’t know how you stay
so cheerful.”

“I must not tell my Papa of this but I have found this imprisonment of the most diverting. 
It is of such games as we play as children. I do not mind my hands tied nor do I find shame in 
being bare. Soon I will go home but while this lasts it is of an amusement most great. Because 
I am worth much money I have not been beaten.”

“Well, I have,” Thorn retorted resentfully. “Look, those two bastards who captured me did 
this and promised to do it again. Can they?”

“I think not. They are of small account, those two men. But, cherie, they have made of your
bottom the most beautiful, such an exquisite derriere I have never seen!”

“They said I wasn’t polite and needed a lesson.”

“Pouf, forget these men. They are of an insignificance. Is it of much hurting?”

“I wouldn’t sit on it.” They both laughed but Giselle quickly turned serious.

“Tell me, you wonderful creature, did not being thus whipped upon the softness of those 
curves cause you much joy in here.” Giselle patted her sex coyly peeping out beneath her 
pubic hair. “Just seeing what you now have shown has made me of the most horny.”

“Well, if you can get me out of this cage and back to civilization, I’ll gladly let you whip my 
bottom any time,” Thorn said thoughtlessly. “I’m glad you got a kick out of it, can’t say as I 
did.”

Giselle’s fingertips were suddenly upon Thorn’s breasts, teasing the nipples, evoking heat 
to a degree Thorn was not prepared to admit. But she did not pull away, the two girl remained
close with Giselle’s eyes suddenly wide, intent upon the loveliness with which she toyed.

“Surely you must know of the potency of whips, cherie? To behold the punishment of girls 
sets me on fire. Come now, be of the most honest, surely you flamed between your thighs 
when those men were whipping you?”

Thorn laughed. It was impossible to be annoyed or shocked by this delightful creature. “It’s
a damned erotic thing to watch but something I can do without. Where in the world did you 
get to watch girls being whipped?”

“It can be arranged, cherie. Money can arrange anything, and ma Papa is of the most rich.”
Giselle laughed at the puzzlement in Thorn’s gaze. “You are thinking I am a naughty girl but I 
have a sister who is truly naughty and who’s derriere is most often marked with cane and 
whip. It is good to watch. And sometimes I use upon her the heavy leather strap, it makes the 
most diverting sounds.”

“I think you’re having me on,” Thorn snorted. “What I’m worrying about is how to get out 
of this thing. I suppose you’ve tried.”

“Mais certainment! It is of the most hopeless. I think this cage was made for wild animals. 
Behold the way in which its bars are set in the concrete of the floor. As for it lock, pouf, I do 
not think the dynamite would open it. Please to stop fretting. I will the arrangement make so 
we will walk from this cage together. When we get back to La Belle France together, I will keep
you in a cage and never let you go.”

“Dreamer!” Thorn was not disposed to take Giselle too seriously.

“You get most big surprise, ma petite, but now we talk of it no more.” The French maiden 
waved out beyond the bars. “Behold, it is as I promised. Here comes the telephone.”

Thorn was becoming used to shock. The man carrying the phone stared at her nakedness 
in frank enjoyment but she made no effort to cover any part of herself. It was all so useless. 
This cage and captivity defeated a girl no matter which way she turned. But she could not 
suppress a thrill of hope as her companion bubbled and effervesced into the instrument in 
great floods of French. When the communication between father and daughter drew to a 
close and the instrument was passed back, Giselle was ecstatic.

“It is as I told you, dearest girl. Papa says I may have you as a pet. He will ransom you. But 
there are silly complications so you and I will enjoy this cage for a little while longer.”

Thorn was not sure she believed a single word.

They were a pair of cats, lounging about on the soft cushions of their cage. They played 
with each other at will, oblivious to watching eyes. No one in authority came, they were costly 
merchandise for which money would be received and used for weaponry.

Alone, Thorn would have been in constant panic, but the French girl’s total confidence in 
release infected her, too. Giselle discovered in her caged captivity an eroticism Thorn tried not 
to share. But there was an undeniable sensuality about nakedness and tied hands and the 
rigid iron bars around them. It became easy to feel feline and desired. It was in many ways a 
gorgeously laze periods imposing a sensual awareness in every moment of their day. They 
were tended to by servants in so far as the food and other necessities were concerned. Thorn 
learned the leader of this band of rebels was one Pedro Madrid, but they never met the man. 
It was into this halcyon idleness that McCaffey and McTeer chose to call upon their captive.

“We ain’t forgot that little ass of yours, lassie. We got a stake in you, so we have.”

“Why not the both of them, McTeer, ain’t no one gonna beef?”

It was swift and easy. The Scotsman quickly had Thorn draped in a pretty curvature against
the outside bars of the cage, her toes reaching vainly for support and the bars imprinting 
themselves upon her skin. Her breasts had been carefully adjusted, one on each side of a bar, 
as her tied hands had been raised high above to be tied to a part of the cage.

Speechless in shock, Giselle watched bold swift cruelty of the binding and the bundle of 
green and limber rods laying there. “You are of the most foolish, you get much trouble for 
this, you stupid men.” She backed away from McCaffey as from a snake.

The mercenaries hung their two female victims side by side. Giselle kept up a stream of 
protest to which no one paid attention. She kicked in wild dismay as realization of the 
unmentionable dispersed disbelief that this could be done to her. When the first wet, green 
switch slashed its brand across her virgin bottom she squealed in anger and thrashed wildly 
against the bars until their unfriendly iron caused her to desist. Never had no much French 
eloquence fallen upon such deaf ears.

Thorn had only been beaten with the green rods once before but it had told her only too 
clearly she could expect neither hope nor mercy. These two Scottish oafs would work their will
upon the girls and go their way laughing. Mercenaries were a privileged group in Querida and
only the girl who bore the weals from them would harbor malice.

“The one we grabbed healed nicely in these few days. Lay it hard on her, McCaffey.”

“Let’s trade after a while, I’ll enjoy cutting marks across that French ass. You have any idea 
what she’s chattering about?”

“You are killing me. I make sure you go to prison!” Giselle lapsed briefly into English. “You 
are both big assholes. Of a certainty you will be most sorry.”

Because their hands were tied to the bars and their bodies pressed against the bars, their 
bottoms were pushed out nicely. Nicely, that is, if you wanted to slash them with canes. Thorn 
found it doubly painful to struggle and hung limp against the iron, emitting gasping moans as
each stroke cut her skin. The punishment was even more painful and shameful because she 
knew it was only an amusing incident in the lives of these two oafs. Through the repetitious 
agony of successive strokes, she recalled Giselle’s wisdom about the potency of a whipped girl
and wondered if they would be Taped when these two tired of sadistic play.

They switch back and forth between the two suspended girl, slashing and cutting with 
shrewd expertise. Their comments were rough with male humor and damned little mercy. “If 
they horse around with that ransom money long enough, we can come and have another go 
at them.”

“Not sure I wouldn’t sooner whip their ass than count their cash.”

“These green switches marks them a real treat. Look at them welts raise up!”

Before the end, one man lifted a leg high to reveal new targets while his companion struck
with accuracy and devastating effect. It was the final coupe de grace. Within minutes both 
girls were lowered and tossed like angry kittens back into the cage.

“Can’t fuck ‘em here, McCaffey. Too damned bad.”

“Yen, too bloody public to be safe. No one’s gonna bother about a purple ass or two. But if
we should happen to breed ‘em both, there’ll be hell to pay.”

Thorn watched them go, not bothering to test the door. She and Giselle had been neatly 
and competently whipped and back at square one. It would be useless to go through the 
motions of attempted escape. These thoughts were interrupted by Giselle. The French girl was
clutching, not her sore bottom, but her furry sex and pleading urgently, “I am on fire, cherie, I 
burn! Quick with the tongue before I explode.”

“I’m on fire, too. Those bastards whipped us horrible,” Thorn complained.

“I know, I know! But love me first before I die. Darling, Thorn, you must appease my flesh, 
you must! Please, now, now, now … !”

In a mixture of amusement and thankfulness that the ordeal was past, Thorn now, now, 
now … ! “the lovely loins upon a cushion before she knelt between the legs and lowered her 
lips in obedience to command. She suddenly realized she was in love with Giselle Lamaire, and
in urgent need to demonstrate a sharing of erotic pain, grasped each cheek to squeeze hard 
the welted skins to evoke fresh squeals, not of agony, but of joy. Hungrily she fed.

The servants who tended them noted the whip marks on their skin but made no comment.
No one else came near. Apparently it was true a mercenary could do no wrong. McTeer would 
get away with the outrage which left two captive nudities with burning bottoms. Thorn put 
little stock in Giselle angry threats of revenged and her papa’s power to bring them to justice. 
Thorn realized all too clearly they had been whipped and that would be the end of it. The 
thing to worry about was would them be whipped again!

For several days Giselle imperiously but lovingly demanded almost constant appeasement.
It was as if the whipping had indeed started a fire she could not quench, a fire which carried 
her into flaming ecstasy she could not control. She demanded Thorn’s lips and tongue lash 
this fire. Secretly, Thorn knew herself infected by this strange love. It was nowhere as intense 
as with her French companion, but it was there, leaving her to speculate upon the strangeness
of female glands and flesh. Or was it of the mind! She did not know but had a shrewd 
suspicion she could learn much more.

Giselle, after her first fury of anger and resentment, gloried in her welted curves without 
shame. Joined hands made it difficult to finger every wound and every tender curve, the girls 
had to perform this service for each other. But this was dangerous stuff for it inflamed Giselle 
beyond bearing and aroused within Thorn’s sex a demanding need she tried hard to ignore 
but which Giselle sensed and dealt with gleefully. Being caged with Giselle was an intimacy 
with dynamo of sexual energy.

Giselle, after her first flood of French outrage, became increasingly entranced by her 
beaten bottom. While she professed to have been involved in the welting of other maidens 
posteriors, it had been her first own experience in the anguish of the rod. She took great 
pleasure in the detailed recall of her sister Lisette’s many punishments. It pleased he to lay 
upon her stomach, chin cupped in joined and captive hands, while Thorn ran gentle, teasing 
fingertips over the raised ridges the green wands had created upon her seat. As Thorn’s 
fingertips played lightly with bruised flesh, she sensed the French girls avid pleasure in 
disciplined girl’s flesh.

“Lisette is so very sweet, cherie, you will adore her. She weeps exquisitely when punished 
and is grateful for her strips, even when it is Papa who has used the strap or cane. The darling 
is only three years younger than I but seems a child when standing before Mama and Papa for
judgment. She trembles and her cheeks grow pink with shame as they recount her sins, which 
she never denies and I sometimes think she confesses to more than she need.” Giselle laughed
gaily in memory. “I think it is the same fire burning between her pretty legs as burns between 
mine. But the dear child denies this most hard and must suffer agonies of the spirit after 
punishment for then Papa always secures her hands behind her back to deny the playing with 
herself. Such a binding is very bad for a girl when her fire burns hot inside her pretty lips 
between her thighs.

“I was never sure about the vase. It was a most hideous vase but much prized by Papa who
had bought it in the Orient. Darling Lisette would never confess to me about dropping it on 
the purpose, it was an accident to which she confessed immediately and fully, even knowing 
she would be terribly punished for the so careless act. One does not drop Ming vases without 
retribution of the most. I was present when poor Lisette meekly admitted her fault and added,
not doubt hoping for clemency, that yes, certainment, she must indeed be punished. Her tears
touched my heart but touched not the iron purpose of Papa. Lisette was instantly sentenced 
to twenty strokes across her pretty curves and to be rigidly bound and naked one whole day.”

Giselle paused in thought before confessing. “At that time I had not myself been whipped 
but knew that twenty strokes would most terrible for poor Lisette. Most of her sins had been 
dealt with by five or ten cruel impacts of the cane or by being shamefully bound or by being 
locked within the dark closet. But I knew most certainly the punishment would be most dire 
and to be bound and shamefully exposed the whole day was a punishment in itself. Lisette 
was always compelled to endure her punishments in the nude. My heart bled for the little 
darling but it also beat hard and fast in the knowledge I would be there to watch and hear her
little cries for forgiveness.” Giselle chuckled. “Even though grateful for her inflictions, Lisette 
never managed to endure them in silence. After the beating of my own bottom by those two 
oafs, I now know why.”

“Papa chose the tree to which my sibling must be bound. It was a choice of the most 
importance for she must not be in public view although it was desirable our servants view her 
shame. Our garden was large and there were not many trees. Papa made his choice and my 
parents and I accompanied my sister to her martyrdom. To imprint her shame even more, the 
poor dear was compelled to carry the rope with which she would be bound and the yellow 
cane with which she was now dry-eyed and determined to spend her awful day in fortitude. 
There came then, when we reached the tree, that awful moment when all eyes were upon the 
sinful child who must now strip herself naked before her Papa, her Mama and her sister. She 
was familiar with this requirement and needed no instruction. She fumbled immediately with 
her dress upon our halt. I remember she looked most piteously at Papa and Mama as if 
hoping they would change their mind, and at me in hope of a smile of sympathy I dared not 
show. It was most grim and of a terrible knowledge to things to come. As dear Lisette revealed
her nakedness my heart thudded so hard I was fearful I was afraid Mama might hear and I 
would be required to bend over, and lower my panties for a modest reprimand.

“Papa decided to bind his daughter to face the trunk, clasping her arms around it as if in 
love. He crossed her wrists and tied them so tight I saw her wince. But she dared not 
complain, Lisette and I had been well brought up and properly instructed on the proper 
demeanor when facing correction. But I had never shown the same penchant for the rod and I
suppose what I feel now must have come to me from Lisette and her pleasure in pain.”

Giselle cast a sly and wicked glance at Thorn, and winked. “I’m afraid I was a very wicked 
girl and never punished as I should have been.

“Papa then bound, very tightly, the slender waist with many strands of rope which I knew 
were intended to keep the pretty little bottom below stationary while being punished. If 
Lisette were not firmly tied her wiggling were of the most enchanting and heated my fire so I 
longed to sit in cold water. Next it was her knees and then her ankles, that was all. My sister 
stood lovingly embracing her tree and could not move at all the parts that mattered. Most 
fearfully the poor child kept glancing back over her shoulder until Mama told her sternly to 
face the trunk unless she wished the blindfold. Lisette faced the trunk and did not move.

“Even though I had not then been whipped I felt each blow as it seared my sister’s skin. 
Papa had taken off his jacket and flexed the wicked cane back and forth before suddenly 
swinging on one heel to cut the air as a knife to plant his wand squarely across Lisette’s sweet 
flesh. Papa is a robust man and the stroke was of the most wicked, it caused Lisette to struggle
what ever she could of herself and to emit the most pathetic of moans. But she kept her eyes 
steadfast upon the trunk an inch away. I longed to comfort her.”

Giselle sighed as though in apology. “You and I, beloved child, now know how painful to a 
girl’s bottom is this beating with the cane or rod, but then I was not so fully aware. I had had 
small punishments, usually with the strap upon my bent over bottom. But that was all, I had 
never, in truth, been whipped. I suppose I had the good fortune to avoid the sins which 
earned the strips Papa so manfully delivered on erring flesh. I think Lisette got my share and 
her own, too. It was most unfair but my fire burned bright every time it happened and this I 
confess to you most freely. But anyway the poor dear thing received her twenty strokes upon 
a pert little bottom most thoroughly wealed and then stood shamefully for the whole day to 
properly expiate the breaking of a Ming vase. I was forbidden to visit Lisette and was forced to
return to the house with my parents to think constantly of my suffering sister and to pick up 
from the servants stories of her shame in wealed nakedness. They said she bore her 
punishment with the bravery to be expected of a daughter of Papa.”

“I’ll suppose he’ll give your bottom a damn good beating when he gets you home for 
giving him all this trouble and expense,” Thorn suggested.

“He will be so pleased to get me safe home, I fear that will not happen,” Giselle confessed 
with obvious regret. “But I will offer to lend him yours if he is very, very angry.”

“You play that record for all its worth, don’t you!” Thorn laughed. “But if I ever see 
civilization again, I’m heading for the good old USA.”

“Cherie!” Giselle’s voice was heavy with reproach. “Have you not considered you have a 
debt to pay, a matter of much honor?”

Thorn flushed guilty. She would indeed owe the Lamaire’s a vast debt of cash and 
gratitude for her ransom. It they wished her to visit their home, how could she refuse! She 
knew, too, of the love growing stronger each day between herself and this mischievous 
nymph from another world. She owed Giselle a tremendous debt for the help within the cage, 
an imprisonment to drive a girl frantic if suffered in solitude. Impossible as it might seem, 
Thorn had to admit to sharing the French girl’s joy at this bizarre imprisonment. True, she 
wanted out, but if it did not come today or tomorrow, it would come soon enough. She put 
her bounds hands upon a French arm and confessed in shame, “I’m sorry, darling, you’re right,
I’ll forgot. I’m being selfish. Of course, I’ll come home with you when we get free.”

Never was a promise more thoughtlessly made.

The days wore on but the captives in their cage counted none of them.





CHAPTER TWO - THE GALLIC PRISONER


He was very large and very masculine, standing beyond the bars to eye the female inmates 
with undisguised amusement. “I see they’ve whipped your ass,” he commented good-natured.
“Pity I wasn’t there to watch. Maybe we could arrange a repeat.”

“Please to go away,” Giselle said haughtily. “You are not here required.”

“Hell, girl, your old man asked me to drop in and make sure you were in good shape.” His 
eye strayed to a puzzled Thorn. “The name’s Garth Bannock,” he informed politely. “I know all 
about you. I’m getting you out of her with little Spitfire.” He winked. “I suppose you actually 
do want to get out of this cage?”

“You are no gentlemen, Garth Bannock. No gentleman would stare at ladies who have no 
clothes.”

“I’ll turn the other way while you put some one.”

“You know we have none. Don’t be a boor.”

“Well, I did offer! Damn it, girl, your father’s got me over here to effect your release. Or 
maybe you’d sooner stay together in that cage?”

“Very well, then, do you work. But cease to stare at our private parts.”

“It’s a damn modest ransom Madrid is asking. He could probably get at least that much for
from a brothel. I’ll but you’d do a roaring trade in a whore house!”

Thorn had listened to the exchange in uncomprehending puzzlement. She knelt facing 
their visitor, her joined hands modestly covering her pubic hair, her voice apologetic, “Of 
course we want release, Mr. Bannock. I don’t know why Giselle is mad at you but I sure would 
like to get out of this cage.”

“So I am mad at this great hunk of man, am I?” Giselle’s eyes flashed. “This Garth Bannock 
is an American who thinks every girl is ready to open her legs. He also wishes me to marry 
him. I have already kicked him in the balls but he takes no hint.”

“Sweet little thing, isn’t she?” Garth smiled at Thorn. “She doesn’t meant half of what she 
says. But I’m damned glad to find some one trounced her rump. It was overdue.”

“It was a couple of mercenaries, Scotsmen, and they trounced my rump, too.”

Bannock laughed. “That’ll be McCaffey and McTeer. They’re really not bad chaps when you 
get to know them but no girl’s bottom is safe when they’re around. They do it purely for fun.”

Giselle sniffed disdainfully. “Please have both executed.” She sniffed even louder. “You’re 
one of those men who can do anything, can’t you? What are you hear for?”

“I’m here to take you home. But I’m not adverse to asking Pedro Madrid to let those two 
Scotsmen to have another go at you with me to play umpire. How’s that grab you?”

“You are a pig. Insufferable. Please to go back to you sty.”

“Supposing I had the key to this cage?”

Giselle visibly tensed. “You are making the big joke.” Her voice was uncertain.

Casually Garth fumbled in a pocket to hold up a shaped object which left both girls 
gasping in suspense. “I’m not using this today,” he told them evenly. “But Madrid trusts me 
and we’ve a few details to iron out about method of payment. Madrid’s pretty much like your 
papa, he’s given me carte blanche with both of you.”

The French girl looked from one to the other of her audience, visibly disconcerted, her 
tone defensive, “What did Papa say to you? As if I cannot guess.”

“He wants you bottom beaten here where its the national pastime. He’ll do it again in 
private when he gets you home.” Garth laughed in amusement at the dismay his words had 
caused. “You old man tells me he hasn’t walloped you enough, and he’s not all that pleased 
about this scrape you’ve gotten yourself into, it’s costing him a lot of money.”

“Whip me! You won’t dare.” She drew a long, hissing breath. “Please to use that key and let
out.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, I got his on trust but I’m not to use it until I get word. And you’re not 
suffering.”

Impelled by an instinct she could not name, Thorn rose slowly to her feet and held her 
joined hands at the level of her waist. She had been aware of Garth’s interest and now faced 
him in a full frontal view without regard for modesty. Garth Bannock was a compelling chunk 
of male, she could feel his strength, even at a distance. She had listened to his repartee with 
Giselle in much the same spirit she evaluated all her feminine companion’s antics. She wised it 
was Garth who would ransom them. But it would have been nicer still to have met him on 
even terms instead of a caged and naked girl with tied hands. But he would always think of 
her as she was now, a pretty bird in a stout cage. Or, as an attractive slave girl. Nudity and 
linked wrists made it hard to seem like Miss Thorn Thruston from Illinois.

Calmly she said, “Are you really going to secure our release, Mr. Bannock, please don’t kid 
about it?”

“Yes.” Bannock exuded total assurance but it was the assurance of the conquering male 
who would carry them both back in triumph. The American girl found herself uncertain in a 
still nebulous freedom and remaining in the cage with Giselle. Giselle had made her very 
happy, whereas she had a vision of Giselle’s Papa as a monumental dragon to whom she 
would be deeply indebted. Once more she wished it was Garth Bannock who was personally 
purchasing her freedom.

Cautiously she asked, “What you said about having Giselle whipped-I hope you’re joking?”

“No joke. It’s part of the deal.”

“I suppose you realize they’ll whip me, too?”

“Fortunes of war, Miss Thruston.”

Thorn relapsed into silence but her eyes were still locked with those of the man beyond 
the bars. She sensed the uselessness of pleading and would not so shame herself. Giselle’s 
laugh broke the mood.

“Is it the two of you found the love at first sight!” Giselle pouted. “Get not the big ideas, 
Garth Bannock, Thorn is mine, she belongs to me. And as for this whipping of the bottoms, I 
say ‘Pouf to you and such nonsense.” She snorted. “And our going home, you have the first 
class plane tickets?”

“I’m afraid so. What I should do is nail you both down in a crate and ship you freight.” He 
laughed at the flash of fury in Giselle’s eyes. “Look, girls, we’d best not tell Papa what I’m 
looking at right now, he might not like it. Could be he’ll ship you right back to Pedro Madrid.”

“Garth Bannock is, of all men, the most impossible,” Giselle affirmed after their guest had 
gone. “He will of a certainty have me whipped if Papa has truly given him the carte blanche. 
Do not let him do the falling in love with you, he will break your heart.”

“He can’t break my heart unless its me that falls in love with him,” Thorn pointed out 
reasonably.

Giselle laughed. “You are already in love with him, ma cherie. You stood to show him what 
you have between your legs. You play the good saleslady, no?”

Thorn blushed. Giselle was shrewd and had picked up what Thorn herself had not 
understood. But Garth Bannock was gone and they remained prisoners in the cage, she must 
not allow Giselle to provoke her.

The Querida rebels evidently considered it an occasion and were contend to allow a 
couple of bawdy Scottish mercenaries to do their dry work on a pair of female bottoms not 
yet ransomed. As a mark of official approval, McCaffey and McTeer were accompanied by a 
large and beaming black woman who carried, dangling from one wrist, a wicked looking black
strap which the captives eyed askance. The mirthful mercenaries also dragged within the 
chamber a couple of heavy wooden benches who’s purpose might easily be discerned. Giselle 
took to offensive before anyone else had said a word.

“You cannot do this to us. We, too, the Geneva Convention will go and raise a big stink.”

“Honey, you ain’t got nothing to say about it.” The black woman was evidently an import 
from the USA. She proudly and gloatingly played with the supple length of treated leather. “I 
is a-goin’ to welt your little asses real good.”

“They’ll squeal a damn sight more with a fresh cut switch,” and bound in such a way to pull
them forward and make her ass even higher up. By the time they were through with her, the 
French maiden could do no more than fling her head from side to side, the rest of her was 
held motionless.

Thorn, anguished and in the grip of terrible inevitability, watched through the bars and 
then offered no resistance when male hands grasped her bare arms and led her out. Giselle 
keep up an unending steam of disapproval, “Why you not run, you silly girl, why you not kick 
in balls? Sacre bleu! Someone pay much for this. I have revenge.”

With the tightening of the stricture around her waist and the tractioning of her ankles, 
Thorn knew a vulnerability and degree of helplessness utterly demoralizing. The two benches 
were short, with the result that both girlish bottoms were displayed well out and beyond the 
bench. It was a shaming posture but well designed for taut skin and nubile flesh. Once more 
two pairs of girlish eyes met in a communion of anguish.

“Mouthy little bitch, ain’t she,” McTeer growled. “Why don’t you give her a good one, 
Bessie, with that there strap and let’s hear what it sounds like on a Lassie’s ass.”

The beaming black girl wasted no time but took her steps, and swung a limber bare arm in
a wide arm to impact the flagellum with a resounding sound across the curves. Thorn beheld 
the frantic play of muscle against the bitting ropes as her companion in distress registered 
shock and horror. But Giselle’s voice was loud in anguish and anger promising impossible 
reprisals until Bessie impatiently demanded, “Shut up, you damned fool girl!” before welting 
the seat of Giselle’s distress a second solid blow. Giselle clenched her teeth and fought her 
bounds but made no other sounds except the gaspings of tortured breath. Suddenly Thorn 
found herself the center of attention. Bessie was playing the strap through loving fingers and 
measuring the distance to the American flesh. McCaffey and McTeer stood by and leered. 
Thorn longed to cry out in protest against what was about to happen, but the bit of cords 
warned her of her helplessness. She, too, clenched her teeth and prepared for the impact of 
leather against her rump. When it came, the blow was as an explosion within her loins to send 
fire lancing within every crevice of her being. She moaned and moaned again but that was all.

“Thass one sweet little rump,” Bessie commended warmly. “Yo’ boys watch you don’t bring 
no blood. These gals is high priced.”

McCaffey snorted. “Shit, woman, these two little fillies can take a whipping like you 
wouldn’t believe.”

“That is big lie,” Giselle announced from her bench. “You must not whip us at all. My Papa 
will … “

“Piss on your papa, lass,” McTeer said as he took careful aim and planted a fresh band of 
scarlet across Gallic flesh. “How’d that one strike you?”

He got no answer. Giselle was once more a furious bundle of restrained female who could 
move nothing but could still scream. She screamed and added, for good measure, some 
French suggestions they could not understand but got the drift of easily enough.

“I think she likes it,” said McCaffey, “give her another.”

Giselle gasped with outrage. “You whip me to little pieces but give Thorn only one,” she 
complained bitterly. “It is not of a fairness, you do me wrong.”

“Girl’s got a point,” McTeer agreed. “Take the strap, Bessie, and give the lass a couple of 
good ones to catch up.”

Thorn turned away her head to hide her hurt when the two blows came, one on top of the 
other, she abandoned stoicism in favor of French outrage and screamed as lustily as had 
Giselle. It was frightening to hurl all her young strength into protesting motion and know she 
did not move. Her burning bottom still pointed to the sky in scarlet invitation.

“How many strips the boss say we can lay across these little rumps?” McCaffey asked. “You 
suppose to count ‘em, Bessie?

“Boss say just ten good ones,” Bessie giggled, then added, “Sure, I’s suppose to count but 
you boys an me can lay an extra one on top the other like I just done with this gal her and no 
ones gonna count it twice. But just you watch you don’t break no skin.”

In the midst of agony Thorn knew relief. She could bare ten and had feared much more. 
With the extras Bessie had unkindly suggested she could probably get around fifteen. It would
be wicked enough punishment but could be worse. She prayed she could bear it with 
screaming. A girl’s screams demeaned herself and all he heard.

“You are three cruel holes in the ass,” Giselle announced flatly before the leather once 
more welted her into a shrill announcement of pain to great to bear. The snap and crack of 
the flagellum made a steady rhythm in the stone chamber. Thorn fought her agony with a 
steady countdown of the strokes left to bear. She did not count those gleefully implanted on 
top of another. Her teeth were ground together and her fists clenched against he binding on 
her wrists. No matter how she tugged, she could not move them. She had been expertly 
cinched and corded to rear what the Scotsmen would call her “rump,” and the tender 
motionless curves accepted blow after blow as though designed and fashioned solely for that 
purpose. No matter how great their anguish, they remained posed, pertly scarlet, awaiting the 
next impact. And another, and another … !

“Thass ‘bout the most we’d best give ‘em,” Bessie announced. She giggled. “Don’ want one
claiming we’s spoiled the merchandise.” She giggled delightedly again. “The little darlings is 
gonna need them there cushions in the cage.”

“Just a couple more, Bessie lass?” McCaffey inquired hopefully.

“A couple ain’t gonna do no harm.”

“They’s had enough,” Bessie said firmly. “You’d best run along. You ain’t sticking them big 
knobs yo’ got in yo’ pants into them girls today. And don’t give me no lip ‘bout it.”

McTeer sneered, “If you wasn’t in so damned solid with the management, we’d lay twenty 
across that big ass of your’s. Never fear,” he assured her, chuckling. “How’s about the three of 
us getting together some place after you’ve looked after the girls here?”

With a great deal of grumbling and their usual vulgarities, the Scottish contingent left to 
leave the three girls alone. “Them’s fellas is a real pain in the butt,” Bessie announced sagely. 
“They’s whipped about every female ass in the state and they’s forever after mine. But there 
ain’t no way they’s laying the leather across me.” She gazed approvingly at the bound 
beauties on the bench. “I suppose yo’ gals would like me to put yo’s back in yo’s cage?”

“Oh, yes, please … !” Thorn exclaimed.

“What I’ll like is to flog your seat with that terrible strap,” Giselle announced. “If ever I get 
the chance … “

“Well, well, honey, if that’s the way yo’ feels yo’ can stay on that bench ‘til the cows come 
home,” Bessie admonished severely. “I’ll look after this little sweetheart here and then maybe 
lay a few extra with the leather across yo’s somewhere. Yo’ forgetting yo’ got a pair of nice 
little soles under those pretty feet. And yo’s got a nice white back that no one’s touched yet. 
Think on that!”

Thorn kept silent as her limbs were freed. She was enveloped in a great thankfulness even 
though her loins were scorching fire. Standing with her wrists still joined, she smiled and said 
wanly, “Giselle, you really should keep quiet and watch you tongue.”

“Thass damned good advise,” Bessie agreed as she grasped Thorn’s bare arm and led her 
back to the cage. “Thass real sensible, yo,’ Miss Thruston. I wish yo’ was a’ stayin’ here for 
keeps. I likes yo.’”

It was back to square one. Locked once more within the cage Thorn held on to the bars to 
watch what now took place. It would have been nice to sit down but she cast the thought 
aside. In helplessness she watched the black woman retrieve the leather strap and approached
the wide-eyed girl still bound on the bench.

“I apologize for what I said.” From Giselle it was an astonishing concession.

“Bit late for what yo’ done said,” Bessie suggested. “Yo’ say bad things ‘bout Bessie so now 
yo’ gets some real pretty marks.”

Giselle screamed pitifully under the Thwack of the two blows delivered flatly across the 
virgin loveliness of her previously unmarked back. The response was instant, scarlet imprints 
leaping sharp relief to mark the flagellum’s sharp in a print of pain. The color of the second 
stroke was still changing when she most urgently declared, “I’m sorry, Bessie, I really am! I am 
of the most penitent. And a young lady of the most behaved.”

“Ha, nothin’ like the leather to give a gal some sense,” Bessie conceded. “But yo’ ain’t 
weasling yo’ way ‘round me, lady. Yo’s stayed tied down to that there bench ‘til I gets damned 
good and ready to let’s yo’ loose.”

Bessie made her exit, the whip dangling in menace from her wrist. The girls watched her 
go, and with the closing of the door, Giselle’s indignation flowed. “The rotten bitch, leaving 
me like this! She is of the lower class without shame. I spit upon her.”

“You’d better do no such thing,” Thorn warned. “Damn it, darling, this is awful. I can’t do a 
thing to help you.”

“If you had not been such chicken with the tongue, you would be here with me,” Giselle 
complained. “You do not even say the boo!”

“Well it wouldn’t do you much good if I was out there!”

Giselle was still in the depths of indignation. “You are free while I am like a pretzel tied. It is
not of a fairness.” The lovely young head raised itself from the bench to gaze in longing at the 
cage. “Is there much hurting of the bottom, darling? Mine burns tres terrible.”

“Of course it hurts! Oh, darling, I sure would get you loose if I could.”

The two girls fell silent. Giselle’s mind was filled with horrible visions of additional stripes 
upon her skin. Thorn wondered when their punishment and imprisonment would end. She 
had lost count of the days since her original capture. It seemed incredible that Giselle’s French
papa should ransom her along with his daughter. Optimism at a low ebb.

Time passed slowly, the tedium broken only by Bessie’s return visits. This time she carried a
short, single-thonged whip, at sight of which Giselle burst into tears. “Don’t you dare use that 
thing on me! You strike me with that and my Papa will have you in jail for life.”

The threat left Bessie’s beaming smile unimpaired. She went to her victim, and with a 
loving hand, frictioned the back above, below, and across the two vivid welts. “Just figurin’ 
where I’m gonna plant the next couple. I might have let you off these two, but yo’ still too 
damned lippy.”

Thorn’s joined hands were clenched to make the knuckles white upon the bars as she 
watched the swing of a black arm and hear the wicked scream as the leather bit the young 
flesh. It was a scream of anger and agony which continued on in successive peals of anguish 
as a second blow followed the immediately. Bessie patted the already scorched bottom and 
left her victim to her tears.

When the door closed, Thorn ventured a trite query, “Darling, did that hurt something 
awful?”

“Of course it did!” Giselle sobbed out the words. “It is a thing of beastliness she whips me 
with. Am I much shedding of my blood?”

Thorn was close to laughter at Giselle over dramatic reaction to her pain, but choked it 
back to say, “I’m afraid there isn’t any blood, darling. I’m terribly sorry.”

The victim of Bessie’s ire sniffed dismally. “If that black bitch comes back to whip me again,
I’m going to ask her to whip you instead,” she sobbed. “It is not fair you stand there in our 
cage while I am cut into little pieces with her rotten whip.”

“Thanks a lot, darling.”

Giselle was instantly contrite. “I am of a meanness,” she admitted. “Perhaps it is of a 
rightness for me to get more whip than you, you are so very sweet darling. When she comes 
again I will try very hard to say nothing, not even thank you.”

Thorn found herself uselessly pacing the bars and tugging and pushing at the locked door.
She knew it was useless but it was the only demonstration she could make to her fellow 
prisoner on the bench to show concern. She felt a foolish guilt at their relative conditions of 
the moment, she wanted to tell Giselle of an anxiety to trade places but it would sound so trite
and it would still be ineffectual. The French maiden had angered Bessie and was paying the 
price of thoughtless words. The only trouble was neither girl knew how long or how high that 
price would be. Thorn sadly examined the red indentations in her own skin from her period on
the bench. In the last few hours their caged imprisonment had lost its glamour. Alone, behind 
the bars, Thorn understood how terrible solitary confinement could be for a girl.

She tried to encourage Giselle as she waited for another dose of the whip how glad she 
was to have her as a companion in the cage. But the words had scarcely been spoken when 
the door once more opened.

It was Garth Bannock.





CHAPTER THREE - A FRENCH CAPTIVITY


Garth stopped inside the door. For moments there was a pregnant silence as the girls viewed 
the omnipotent Male with startled eyes. Garth Bannock looked from one to the other and 
obviously found nothing unusual in their condition. Thorn saw the surge of complaint bitten 
back at Giselle’s lips. Instead, the French girl said pathetically, “Please, Mr. Bannock, let me 
loose.”

“So you want me to let you loose,” he said evenly as he advanced towards the helpless girl.
“Did I hear a ‘please’ is there somewhere or are you taking me for granted?”

In danger of choking from indignation, Giselle said humbly, “Please, Mr. Bannock, untie 
me. I’m hurting so bad.” She looked at her savior in wide-eyed hope but then saw the 
flagellum swinging from his wrists. “Please don’t use that strap on me any more. I have already
been so badly whipped.”

Bannock stood beside her, his fingers tracing weals. “So I see. Nothing like a couple of 
Scotsmen for being thorough. Bessie told me she helped out. You’re a damned lucky girl.”

“I have not the luck, I have only pain. Please untie me?”

“I’ll get around to it, sweetheart, but I’ve a job to do first. I promised your old man I’ll tan 
your hide. But I turned chicken and handed the job over to the boys. So I borrowed this here 
chunk of leather from Bessie and the least I can do to keep my word is to give you one good 
one somewhere on your pretty little person. Where would you like it?”

“I want it not at all!”

“Sorry kid, you’re getting it for sure.”

“Don’t be a beast,” Thorn flamed from the cage. “The poor darling’s had enough. Untie 
her.”

“Well, well, perhaps you’d like to take it for her?”

Thorn felt the trap snap shut as Garth raised an amused eyebrow and moved toward the 
cage door. “I seem to remember I have to give you one, too,” he said offhandedly. “Papa is 
none too please with either of you two girls.” He unlocked the door. “Out you come.”

Thorn envied the bound girl on the bench as she was motioned to stand and then bend 
down and touch her toes. It was so hard to give one’s self to pain. When you were bound you 
had no choice. Wanly she asked, “Wouldn’t you like to tie me? I think you should.”

“Well, I don’t!” Garth was decisive. “Bend down and touch your toes for two. I’m being 
damned merciful in making it only two. Down, girl, down!”

Annoyed with herself and with the world, Thorn did as she was told. It was one of the most
shaming postures into which a girl might be forced. She was well aware of her sexual lips 
protruding to the rear. She blushed as she touched her toes and obeyed the male injunction 
to keep her knees straight and taut. She managed to receive the two blows from the male arm
without dramatics. When they were done, she straightened up and said quietly, “Thank you, 
Mr. Bannock.”

Giselle had watched wide-eyed. It was now her turn. She made no comment and accepted 
the implant of the flagellum upon her wounded rump in uncharacteristic silence, save for 
gasps and the tossing of her head.

“Well done!” Garth praised them both. “You took those four like a couple of Trojans. I’ll tell 
Papa, he’ll be proud of you.”

There was something electric in the stone room as Garth untied the well-punished maiden 
from the bench before ushering both of them back into the cage like a pair of obedient dogs. 
Both girls still had their hands fixed by the leather thongs and were not disposed to argue. 
When the cage door slammed upon them, they took their conventional postures with hands 
clasping the bars to gaze doubtfully at this magnificent creature who, as far as they knew, held
their future in his hands. As if by deliberate practice they implored, “Please don’t be unkind to 
us, Mr. Bannock.”

“How would the pair of you like to go to France?” Garth ignored their reaction and went 
straight to the point. “Clothed and in your right mind and, let us hope, obedient. What you 
say?”

Thorn’s heart leaped. There was something direct and decisive about Garth Bannock, he 
did not fool around. She did not have the least wish to go to France, she wished only to return
to the US. But she owed a debt. Simply she said, “Thank you, I’ll be terribly grateful.”

“You really mean you can take us back to Papa now!” Giselle was suddenly glowing and 
radiant. “The ransom’s all fixed?”

“All fixed. You’re both as good as free right now.”

The two naked, cuffed girls looked at each other in surmise. Once more their response was
in unison, “We don’t feel a bit free, Mr. Bannock, we’re still in the cage and our hands are still 
tied.” Then, as in a afterthought, “And we haven’t got any clothes on.”

Garth laughed at their dolor. “I noticed. The clothes, I mean. Damned nice effect. I like 
those things they’ve got on your wrists, too. I’ll see if I can take them back with us for Papa.”

“Mr. Bannock, you are the tease. Why would Papa want such things?”

“Never can tell. Should take three pairs, there’s your sister, Lisette.”

Thorn assumed they were being teased. She wished the circumstances less grim and 
doubtfully inquired, “We won’t be whipped again, Mr. Bannock? Are we really through with 
these horrors?”

“As of right now,” Bannock assured her cheerfully. “I put you back in the cage so you could
make a grand, ceremonial exit to freedom.” His smile was for her alone.

“Then please to unlock the door. Let us make this fine exit.” Giselle had suddenly become 
the haughty French woman again. “Please not to delay with silly jokes.”

Thorn’s heart thudded in alarm. A burning bottom and scolded had taught Giselle 
nothing. Garth might be good natured but would take no directive from a girl. As though to 
prove her fear, he fixed the overly anxious French girl with an eagle eye and directed, “Giselle, 
go to the far side of the cage and stay there until I tell you different.”

The daughter of papa must have sensed her fault but was no match for the male eyes 
upon her, and she did as she was told. Garth unlocked the cage door and motioned to Thorn 
who made what she was sure was the grandest and most grateful exit in her life. Her arms was
grasped by firm male fingers as soon as she was out of the cage. She was led out of the stone 
chamber. In the passage beyond she gasped in dismay.

“But, Mr. Bannock, don’t leave Giselle in the cage. Don’t take me and leave her. Giselle 
doesn’t mean the things she says or the way she says them. She just can’t help it.”

The fingers left her arm and tilted her chin. Garth’s kiss was light and casual at the start but
generated a power in them both. “Don’t worry your pretty little head,” The Male advised 
smoothly. “We’ll let little spitfire stew in that cage for a minute before we go back in. Damn it, 
I can see why her old man is a bit cheesed off. If she were mine I’m not sure I’ll ransom her.”

Garth Bannock did things right, he was the kind of man who would always do things right. 
Thorn glowed as she was led back into the chamber which no longer sparked dread. A very 
humble young woman was waiting for them at the bars. No words were needed to express 
feelings on either side. Garth Bannock unlocked the door and Giselle Lemaire threw herself 
upon Thorn in a flood of kisses and fumbling with joined hands. Bannock stood by while 
Thorn kissed the wet cheeks and smoothed the rumpled hair of a girl who, in her own way, 
was altogether lovable. Soon the three of them marched from the iron cage and through the 
door to freedom.

Thorn and Giselle walked from the house of Pedro Madrid in splendor. There had been 
clothes, exquisitely expensively clothes, and a multitude of female accessories waiting for 
them after the scented bath in which Bessie reversed her role and administered to them with 
quiet humor in the role of a privileged servant. Strangely they bore her no grudge for the 
marks she had placed upon their skin. Suddenly their world was joyous. Garth was waiting 
with a car.

At the airport Thorn knew qualms. Every fiber of her being longed to be returned to the 
USA. She knew she could obtain this end by going to the US consulate. But obligation was 
heavy on her shoulders and Giselle had again become the loving nymphet of the cage. Garth 
radiated assurance and security. Steadfast in her determination to do things right, Miss Thorn 
Thurston walked aboard the plane.

There was a strangeness in possessing both her hands. The leather and wire cuffs had 
been taken off and she somehow felt naked without them, a nakedness the clothes had done 
nothing to disperse. Seated now between Garth and Giselle, Thorn felt almost apologetic as 
she offered a single hand to accept the offered drink from the stewardess. If was as if the time 
spent in the cage had made the wearing of bonds the proper way of life. She shrugged it off 
and tried to forget it but it was there.

They joked a lot. Garth was a good companion and Giselle was bubbling and radiant. But 
the plane was definitely French and Thorn felt as foreign as she had felt in the jungles where 
her captivity had begun.

The Chateau Lemaire was not one of the show places of the Loire Valley but it could well 
have been. Its principle atmosphere was the odor of great wealth, of power and authority. 
Papa turned out to be a most charming and understanding host but Thorn sensed him as a 
solitary man, strong and self sufficient, and following a path all his own.

Garth delivered the two girls, had a private conference with Lemaire, and then said 
goodbye. There was no suggestion they should not meet again. After dinner the owner of all 
this magnificence took Thorn, and a bottle of old brandy, to his private study. Comfortably 
settled, he wasted no time.

“I gather you have accepted the conditions of your stay with us, Miss Thurston.” Lemaire 
spoke perfect English. The brandy sniffer and his manner were those of a man of business 
proposing a deal.

Embarrassed she said, “Actually, no. Giselle has said some silly things but I’ve not taken 
them for granted. I am here because of a debt of gratitude I owe.”

Lemaire shrugged and nodded approvingly. “That is understood, you are a young woman 
of honor.” He took a thoughtful sip before asking, “What exactly did my daughter propose?”

“It was silly stuff, Mr. Lemaire, all about me belonging to her, about being her prisoner.” 
Thorn laughed. “The way she told it was pretty much the same as the cage we were both in at 
the time.”

Lemaire nodded, his gaze upon his guest reflective. “You did not take this seriously, Miss 
Thurston?”

“Of course not. Giselle says the silliest things.”

“You should take it seriously, Miss Thurston.” Lemaire took another sip of brandy, this one 
even more thoughtful. “Surely you did not disbelieve what she said?”

“About this silly prisoner thing? No, absolutely not.”

Lemaire regarded her soberly although there was a trace of humor at his lips. His voice 
was regretful but very firm. “I am sorry Giselle failed to be explicit enough for you to 
understand, Miss Thurston. But you have entered a condition in which I as the indulgent 
parent have bestowed upon my daughter Giselle, who I love most dearly, an unusual privilege.
Giselle is allowed to possess any young woman of her choosing. She has chosen you.”

The silence was almost painful. All of Thorn’s doubts came home to roost. At a loss for a 
proper answer, she exclaimed, “Surely you’re joking!”

“I am afraid not.” Lemaire allowed the simply statement to hover between them in a 
growing silence. Thorn had the feeling he was bored.

“But this is silly,” Thorn said, suddenly defensively alert. “You sound as if you speak of a 
sort of slavery. Yet that would not be legal anywhere. And why would Giselle want me as any 
kind of a prisoner when she has me as a friend? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Giselle will help you come to terms with your new condition, Miss Thurston. I hope you 
will not be difficult. I must assure you there is no retreat from where you now stand. Do have 
more brandy.”

Thorn accepted the refill and gulped gratefully. But she, too, could be decisive. “This is 
absurd and I don’t wish to talk about it any longer. If you would put me in touch with the 
nearest US Consulate, I will arrange for my return home to the United States. There is no great
problem and I will reimburse you for the ransom you paid … ” Thorn flushed and shifted 
awkwardly in her chair. “I’m afraid it will have to be my monthly payments, none of my family 
are rich.”

M. Lemaire smiled a small, thin smile. “Do you know the sum involved, the amount I paid 
for your release?”

“No, I’m afraid … “

“It as one million of your American dollars.”

To Thorn the sum was shattering. She felt inadequate and alone in a strange land. She 
could never pay a million dollars, never! “But why … I mean why would you pay so huge a sum
for me … ?” She looked at Lemaire askance. “I don’t understand, it seems unreal.”

“I am a rich man. Giselle wanted you, she still does. It is that simple, Mademoiselle.

Thorn was suddenly back in the cage in the huge stone chamber, clutching the bars and 
looking through them to lost freedom. She swallowed hard before asking, “I have an 
obligation, I know that. What is it you ask of me?”

M. Lemaire’s thin smile became more pronounced. “You and my eldest daughter have 
spent much time together. You understand each other. You pay your debt by yielding your 
person to Giselle. After that you are burdened with no decisions.”

Thorn wondered if she appeared as flushed and disorganized as she felt. Had Lemaire and 
his ancient chateau, and his wayward daughter, had been less likable or less civilized she 
would have stamped out of the house and made her own way to where ever she must. But the
man and the girl and the place where they lived was of a quality she had not previously 
known. She could not relate them to anything sinister. Giselle was, no doubt, being capricious 
and silly, and she, Thorn, was probably seeing ghosts were none existed. “You have rescued 
me from imprisonment. Is what you offer now anything more than another captivity in 
another place?”

Lemaire shrugged. “Freedom is a relative thing, Miss Thurston. We make our own prisons 
in our mind.”

Thorn’s stare was cool and level and, she hoped, disconcerting. “Mr. Lemaire, do you truly 
wish this, to have be about your house as a slave for your daughter?”

Lemaire shrugged again. “I find you enchanting, Mademoiselle. I am happy to have you as 
my guest under any context. But it is unlikely I will see you much at all. Giselle has been given 
a wing of the chateau and it is there you will reside.”

The trap was closing, a gorgeous, gold-plated trap. But surely there could be no evil in 
these charming people! Under a certain impulse Thorn asked, “I am told you have another 
daughter, a younger girl, Lisette. Am I to meet her?”

“In due course.” Lemaire’s Gallic smile became noticeably more thin. “At the moment, 
Lisette is … Well, restrained.” He allowed the final word unusual emphasis.

Thorn picked up the hint, Lisette was being punished. But Giselle had told her of these 
things, these foreign relationships between father and daughters. Abruptly, anxious to end the
agony of indecision, Thorn said, “Very well, Mr. Lemaire, I am ready.”

They walked side by side through magnificence, Lemaire pausing here and there to explain
a painting or a piece of furniture. The place was a museum but a warm museum where people
lived. Arriving at a massive door, itself a work of art, the man held it open for the girl. “Walk 
straight ahead down the hall, Mademoiselle, Giselle will be waiting somewhere for you. Now I 
wish you, as you say in American, good luck.”

He grasped her hand and bent to bestow upon it a kiss in keeping with the place in which 
he lived. Gently Thorn was propelled beyond the portal and the massive door closed behind 
her. Steadfastly, Miss Thorn Thurston walked forward into a new world.

It was wonderful to be hugged and kissed and loved. Giselle’s joy dispersed foreboding. 
The two girl laughed over the absence of the familiar leather thongs around their wrists. They 
clasped and kissed and hugged until exhausted.

“You expected a dungeon? Did Papa frighten you?” Giselle sounded concerned.

“Yes, he’s daunting. Someone I hadn’t often met, an aristocrat.”

“You accepted … What he had to say?”

“Only because it was you.”

There came more laughter and more embraces. The laughter because of the absence of 
bracelets upon their wrists. The embraces a spontaneous giving of love between two who had 
shared so much in the barred cage in the stone chamber. It was a bond more powerful than 
Thorn had realized. Dazed and delightfully bewildered, she allowed herself to be led by a 
laughing and teasing Giselle through the beauty and wonder of “the wing of Giselle.” The tour
ended in Giselle’s bedroom.

“I am tired of playing guide, cherie. So now we bath. Remember how much we longed for 
soap and water in the cage? Come, I show you my bathroom, it is now our bathroom. It is tres 
magnifique.”

It was “magnifique” indeed! By a process Thorn failed to understand, she had become the 
honored guest with Giselle the lady’s maid. They had neither illusions nor curiosity about each
other’s bodies, they had been together naked for too long. Giselle ran the bath, used sundry 
bottles and tables heavy with perfume and the two of them stepped into the hot, soft 
perfumed water of a woman’s world.

It was a degree of luxury Thorn had never known. She found it delightful to allow the 
mischievous Giselle to administer to the soaping and laving of her skin. If the French girl took 
far too long in the soaping of crotch and pubic hair, it was only one more subject for their 
laughter. After their hour of erotic play, it seemed only proper for Giselle to dry, with rich, soft 
towels, the American girl she adored. Thorn stood in a continuation of ecstasy, eyes half 
closed and her whole being relaxed. It seemed most natural for Giselle to gather the young, 
bare arms into her own behind Thorn’s back in order to dry what lay beneath. There were two 
short, swift series of clicks and the coolness of steel upon Thorn’s wrists. Instantly she knew 
what Giselle had done. But she was still in the grip of a relaxed and happy mood, combined 
with a feeling of well-being. She turned slowly to smile.

“They’re handcuffs, aren’t they? The steel kind, policemen use, not like the ones we had to 
wear in the cage. Why have you put them on me, darling?”

When Thorn thought about it afterwards, she wondered why she had asked the silly 
question. She knew why Giselle handcuffed her wrists behind her back, both of them 
understood the act perfectly. Yet now it had happened, it held for Thorn an unreality. She said 
the first words that came to mind, “You didn’t have to do that, Giselle. You still don’t have to.”

“Yes, I do. You don’t understand it all yet, ma cherie. Let me finish drying you and we talk.”

It was pleasant to be toweled warmly by a girl of Giselle’s erotic skill. Once more the lovely 
sex was messaged almost to the unbearable. Thorn’s beautiful hair was dried and dealt with 
by competent fingers. Standing finally before the huge bedroom mirror, the handcuffed girl 
beheld a slender sylph-like loveliness of rouged cheeks, enhanced lips, and scarlet nipples.

“Soon I have the so lovely rings put in them, darling, but that is not yet. For now I enjoy 
you as you are.”

Their intimacy canceled fear. There remained now only curiosity. Thorn constantly fingered
the metal circles she could not see. They were tight, she could never slip out of them. But they 
were of Giselle and therefore it would be churlish to complain of wearing them. They simply 
did not matter. Still, in a mood of laughter, she asked, “So, okay, you’ve got me. But, darling, 
what will you do with me?”

Giselle’s eyes were wide and bright. “I enslave you. I train you to strict obedience like 
puppy dog. I train you to know my every wish and anticipate my desires as a good slave 
should.” The young voice changed tone. “You must understand my possess of every little part 
of you, every curves, your nipples, your breasts, your puss between your legs. Even the lovely 
hair upon your head which I could shave bald should you not obey me.” Giselle pouted 
prettily with the wink of an eyelid. “I am most serious about all this, ma cherie, you must not 
think to joke or change my mind.”

“But, Giselle my sweet, I would do all these things for you without being handcuffed, 
without being a prisoner. You’re not really intending to make me you prisoner, are you?”

“If chains and cords can make a girl a prisoner then that is what you will be.” Giselle 
clasped the imprisoned arms and kissed the captive lips. “Do you hate me?”

“I couldn’t ever hate you.” Thorn was tugging and twisting continuously at ironed wrists. 
“But these handcuffs, the way you’ve got them, I can’t do anything!”

“You prefer them better in front?”

“Of course I do. That is if I have to wear them at all. Giselle, don’t be mean.”

“For now they stay behind your back, cherie, I want you to know what helplessness is like. 
It is a good thing to know.”

Euphoria was wearing thin, Thorn was puzzled and uncertain. She sensed power and a 
purpose in this shining eyed maiden who had made her captive. But they were friends. How 
can you possibly be prisoner to a friend! She wished she had been more alert to prevent the 
handcuffs snapping behind her back. She had been given warning enough but the lingering 
enchantment of her time with Giselle in the cage had disarmed caution. Now she felt more 
vulnerable than ever in her life, shielding nothing, exposing everything. Giselle was dressed 
and she was not. It was an accentuation of nakedness to keep her constantly aware of M. 
Lemaire beyond the walls. She would die if of shame if he walked in to find her thus.

Handcuffed, Thorn was blushingly conscious of her breasts and her sex. Annoyed with 
herself she knew she would have to wait and watch and free her hands at the first opportunity.

“You are thinking of escape and how you will go back to your USA,” Giselle accused.

“Well, sort of.” Thorn sought for words that would not hurt. “I’m not sure I’m the right 
temperament for this sort of thing, darling. You may have got the wrong girl.”

“I want no simpering kitten, cherie. You are strong and you are wise, and far more 
satisfying in my chains than some silly creature who would weep and plead and kiss my feet.”

Struck by that absurd vision, they both laughed. “What do we do next, darling,” Thorn 
asked with a touch of mischief. “Don’t you realize that having me like this makes you almost 
as much a prison as me. We can’t go out and around or do anything.”

“You can service me, beloved girl. Even without your hands we can make the love.”

“Well, yes, I suppose we can. But we can’t make love all day and all night. Giselle, my pet, 
you’re going to get terrible bored with me.”

Thorn stood still while Giselle teased her nipples with fingertips and tongue. The sensation 
was pleasant as always but seem unimportant until other things had been settled. The 
American girl was still fighting the handcuffs in a mild instinctive revolt against their authority. 
Thorn knew herself as ardent in the flesh as the vivid Giselle. If the French maiden was going 
to impose a twenty-four hour sexual activity, they would both become exhausted soon. 
Perhaps it would be best to let that happen and see what came next.

“Oh, have it your way, you lecherous feline. Go lay on the bed and I’ll do my duty.” If her 
voice sounded sulky, Thorn did not care.

Giselle placed a finger upon her captive’s nose. “You are trying to be angry, cherie, but this
I will not permit. You are still not understanding, so I show you and we start all over. Come 
along, I take your arm because I cannot take your hand.”

The steps were ordinary enough but they were of stone as were the walls and led down 
and down and down. The room was vast, its original purpose forgotten. What she beheld in it 
made Thorn gasp and come to a halting stop despite the guiding hand. At the far end was an 
iron barred cage, an exact replica of the one in which she had been held captive with Giselle. 
Struggling against laughter, she turned to demand, “It’s the same one. How on earth … ?”

“I asked Papa for it over the telephone,” Giselle confessed. “Garth Bannock drew him a 
picture. Is it not adorable?”

“Darling, it’s perfect!” Thorn was lost in admiration, forgetting all else. “And those lovely 
cushions! Giselle, darling, can you and I sleep together there some night?”

“Of course. And now would you like to go inside?”

“If I do, you’ll lock me in. I’m not that dumb.”

“No. I promise. Please, I want you to.”

It was like going back to Querida. Within the bars and knee-deep in cushions, Thorn stared
around and wondered why the cage held such magic for them both. But the magic had been 
Giselle’s. It had been the French girl who had laughed and loved and made her welcome 
within this iron cage. Without Giselle, this thing would have been an ugly monstrosity holding 
ought but malice. Thorn began to glimpse she had not expected in the chateau Lemaire. 
Almost gaily she made her way back to rejoin the impish French maiden who held her in such 
loving thralldom.

With a French hand upon her arm, Thorn was guided to the far wall whereon hung the 
whips, riding crops, canes, and a flagellum such as she remembered all too well. If she held 
doubt as to their purpose, Giselle dispersed it instantly. “They are for you, darling girl. I will use
them on you without mercy if you do not obey.”

“You wouldn’t … !”

“Indeed I will, ma petite cherie. They are of a glorious wickedness, n’est ce pas?”

Thorn shivered, scarce believing the implication of what she saw. “But they all look new, 
they’re not antiques,” she wondered aloud. “They’re horrible and I don’t want to look at them. 
And, what’s more, you’d be mean to use them on me.”

“But you do know I could, if I wished?”

“I suppose so. The way you’ve got me fixed, there’s not much I could do about it. Darling, 
don’t be mean, you’re making me scared.”

“That is good, cherie, I want you always just a tiny bit frightened. Just as I am a little bit 
frightened of Papa. He has not yet given me the whipping Garth Bannock promised. I expect 
he waits for the healing of where I sit.”

Under Giselle’s delighted guidance, the room unrolled its secrets, one by one. There was 
an exact replica of Queirda’s whipping bench. There was a whipping post, with pillory and 
stocks close by. There were chains and ropes, manacles and irons, and strange mechanism 
aplenty. Thorn suddenly exclaimed, “But, Giselle, this is a torture chamber! What else can you 
call it?”

“It is the room of corrections, darling! Is that not a charming word, so innocent? Do you 
need correcting?”

“No, I don’t. Let’s get out of here. I wish you hadn’t shown me these things.”

There were other rooms, smaller rooms, each offering its own discomfort to a girl. As they 
went from one to the other the handcuffs felt tighter upon Thorn’s wrists. The whole place 
seem a contradiction to the laughing French maiden who displayed its menace. There was also
a dungeon, wickedly authentic. When its virtues have been amply demonstrated, Giselle kissed
her captive’s lips to whisper in a captive ear, “And now I show you what makes this all most 
real. You are not yet believing what you see, darling, but soon you will. Come, we descend 
more stairs.”

It had been full daylight above, but reaching the lower level, there was only a dismal, 
diffused atmosphere of gloom from two small, barred windows in the thick stone walls. There 
was passage and a door … !

A naked teenage aged girl was seated on a wooden bench within such a ray of light as 
found its way from one of the tiny windows. Her chin had been cupped in chained hands in 
meditation. With the opening of the door she turned without curiosity or expectation to greet 
her visitor. Seeing who it was, she stood erect.

“Darling, this is Lisette.” Giselle’s voice held mischief. “Lisette, this is Thorn. You will do 
whatever she tells you, except to set her free.”

It was utterly unreal. The place was a dungeon, there was no other word for it. And the 
chained maiden within should have been a frightened creature, pleading for mercy. But the 
teenage beauty who advanced to meet them was not like that. Even though chains hung from
her wrists and swirled about her feet as she walked, Lisette Lemaire was as regal as her elder 
sister. Her features more pixie like, her figure less mature, but the two firm breasts offered no 
apology, not did the thick, shining fronds of pubic hair. The teenage darling came towards 
them gracefully with a shocking chatter of links upon stone to place her shackled hands upon 
Thorn’s two shoulders and kiss her coolly in greeting. The two captives were strangers and 
Lisette cocked an impish eye at her sister in mute query.

“Thorn is the girl Papa and I have told you of, Lisette ma cherie,” Giselle announced 
matter-of-factly. “If you are very well behaved I may loan her to you sometimes.”

The teenage pixie nodded as though such matters were of everyday occurrence at the 
Chateau Lemaire. She clinked her way to circle Thorn in unashamed appraisal. “So you keep 
her handcuffed behind her back,” she commented as if it were a matter of mild interest. “You 
are very beautiful, Mademoiselle Thorn. Welcome to the Chateau Lemaire.”

As if speaking of the weather, she inquired of Giselle, “Has Papa decided when he’ll let me 
out. I am weary of this place and of these chains.”

“Sometime tomorrow, dear.”

The teenager wear her weight of chains as though unconscious of restraint. Her grin was 
gamin. “I have been a bad girl so Papa has me chained down here.” She grinned confidingly. 
“There are many penances for a girl like me.” Without any hint of resentment she added, 
“Giselle is Papa’s favorite. She serves no penances at all.”

Thorn turned to Giselle, “But this is awful! I can’t believe your father would imprison his 
daughter in a place like this. I’ll go hairy the first day.”

“They you will be growing much hair, Mademoiselle,” Lisette tinkled amusement. “Maybe 
next time I have been naughty you will be chained here to keep my company. You must not 
think our Papa is cruel. Some day soon he is going to whip Giselle for something that I have 
forgotten. It is for our own good. We do not complain.”

Thorn was outraged. “This whole thing is nuts!” she accused to the girl who had chained 
her hands. “Look, I’ve had enough and I’ve seen too much. You can turn me loose and I’ll get 
back to the USA somehow.”

The French girls heard the outburst in a strained silence, which went on too long while 
Thorn, in panting indignation, awaited the storm. But the storm did not come. Instead, Giselle 
kissed her lips and pinched her nipples before walking from the dungeon and slamming the 
huge door shut with an ominous sound of locks and bolts. The two .girls stared at each other, 
Thorn in dismay.

“She is of a little annoyed,” Lisette comforted. “But pouf to Giselle, you and I can now talk.”
Mischievously, she added, “Our chains, they will not hinder us at all.”

Thorn was grappling with disbelief, still shocked from the sight of this delightful teenage 
girl chained naked in a dungeon, a condition her sister and father appeared to find entirely 
commonplace. “I don’t understand,” she admitted frankly. “This is a terrible punishment for a 
girl like you but you seem unconcerned.”

“These, and this place?” Lisette held up chained hands and kicked a swirl of links from a 
chained ankle. “I cry no tears for these. I get punished often and in many ways. This dungeon 
is only bad at nights when there is ghosts in the darkness. So I crawl into the corner and wish I
had not been so bad a girl. All is in order. Why are you so angry?”

They sat upon the wooden bench, it was the only one there was. Thorn sat sideways 
because her feet were free and she could thus face her companion who’s feet were joined. 
Calmly and dispassionately, Lisette told of the downstairs rooms and of the things a girl could 
do to get herself into anyone of them.

“But surely your Papa does not allow Giselle to possess you or punish you,” Thorn 
demanded.

“Mais non. I do not live in the wing of Giselle, I live with Papa. But I will often visit and 
allow Giselle to be a little mean to me and let me visit you.”

“Mean … ?”

“Well, yes.” Lisette was enjoying Thorn’s bewilderment. “If I visit without invitation, Giselle 
will tie my hands or chain my feet or do something else just a little unkind to tell me I am 
seventeen and Giselle is twenty-six. I do not mind, please cease to be concerned. Those 
handcuffs bother you, don’t they? But you will get used to them. May I kiss you?”

The youngster’s kiss was quite a bit more than a polite touch of lips. Thorn emerged from 
it gasping and erotically aroused. Lisette oozed sexuality in ways most teenagers could never 
duplicate.

“That was tres bon,” the youngster said sagely. “I will enjoy your flavor and you will enjoy 
mine, I can already tell. Will you be whipped too when Papa whips Giselle for getting herself 
into all that trouble on that tour?”

“I don’t think so, I’ve been whipped enough already. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“Of a surety I noticed. It must have been of the most painful. I do not enjoy more than the 
first few strokes when I am whipped. After that I cry and make much noise.” She mused, “I 
expect all girls make much noise when they are whipped.” She frankly giggled. “I will ask Papa 
to let us watch when he whips Giselle.”

Thorn knew herself sadly disorganized. Until the Querida disaster, she had always been a 
girl of decision and competence. Then had come the cage and the sharing of passion and 
delight with a girl who now held her captive, a girl who appeared to see no harm in the 
imprisonment of her younger sister in nakedness and chains within a dungeon’s gloom. It was 
all contradictory and made no sense, especially the blithe spirit of this girl who sat beside her 
on the bench. She spoke of such things and endured them with calm or giggled composure. It
was a time when a girl longs to scream and beat her fists!

She thought of Garth Bannock and wondered if he knew the secrets of the Chateau 
Lemaire. Surely he could not consign a girl to this.

“You must not be unhappy, darling,” she chained nymphet chided gently. “I expected it is 
that you have had too much of the freedom. Papa says freedom is bad for girls. Papa says girls
must be constantly punished or they get silly ideas and become unhappy. Have you the silly 
ideas?”

“I want to pack up and go home. I suppose that’s a silly idea,” Thorn retorted sardonically. 
“Where I come from Papa would be put in prison for doing this to you. Sure, sure, you’re 
happy and Giselle is happy, but to me this whole thing is insane. Look, sweetheart, when we 
get out of this dungeon, if we ever do, will you show me the way out of here and help me 
escape?”

“But that is forbidden!” It was Lisette’s turn to be shocked. “You heard my sister, helping 
you escape is something I must not do. I do not wish to escape my father’s house, I don’t see 
why you want to. You will be very happy with Giselle and me.”

The youngster obvious distress touched Thorn’s heart. She wondered if she were crying 
out before being hurt. The handcuffs might be locked upon her wrists only in mischief. They 
would cause no pain unless she fought them. The chains Lisette wore so gracefully were partly
cosmetic, slowing down her movements but not denying them. She took a deep, resigned 
breath. “Sorry I asked, dear. You’re quite right, you mustn’t let me loose. I’m so glad we’ve had
this chance to talk, you’ve helped me put things together. I’ll go along with whatever Giselle 
wants, but tell me, how long will I be kept here? How long will you be kept like this?”

Once more Lisette giggled at naivete. “Until we are married, of course! Then, if we have 
children, we punish them too, to make sure they are good girls and boys. It is the way of life.”

“How can you possibly get married, Lisette, when you’re a prisoner all the time? How could
I possibly get married?”

“Pouf, that is easy. Papa will pick the man we marry. We will have lovely weddings and, if 
we are good wives, our husbands will not beat us very much.” She giggled again. “I am told it 
is the custom with married couples for the husband to whip his wife’s bottom just a little 
before they are making the love. It becomes then better for them both.” She signed. “Papa 
says I must not marry until I am at least twenty. It is such a long time. But you could be 
married any time if Papa finds the right man. Giselle does not wish marriage, she loves not the
men. That is why she had you.”

Thorn beheld in this glowing teenager the fount of all wisdom a la Lemaire, but grimly 
realized her chances of escape by marriage would be slender indeed if her only function here 
was to amuse the eldest daughter of the house. She glimpsed she and Giselle growing old 
together in the fashion of other female couples of whom she had read. More and more she 
wished to be rid of the handcuffs on her wrists. She was finding Lisette’s slender curves more 
and more enticing. It would be nice to play with this youthful body, to hold the girl tight in the
comfort of warm skin and breast to breast. As if reading her mind, Lisette reached to grasp 
and hold her nakedness and clutch it tight. The chains on Lisette’s wrists were cold upon girl 
flesh but Thorn cared nothing for such a trifle. She kissed and wiggled belly against belly and 
sex against sex in a terrible need for communion. Once again she damned the circlets which 
denied her arms their natural function. Quite suddenly Lisette was kissing tears away from 
Thorn’s eyes as the older girl found the ancient relief for overtaxed emotions. Neither of them 
spoke of the tears or of the youngster’s dealing with them. Now there was a bond between 
them.

They were fed by a servant, Lisette expecting nothing more, but Thorn disappointed by the
deliberate absence of her mistress. Ashamed of helplessness she allowed Lisette to cut up her 
food and deliver it to her lips a mouthful at a time. She had expected bread and water but this
repast from the kitchen was as inconsistent as all else. With the dishes gone, the younger 
prisoner, almost shyly, took Thorn by the arm and led her into the gloom where a single 
blanket would separate them from the stone throughout the night.

“A dungeon is a dungeon,” Lisette explained apologetically. “It is to be expected a girl will 
not be comfortable.”

Thorn allowed herself to be positioned and, after a very long time, the two of them 
wearied of their play and went to sleep entwined.

It was Giselle who carried in the tray for breakfast but it was a breakfast for only one. “You 
will eat with me up stairs, most beautiful Thorn,” she said gaily as she sat the tray down. 
“Goodness only knows when Papa will order Lisette’s release. In any case I’ve given her 
enough of you. I can see you’ve fallen in love with each other so it is best I interfere.”

In Giselle’s bedroom Thorn came face to face with a rapidly diminishing possibility of 
freedom. Her ankles were locked together in handcuffs before her hands were freed from 
behind her, only to be locked in front.

“You see how easy you are to control, ma petite,” Giselle explained patiently. “Now I take 
the handcuffs from your pretty ankles and I have a young woman able to dispose herself 
properly at the breakfast table. Come, we bath.”

Once more Thorn was bathed in luxury. She felt better now that she thought she knew the 
extent of the bonds upon her limbs. It was like being in the cage again with her hands joined 
in front. Teasingly she suggested Giselle wear handcuffs, too, to make them even.

Giselle tweaked a captive nipple. “Remember, I am the Mistress, you do not say such 
things. Soon I will punish these slippings of your tongue.”

Cleaned and groomed, Thorn’s arm was grasped with an obvious intent. “You don’t mean 
we’re eating as a family? I mean, your father … And the servants … ?”

“Of course, cherie, Papa adores you. Come along.”

“But I can’t, I’m naked! Giselle, be sensible.”

“I will be sensible enough to whip your pretty bottom if you disobey. This is the Chateau 
Lemaire. Here a slave girl wears no clothes.”

“I’m not a slave girl, Giselle, forget it!”

Thorn was uncertain where the riding crop came from but it was in Giselle’s right hand. 
She knew Giselle would use it in this, their first true confrontation. Staring into Giselle’s eyes, 
she knew it a confrontation she would loose. But she stood her ground. “But, M. Lemaire is 
you father, your Papa, do you want him seeing a guest in his house stark naked … A female?”

“Papa has seen many naked girls, come, don’t be silly.” Giselle motioned with the long, 
slender thing she held. “I do not mind using this, darling.”

Choked with emotion, Thorn retorted, “Oh, very well then, if that’s the way of it.”

It was bad enough to be naked but to be whip marked as well … !

Giselle’s papa showed no undue emotion. He rose at their entry, took her chained hands 
and kissed the back of one with the same old world courtliness he had used the day before. 
He held a chair for her and adjusted it as she sat. That she was naked and handcuffed seemed 
to make not one bit of difference. Thorn sat, bathed in shame, pink-faced and panting. But 
conversation flowed as did the meal, by the time it was over she had returned to normalcy 
and was led back to “the wing of Giselle” by a laughing girl.

“You see, Papa did not eat you, he did not even notice.”

“See he did, I could feel his eyes. He is simply a gentlemen. Gosh, I’ve never felt so 
embarrassed.”

“Or looked more lovely.” Giselle squeezed a bare arm. “It is good you and I lived with 
joined hands back in that cage, you scarcely noticed the handcuffs. You see, I am kind. Your 
handcuffs give you an inch or two more than we had back then. Come, I have decided to tie 
you up for the day.”

“What!”

“You heard me, darling. Today I will bind you beautifully tight while I run errands. The 
ropes are so gorgeous when in a girl’s skin - I can hardly wait.”

Giselle carried the riding crop as if it was a badge of office. Sight of it silenced Thorn’s 
instincts. Besides, being bound or tied up was a childish play and, if it amused Giselle, she 
could put up with it.

With only the slightest tremor in her voice she said, “I’ve never been tied up.”

Thorn allowed herself to be led down the stone steps.

Strangely she thought of Garth Bannock.





CHAPTER FOUR - SCARLET SKIN


It was one of the many small rooms, almost clinical in its cleanliness, its white walls far 
removed from dungeon gloom. The window was high but sunlight streamed through it and 
seemed to focus on the only piece of furniture, a vertical, round pole from floor to ceiling. 
Bound to it was a naked girl.

Having nothing else to do, Thorn was reliving those minutes of discovery during which 
Giselle had place her as she now was. Being tied up by Giselle was less simply than Thorn had 
supposed. The French maiden had desired a certain effect and was prepared to work for it. 
“Back to the post, darling, you’re going to love this.”

At first the pole was cold upon Thorn’s back but her flesh rapidly warmed it and by that 
time her waist had been circled many times with rope and cinched tight at the small of the 
back to cause her quaint sensations when she breathed. The center of her being was totally 
immobilized.

“There, you cannot run away now, darling. So now I take you handcuffs.”

Thorn recognized the principle of rendering one part of her helpless while another part 
was freed. She had little time to finger the rope binding by which she was almost cut in two 
before her hands were drawn back and her wrists crossed and bound with thin cord and great
expertise. The pole just permitted this indignity, it was not too large.

She was quite helpless and could never free herself, but Giselle was in full flush and it was 
a labor of love. Next it was Thorn’s ankles and knees. There was much giggling and 
half-hearted protests when rope was drawn between her thighs and tugged up to join the 
rope belt through her waist at front and back. The process drew what Giselle called a “crupper
cord” hard within the captive’s crotch and actually within the maiden lips which Giselle parted 
to allow and insure entry.

“What good will that do, Giselle?” Thorn demanded irritably. “It hurts.”

“That’s all it does, darling, it hurts. Isn’t it cute?”

Thorn sniffed and allowed her attention to be diverted by ropes over her shoulders and 
over and under her breasts to cruelly indent them into her flesh. Her protests that this was silly
and not necessary in order to keep her helpless were answered by Gallic logic, “But, darling, 
you look so beautiful. Without these cords you would be just another naked woman. You will 
be so proud if someone comes to visit.”

Thorn was shocked. “Look here, Giselle, you idiot. I don’t want people coming in here and 
staring at me like this.”

“It is the luck of the draw, you can tell me of it later. I fear you are going to be like this a 
long, long time.”

The nudity thus bound had been kissed and patted and petted before being left alone. As 
Giselle’s retreating back was almost through the door, Thorn suddenly panicked. “Don’t leave 
me like this,” she begged. “Giselle, don’t be unkind, I can’t move.”

The captive girl was answered only by silence and the closing of the door.

It took little imagination to see a long day. The ropes and cords had started their nagging 
discomfort almost as soon as the knots were tied. The crupper cord was a steady burn within 
the secret place. Bound this rigidly, Thorn felt like a recruit standing at attention on the parade
group, with chest out-thrust and tummy tucked in. She could move nothing, either of her 
bindings or herself, and she would stand to attention in a painful submission to authority 
throughout the day. By night, Thorn knew she would be a sore little girl in considerable pain 
and probably disgustingly humble in her anxiety for release. It had not occurred to her until 
then that what she now suffered was not in punishment for anything but simply an indulgence
of her mistress’ caprice. She was bound simply because Giselle wanted her bound. Thorn 
blinked away tears of frustration and settle herself to wait. What else could she do!

Discounting an obvious inevitability of discomfort, Thorn discovered a mild thrill in her 
condition. The ropes were Giselle’s as was the configuration in which she was secured to the 
post. The authority of Giselle’s determined fingers was still potent on Thorn’s flesh, if she 
could not move it was because of Giselle’s authority. There was something tremendously 
personal in what her mistress had done to a girl who had no choice but to yield. The thrill was 
sexual and no doubt owed a good deal to the rope penetrating her sex. But the real power of 
its erotism lay in the mind. Miss Thorn Thurston was the personal property of Mademoiselle 
Lemaire. It was that simply. The thought of the million dollars paid for her ransom was never 
far from Thorn’s mind, it was an impossible sum she could never pay. She supposed she 
should be grateful for this opportunity to remove the debt by a personal enslavement utterly 
bizarre. But she was not grateful. If she was to be bound thus every day, she would have been 
more comfortable back in the cage. But then she remembered the Scotsman’s threat of the 
brothel up the coast. The fact was she could not win.

Thorn knew another course upon which she could set her hope. It would leave her feeling 
guilty and ungrateful but escape from Chateau Lemaire was her only chance of regaining her 
lost years of youthfulness. Giselle would be furious but Thorn doubted Lemaire’s concern. He 
would smile his thin, quiet smile and forget she existed.

The bound girl tried to move resentfully against the ropes without results. She was 
thinking of escape but that seemed highly improbable. Giselle’s restraints would give no 
chance for enterprise in search of freedom. There was only the disagreeable prospect of 
striking the mistress with a shackle during one of those moments of transition when her hands
were free. Thorn shuttered at the vision of Giselle crumpled on the floor, broken and bleeding,
while her slave girl searched for keys. It was unthinkable.

Lisette was the first visitor. She tripped in like a breath of spring, her greeting typical, 
“Darling, you look wonderful. Gosh, you’re beautiful! Is my big sister being mean?”

“I suppose that’s the word for it.”

“She doesn’t mean to be, she just loves girls so much she can’t resist.” Lisette grinned 
confidingly. “She used to amuse herself with me all the time but she got you now. Its bound 
to make things easier with the two of us. Is it hurting?”

“Yes, it is. I don’t suppose you’d like to loosen something?”

“I expect you mean like the rope in your pussy,” Lisette said casually. “Darling, I simply 
cannot. If I touched a single knot, Giselle would know and then I would be in for it.” Once 
more the young voice became confidential. “It’s Papa who sentences me to my real serious 
punishments for doing bad things. But Giselle can do whatever she likes with me anytime so 
long as she’s not too mean. Papa won’t let her do anything cruel to me. Not that she would. 
She’s real sweet.”

The tied girl was still groping for answers. “But, Lisette, surely you don’t spend all your life 
being punished?”

“I am the punishments getting only when I have been a naughty girl. Then Papa orders me
whipped or put in a dungeon or something. Giselle punishes me only when she’s bored or 
needs to be amused. I don’t really mind, most of the time its a lot of fun. But I also study 
music at the academy and a lady teacher comes to teach me creative writing.” Again the 
giggle. “Papa has given her permission to cane my hands if I louse up my lessons. I’ll introduce
her to you sometime. She’s a lot better with the cane than with the books.” Lisette sighed. “I 
guess I’m a very luck girl.”

Thorn did not contradict but returned to her main concern. “Lisette, I beg of you, please 
let me loose. Give me back my freedom. I absolutely must go home. If they just find the loose 
ropes on the floor they can’t be sure if I got loose myself or if I had help. Or who it was. It 
doesn’t have to be you. Oh, please?”

“They’ll know, darling. They’ll put me in a dungeon for the longest time and make me wear
the heaviest chains and whip me every day for a month.”

Thorn was about to point out that such a punishment was minor compared to a lifetime of
being bound to a post and such inflictions. But it seemed unkind and tactless, and she needed
Lisette as a friend not an enemy. The girl might help her to freedom by some unconscious or 
thoughtless act, even if she didn’t do anything deliberately. Setting aside the thought, she 
asked, “Have you ever been tied the way I am now?”

“Of course I have, cherie. It becomes very terrible after a few hours. Here, let me give you 
pleasure.”

The youthful fingertips on parts Thorn could not move was comforting but at the same 
time demonstrated her helplessness. If Lisette wished to bite the nipples off, there was 
nothing to hinder the act. But the bound girl thrust the thought aside to deliver herself totally 
to the most feminine of all sensations. Soon she was breathing hard and moaning, her eyes 
closed, her head thrust hard back against the pole. Climax was inevitable, and when it came 
Lisette added her own cries and moans to Thorn’s. In the white painted room rapture was 
rampant.

“Giselle has me do that to her, she loves it,” Lisette pouted. “But she won’t do it to me. She
says I’m too young. Will you do it to me if you have your hands when we’re together?”

“Of course I will.”

“If she finds out, she’ll whip you.”

“I’ll take a chance. You just made me very happy, you’re marvelous at it, Lisette.”

“Have you every had a man inside you, Thorn?”

The bound girl found herself blushing. She dealt with the questions very simply. “Yes, I 
have.”

“Its lovely, isn’t it!” Lisette exclaimed. “I’m not suppose to do it, I’m too young. But there’s 
all sorts of boys who’ll do it for you. There’s the gardener’s assistant. He sticks his thing into 
me every week. He tells me I’m a real good lay, whatever that means.”

Thorn wanted to laugh at such innocence. But then it was coupled with an outrageous lack
of modesty. Suddenly she asked, “What do you know about Garth Bannock?”

“You mean for sticking his thing into girls?”

“No, not that. I’m sure he does that very well. Do you know who and what he is? What 
does he do for a living?”

“He is a friend and business associate of Papa. They do deals together all over the world 
and make millions and millions. He is very rich. Also very charming. I would get a big thrill to 
have him inside me. So I have asked Papa to give me to him in marriage when I become of 
age. Papa just laughs. It is very sad.”

Thorn managed laughter. “He’ll probably cane your bottom every day. You wouldn’t like 
that.”

“Yes, I would! I would like it very much. Then, when my bottom was on fire, he would open 
my legs and make the big entry. I fear I dream.”

“It was Garth Bannock who arranged the ransom of your sister and I. He also whipped your
sister’s bottom. I’ve never been sure of that.”

“Papa asked him to. I as at the dinner table when they discussed ransom and what Garth 
should do. I envied you two so much in that lovely cage. I wish I could have been there with 
you.”

“There’s a lovely cage downstairs, why don’t you have your Papa or Giselle lock you in 
there if you like it so much?”

“Locked in here alone would be no fun. A cage needs two or more girls to make it come 
alive.”

The teenager bit Thorn’s nipples gently before confiding, “I think it is you who gets locked 
in there sometimes. I have been asked to be locked in with you but this I do not know.”

Thorn was touched by the compliment. “That’s sweet of you, Lisette, but if they did put the
two of us in there together, we’d probably be chained so we couldn’t do a thing. Giselle would
never let us play.”

“It is not a big cage, surely we could reach?”

Thorn laughed at her serious consideration of something that would not happen. “Maybe 
you can persuade your Papa to lock us in there together. I’m not sure how he’ll have us 
chained, but I’ll take a chance. With Giselle there wouldn’t be a chance.”

“It is useless to talk these things,” Lisette said sadly. “So now I give you one more lovely 
orgasm and then I go. It is time for my creative writing and Miss Dupont will be waiting. I do 
not wish the caning of my hands. It is of a hurting most terrible.”

Thorn knew herself a plaything, a beautiful animated doll for the delight of two girls and 
perhaps a man! She had nothing to say about anything and was helpless to perform even the 
simplest act. Gratefully she allowed herself to be taken into rainbow land by the talented 
young hands and lips. When that was done, they said goodbye again with the knowledge it 
would happen again and again. In that, the Chateau Lemaire seemed almost kind in its 
treatment of captive girls. The door closed softly.

It was late afternoon as the prisoner of the post fell into a reverie of pain and penance 
while fire burned softly in her sex. The opening of the door broke into a mediation of diverse 
emotions Thorn could not understand. She raised sleepy eyes without expectation of release.

It was Garth Bannock.

“Well, little sweetheart really has you trussed. Enjoying yourself?”

Garth Bannock had seen her naked before so it did not matter now. What did matter was a
fresh flooding of hope. “No, I’m not enjoying myself, I’m hurting. Please let me loose. Untie 
me. Oh, and I should say I’m pleased to see you, I really am.”

“Hmmmmm … So you expect me to untie you?” Garth always aimed directly at the point. 
“You know I’m not going to so why do you ask?”

“How am I do know that you don’t have any chivalry?” she flashed at him. “Any man with a
shred of decency wouldn’t have to be asked.”

“Sorry, love, no decency, no chivalry. Would you like me to go?”

“No!” Thorn’s negative was explosive with panic.

“I suppose little Lisette has given you a good going over? Sexually, I mean?”

Thorn’s blush answered his question. He laughed easily at the confirmation of his guess. 
“I’m here to dine with Jules, that’s Lemaire’s Christian name. I’m a bit early and her majesty 
isn’t around so I thought I’ll drop down and see if there was anything I could do. How are you 
making out?”

Thorn was not sure she could trust him, but what else was there! “You can see how I’m 
making out. I’m being mildly tortured. Yes, there’s something you can do for me. You can let 
my parents know where I am and what is being done to me … Or maybe go to the American 
Consulate. Please, Mr. Bannock, I need someone’s help.”

“In a way, you do,” he admitted slowly. “On the other hand you have a lot to be thankful 
for. You would probably be in an Arab brothel by now if it weren’t for Giselle and her Papa. 
Maybe you’d prefer that?”

“You know I wouldn’t. Don’t be horrible. Garth, don’t you understand, I could put up with 
this for a month or so if that’s all there was. But I’m to be a prisoner her until I’m middle aged 
and unattractive. Please, Mr. Bannock, I simply must escape … “

“Better make up your mind what you’re going to call me. I suggest my Christian name, 
Garth sounds good the way you say it.”

“Okay. Am I making any sense?”

“Sure, I get where you’re coming from. Do you mind if I stare, I’m enjoying all you have to 
offer?”

His abrupt change of topic was disconcerting. Thorn blushed and felt herself all breasts, 
nipples and pussy. “Look all you want,” she said sulkily. “I can’t stop you, I can’t stop anything.”

Thorn tensed as Garth locked the door and walked behind the pole. She felt strong fingers
tugging at the rope and at first refused to believe it was really happening. But as the loops of 
cord were peeled from within her skin she began to believe the impossible was taking place. 
When a male hand and a male arm assisted her from stepping away from the post, she was so
overcome by relief and gratitude, she wept unashamedly on his shoulder while her arms went 
around his neck, seeking male strength. For the first time since coming to the Chateau 
Lemaire, Miss Thorn Thurston was free!

Garth Bannock possessed the gentleness inherent in most big men. He made love to his 
captive with extraordinary gentleness and skill. In the throes of ecstasy, Thorn remembered 
her desire for him from the first moment she saw him. Now she was in his arms and he was 
deep within her sheath. It was one more benison of the Chateau. But, returning from 
wonderland, she heard him say, “Don’t get ideas, sweetheart, you’re not home yet. But I was 
curious to see how good you’d be. You’re damned good!”

“A hooker who’s given satisfaction, is that it?”

“I’ll prefer calling it a captive girl who’s had a bit of fun. Don’t try and shock me by being 
vulgar.”

They were standing now, tidying themselves. It had become miraculous for Thorn’s fingers 
to reach her hair. Watching her busily engaged with herself, Garth mediated aloud. “You’re a 
splendid creature. Don’t ever forget it.”

“Thank you kind sir. Do you wish to rape me again?”

“That wasn’t rape, and you know it. Damn it, girl, you’re asking for a whipped ass. I refuse. 
Led me to where its at and we’ll both have a bath. We’ve just about got time.”

Once more Thorn found delight in Giselle’s bathroom. This time it was male hands 
caressing her skin and turning her about and around as if she were a Barbie doll. Garth’s 
strength was considerable. Thorn indulged in fantasies as he soaped her breasts and laved her
sex from which he had removed Giselle’s crupper cord.

“Don’t hold a grudge against her majesty,” he advised, whispering in her ear. “She’s 
harmless, she’ll never really damage you.”

“What are you going to do with me, are you really going to give me freedom? Oh, Garth, if
only … “

“What we’re doing after we’ve bathed is compose ourselves and go to greet Lemaire when
he comes home. We’ll have a couple of cocktails and conversation. If her majesty shows up, 
she can join us.”

“And murder me afterwards for being loose?”

“No she won’t, I’ll look after that. The little madam has to mind her Ps and Qs where Jules 
and I are concerned. If she wants to beat someone’s bottom, she can do use Lisette. That poor
kid’s what they used to call a whipping girl. She thrives on it.”

There was only one discordant note, before they sought cocktails, Garth produced 
handcuffs. “You’d better wear these,” he advised soberly. “There’s no use breaking too many 
house rules, there’s never a need to give offense. I suppose you can mix a cocktail with 
chained hands?”

Thorn extended a chained wrist in a strange compliance. With Garth it seemed a natural 
thing to do. His strength would always make a virtue of meekness in any girl. The shinning 
circles of steel clicked upon her flesh snug enough to deny escape and assure a slight 
discomfort. Thorn mixed the cocktails with graceful ease and wondered what would happen if 
she bolted for the door. She was directed to kneel before the omnipotent male, to sit back on 
her heels and sip her drink in comfort. The humiliation was not more than she could bear, 
there was a heat generating thrill to the male authority. After a while it seemed the most 
natural posture in the world. Had the male given her permission to change it, she probably 
would have refused.

Gazing down upon the slave girl with amusement, Garth dropped another bomb. “Forget 
the lifetime thing. I’m going to have Jules give you to me in marriage.” He saw her tense and 
felt her stare of disbelief. “Don’t get too excited, sweetheart, it won’t happen right now. It’s 
not convenient, and anyway, we have to give her majesty her money’s worth. But when I think 
the time’s right, I’ll rescue you.”

Thorn supposed she should throw her arms around his neck in wild ecstasy but the 
handcuffs always made a mess of such a demonstration. She had words aplenty to pour into 
his ear but they would all sound trite and perhaps insincere. Instead she did the most natural 
thing a girl can do, placing her glass down, she covered her face in her chained hands and 
wept, sobbing as if her heart would break. It was gratitude and relief such as she had never 
known. Carefully Garth raised her to her feet, placed her chained hands up and over his head 
and gathered her nudity within his arms in a total assurance of consent. Abandoning 
superlatives, Thorn whispered an absurd, “Thank you … Oh, thank you!”

There was nothing trivial about this man. Garth Bannock made Thorn Thurston kneel back 
as she had been before, to pick up her glass and sip quietly while he talked. “I suppose I want 
a slave girl as much as a wife,” he said thoughtfully. “If a wife’s a good wife, there not much 
difference. After I’ve married you, I’ll divorce you if you say the word.”

“I won’t say that word, not ever.”

“No, I don’t think you will. This isn’t something casual, I have a tremendously strong 
feeling for you. I’m sorry we have to wait, but we both have to damned well put up with it.”

“How long?”

“Deadlines are devastating, I won’t make them. When Giselle is being unusually hard to 
bear, you must remember I’m somewhere out and around and forgetting nothing.” Garth 
laughed. “I suppose I’m in love.”

“But will M. Lemaire permit?”

“Sure he will. It’s the little madam who will blow her top. But Giselle is always blowing her 
top over something. Does she remember she has a whipping coming?”

“Yes, she’s mentioned it. It doesn’t seem to bother. Having a thing like that out there 
waiting would give me the willies.”

“We won’t tell Giselle, not yet. I’ll speak to Jules but we’ll keep it quite. Thorn, I’m sorry but 
it could be at least a year.”

“I don’t mind, not so long as there will be an end.”

Garth’s chuckle was once more of genuine amusement. “Consul yourself by knowing 
you’re getting out of the frying pan and into the fire. I’ll cane your bottom every time you do 
something silly. I will! Don’t doubt it.”

“I won’t do anything silly. Don’t doubt that either.”

“Yes you will, all girls do silly things. It’s in the nature of being female. Mrs. Garth Bannock 
will get herself a well-whipped ass.”

She adored the man, his banter kept her flame afire, his handcuffs warm around her wrists.
Thorn was not a child and would contrive to do without the hugs and kisses she wanted but 
felt would be inappropriate. Most of the time until her final release they would be impossible. 
Mentally she dared Giselle to do her worst. But immediately she felt a rush of guilt and 
gratitude to the French maiden who had made this possible. For the rest of her captivity she 
would do and be whatever Giselle desired of her.

Conscious of their host’s imminent arrival, Garth and Thorn were cautious in their acts but 
freely discussed the problems they would now contend with. Garth undertook to allay the 
anxiety of Thorn’s family, leaving them to think she was still in the midst of a revolution in a 
distant land, but unharmed. It would not be wise to tell them of the cage. Obediently Thorn 
mixed more drinks as her master desired. She felt very much owned and girlishly in love.

Surprisingly Giselle accepted her slave girl’s freedom without demur. The daughter of Papa
admired Garth tremendously and was a little afraid of him. Papa did not realize that anything 
had happened but viewed the handcuffs with approval. Thorn, now no longer bothered by 
nakedness, wondered why girls ever bothered with clothes.

At the end of the meal, Jules Lemaire formally announced the whipping of his daughter on
the coming weekend. All present were invited to be present.

“You are big smart of the ass,” Giselle accused when the two girls went to bed. “That Garth 
Bannock, too, is same thing … Untying my knots. He is a hole in the ass.”

“Well, don’t blame me, I couldn’t move.”

“You should have told him to leave you alone. When I tie you up I want you left tied. I 
suppose he thrust his big thing up between your legs. Pouf, cest terrible. I am not the mistress
in my own house.”

“But, Giselle, darling, he never gave me a chance to except. And he thinks you’re a very 
beautiful girl.”

“Pouf to that, also. I want no men. Ugh, all that untidy, smelly sex!”

“You shouldn’t be mad at him, darling. After all he did get us out of that cage.”

“You are a silly girl in love. I know the signs, Lisette is in love with the hole in the ass, too. I 
will cure both of you. I put you in the cage. But first you do your duty by your mistress.”

Thorn did as she was told, finding pleasure in what she could not avoid. Her heart was 
singing not only about Garth but in prospect of sharing the cage with Lisette. If only Giselle 
did not divine the rapport between the slave girl and her younger sister, it would be a night to
remember. With every trick she sought to pleasure the girl who’s captive she must remain.

Lisette was already locked within the cage. One glance at the youngster’s woebegone 
features told Thorn all she had to know. Giselle compelled her to kneel, back to the bars, while
a collar was locked upon her neck. Lisette was already collared. Giselle laughed at their dolor, 
kissed them, and went away with the flip remark, “You do not get the best of Giselle. I teach 
you both a lesson.”

It was outrageous, it was unkind, it was not to be endured! Thorn’s eyes roved the barred 
prison as her hands tugged at the span of links from her collar to the floor. The collar was of 
metal and there was a padlock. Lisette’s chagrined tone told all. “Giselle’s being mean, it’s just 
the way I told you. She had this all fixed just waiting for a chance to use it. We can lay down 
and go to sleep but that’s all. We can’t get near each other. Let’s try.”

It was hopeless, they were foxed, the best they could manage was to entwine their feet if 
they stretched out on the cushions. They could not touch, nor could they kiss.

“You see, I told you. Giselle wants me a virgin, I must have no fun. Oh, Thorn darling, I am 
of such great sorrow.”

Thorn was furious, tugging at her chain in a fury of anger. She was still handcuffed but 
what did that matter. She longed most ardently for Lisette’s embrace, for the heat of this 
young girl. Giselle was being deliberately unkind and in the morning she would tell her so. But
morning was a long ways off and in the meantime all they could do was talk.

“I have much wanted to try out this cage,” Lisette confided mournfully. “But not like this. 
Giselle has made it like the thirsting man who can see the water he cannot drink. I will ask 
Papa to marry me off as soon as possible. I do not care if my husband canes my bottom and 
my hands every day, just so long as I can thumb by nose at my sister.

“Have you ever been compelled to sit upon the ‘horse’?”

“I can’t ride, I’ve never been near a horse.”

“I do not mean the horse that eats the hay. I mean the wicked plank upon the edge of 
which a girl must place her pussy and then sit upon it with all her weight for hours and hours.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“It is tres terrible, of a agony. It cuts the girl’s puss in two and she must sit and sit and sit 
because she is thus bound and cannot move.”

“It sounds terrible but why do you tell me of it?”

“Because Giselle had it done to me once, I have never forgotten. It would give me much 
pleasure to do it now to Giselle. But I do not know how.”

“Lisette, I don’t think there is anything we can do to Giselle. But, if you feel that strongly, 
why don’t you complain to your Papa or run away?”

“Run away from my beloved chateau … ? Never! As for complaining to Papa, all the good 
that would get me would be to be whipped and maybe spend more time in the dungeon. 
Until Papa marries me off, it is most difficult. It is the same for both of us.”

“Does Giselle know we will eventually be married off?”

“Mais oui, of certainty. In the meantime she had much fun. I did not mind her fun until 
tonight. But tonight I am in love with you and desire you most terribly. Cannot you break your
chain?”

“Not any more than you can. We’re only girls, you know, not elephants. I’m not even sure 
an elephant could break this thing locked on my neck. Darling, I’m so terrible sorry.”

It was a long while before they went to sleep in the dark, their tears of frustration flowing 
in the gloom. Before fading into sleep, Thorn realized it had been a remarkable day … She was
going to be married!

To Garth Bannock.





CHAPTER FIVE - PENITENT’S PROBATION


Thorn was compelled to admiration of the girl whose prisoner she remained. As the time of 
her whipping approached, Giselle showed no signs of anxiety. All seemed normal and not a 
word was spoken of coming pain.

They spent their days together, must of them in bed, and at night Thorn was placed in the 
cage to please the caprice of the girl who knows her. When night came, Lisette also was place 
behind the bars and her sister’s stern authority maintained by the neck collars or cunning 
chastity belts locked upon me loins of each girl. With sardonic humor their chains were 
lengthened to allow them to intertwine as much as they desired but the metal clamped hard 
over their sex denied them what they desired. Standing in the cage the first night of the 
chastity belts, Lisette jumped up and down on bare, angry feet, her small vigorous hands 
tugging and striving for a grip upon the shining metal of the belt.

“I would tell of this to Papa,” she pouted in outrage. “But Papa would laugh. Oh, Thorn, 
what must we do?”

Thorn laughed at the teenage dismay. “We can’t do a thing, dear. But you can hug me as 
we go to sleep. I’m sorry my hands are handcuffed behind my back. There is not much we can 
do at all.”

“But you are not as angry as me. You should be jumping up and down and saying naughty
words.”

Thorn shrugged. “I’m a professional prisoner, I have to expect this sort of thing. Giselle is 
just being mischievous.”

“You are not in want. You have been in bed with her half the day. I expect she’s nibbled 
you half to bits and you just want to go to bed.”

“Your nipples aren’t prohibited, dear, and I still have my tongue … ?”

“Mais non, it would drive me insane, I would go pop without joy. Come, let me hold you as
you say. Tomorrow I say the naughty words to Giselle.”

“And give her an excuse to punish you? Don’t be silly!”

“I don’t care!”

They slept. The steel upon and within their loins was a wickedly tight authority. It was the 
presence of Giselle within the cage.

On the morning of Giselle’s punishment Thorn made her first grievous mistake. It was an 
act of impulse without reason. During the changing of her bounds, but with ankles still 
handcuffed tight, she took the chance she had often considered in the hope of physically 
overpowering her mistress and gaining the key to freedom. Afterwards she realized the 
absurdity of an act doomed to failure, but in a sudden burst of energy, she turned and 
grabbed with a surprised Giselle and they tumbled to the carpet, Thorn on top. But Giselle 
proved stronger than supposed and struggled free. Thorn, with ankles close locked, could not 
follow. While her captive was thus vulnerable, Giselle found her riding crop. After that the 
battle was a one-sided disaster.

Which ever way Thorn turned the crop was waiting. It slashed and cut at her with shrewd 
cunning to cause her to contort and yell in pain. The captive girl owed defeat to handcuffed 
ankles, and finally curled herself into a sobbing ball, pitifully exposed and bore the agony of 
the slashing crop until Giselle stopped.

“You desire more of the lovely crop, cherie?”

“Oh no!” Thorn was distraught and totally conquered, her pleading broken by sobs. “I 
won’t fight any more but please stop whipping me, I can’t bear that awful pain and you’ve 
whipped me all over.” There was a sniffling pause. “Oh, Giselle, I’m so sorry, so terrible sorry. 
Can you ever forgive me?”

The mistress grasped a handful of her slave girl’s hair and forced Thorn to stand erect. 
Suddenly they were breast against breast and lips against lips in a fervent clutching and 
holding tight to beloved flesh. The handcuffs hurt Thorn’s ankles when she stood like this but 
she did not care.

When finally they broke apart she asked, bewildered, “Do you really forgive me, really and 
truly?”

Giselle stepped back and pretended deep thought. “Of course I forgive you, darling. But 
you must be punished, n’est ce pas?”

“But, Giselle, you’ve already whipped me terribly!”

“Now you must also be shamed. You will stand in the center of the floor, bend over and 
touch your toes with your knees straight and tight, while I give you five lovely strokes across 
your derriere. After number five you may stand up and express your thanks to your mistress. 
And you will hold out your hands to have them chained. You comprehend?”

Thorn was indisposed to argue. Perhaps what was to happen now was only justice. 
Unhappily she went to the place indicated, bent down and touched her toes and waited in 
fearful anticipation for pain she might not endure without breaking the pose. It was a 
demeaning, shaming posture and her ankles hurt, adding to the misery. The crop impact 
caused the knees of the bent over maiden to buckled and her world to explode into 
fragments of pure pain. The sear and burn of the crop across both cheeks was an agony so 
severe Thorn had trouble to straighten up her knees and remain with fingers on her toes. 
Thorn longed to scream and run and vent her anger in any way she could. Instead she 
clenched her teeth and, with features contorted in concentration, awaited the second stroke.

The second one did not come. Instead her hair was tugged to bring her up eye to eye with
her mistress. Thorn sobbed repentance into the soft hollow of Giselle’s neck.

“Ma petite, I am of the most cruel. It is I who should be forgiven. I whip you no more, it is 
enough!”

Each girl felt guilt, they dissolved repentance in a flood of tears and laughter and love. 
When it was over Thorn was as much a prison as ever but promised her mistress and herself 
there would be no more attempts at escape. She had been taught a lesson.

A suddenly preoccupied Giselle handcuffed her captive and locked her in the cage. Thorn 
understood. The whipping of Papa’s eldest daughter was close at hand.

The Chateau Lemaire did nothing by halves. Papa’s decree condemning the senior sister to
the dread flagellum was treated with the reverence and ritual of an execution in ancient times.
There was a distinct touch of Theater about the whole affair. It was to take place at the great 
hall of the main chateau. A suitable structure, upon which Giselle would be fastened and 
exposed, had been especially constructed. It awaited the delinquent maiden. Within its grasp 
the wildest contortions of a girl would cause not a quiver. To either side of this somber 
product of a carpenter’s darker moments were lined the staff of the Chateau Lemaire. They 
made a good showing in their considerable numbers and looked uneasy or delighted 
according to their regard for the young mistress. A tumbrel to deliver the prisoner would have
been well in keeping. In addition to the staff there were a number of people, friends and 
relatives, who honored Jules Lemaire by consenting to watch the whipping of a young woman
who they all agreed had escaped all too lightly in the past. It was into this setting that Thorn 
was ushered by an enraptured Lisette. The youngster was not enthralled by the prospect of 
her sister’s impending pain but rather by the atmosphere and suspend generated by the 
company.

The arrival of the delinquent was cleverly staged. Giselle was clad in white from chin to toe,
a while shift beneath which one might speculate upon her condition. Each of her arms was 
held by a man in the garb of another age. Giselle, herself, walked between them, her eyes 
straight ahead as if fascinated by the engine to which she would be bound. She had evidently 
been instructed as to ritual and passively allowed herself to be halted before the grim timbers 
while the two men who guided her reached for the white shift and tore it asunder to reveal 
the daughter of the house in all her nakedness. It was a glorious nakedness to bring a gasp 
from all who watched. In seeming unconcern, Giselle stepped within the frame and expended 
her hands high and wide to be strapped tight, each to its own vertical beam. That was all, 
there would be no indecent stretching of girlish feet to reveal a girlish sex. If the erring 
daughter so desired, she could keep her legs and thighs tight clamped or kick and contort 
them as she pleased. The Chateau Lemaire was thus most merciful.

Thorn gasped in wonder when Giselle began to speak. The girl, so soon to be whipped, 
spoke in a clear voice to confess the sin by which she had earned this punishment. Omitting 
nothing she told of her wayward behavior and its dramatic and costly result. In a sweet 
submission, contrasting oddly to her daily behavior, she gave thanks for this opportunity to 
pay with the pain of her flesh for the terrible ransom force from her father by a motley rabble 
in the jungle. As she spoke she looked from side to side that all might feel included in her 
humility. Jules Lemaire was no where to be seen.

Another gasp was extracted from those who watched. It was Lisette who now walked 
forward down the hall, swinging from her right hand the terrible strap, so supple, so cruelly 
made to impose the maximum of pain upon the waiting flesh. The younger sister was attired 
only in bra and panties, gaiter belt and nylons. Thorn had no idea when knowledge of this 
function had been thrust upon her but Lisette presented a stern demeanor which told all who 
watched she had accepted a trust and would perform a duty which might or might not give 
pleasure. After one shocked glance to look back and behold her sister, Giselle did not turn 
again.

Thorn realized that much of the agony her mistress must endure was happening right then
and there. The daughter of Lemaire must be bitterly shamed and horribly humiliated by her 
bound exposure and the words she had uttered. The captive girl, as naked as her mistress, but
who’s only bond was handcuffs from only a glowing admiration for the French maiden who 
had whipped her so cruelly only a few hours before, leaving fresh marks on her skin which 
drew comments from those who saw. She had been led to the hall by Lisette but now was 
grasped and escorted into the limelight of the stage. She was positioned well in front of the 
girl bound within the frame so the two of them must face each other, Thorn watching her 
mistress’ shame and the mistress beholding her slave girl observing her agony. It was a most 
subtle cruelty.

A gong vibrated its exciting sound through the assembly. Lisette, already posed, swung a 
determined arm to crack the flagellum with a terrible sound of impact across her sister’s back. 
The company was breathless as Giselle writhed in contortions both erotic and terrible against 
strapped wrists. She gasped but did not scream. Thorn was the only person present to full see 
agony imprint itself upon feminine features.

Her own experience with the flagellum had left Thorn with an acute respect for it. She 
stood, as exposed as was her mistress, and watched Lisette balance and swing the heave 
leather and yet again. She knew Giselle was fighting hard to swallow screams, but the 
adorable legs were now twisting, lifting and kicking in response to the unbearable. 
Unconcerned with consequence, Thorn ran to lift her chained hands above Giselle’s damp hair
and welt Giselle’s hot lips in ardent comfort to her own. In terrible need the two girls thrust 
their nakedness hard against each other, breast to breast and belly to belly. Their legs 
intertwined and their knees thrust, unashamedly, up between to press desperately hard 
against each’s sex. As though the act had been rehearsed, the flagellum of Mademoiselle 
Lemaire continued without pause. Her features entranced as if performing a sacred rite, die 
younger sister flogged the older daughter of Lemaire with the skill of an ancient inquisitor. 
The Chateau Lemaire did things right!

Mistress and slave welded their nudities into a single entity, flesh hard pressed against 
flesh, while measured blows of the ancient Roman punishment impacted with wicked cracks. 
Thorn could feel the flagellum’s venom almost as Giselle herself. The company faded away like
ghosts into the walls. So the naked maidens were alone. Realization came slowly, so absorbed 
were they in each other. But when it came and Thorn felt certain there was none to see, she 
reached up and unstrapped Giselle’s wrists and was instantly rewarded by ardent arms and 
loving fingers. Slowly and without concern for being seen, they made their way back to the 
wing of Giselle and their own privacy. Justice had been done and the daughter of Lemaire was
once more the owner of her slave. They went to bed and stayed there until morning.

Lisette was obviously uncertain of welcome. Thorn felt quite sure that if Giselle so ordered, 
the poor child would prepare herself for punishment. But the message she delivered now was 
not much better. “Papa says you must punish me, darling. I was not suppose to leave you two 
alone the way I did. But you looked so happy together and I didn’t know Papa was watching. 
He said I’ve been whipped so much and put in the dungeon so much lately that you’d best 
give me the post and the peg.”

She grinned at Thorn. “You’ll see what that means when Giselle fixes me.”

It was the same white painted room and the same post but with a difference. A peg had 
been inserted in one of the holes. In no time Lisette stripped naked and pushed a box over to 
the post for her to stand on. She straddled the wooden peg. “This isn’t a bit nice,” she told 
Thorn brightly. “And it’s terrible vulgar. Papa doesn’t usually think up such things.” Grinning 
mischievously, she held out her hands to her sister. “You’ll be needing these, darling, don’t 
forget.” The hands were swiftly tied. Another box and another peg enabled Giselle to raise the 
youngster’s arms up high and to bind them to impose modest stress upon the girl. She then 
took away the box on which her sister stood, an act which caused Lisette to utter an instant, 
“Ouch!”

It was undeniably clever. Thorn guessed this was not the first time the girls had done this, 
they had the measurements properly set without any guessing. Lisette’s big toes sought and 
found the floor but she was denied the full planting of her feet, she must stand tiptoe with 
half her weight at least full upon the peg within her crotch. Thoughtfully, Giselle tied a rope to
one of Lisette’s ankles, brought it around behind the post to bind the other in nothing more 
than a connecting tether, but one to stop the youngster from throwing her leg over the peg 
on which she sat to find release. Lisette was foxed.

Giselle laughed at the expression on Thorn’s face. “You think this most cruel, n’est ce pas? 
You want our little darling’s feet back on the ground. You feel sorrow for the puss.”

It was true. Thorn was looking at the lined and drawn face of a young girl concentrating 
determinedly to adjust to pain in a private place. For a moment, Lisette opened her eyes. “Do 
not worry for me, Thorn, this has been done to me before, I will not die.”

“But it must hurt like crazy!”

“You are like a mother hen,” Giselle chided. “If you’d like to try it, I can put you on the 
other side of the post?”

“You mean I should take Lisette’s place? I will if you let me.”

“You know that’s not possible nor what I meant. I’ll make you both hang there together, 
one on either side. There’s plenty of pegs.” Her eyes glinted mischief. “You see, darling, my 
whipping yesterday didn’t change a thing, I’m still a bitch. And I still own you. Have you 
looked in the mirror? Those whip marks I gave you yesterday are absolutely gorgeous.”

“Don’t let her hang you like this, it isn’t a bit nice.” Lisette’s whisper came from a far away 
land of pain.

“Want to try, darling, I won’t leave you hanging as long as Lisette has to. I’ll soon take you 
down.”

The result was a foregone conclusion, a subtlety of fascination of which Giselle was more 
aware than Thorn. The handcuffs fell way, the wrists were bound, the box was placed, and, 
trembling, Thorn stood upon it to straddle the thrusting peg. It protruded between her thighs 
like a large male penis. The box was withdrawn with a sudden kick from Giselle and Thorn’s 
feet sought the rug, she knew herself a victim to a series of anguishes not previously 
experienced. Her gasp was involuntary as was her moan. Thorn now understood Lisette’s 
contorted features and a voice reduced to whispers. She heard her voice say, “It’s too awful, 
you have to let me down.”

Thorn was not let down. The peg protruded from her pubic hair, a perky insult to a girl! 
Her wrists burned beneath the cord and hurt even more when she used them to take some 
portion of her weight from her punished puss. Giselle’s voice was small comfort.

“You’ll stay there as long as I wish, sweetheart. And you’ll have to remember it’s a lot 
better for you than Lisette. Sure, you’ve got more weight and your pussy has to take more. But
you’re also taller and longer legged, you can carry more of yourself upon your toes than she. 
Count your blessings, I’ll be back after a while.” She turned towards the door.

“Oh, damn, I almost forgot!” Lisette was alarmed. Her exclamation halting Giselle’s 
progress towards the door. “I forgot. Papa gave me a message to give to you. He wants to see
Thorn in his office right away. Sorry!”

“You’re just making that up, you little imp,” Giselle accused.

“No, honest, I’m not!” It was as though concern vanish pain. “If you find out I’m lying, you 
can punish me. Damn it, I’m not that stupid. And I’m hurting enough without needing more.”

Giselle was annoyed. She consulted her wrist watch and delivered her verdict. “All right, I’ll 
let you stay there five minutes, it will give you an idea. Damn, I wanted you there longer than 
that.”

Thorn thought it the longest five minutes of her life. Whatever Jules Lemaire might want of
her she would be grateful he had shorted this pain. It was as if a thousand demons, working 
with picks and shovels, tormented her sex. It burned, it scorched. It reduced sex itself to an 
insignificance compared to her weight upon the peg. She strained to lift herself but everything
hurt. She tried to lift a foot but the rope tether prevented that. She hung as Lisette hung, a 
punished girl who should have had more sense.

The two girls said nothing, each absorbed in their own agony. Both were experienced 
enough in pain to avoid the platitudes of “Oh, darling, I can’t stand this!,” or perhaps, “This is 
driving me crazy. How long?” Instead they hung from their wrists and used every nerve and 
sinew to find the best comprise to endure agony in this place or that. The soft lips within their 
pubic hair accepted most of it. When Giselle returned she found a pair of girls most humble 
and anxious to please. She released one and left the other to her moans.

“Papa really does want to see you, darling, I went and asked. How bad do you hurt 
between your legs?”

“Awful! Oh, darling, that was terrible! Please don’t ever put me on that peg again.”

“But you can walk, okay? I suspect half that punishment is in a girl’s mind just because its 
her pussy.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. Giselle, what does you Papa want of me?”

“I don’t know but you’ll soon find out. Look, we’re almost there and you’re still absolutely 
free. Give me your hands.”

The handcuffs were locked on tight. They concerned Thorn but little, she was too used to 
them and too well able to do things with them on. Mechanically she said a ridiculous, “Thank 
you, darling.”

At the door itself they kissed, all pain forgotten. Thorn knocked and went inside.





CHAPTER SIX - PUNISHMENTS


Thorn slowly traced the links, which ran from the ring bolt in the stone up to the collar on her 
neck. She had done this many times and now turned her attention to the span between her 
feet and the longer chains connecting them to the wall. There was no shortage of chains at 
the Chateau Lemaire nor upon their feminine visitor. Thorn was chained in every conceivable 
way. Her waist and even her elbows behind her back included. She could move only eight or 
ten feet from the ring bolts in the wall to do the things she must. Mostly she sat upon the 
meager blanket and fought with panic.

It had been unexpected, cruel, unfair. She rolled the words over and over in her mind as if 
wishing to add to her complaint. In the dungeon’s gloom she relived again and again the 
circumstances which brought her there. They were a male circumstance which Thorn suppose 
had brought other captive maidens to a similar plight in ages past. Probably thousands, 
perhaps millions of maidens had been imprisoned thus because of male pride. But what did 
that matter! It had happened.

Bitterly, Thorn remembered the vibrant hope in which she had entered the office of Jules 
Lemaire, leaving her mistress behind a closed door. As she stood, handcuffed and naked 
before his desk, Lemaire had been more than kind with his old world courtliness, the kissing of
her hand, and guidance to a chair. Thorn had refused his offer of a cigarette but accepted a 
brandy in the believe it would displease him if refused. There had been a businesslike tone 
about the whole affair.

“You are well acquainted with Garth Bannock, he and I are old friends,” Lemaire allowed 
the statement to hang suspended in a brief silence before continuing. “He tells me he desires 
you and in about a year will ask me to give you in marriage.” The thin smile made its 
reappearance. “Garth is an honorable man. He would be kind to you. He believes a year of 
servitude to my daughter should satisfy honor. Do you agree?”

Thorn was bewildered. She had not expected this but since it had happened she did her 
best. “Yes, I suppose so. I did not know he was going to tell you, but I’m glad he did.”

Lemaire was admiring her breasts with his usual dark pleasure. “It is good for me to know 
for it conflicts with an intent of my own.” The austere features suddenly became alive. “Will 
you marry me?”

Thorn had been shocked into immobility, the glass halfway to her lips, her handcuffed 
wrists clear to view. She had quickly discarded the conventional responses which Lemaire 
would have swept aside scornfully. Quietly she said, “I am already pledged and promised. You 
have just told me you are aware of this.”

“A lady may change her mind.” Lemaire had the manner of a man prepared for a long 
battle. “I suggest you change yours. I also ask you to compare your earning capacity to one 
million dollars, or have you done that already?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t change my mind. I belong to Garth.”

“It seems to me you very much belong to the Chateau Lemaire.”

Thorn looked with sudden disfavor at the shining bands circling her wrists. “Physically that 
is true,” she admitted slowly, “but you are speaking of the emotions, the most important one 
being love. I cannot change that, I am pledged.”

Jules Lemaire sighed. Bargaining had been his life, it was unlikely this girl could get the 
best of him. Quietly he said, “I have to ask you to forget Garth Bannock in favor of me.”

“You ask the impossible, I cannot.”

Lemaire’s smile was once more thin. “We have fired the first of our artillery, you and I,” he 
said easily. “Answer me about the million dollars.”

“You mean paying it back? I never could. I earn twenty thousand a year. If I did not eat nor 
cloth myself it would still take fifty years by which time I would probably be dead.”

“Preciously. You have summed up the situation excellently. You cannot pay your ransom 
but I have paid it for you. What of gratitude?”

“A gentleman does not claim a wife under such coercion.”

“This is more than the ordinary coercion. Observe the bracelets on your wrists.”

“Very well, I’m a prisoner here. I suppose, if you ignore Garth Bannock, you can do what 
you like with me. I suppose Giselle will tire of me within twelve months.” Thorn clutched hard 
at courage. “I don’t see why you would wish to marry me. Our ages are so apart, our cultures 
diverse. I would bore you.”

“I will be the judge of that. You have never bored me. I find you the most exciting female I 
have ever met. As Madam Lemaire, you would rule an empire. I am outrageously rich.”

“But, yes, but what of Giselle? I cannot belong to you and Giselle, too.”

“You already do. Giselle is my daughter and what she owns, I own, too.” He allowed his 
declarations to hang fire, then added, “I will find Giselle another play thing. Or perhaps she will
be satisfied with Lisette. It is no problem.”

“But I am not the glamorous, exciting you seem to think I am. I am a naked girl who is far 
from home and is kept prisoner by the strangest circumstance. You are … ” Thorn searched for
words. “Well, there’s something magnificent about you and about this house. You’re both the 
product of centuries. I don’t even know my grandparents. I would disgrace you.”

“I could take you by force.”

“Please do, it might get me out of your mind.”

“That is an insult for which you will pay. True, I am not young like Garth Bannock but I offer
much. What I offer you few women would scorn.”

Thorn was desperate. She had no prepared defenses for this assault upon the most 
precious thing in life. Compared to Garth Bannock this man was ancient history. Jules Lemaire 
might be potent but his love would be as interment as his thrusts into her sex. Thorn had 
been prepared to like him but this was all wrong, terribly wrong. What Lemaire needed was to 
date a few chorus girls. It had been unlikely chance which brought her within his vision. 
Abjectly she said, “I want to like you and want you to like me. I adore Giselle and don’t care 
how much she punishes me. Lisette is a darling and you should treat her more kindly.” She 
gulped the rest of the brandy. “There, I’ve said it. Do I get punished?”

“Of course. But your punishments are a mere detail. I desire you, that is enough. I want 
your body and your mind. I want your loyalty. You will marry me and be my wife, to grace my 
table and be admired. In return I will give you the riches of the world.”

It seemed callous to refuse, an act to be expected of a callow working girl physically 
involved with the driver of a truck. Thorn reviewed possibilities. If she said yes she could be 
whisked away to the altar almost immediately, leaving Garth almost no opportunity for rescue.
Moreover, once married to Lemaire, Garth would turn his back upon her. Her only hope now 
was for Garth to stride into the room and take possession of her by force. But that would not 
happen. She cursed the friendship and the loyalty which had led Bannock to bare his heart to 
this austere nobleman. Both men were honorable and desirable in their own way, but she was 
caught between them. Trapped! They stared with a hostility Thorn did not care for.

“I have the means to make you say yes.”

“Torture?”

“It’s as good a word as any. You chose it. But I will use it only as a last resort.”

“Thank you. May I ask you to leave me with Giselle. She is careful to never let me escape. 
And I will think about what you have said. What we both have said. Frankly, you have 
frightened me.”

Lemaire’s eyes were on her breasts. Thorn realized he cared little for her words, his mind 
was already made up.

“No, I will not do that. Bannock and I have talked of you and agreed to allow you an initial 
freedom of choice. Bannock has already declared himself to you. Had he not done so I would 
have allowed you more time to get to know me. But now I must declare myself to you. There’s
no free chose about what you have just said to me.

“I would prefer you to come to me of your own free will. I fear I have taken advantage of 
my friend Garth but I am older than I look and haven’t much time. I want you. The only time I 
will give you is enough to consider the advantages of being my wife. When I die you would be
one of the richest women in the world.”

“Then you will let me go back to Giselle?”

“Only in as much as Giselle will be your jailer. You will be chained in a dungeon to rid 
yourself of infatuation for Garth Bannock. If you cannot do this I will dispose of you with a 
clear conscious.”

“You mean … ?!” Thorn stared in disbelief. Lemaire waved away her assumption. He smiled.

“No, I will not have you killed. You misunderstand. I took you from a rabble of bandits in a 
jungle, I simply return you there.”

Thorn buried her face in her joined hands as though seeking escape in the darkness. Her 
voice came slowly, “Please don’t! Please don’t send me back there, I’ll end up in a brothel. Or 
worse. If you love me enough to marry me, then give me freedom.”

“Always you ask, you offer nothing?”

“But I give myself to Giselle! You paid the million dollars for me to give her the plaything of
her choice. Garth considers this obligation in asking that you give me to him after a year has 
past. If I married you now, Giselle would be far from happy.”

“Ah, you now speak of possibilities.” Lemaire sounded pleased.

“Not really. I’m trying to sort things out,” She let her hands fall back to her lap and stared 
at the man across the desk. “Give me a break, can’t you understand what this is doing to me?”

“I consider one thing only - I want you. I offer you an honorable estate.” His finger pressed
a button on the desk.

Thorn picked up her first hint of things to come. She would not be trusted to walk alone 
back to her mistress. Instead, her mistress came as escort and to listen to the cold, precise 
instructions of her parent. When Lemaire had finished the orders, Giselle’s response was 
instant, “But Papa!”

“Do it. Do as I say.”

There was no further argument. Giselle looked at Thorn in dismay, shrugged and 
motioned to the door. On their way down the stone stairs, she said in hushed awe, “But this is 
incredible! My Papa is not in his right mind. He cannot marry you, it is grotesque. It is not fair. 
He gives you to me and hen takes you away.”

“You’re stuck with me for the time being, darling,” Thorn said somberly. “You’re my jailer. 
You heard what he said about the dungeon and chains. Oh, damn it, Giselle, there’s no way I 
can turn.”

Neither girl had her heart in following M. Lemaire’s instructions. Thorn remembered the 
word “torture” but that word was hardly fitting. Perhaps that would come later. She thought of
disobedience as she followed her mistress through the dread doorway into the barred stone 
place of punishment in which she had first seen Lisette. It seemed a century ago.

“I am afraid it must be all of the chains, cherie,” Giselle moaned. “It is a great a humiliation 
for a girl to bear their weight.”

Thorn said nothing, the only thing she could think to say was to ask Giselle to let her go. 
But it was silly to think of escape, silly to ask the daughter of Papa to flout her father so 
blatantly. In the darkest corner of the dungeon she stood passively as the heavy metal 
shackles were locked upon her wrists, ankles, neck and waist. AH were attached to the wall. 
When it was done the two girls stood and stared at each other with an hundred things to say 
but saying none of them. The chains were modern and shining and fitted the naked Thorn as 
though tailored. But she felt silly as she stood there bearing their weight. Tears were on 
Giselle’s cheeks and Thorn longed to comfort her but, chained as she was now, could do 
nothing. It was the French girl who threw her arms in wild abandon around her captive’s neck 
and kissed and kissed again before turning with a sob to flee. The door slammed, the bolts 
shot home. Miss Thorn Thurston was shackled naked in a dungeon and alone.

That had all been several days ago. The girl who now played idly with the metal links of her
confinement had fought a battle in her mind as to what course to chose - supposing choice 
still existed! She was being forced to bitterly wound one of two men. Garth would not 
retaliate, Lemaire most certainly would. Over and over the fettered maiden reflected upon the 
benefits the house of Lemaire could bestow. But whenever she began to wonder about the 
wealth of being Mrs. Lemaire the face of Garth would interfere and she was lost. Lemaire 
could keep her shackled in the dungeon of his house for all her life and none would ever 
know!

Giselle had been forbidden to go to the dungeon. It was Lisette who attended to the 
captive girl’s needs and gave what comfort there was to give. Even there the hand of authority
was heavy, Lisette being compelled to ask for and return the key to the massive door. When 
she did this Lisette locked upon her loins the steel chastity belt she loathed. But the captive 
girl in her chains was thankful for any human communion. Perhaps Lemaire knew that to leave
a girl alone in her condition could cause a breakdown in her mind. Everything in the Chateau 
Lemaire was well conceived.

On the fifth day Giselle broke. The dungeon door was pushed wide and carelessly left 
open as the French mistress flung herself upon her slave in an abandonment of love. Instantly 
she went to work with the key, explaining breathlessly, “I set you free, beloved, no more can I 
bear the thought of you down here so fettered and shackled and chained. I have the clothes 
and money and car. You go. Papa will be angry but will not do to me what he would to you.”

Thorn stood in amazement as the metal bonds fell from her like leaves in autumn. Free of 
their weight, she allowed her mistress to lead her by the hand upstairs. There she accepted the
clothes and the handbag filled with money. They embraced quickly and hurried outside. 
Reaching the car which was to take Thorn to liberty, two men emerged from it. They were the 
two men who had escorted Giselle to the framework to be whipped. Each took possession of a
fugitive maiden and carried her back into the house. They said no word, they had none to say, 
everything was understood. At the end of a few minutes both maidens lay, tressed like turkeys
amid the splendid cushions of their cage. The door had been soundly locked and the cords 
with which they were bound were thin and vicious, and indented deeply into their skin to deny
even the thought of escape. Wrists and ankles, arms behind their backs with elbows touching 
and knees tight together. And then the unkindest touch of all, the hands joined to the ankles 
in a hogtie that racked the young bodies painfully into a arch. The men enjoyed their work 
and departed laughing. But before they went they had stripped both girls, no doubt to insure 
a deeper binding of the cords and impose a deeper shame upon two young women who had 
thought to defy the Chateau Lemaire.

“It was the car,” Giselle mourned. “I should have let you run on foot. Oh, darling, what have
I done!”

Both girls cringed at the thought of punishment. The hogtie was bad enough but was 
doubtless no more than a prelude to things much worse. They struggled to come close and 
use fingers on each other’s knots but they found that a rope had been tied from their ankles 
to the bars on each side and they could not reach closer than a few inches from each other. 
Anyway the door was firmly locked and freedom from the cords would probably only bring 
another penalty. Thorn felt very sorry for this girl who had risked everything to help her. With 
herself it did not matter, she had been already condemned to so much she could imagine little
that was worse. A whipping, perhaps, to emphasis Lemaire’s anger, but consignment to 
Querida would be the worst punishment of all. The life of Lemaire’s daughter would continue 
after the punishment but Thorn’s would not!

Jules Lemaire allowed an hour to pass before coming to the bars of their cage. His face 
was lined and troubled, the thin lips compressed. He studied his errant daughter and Thorn 
without interest in the bitterness of their bindings, his concern with them went deeper than a 
piece of rope. The girls awaited sentence with fear.

“You have both shamed me,” said Jules Lemaire heavily. Then, allowed a silence to 
lengthen before the simply statement, “I am sorry.” He turned and left them bound inside the 
cage.

It was but a little while before the two guards came for them. Each girl was slung over a 
broad shoulder then carried to a waiting van and tossed roughly upon the floor. Above the 
rumble of the wheels as it sped, they knew not where, Giselle’s voice strove for cheer. “Papa 
punishes me the same as you, cherie, at least we are together.”

“But everything’s all my fault,” moaned Thorn. “If I had said yes to your Papa, none of this 
would have happened. Do you think it’s too late now?”

“Of a surety it is too late, I know Papa. He thinks you shamed him. I know not what he 
thinks of me.” She paused tearfully. “We were so happy! I adored having you for my slave. So 
did Lisette. Oh, darling, nothing has gone right. I would like to stamp my feet and shake my 
fist. But alas I cannot move. In American this can be said to be ‘for the birds.’”

“Why didn’t your Papa have us whipped? I was certain he would.”

“It is very strange,” Giselle agreed. “Perhaps he sends us to such an awful fate he has not 
the courage to watch. Or perhaps we will be whipped when we arrive. Papa will allow us to 
escape nothing.

“Tell me, cherie, what is it like in a brothel?”

Thorn clamped down on laughter, born more of shame and hopelessness than humor. 
“Don’t know, I was never in one,” she admitted. “We’ll find out soon enough. We’ve both been
raped, I expect it’s more of the same except they’ll make us smile.”

They fell silent, absorbed in the pain of cords. When the van finally stopped and the side 
door rolled back, a pair of hated voices were heard.

“The lassies will be pleased to see a real man again,” said McCaffey.

“Let’s screw the both of ‘em,” added McTeer.

The cords connecting their hands and feet were slash. The girls were lifted from the van 
and placed upright on the ground to hold their balance as best they could with tightly bound 
ankles. They were in the shadow of a small jet on which was blazoned the boast,“Republic of 
Querida.” And then with equal immodesty, “Numero Uno.”

They were the captives of number one.

The two girls viewed their Scottish captors with sickly grins. Apart from broad grins, the 
only greetings the two mercenaries bestowed was to slash the bindings on both girl’s ankles 
and lay them on the grass upon their bound arms. Their legs were then dragged well apart 
and both of them were raped with immense vigor if not skill. Their ankles were then tied again
more tightly than before.

“Well screwed and shipshape,” McTeer affirmed.

“Ye’re a pair of lucky girls,” said McCaffey. “We do the best rape job in Querida.”

It was hateful but no more than Thorn had expected. The Scotsmen laughed at their own 
humor as the they hoisted the two girls onto the jet. In the main cabin they were dumped on 
separate seats. Saying nothing but making a hasty exit under the eyes of a plumpish, middle 
aged man behind a desk, a man who viewed the two tightly bound maidens with a fair 
interest.

“Welcome to the Revolution,” he said grandly. “My name is Pedro Madrid.

Using an abandoned road as runways, the jet was soon aloft. Thorn reflected that most 
conqueror were men of small stature. A whole string of names came to her mind. This Pedro 
Madrid was another. He spoke English with only a faint tinge of his native Spanish. For a 
conqueror he seemed remarkably benevolent.

“So my little pigeons come to roast,” he mused thoughtfully, eyeing them up and down. 
“You are a most profitable pair.”

He cut away the ankle bindings so recently imposed, then did something to evoke a blush 
on each girl’s cheeks. With a large white handkerchief, he did a thorough job of cleaning up 
the untidy traces of rape left by the two Scotsmen. Perhaps he had untied their feet with the 
express purpose of this cleaning. Two startled girls sat emotionless while their sex was 
kneaded and palmed to ensure the ruin of a white cloth which Senior Madrid daintily dropped
into a waste basket. He sat down and surveyed his prisoners across the desk.

“You will forgive me if I do not untie you yet. The sight of a girl’s pain is of a great 
piquancy, you please me very much. Your bonds are hurting?”

“Horribly! Is there any chance … ?”

“Not at the moment, dear girls.” Madrid’s smile was benign and fatherly. “You please me as
you are and pain will keep you humble. Let us talk.”

“We could talk much better if we were untied.” Giselle’s tone was far from humble.

“Perhaps you would enjoy being whipped, dear child?”

Giselle sniffed. Thorn said nothing, she sensed a strength in this man they could not 
contest. “We now understand each other,” the would-be dictator of a country conceded. “You 
behave and I am kind. You do not behave, you use the wisecrack, you be whipped very hard 
indeed. You understand?”

Two female affirmatives quickly followed. Madrid beamed. “I intend to marry one of you.” 
His white teeth gleamed, his eyes were bright behind the glasses. “If you both say no, they you
be whipped very hard for that, also.”

Thorn ruefully knew the thought of pain inhibited hysteria. It would have been all too easy 
to laugh and scream and make an exhibition. The whole situation of the last few days was 
utterly absurd. Garth somewhere unknown, Lemaire seething with hurt, and now this quaint 
character from South America … ! Her reflections were ended by Giselle’s voice.

“I accept your proposal, Mr. Madrid. I will marry you. You may now untie me. In fact, you 
may untie us both.”

Even Madrid was startled. He gazed at this candidate for his wedding with sly concern. 
“You are really and truly Mademoiselle Lemaire?”

“Of course I am. My Papa is angry with me and thus I am tossed overboard to you. I will 
happily marry you, it will annoy Papa greatly. But you will have to accept us both. If you will 
untie me, you must untie Thorn.”

“I do not accept terms, Mademoiselle, others accept mine. Remember the whip.”

“If it will make you any happier, Senor, whip us both and get it out of your system,” Giselle 
suggested. “You men and your whippings, you are all ridiculous.”

Madrid showed interest. Thorn guessed Giselle’s style and flourish was something new to 
him. She did not wholly understand Giselle’s exuberant acceptance of this punchy, middle 
aged man as a husband, but no doubt she would discover a motive before long.

Madrid’s voice was smooth. “I think you are a clever girl. I think you provoke me to have 
you whipped knowing I will not do it. How did you guess?”

“I do not tell. Give us now your promise to be kind to Thorn. If you will not be kind to 
Thorn, the deal is off.”

“But what would I do with Miss Thurston! M. Lemaire will not ransom her again. There is 
only the brothel … Or do you wish me to keep her as a mistress.”

“Keep her as a mistress, but absolutely no brothel.” Giselle was riding high. “May we please
be untied.”

Pedro Madrid laughed delightedly. He was becoming more and more pleased with his 
talkative captive. But he made a frank admission, “I would much prefer to sell Miss Thurston to
the brothel. She would fetch an excellent price and I would not have to worry about her again.
Believe me, mademoiselle, it is the best disposal of your friend.”

“Mais non, I will never permit. Whip me as much as you like.”

Madrid sighed. Thorn wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew. Giselle 
would never give herself to any man, but was capable of simulated surrender. She wished the 
appeals for release from cords had been heeded, her elbows were on fire. But now the Great 
Man spoke.

“I think you have wrong idea about brothels,” he said easily. “But is very fine life for girl. 
She has her own cubical and is chained only by a collar and chain, which give her much 
freedom to please the customers. Each customer will perform the act in his own style and way.
She will be much entertained.” Ridiculously his eyes rolled skyward. “I wish I were a girl.”

Thorn kept silent. She could understand Madrid’s point of view. She was excess baggage, 
commanding a high price. She could mentally envision the brothel and the collar on her neck, 
it was getting closer every minute. “Why must you marry one of us,” she asked wearily.

“International recognition, Miss Thurston. With an American girl or this daughter of 
Lemaire I will gain respect. Foreign diplomats will be charmed into parting with more cash.” 
He chuckled. “I have discovered a mother lode of gold. The Americans give me a dollar, the 
Russians give me two. Then it is the American’s turn again and they give me three. With the 
aura of respectability such a marriage will give me, such contributions will increase. What hope
has a foreign envoy have against the charms of either of you? That is why you are here.”

Again Thorn longed to laugh. This punchy Leader was laughable. Yet what he said was 
true. Giselle broke in. “Are you not willing to let my father ransom us again? I am sure he will 
regret what he has done.”

“It was your father, M. Lemaire, who telephoned me to make the arrangements by which 
we sit here now, Mademoiselle.” The Spanish eyes looked from to the other of his naked cargo
approvingly. “I regret to pass on to you his request that I thrash both of you with some 
severity. It is a matter I take seriously. And I anticipate no ransom.”

“Then, Senor, I beg of you to keep Thorn prisoner for perhaps a month in case ransom be 
forthcoming from another source. Don’t sell her to the brothel immediately.”

“Another source? You have a name, perhaps?”

“There is a Garth Bannock … “

“My old friend, Mr. Bannock!” Pedro Madrid was impressed. “He is a man I much respect 
and of great wealth. He is interested in Miss Thurston?”

“He wants to marry her.”

“That is an interest indeed! Would you suppose he had a spare million?”

“Of course he has. The trouble is we don’t know where he is right now. Please treat Thorn 
as a guest until we find him.”

“I will treat her as a prisoner. You, too, I will not trust until the priest has said the holly 
words and the foreign press asked their silly questions of my blushing bride.” He smiled upon 
Giselle. “You do blush, I hope.”

“The blush, it is worn out.” Giselle was indignant. “We have been stripped and raped and 
now sit for you to enjoy our helplessness. There are no blushes left.”

“Perhaps a glass of brandy would be in order.”

“Mais oui, but we have no hands.”

Madrid pressed a button. When McTeer came the order was abrupt. “Bind their ankles, free
their hands and arms.”

It seemed too good to be true. Thorn messaged her wrists gratefully and cared little for 
the ropes around her ankles. She drank greedily of the glass given her. Pedro Madrid would 
be far more believable drunk than sober. Emboldened by the golden fire coursing through her
veins, she timidly inquired, “Are you going to follow M. Lemaire’s request and have us 
whipped?”

“If you are whipped it will be for me, not for M. Lemaire.” Madrid raised his glass to make a
toast. “To lovely ladies who wear no clothes.” Then he downed the contents as if it were water. 
“You are much concerned with this whipping. Perhaps you are girls who enjoy this marking of 
your skin.”

“No we don’t,” said Thorn firmly.

“To be whipped is not a bit nice,” said Giselle with equal certainty.

“When I have it done to you, I will come and watch,” promised Pedro Madrid.





CHAPTER SEVEN - BARS OF IRON


It was an unenthusiastic homecoming, if an iron-barred cage can be described as home. There
were the same cushions, the save servants, and the same silence when none came near. The 
main difference was a daily visit from the Scottish mercenaries with their lewd comments and 
the key to the cage. With enthusiasm the girls did not share, they raped both of them, 
changing from one to the other for variety, and insisting on vocal thanks for the attention. The
two girls became accustomed to these rapes, a girl can get used to anything!

“When they do not beat us I am beginning to enjoy,” Giselle mourned. “It defeats the pain 
of being caged. I find myself wishing they entered us twice a day instead of just once. Is it thus
with you, cherie?”

“Sort of,” Thorn admitted grudgingly. “But I don’t understand why Pedro Madrid would 
allow his bride to be to be fucked daily by a pair of mercenary soldiers. Something doesn’t 
add up.”

“I am betting it is because Pedro Madrid is impotent,” observed Giselle sagely. “After he 
has married me, if her every does, he will probably delegate these two vulgar Scottish men to 
attend to my needs. What other reason could there be?”

“He might as well send both of us to his lousy brothel. Oh, Giselle, I wish I had your 
courage.”

“It is not the courage, cherie, it is what the Papa calls a ‘fluffiness of the head.’”

There was another innovation that left Thorn wondering. The heavy leather thongs and 
metal clamps had not been put back upon their wrists. Instead they had been taken to a 
blacksmith who fashioned the irons by which their hands were now joined. Both had watched 
with the fascination always attended in the swift fashioning of iron while the metal glowed red
and the hammer beat its blows in seeming violence. All four wrists had been carefully 
measured, resulting in a fit so snug they totally forgot escape. The irons and the two small 
links of chain were heavier than handcuffs but in no ways cumbersome. The wristlets were 
three-quarters of an inch wide. They were primitive but had a beauty of their own. Each girl 
knelt at the anvil to thrust her wrists gingerly into the waiting iron and, at a range far too close
for comfort, watched the rivets beaten flat by hammer blows. When their ironing was 
complete, they stood and held up their hands almost admiringly but with the dread 
knowledge of permanence. Only a return visit to the smith could set them free.

“I do not think I ever get married now,” Giselle held up chained hands in satisfaction. “I 
cannot be shown to the VIPs while I wear these.”

“I’ll bet the two of you could pass them off as custom jewelry.”

“But how could I properly dress? Come, cherie, be sensible.”

On the first day of this new incarceration handcuffs had locked their ankles tight together. 
They never discovered why. But two laughing Scotsmen had made light work of them and 
taken the circlets away with them. The daily events touching the inmates of the cage left both 
girls with unanswered questions.

“I think he has changed his mind,” Giselle opined. “He does not marry so foolish a girl as I. 
It is you who would serve his needs the best.”

“You forget your Papa and the name of Lemaire. I don’t have clout like that.”

“I am full of the hope of Garth Bannock. I cannot think why else we stay here in this cage 
or wear these things upon our hands.” Giselle rattled her irons for emphasis. “Madrid will find 
Bannock and then you have much happiness.”

It was a pretty dream, Thorn thrilled at the mental image of being rescued by a giant. But 
the days passed and no giant came. Ten days after the ironing of her wrists, Miss Thorn 
Thurston was taken from the cage.

It was done without fanfare, the same servants, the same key. Thorn was suddenly out 
beyond the bars and Giselle within. Suddenly stricken with premonition, she turned to behold 
her darling clutching at the bars with chained hands. Both were too uncertain of events to 
speak. Thorn was hustled beyond the door, her chained hands bound tightly to assure they 
would stay at the level of her waist, her elbows also tied, and a noose added around her neck 
and drawn snug. Miss Thorn Thurston was in no position to argue about anything.

Thorn was dealt with by servants, never anyone who mattered. Evidently Pedro Madrid had
washed his hands of an unprofitable prisoner. No doubt this was the reason she had not been
whipped as Lemaire had asked. When she asked questions she was met with only the shaking 
of the head. Inside the van her ankles were tight bound and tied safely to a ring in the floor. 
She could sit up if she wished but there was no comfort anywhere.

The ride was long as was to be expected of a destination “somewhere up the coast.” The 
captive girl alternated between sitting up and laying down. She passed the time by struggling 
for freedom, but each knot had been placed where she could not reach it. Every thing hurt. 
Unseen in a closed van, Miss Thorn Thurston wept.

The driver was one of the now familiar guards. His companion was McCaffey, who 
explained that there wasn’t room for McTeer so they had tossed a coin. After many miles, 
McCaffey called a halt and a bottle was produced along with the untying of Thorn’s feet. 
Drinks were dispensed all around, Thorn gulping hers down, until McCaffey announced his 
intention of enjoying a bit of “Poontang.” Thorn did not fight, accepting good Scotch 
common sense. “Ye’re a nice piece of ass, lassie. Where we takin’ ye, ye’ll get screwed to a 
fare-thee-well. You can call this a bit o’ training, so ye can.”

Thorn bore his weight awkwardly with her hands tied at her waist. When McCaffey was 
finished, he wave an arm grandly, offering the naked girl to the driver. “Ye might as well have a
go, too, Garcia. It’s all for free but it won’t be free for long. Go on, lad, try her out. She’s 
damned good.”

Garcia did not pass up a bargain.

Thorn did not care, this was no different from the daily visits to the cage. What brought 
tears of frustration to her eyes was the fresh binding of her feet, an imposition for which there 
was no need. But the cords were every bit as tight upon her ankles as before. She had been 
freed as a matter of convenience, her body had been used, now she was bound once more. A 
neat cycle of lust had been performed and now the van rolled on.

The bordello bore a modest sign reading, “Casa Grande.” It stood in its own courtyard at 
the end of a mediocre street in a mediocre town. A number of old houses joined together to 
provide the space. The van rolled into the courtyard to back up to a waiting door, and there 
Thorn was dumped without either greeting or farewell. She was immediately possessed by a 
matronly woman of obvious strength and authority and led on feet now freed up the stairs 
and along a passage.

“You good quality, you get private room. You lucky girl.” The blunt sentences established 
Thorn’s status. The room contained a cot and a wash basin, also the inevitable covered pail. It 
was a bright and cheerful room, marred only by massive iron chain from a ring bolt in the wall,
with its waiting open collar. When the padlock snapped the collar around Thorn’s neck she 
knew herself a member of the Case Grande staff. Her arms were untied and the irons upon her
wrists admired.

“You wear them,” the matron approved. “They look damned good.”

Thorn fingered the iron upon her throat, looking at the matron expectantly. The orders 
were immediate.

“Do what you please when you are alone. When a man come you smile at him, most kind 
and loving girl. Between your legs you make him happy fella. Customer make compliant I whip
you damned good.”

It was all very simple.

Standing alone, still fingering the iron around her neck, Thorn looked at the meager 
furnishing of her new life. The room was no worse than to be expected, in fact it was much 
better than she had supposed. The door was wide open but when she walked towards it, her 
neck was snubbed back painfully by the tethering chain. She realized with a thrill of disgust 
that the door was open to enable men to look at her and have free entry. It was like being a 
cow in a barn.

The matron returned with a trey to dispense hot coffee and impart the facts of whoredom.
They sat upon the bed and sipped the hot brew which gave Thorn heart to listen.

“You good and young. You last ten years, maybe. If you been good girl we give you 
money. No kick in ass into street. You understand?”

Thorn understood. “Yes, I understand,” she admitted hesitantly. “But I’ve never done this 
sort of thing before, I’m frightened.”

“You get used to it,” the matron encouraged, offering a sandwich. “Gal gets used to 
anything. You not get whipped if you behave.” She paused as if remembering a text. “You not 
get paid. You get ten or fifteen men a day. You please them all. It is better than sitting and 
doing nothing.”

“But that many men are not all going to like me,” Thorn saw an immediately weakness in 
the system. The matron laughed at such naivete.

“That is why door is open. Men look at you first. They not like, hey go on.”

“You mean, the one’s that think I’m all right just come in and do it to me, quick … Without 
… ?”

“You think about the talk,” the matron said sagely. “The customer he not buy talk. But he 
buy you for fifteen minutes. We do not care ‘hat the to of you do. You suck his big toe if that is
what he wants. The Casa Grande is not hard to please.”

Thorn was unconsciously fingering the collar, her eyes searching the room and the open 
door.

“You thinking ‘bout escape,” the matron suggested slyly. “Best you forget. You think about 
escape too much, you get whipped. Girl forget escape after week or two at Case Grande. You 
will forget, it is the way of things.”

The matron gone with her trey, Thorn sat alone upon the bed in horrible realization of 
impending business. Her mind was alive with chaotic impressions of the day and sad 
speculation as to the fate of Giselle. The fact they might never again see each other was hardly
to be borne. It was not long before she heard a heavy tread and a man entered the open door
without the expected pause.

It was Garth Bannock.

“Damn it, girl, you do get yourself into some amazing jackpots. How often am I going to 
have to rescue you?” Garth kissed her lightly and in haste. He seized her tethering chain and 
dragged the ring bolt from the wall with surprising ease. The breathless girl thrilled at such 
male strength. Then trilled again as she was gathered into strong male arms, given the chain 
to hold, then carried from the room.

“Can’t get it off you neck yet, you’ll have to hold it for now.”

Before astonished eyes which took no action to impede, Garth Bannock took the maiden 
of his choice to the waiting car.

Thorn had never been more happy. True, she was still naked and attached by a handcuff 
on her left wrist to the bed rail in the plush hotel they had chosen in Banquail, the city sitting 
on the coast from which they would fly back to the USA. Thorn knew herself greatly loved and 
besotted with adoration of the giant who had rescued her before the brothel had imposed a 
single penetration.

As if savoring delicacies eaten but not forgotten, she reviewed in her mind the 
conversation between the man who now owned her and herself.

“The best thing we can do is get married as soon as possible after return to the USA,” 
Garth had said without the slightest hesitation. “I expect your family will want to have a hand 
in it. You may want them to. What do you say?”

What had there been to say! Thorn agreed immediately, thrilled beyond words by this man
who wanted her for his wife.

“The brothel can take its lost. Probably Pedro Madrid owns the damned place. Forget it.”

“There’s nothing poor about that little lady,” Garth chuckled. “Whatever happens to her, 
she’ll come out on top. Let’s try and feel sorry for poor old Madrid, she’ll eat him alive.”

“But right now she’s in a cage and I think he’s going to have her whipped.”

“Do the little so and so a world of good,” Garth said with sincerity. “Should have had her 
bottom whipped many times during the last few months. Jules slipped up on Giselle.”

Thorn secretly agreed as to Giselle’s capacity for self-preservation. If she did get whipped it
would be for only the one time in response to her father’s wish.

“All right then, darling. What about us?”

“After the wedding I’ll take you on the most glorious honeymoon ever. Think about places 
you’ve always wanted to go. But there’s a confession I have to make, if you haven’t already 
guessed.”

Thorn laughed delightedly. “Don’t ever feel guilty about wanting to cane my bottom. 
That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

“Right on the nail, sweetheart. Do you mind?”

“I’ll bear it in the best traditions of maidens in distress. Is that all?”

“Well, not exactly.” He grinned sheepishly. “Fact is, I’m as bad as Giselle. I want you naked 
when we are together alone, I want you in some way restrained, handcuffs are okay, and, if 
you prove argumentative, I reserve the right to cane your bottom or whip your back. There 
will also be periods of imprisonment when I’m away on business. I can’t always take you with 
me. How does that grab you?”

Thorn knew herself in the grip of extraordinary euphoria. “It grabs me marvellously, 
darling, keep on grabbing, never stop.”

“I travel the world, I’ll have to keep on doing so. It turns you into sort of a camp follower 
who attends to my laundry and provided a ready pussy for my delectation every night. Does 
this make you feel illused?”

“Of course not, it’s a fact of life. And ‘whither thou goeth … ” I can offer no more than Ruth
Naomi.”

“Okay, it’s a deal. That would be a damned surprised father who could read our minds at 
the altar!” Then he added, after a short pause, “Sweetheart, I have a business appointment 
right now.”

Thorn instantly picked up the inflection in his voice, the unspoken query. She was a girl 
deeply in love and, as girls of her age are, anxious to give herself to the object of her love. 
Amused by this first test of her affections, she held out her hands. “Right or left or both?” Her 
eyes were sparkling.

Garth handcuffed her left wrist to the bed rail. “You can sit or lay down and go to sleep. I’ll 
toss you some magazines. Anything else?”

“Only for you to hurry back, Garth darling. Oh, I don’t believe all this, it’s too good to be 
true. Hurry back.”

It was the most delicious of sensations. The cuffed girl examined the circlet on her wrist 
again and again, forever fingering it in memory of the male fingers which had clasp it tight. 
Thorn was in a dither of euphoria, scarce believing the happy end following so close upon the 
disaster at Chateau Lemaire and the captivity at the hands of Pedro Madrid. The brothel, even 
though better than expected, had been a soul-searing experience. Had she remained there 
she would already have been possessed and used by a dozen men. She thought of Giselle 
back in the cage but also thought that Giselle would not remained caged for long. Thorn 
raised her arm to accommodate the handcuff on her wrist and went to sleep.

They were halcyon days, a time filled for Thorn with thankfulness and wonder. Garth 
Bannock took an endless delight in her happiness, realizing the terrible things she had 
undergone in the last few months. They prolonged their stay in Banquail to bask in the 
Querida sun and romp in the magnificence of their hotel suit. Garth Bannock assured his 
beloved she had lost nothing by rejection of Jules Lemaire.

Perhaps it was Garth who was the most puzzled, never ceasing to glory the discovery of a 
decisive, competent young woman who would so willingly immolate herself in his cause. 
Thorn gave of herself so generously that half her days and nights were spent in bondage, 
sometimes nursing a smarting bottom, the effect of which was to make her more 
concupiscent than ever. Thorn, too, wondered. But to be bound and whipped was an 
adjustment she had made long since. She shrugged it off as part of being a woman. Women 
were designed to bear the pain of childbirth and whatever punishments their relationships 
with a male would bring. She saw herself as unique, giving thanks to Giselle and grudging 
tribute to two Scottish mercenaries. They talk about all these things. She relived each of their 
discoveries of each other over and over in her mind.

“Why do I love caning your bottom?” Bannock asked soberly. “I feel a bastard.”

“Don’t. It really doesn’t matter why you want to do this or why I love you to do it. To worry 
about it would be like asking a girl after intercourse if it had been good for her, too. I could 
ask you why I’m thrilled to bits when you announce your intention and how I am to be tied. 
I’m surprised I don’t shiver myself to pieces in ecstasy. Women are suspicious of analysis, it 
never balances with our logic. Next question, please?”

“Okay, you outrageous little mink. Then what about my binding you and leaving you 
around the place more or less immobilized. It keeps me with an erection all day just thinking 
about it. Does that shiver you the same way?”

“Of course it does, Garth darling. But we shouldn’t analyze this wonderful gift most people
don’t understand. I think I’ll like you to whip me right now to get the bad taste of analysis out 
of my mouth. Or should I say somewhere else!”

“When you were having a bad time with those two Scottish yokels, how was it then?”

“If I tell you, you’ll punish me.”

“Then you win either way! Come on, tell me.”

“I don’t know how a girl can be frightened to death and still be sexually excited at the 
same time. I managed it. Now it’s your turn to punish me.”

It would be easy to dismiss Garth Bannock and Thorn Thurston as being a young couple in
the throes of what the world mistakenly calls love. True, they were in love, but it was given 
shape and substance by their devotion to dominate or to submit. Thorn summed it up to her 
own satisfaction by declaring herself extraordinary lucky. In the time they could spare from 
these delights, they planned their wedding.

On the sixth day Thorn became once again a prisoner. Garth had business and Thorn 
decided to go shopping. In the crossing of a parking lot, a van drew level, a brawny Scottish 
arm reached out and pluck Thorn from paradise as easily as a flower. The van door closed and
the vehicle parked to allow a pair of mercenaries to devout full attention to their prize.

“Didn’t think ye’d seen the last of us, did ye, lass,” McCaffey inquired in a friendly manner.

“We missed ye, so we did, lassie. We got some catching up to do.” McTeer slapped Thorn’s 
bottom amenable. “Now open up that pretty mouth.”

Thorn fought in the mindless fury of a trapped animal, she kicked, twisted and screamed. 
But in a minute was face down upon the floor while rough fingers stuffed her mouth with rag 
and taped her lips. The Scotsman handled her with practiced ease. Safely gagged so she could
make no outcry, they took their time and relished every moment it took to put the beautiful 
young woman in bondage, with her arms tied together in front of her.

“Best get her clothes off.”

There was a hearty laugh. “Don’t know why the gal bothers to put them on!”

The flimsy summer dress was torn from her body and her tiny undergarments rent off with
ease. The exposure of her naked body had a potent effect on the two mercenaries - they took 
turns possessing her, one after the other, in vigorous, thrusting conquests of her flesh. They 
then sat her upon the bench which ran along the wall, untied her hands, and pulled them out 
sideways to a set of rings on the wall of the van. The van was well equipped for the securing of
girls. Thorn sat in hateful exposure for the enjoyment of her conquerors. When they tied her 
ankles well apart below, her shame and helplessness was complete.

“Can’t have ye running around, lassie,” McTeer said. “A pretty piece like ye are needs care 
and protection and we’re the boys to give it to ya.”

Thorn’s world was shattered. Beyond the van’s thin walls the citizens of Banquail went 
peacefully about their business. Somewhere nearby, in an office building, Garth would be 
making his moves in a chess game of finance. But she could do nothing, speak no words. 
From being a vigorous and vital young woman contemplating marriage, she was reduced to a 
naked display of torso and limbs and denied the use of speech. Her Scottish captors were not, 
by their standards, cruel to their young captive but chattered away while handling whatever 
part of her person they were interested in at the time. She remembered Garth’s question 
about her reactions in such conditions. She could not test but a Scottish hand did and came 
up with moisture to be chuckled over and wiped dry upon her thigh. McTeer took his place 
behind the wheel and started the motor while McCaffey sat opposite the outspread girl and 
frankly enjoyed the exposure of captured innocence. The van wheeled into the street and 
began to roll down the highway to a destination Thorn could only guess.

The ride was long, the road surface becoming increasingly rough to chaff Thorn’s wrists as 
she strove for balance on the narrow seat. From time to time they paused for Scottish 
refreshment but Thorn got nothing.

“Can’t be taking that gag out of ya mouth every ten minutes,” McCaffey roughly. “Ye can 
just wait a while.”

Thorn shook her head to indicate need but the motion only brought laughter. “If we give 
ya a drink, lass, ye only need a pee. Both them things is gonna have to wait.”

It was hateful and outrageous. The naked girl, arms extended to either side, feet cruelly 
apart, sat in misery under the eagle eye of her jailer. Her eyes sought mercy in the rough, 
sunburnt features of her captors but found only a bucolic humor.

“Ain’t no good givin’ me the eye, sweetheart. Ain’t getting loose before we gets were we is
going. Could be worse, ye know. Could hogtie ya on the floor for a real rough ride.”

The men changed placed from time to time. McTeer’s first observations was a doubtful 
tribute. “Ye’re a damned pretty lass, that’s a fact. Bet ya ain’t got no idea how them cords on 
your wrists add to all the rest ye got to offer. Tight and hurtin’ ain’t they. That’s the way they 
should be.” He paused with a strange look on his face. “Damn it, girl, if I was the marrying 
kind, I’ll take ye back to Scotland and make an honest woman of ya.”

Thorn could do nothing. She refused to struggle, it would only amuse this oaf across the 
van and would achieve nothing. She longed to ask questions and never before realized how 
frustrating a gag could be. From time to time she was regaled with Hibernian humor and the 
course clasping of her breasts. No matter what evil awaited her at the end of their journey, she
longed for it with deep feeling.

Thorn’s guardians involved a pixie-like concept for her presentation to the Grand Man. A 
belt was buckled snug around her waist, she was released from the van and her hands freshly 
bound in front. They were then raised up and pulled down the back of her head to the nape 
of her neck. They were held there and pulled tightly down by a cord connecting her wrists 
with the belt around her waist. Once more it was a cruel exposure to leave her as helpless as 
she had ever been. Her breasts were rampant!

She was then escorted to The Presence. Her gag was now removed but she had nothing to
say. But there came at these last moments an incident to compound despair. The awesome 
door opened before the reached it and there emerged an immaculate middle aged man who 
radiated authority. He surveyed the captive girl without surprise, perhaps he had been warned.
Thorn gazed at him in piteous hope.

“My name’s Thorn Thurston,” she said simply. “Please help me.”

“Mind your own business, mam,’” McCaffey advised.

“The gal ain’t being hurt none. She’s just on display,” McTeer added.

“My name is Lockheart, with the State Department.” The American voice was music to 
Thorn’s ears. “I think I have heard of you.” He shook his head sadly, as if deploring the evils of 
the world. “I’m sorry, I cannot help you. Our country will not go to war over the fate of a girl. 
American individuals are strictly on their own in Querida.” He bowed in courtly fashion and 
went his way. McCaffey opened the door.

Pedro Madrid was in an expensive mood. He surveyed the exposed captive with approval, 
nodded dismissal to her guards and observed, in the wannest of greetings, “Welcome home, 
Miss Thurston. I expect you met the gentleman just departed. He was from your homeland, 
and has arranged foreign aid on my behalf of an additional fifty millions of dollars. His Russian
counterpart will undoubtedly be here tomorrow with an even larger offering. Rebellion is a 
profitable Cause. Bullets fly but we have not had a casualty in weeks. Please stand to display 
your charms before my desk. Ah, that is excellent! Thank you.”

“Must I be bound in this outrageous condition,” Thorn asked acidly. “If you free me, I 
promise not to run away.”

“On the contrary, Miss Thurston, your posture is by no means outrageous, it enhances 
your beauty. I find it charming. I hope you expect to be punished?”

“I don’t expect anything. Send me back to Garth Bannock, he’ll give you money for me. 
That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Of course, rebellions are costly. My men must be paid. Those two rogues who captured 
you are expensive.” Pedro Madrid paused. “But there is more than money involved, Miss 
Thurston. There are matters of honor and pride. I have been much displeased by your 
abduction from the brothel. It constitutes a thief of private property which holds dire 
penalties.”

Thorn kept still. Thinking of Garth, her heart thudded painfully. For herself, what did one 
more punishment matter. In abject misery, she pleaded, “Please don’t send me back there. 
Garth will ransom me a second time and we will leave Querida.”

“You were mistreated there?”

“No. But I was chained and collared and told I would be raped ten or fifteen times a day. It 
just is not civilized. And if it got out and around to the press would do nothing to aid your 
‘Cause.’ Please, Senor, please … ?”

“Such eloquence!” Madrid admired. “You really are a remarkable young woman, Miss 
Thurston. But my pride has been damaged. You have a bill to pay.”

“Very well. What is it?”

“A small pleasantry of my own devising, my dear. It will contain the spice of sexuality to 
keep you amused.”

“I should tell you these two mercenaries of your’s have raped me at every opportunity. 
They seem to think it is their privilege.”

“Indeed it is. I owe them much. I would rape you, myself, if I were not impotent.” Madrid 
sighed, but not unhappily, his eyes remote. “I shed no tears about my impotency. If I were as 
potent at my Scotsmen, I would have spent the last few years between a woman’s legs, 
instead of which I am creating an empire of my own. My name is known around the world. A 
rampant organ inhibits achievement. I hope you agree.”

Thorn could have cared less. Her arms were aching from the unnatural posture she must 
hold. Thorn hated it. She must view everything through the framework of two elbows. Drearily
she inquired, “What are you going to do to me?”

Madrid’s voice took on the tone of oratory. “I have many brave men in the uniform of the 
rebellion, dear Miss Thurston. A soldier’s life is hard, his rewards are few. The one he values 
most is a woman. There is a dusty compound around which the tents and huts of one of my 
camps are deployed. In the center a post has been firmly embedded in the ground. You will be
backed against this post, your arms drawn behind and your wrists there handcuffed. That is all,
it is very simply and painless. I am instructing the use of handcuffs in case some sentimental 
member of the military might be moved to give you freedom.”

“You mean I’m to be bound out there naked for all your army to leer at? And make filthy 
talk.”

“I suppose that about sums it up,” Madrid agreed. “There will be no prohibitions upon the 
use they make of you other than that you must not be harmed. You get the picture?”

She got the picture. She could not be ravished in any conventional manner when fastened 
to a post in the way Pedro Madrid suggested. But there were other things and other ways. She
shrank from visualizing them. Once more in hopelessness she tried, “There’s no need to have 
this done to me, no profit. Garth Bannock will buy me from you as I am now. I’m not sure any 
man will desire me after your army has used me for its pleasure.”

“He will buy you, you may be sure of that Miss Thurston. But should he prove difficult, 
there is always the brothel. They hold title to you and will receive you gratefully when my army
is weary of your charms. Night is close at hand, your punishment will begin in the morning. I 
bid you good night.”

“Where is Giselle?” Thorn interrupted his comments. “May I see her?”

“Giselle is no longer your concern, Miss Thurston. Again I bid you good night.” Madrid’s 
finger on the buzzer was firm.

Miss Thorn Thurston spent the night in the familiar cage. The two guards who took her 
there were familiar, too, and they laughed as they cut away her grotesque bondage. Dumping 
her upon the cushions, they handcuffed her wrists behind her back and locked a second pair 
upon her ankles. They slammed the door and went away to leave her alone behind familiar 
bars but in the depths of desolation from the absence of the bubbly creature with whom she 
had shared this cage before. Giselle was gone and none would tell her were. Exhausted, she 
flung herself into the cushions and went to sleep.

What was done to Thorn Thurston the following morning was done without fanfare. The 
handcuffs were taken from her ankles and her needs dealt with quickly. The two guards 
escorted her to a compound a short distance away where her heart missed a beat at sight of 
the post. There was nothing impressive about it, it was a reasonably slender chunk of timber 
behind which it was easy to draw her arms and handcuff the wrists. That simply task 
completed, her two guards departed, leaving the unhappy maiden alone to stand there where
she would be viewed by Pedro Madrid’s ragged army. For Thorn Thurston it had become a 
world of men.

If the army was sex starved they showed no sign. No doubt they had their camp followers 
and captives from their raids. The white girl shackled to the post was a curiosity and views 
with some interest. But the mechanics of raping her as she now stood called for more effort 
and enterprise than most wished to pursue. Her female parts were discussed in frank 
comparison to other girls she did not know. Thorn stood in deep disgust and feeling far more 
naked than usual.

The arrival McTeer and McCaffey was to be expected. No doubt they had come to exact 
their usual tribute. But at least they spoke her language and it was welcome to be able to talk 
to someone.

“Prettiest girl in the country,” McCaffey declared.

“It’s gonna have to be a knee trembler or nothing, Mac. What do you say?” McTeer said 
disgustedly. “Do you want to get into position while I hoist her up and then let her down?”

“If you do that, I’ll kick,” said Thorn, knowing full well a girl’s naked foot would be a 
modest weapon against two men. “Please don’t do that to me, haven’t you done it enough?”

“Can’t have too much of a good thing, lass,” she was told gruffly. “But I’m not all that keen 
on doing it the way you’re fixed like that. Say, Mac, what do you think of taking her out of 
here. She’s a nice kid and I dona like the idea of her being screwed by the whole damned 
army.”

“Bit risky, ain’t that?”

“Shit no, mon! No will give us second thought to us taking the lady out of the compound. 
They’ll think we’re on official business. Let’s have her to ourselves for a while. No sense playing
on a wet deck.”

Thorn was stunned by the pure impertinence of these two men. Her first instinct was to 
rebel at being kidnapped again. But compared to what she would suffer compared to staying 
chained to that posts all day, it would be minor, almost social. She stayed silent.

The handcuffs were unlocked, these two having handcuff keys the arms did not. Her hands
were then relocked behind her back. Always it was neat and tidy, giving her no chance, no 
hope. Thorn walked between the two men across the compound as if under guard and under 
orders.

“We’ll take the lass to the van.”

“Och, aye! That we will and then out to the shack. We’ll give the little beauty the best day 
she’s ever had.”

“I think you’re playing with fire,” Thorn warned. “I know there’s nothing I can do, you’ve 
got me, but it seems crazy to me to run this risk.”

“Nobody crosses us, we got a good thing going here. Don’t worry.”

“Look, if you’re going to take me to the van, why don’t you drive me to where I can 
contact Mr. Bannock? He’ll give you more money than you’ve ever seen in your lives … 
Please?”

“Ya got a point there gal. Let’s drive to where we can get Bannock on the phone.”

“Thank you.” Thorn felt a hundred times better. Even with rape imminent, she still saw a 
gleam of hope. “You can take these handcuffs off, I’ll go with you willingly.”

“Nay, lass, we ain’t dumb. We got you fixed the way every girl ought to be fixed. Be 
grateful it don’t hurt. We gonna make you real happy.”

Coming within sight of the van, McCaffey cursed to behold four soldiers, obviously on 
guard. “We’ll bluff this one out, Mac,” he decided without pause. “We march right ahead, lass, 
and don’t you say a word.”

The four guards were less ragged than most. There was a rapid exchanged of Spanish and 
a corporal waving a revolver. Looking behind, Thorn saw other soldiers converging. Then 
everything happened at great speed. McTeer drew a gun and shot the leader of the guard. But
McCaffey was not quiet as quick and fell before he could clear his weapon. McTeer fired again 
but he, too, slumped to the ground. Both lay very still.

Miss Thorn Thurston stood alone between two dead bodies and had never felt so naked in
her life. Her hands were frantically twisting at the steel circlets and her eyes roved in wide 
appeal in search of help. She did not run, what would be the use. It was at that moment the 
impossible took place.

An automobile screeched to a dusty halt between the girl and the van. Garth Bannock got 
out and spoke in rapid Spanish to the guards, casting a disdainful look at the two dead men 
before picking Thorn up bodily and dumping her in the front seat.

“Damn it, girl, I have a lot of trouble with you,” he said without annoyance. “Best we got 
out of here pronto.”

In Thorn’s enraptured eyes this man was a deity. Garth’s size, his authority, his great 
wealth, it all combined to make him a giant among men, a giant who had chosen her to be his
wife. Sitting beside him in the speeding car, she thrilled and thrilled again in realization of 
what had taken place. She felt a faint, lingering sadness about the Scotsmen but a mercenary’s
life invites such an end. Soon she would remember them no more.

“It was Pedro Madrid who did the whole thing,” she told her lover. “It was two dead 
Scotsmen you saw who grabbed me back in Banquail. I sort of got the feeling we hurt 
Madrid’s feelings over that brothel affair. Oh, darling, were would I be without you!”

“In a brothel.” His answer was casual but correct. They both laughed. “You’re 
kidnap-prone, you gorgeous creature. If I turn my back a couple of minutes, you’re gone. How
do you do it?”

Thorn pouted. “You know it’s not my fault. This last time was horrible. Without you I would
have ended up in that brothel for sure. Did you notice I’m still handcuffed?”

“You can stay that way, darling, teach you a lesson. But we’re getting on the first plane out 
of here. They don’t dare touch me but in Querida you’re a sitting duck.”

“Are you going to punish a naughty girl, darling?”

“Naughty! You? Don’t make me laugh, you’re a sweetheart.”

“But think of all the trouble I’ve put you to repossessing me. This was not the first time, 
darling. Surely you’ve a frustration of two you could ease by beating me?”

“Well, perhaps a light caning or a day in a hogtie. But goodness knows when we’ll get the 
chance.”

The handcuffed girl was happy beyond worlds. This was the repartee they loved so well. 
“But we can be in the good old USA in a few hours,” she pointed out. “You could whip me 
good and then we’d go and see my parents - after we’d made love, of course.”

“What on earth would your mother say if I walked in and said, ‘Good day, Mrs. Thurston, 
I’ve just whipped your daughter and raped her seven times?’”

“She’d probably tell you I deserved it, darling,” she gave him an arched, sideways glance. 
“Like you say, a girl who gets kidnapped as often as I do deserves something.”

Garth returned her sly look with one of his own. “How about Giselle?” he inquired. “See 
anything of her?”

“No. And Madrid wouldn’t say where she is. Where is she?”

“In the trunk.”

Thorn froze, heart fluttering. “I didn’t hear you say that, did I?” she ventured timidly.

“You heard it. Like I said, Giselle is in the trunk of this car. She’s probably mad as a hornet 
but that’s nothing new. I’ve got her bottom to whip as well as yours.”

“But, Garth, how … ? I mean … “

“A lot’s been happening, sweetheart. Lemaire had a change of heart and got in touch with 
me. He wants his daughter back and money’s no object. The thought of becoming Pedro 
Madrid’s father-in-law was just too much. Poor kid, she’s going to get her bottom well sliced 
when she get back to the Chateau. I expect we’ll be able to watch.”

Thorn tugged hard at handcuffed hands. “You really mean she’s in the trunk of this car - 
but how … I mean in what way … “

“To begin with she is beautifully bound and gagged. She’ll be a beautifully sorry little girl. 
Her wrists are bound, her elbows tied, and her ankles are tightly roped, and she is gagged. I’m
not sure she shouldn’t be kept that way permanently.” Garth laughed at a memory. “Gosh, the
language she used on those poor fellows!”

“But Pedro Madrid would never give her up?” Thorn mused thoughtfully. “How did you do 
it?”

“Easy. I hired professional kidnappers. A dirty trick on poor old Madrid and I’ll have to 
make it up to him sometime. Maybe next year I’ll lend you to him for a week.”

“You wouldn’t. Garth, darling, you wouldn’t lend me to anyone.”

“If you’re that sure about it, I’ll have to prove you wrong. Anyway, my darling girl, Giselle is
bound and gagged in the trunk of this car in the true traditions of romantic fiction. I’ll like to 
know how she feels about it but, of course, we’ll find out when she’s ungagged. Boy, what a 
blast we’re going to get.”

Thorn wanted to giggled and was immeasurably grateful for the rescue of Giselle. She 
wondered about loving a girl and a man at the same time. Was it practical, or even right! She 
shrugged the question aside as one bit of analysis she did not wish to examine. But 
knowledge of Giselle’s presence so close and thought of a return to the Chateau Lemaire was 
sobering. Jules Lemaire was a force, a man who might actually have the power to steal her 
from Garth. Quietly she told Bannock of her last interview with the lord of the chateau.

“He’s got over it by now,” Garth assured her. “He feels a bit of a bastard over what he did 
with you two girls. And, of course, that’s what he is. He wants his daughter back but doesn’t 
expect to get you as well. I’ve staked my claim on you and he respects it. I might use his 
facilities for whipping your bottom but that’s all. Does that set your pretty little mind at rest.?”

“I suppose so. Oh, Garth, I’m so happy. Is it immoral to feel as happy as I do now?”

“I don’t see how it can be, sweetheart. Your delightful derriere is going to pay the price. If 
you pay the price, the books are balanced. Isn’t that the way of it?”

Thorn didn’t care. She began to revel in the handcuffs and haughtily returned the curious 
stares they received in the Banquail intersections while waiting a light. An application of 
American currency assured unquestioned transport to their room via the freight elevator. This 
Mademoiselle Lemaire came back into Thorn’s world.

The French maiden was undeniably annoyed. The lifting of the lid disclosed a tight bound 
nudity both hot and bothered and prepared to express her feelings about this condition. But 
she was also securely gagged so that only her hostile gaze met Garth’s. When she beheld her 
darling Thorn, her eyes softened, but she struggled frantically to indicate disapproval of her 
condition. Garth picked her up and handed her to a hotel flunky, well bribed, and led the way 
up stairs. The handcuffed Thorn followed as a matter of course. She would have followed 
Garth Bannock anywhere.

At the arrival in their room there was a further exchange of money and a broad wink at the
man who possessed two naked girls, both in some degree of bondage. Garth Bannock 
relieved Giselle of the gag, releasing a flood of vitriolic French stormed his ears to cause him 
to thoughtfully replace the wad of cloth and to buckle again the strap holding it in place. 
Thorn laughed and said, “Darling, don’t be mean. The poor dear was only relieving herself of 
pent up feelings. Remember, she’s just endured a few hours in the trunk of a car, in tight 
bondage, not knowing where she was going.”

Garth Bannock gave Mademoiselle Lemaire the break of once again unbuckling her gag 
and pulling the wad from her mouth. Now, and with extreme humility, the girl who might have
been the wife of Pedro Madrid said, “Thank you, Garth Bannock.” And then, in fervent passion,
“Ma cherie, my beautiful darling, I have you back again!” and then directly to Garth, “Please to 
leave us alone, we have things to say to this slave girl who is mine.”

“Wouldn’t you like to be untied?” Garth was amused.

“No. Please to go. My slave girl can untie me. I prefer.”

“But your slave girl has got her wrists handcuffed behind her back.”

“Then unlock them quick. I do not want my darling thus held.”

Garth sighed and shrugged. “See what I mean, sweetheart, this little bundle of trouble isn’t
easy. Would you mind if I gave her a good thrashing?”

“You do what!” Giselle’s voice was shrill. “You threaten to thrash me, the daughter of my 
Papa. Garth Bannock, you are nuts in the head.”

“So, okay, I’m nuts in the head. But I’m still going to whip that pretty little bottom of yours.
It’s the only way I know to get something into that pretty little head. Do you want to struggle 
or do you prefer to be tied down?”

Thorn listened breathlessly. It was like a wonderful play enacted for her benefit alone. She 
adored Giselle but would be the last one in the world to admit the animated French maiden 
did not require the constant authority of the whip. Hoping to be kind, she ventured, “Giselle, 
darling, do be sensible. Tell Garth you’ll hold whatever position he wants and I’m sure he won’t
whip you too hard. Just think how lucky we are, we’re being taken home to your Papa.”

“My Papa will whip me, I know he will.”

“Well, maybe he will, but he loves you very much. And don’t forget Lisette, she loves you, 
too.”

The bound French maiden cast a doubtful eye at her rescuer. “I am not easy,” she 
admitted. “How many strokes must I have. If it is not more than I can bear, then you can drape
me over the arm of a chair and beat my poor bottom as you desire. I think this whole thing is 
most unkind.”

“I bet you really wanted to be Madrid’s queen,” Thorn demanded in a sudden shaft of 
feminine intuition. “That’s your trouble, isn’t it?”

“It would have been nice,” the still bound girl admitted grudgingly. “I would have been the
equal of my Papa, a rich and influential woman. But Pedro Madrid is … Ugh! He would have 
whipped me regularly and his funny little dink would have given me no joy at all. I am a most 
unhappy girl. Would you like to stick your great, big thing inside me, Garth Bannock?”

It went on a long, long time until Thorn begged her lover to cut it short, to put an end to 
it, to whip the French bottom and be done with it. Giselle looked at her gratefully.

“Mais oui, it is much the best. If this great hunk of man whips men and hears my cry of 
anguish, he may wish to penetrate what he has ravished with his whip.” Giselle sniffed and fell 
silent before adding, “Please to whip me, Mr. Garth Bannock. I suggest you place me across 
the arm of the big arm chair.”

It was quickly done. The nudity thus postured cast a frightened eye back towards the 
riding crop Garth had produced. Thorn shared her loved one’s anguish as the crop cut, with a 
terrifying venom, at the soft young skin. The weals spank up so eagerly like the buds of spring.
Poor Giselle’s gasps and moans made a fitting accompaniment. When it was done and Giselle 
sat back upon the floor to sob out her return to normalcy, Thorn took her place, raising her 
chained hands high to avoid the crop and expose her bottom in its full glory for what it must 
receive. She took six stinging, searing cuts in relative silence but added a few moans of her 
own to Giselle’s. After number six she mischievously said, “Thank you, Master,” and was 
rewarded with two more strokes. Actually all three of them were excessively happy.

“Sweetheart, I’ve done my duty with Papa’s daughter,” Garth said, a trifle wearily. “She’s 
been well whipped, but I’ll be damned if I’ll do the other thing you want. I’ll unlock your 
handcuffs and you take over. She’s your’s.”

“But Garth … !”

“Yeah, I know, she’s a handful. Why don’t you whip her, too, to cement good relations.”

“But I love her and if you leave me in charge you know what will happen. Garth!”

“Let me inhibit your temptation, beloved girl,” Garth spoke with infinite tenderness. “If I 
find the two of you nibbling, I’ll whip you both to a fare-thee-well. You’ll wish you’d never 
seen each other’s little pussies. There, does that help?”

It helped. Thorn, doubting her wisdom, untied Giselle, but found herself balking at the 
release of two pretty wrists. It was altogether to deeply satisfying to have control over her 
former mistress and she was uncertain if Giselle might not want to return to Pedro Madrid. 
The French maiden was unpredictable. She had maintain a modicum of control.

“Untie my hands, slave girl, you bear no bonds.”

“I’m not sure, Giselle dear,” Thorn said softly. “I do not wish to own you in the way you 
desire me. I suppose I am fearful you will do something rash and force our master to whip you
again.”

“Master! Pouf! Your Garth is not my master. You have made him yours but, if I can steal 
him from you, I will do so. You belong to me.”

Thorn sighed. Giselle was never easy and was now riding high in what she saw as the 
re-establishment of her authority. Pedro Madrid and all his men were gone. In their place was 
a handsome man called Garth who professed to own the beautiful girl she called her own. 
Giselle sought for weaknesses in this fabric of affection.

Firmly she declared, “Your Garth has hurt me very much with his rotten riding crop. I spit 
on his riding crop. But, darling, since you have left my hands thus bound, do you wish to whip 
me, also?”

“Of course not!” Thorn answered even thought it seemed in keeping with the whole.

“I am a wretched thing no body wants. Slavegirl, I want you reassurance.”

“Would it make you feel better, dear Giselle, if I untied your hands, and handed you the 
crop, and laid myself across the chair? Is that what you want?”

“It would make me feel loved.” She pondered a bit. “I would not want M. Bannock to 
witness what he would see as your humiliation, your shame in such an act of devotion. Can 
you arrange?”

Thorn took Bannock aside. “You heard what she said, darling, would you mind very much?”

Garth laughed at the seriousness with which these two girls took their relationship. To him 
it was nonsense. But he knew it was much more to them. “I can go downstairs and have a 
double whiskey,” he agreed without demur. “She sounds as though she’s given you carte 
blanche, so lay it on real good. That young lady is the supreme pain in the ass.” He kissed his 
darling, patted her bottom, and went downstairs. All of a sudden Thorn was alone with a girl 
who had once been her inflexible mistress, a mistress she was now pledged to whip. She 
wished the whole affair had never happened. But she asked, “Well, darling, we’re alone. Do 
you really want me to whip you?”

“Of a certainty. Do not quibble. Here, I lay me across the chair once more, you have my 
bottom and back, use both.”

Thorn found herself bewildered. Laughing, she said, “But Giselle, I thought it was me who 
was to be whipped. I thought you wanted to feel loved again. It should be me across that 
chair.”

Giselle rose and shook her head as if to disperse puzzlement. “I do not know, beloved. I 
only know my hands are still tied behind my back. With them bound thus, I whip nothing.”

Thorn untied the young wrists. “There, how does that feel. And I’ll leave it to you as to who
whips who. We’re absolutely insane. Neither of us has to whip anybody.”

“We talk too much.” Giselle was firm. “See, I lay myself across the arm and my derriere is all
yours. You have carte blanche.”

“But don’t you want to be fastened?”

“I have the will power, cherie, I am not a child.”

Conscious of absurdity, Thorn delivered a stinging impact with the crop across her loved 
one’s curves. Immediately Giselle yelped in pain, rose and, clutching her burning cheeks, 
danced around the room while Thorn watched. Then, sheepishly, Giselle held out her hand.

“My will power, she is gone,” she said simply. “Please to tie my hands.”

Thorn wound cord around the sore wrists and drew them down to bind them at the back 
arm of the chair upon which her mistress lay. It was an awkward pose but would keep Giselle 
in one place while the whipping lasted.

Disliking her task but desirous of giving Giselle her money’s worth, Thorn laid on with a 
will. The swish of the crop and its impact upon proud flesh filled the room for several minutes 
during which Giselle did nothing more than moan and kick. When released, Giselle once more 
did her dance, clutching her wounds. “You do that far too well, Thorn,” she conceded. “I must 
be careful how I offer you my derriere. Perhaps now you should kiss the place of hurt.”

“I will yours if you will mine.”

They were very happy.





CHAPTER EIGHT - FRENCH TOAST


Four people in the lounge of the hotel suite in Banquail. Garth Bannock was wearing his poker
face. Thorn and Giselle was visibly uneasy. Only Pedro Madrid was enjoying himself with a very
tall drink and an eye for the scenery.

“It is with a note of regret I see that you girls have resumed wearing clothes,” he said with 
a genuine note of regret in his voice. “A clothed girl is a loss to all mankind.” He mopped his 
forehead with a large handkerchief. “If is warm for this time of year.”

“You have something in mind, Pedro?” asked Garth quietly. “You’re in enemy territory here.
Isn’t there a price on your head in the Republic?”

“Ah, yes. But you are too old a friend to collect it, Garth. I’m visiting you with a complaint.” 
He beamed good will through his glasses. “Are you aware you have stolen my wife to be?”

Garth shrugged. “You can’t be serious. I am taking Miss Lemaire back to her father. I 
believe you have met Miss Thurston. I intend to marry her.”

“Congratulations, my dear Garth. She in entirely charming. As for Giselle … ” His tone 
became coldly incisive. “I want my wife.”

“Miss Lemaire is returning to her father’s home.” Bannock’s voice eased. “You know Jules 
Lemaire, why don’t you ask him for his daughter’s hand.”

“I do not ask because I do not get. I prefer to take Giselle back to my headquarters now. I 
have a spare pair of handcuffs here, if you permit?”

“I do not permit. She goes back to France. Miss Thurston and I accompany her before 
leaving for America.

Pedro Madrid sighed. “Such noble intentions, such clear cut purpose! How I envy you, my 
dear Bannock.” He turned to Giselle, “Perhaps it is you, Mademoiselle, who should say yes or 
no. I do you honor.”

“I have to go back to my Papa,” Giselle said, obviously disturbed. “Please to ask Papa for 
my hand in marriage. It is formal and correct.”

Thorn was amused but uneasy. Away from his guards and their weapons, Madrid was a 
funny little man but one who had to be taken seriously when he stopped smiling. Thorn 
wished their plane was earlier, and this interview not happening. With the three of them safe 
in Banquail, Madrid appeared to have no cards to play beyond an appeal to a business 
associate and a French maiden. But somewhere Pedro Madrid would have a weapon, she was 
sure of it. She listened quietly as Garth Bannock diverted each of Pedro’s demands, 
suggestions, and veiled threats. They were going to France and that was the end of it.

Pedro Madrid sighed as he rose to his feet. “I have been robbed,” he declared with mock 
drama. “My so beautiful Giselle has been taken and will go back to her father, my old friend 
Jules. But one does not acquire a wife by telephone. Perhaps I go to France.” He looked at 
Giselle. “I adore you, Mademoiselle. I would have you grace my office.” She shook Garth’s 
hand and kissed Thorn’s. At the door he turned to say, with quiet assurance, “This is not a 
defeat. We have fired only the first few rounds. You will hear from me.”

“He’s a delightful little rogue.” Garth Bannock laughed after their departing visitor. “I 
should tell the authorities he’s here. But usually one side’s as bad the other in these little 
rebellions. And sometimes he’s useful. I’m damned sure we will hear more of him. Giselle, you 
appear to be a much wanted woman. Let’s get you back to the safety of your Papa.”

In the journey back to France Thorn dwelt much within her thoughts. How nice it was to be
clothed and sitting in first class as opposed to being naked and bound in front of a South 
American dictator’s army. Everything was pleasant, but there still lingered doubt. First she was 
certain Madrid would make another move, and secondly she longed most ardently to go 
home to the USA without this diversion to return Giselle to her Papa, an obligation Garth took
seriously. Thorn was, moreover, uncertain about Giselle’s true feelings. She expected the 
French girl of being intrigued by Madrid’s promises of position and fame. But she was well 
aware of a waning interest in such things the closer they got to the Chateau Lemaire. From 
what she knew of Jules Lemaire, it was probable Giselle was in for a scorched bottom.

She would try and persuade Garth to make their stay at the chateau as brief as possible 
but was well aware of both Giselle and her papa having in interest in her person. Giselle still 
claimed her as a possession, and she had to wonder if Jules Lemaire, himself, would make 
similar demands. She knew Garth would not give her up but, with a sense of humor all his 
own, he might very well tempt or toy with his hosts by allowing them in some way to curtail 
the freedom she was enjoying. The focal point of interest in this affair would be Giselle but 
Thorn had an uncomfortable feeling about her own future. She also found it stuffy wearing 
clothes.

Rapture reigned supreme upon their arrival at the chateau. Jules Lemaire was visibly glad 
to have his daughter and was warmth itself to Garth and Thorn, kissing Thorn’s hands with his 
usual gallantry while searing her skin with an intent gaze. They dined in state but over the 
brandies in the lounge, Lemaire handed Garth a letter.

“It came just before you arrived,” he said gently. “I did not want it to disturb our greetings 
or dinner.”

Garth’s face clouded as he read. He looked at Lemaire. “You know what this is?”

“Alas, yes.”

“I’ll have to go, there’s no way out of it.” Garth spat out a hearty, “Damn!” After a moment 
to sort things out in his mind, he added, “Can Thorn stay with Giselle while I’m gone? I can’t 
possibly take her to that forsaken hole. I should be able to deal with the problem in about 
three days.”

“Mademoiselle is most welcome.” The lips of Lemaire produced their thin smile. “I have a 
twenty-five percent interest in this affair. Your attention to it is vital.”

It was like being the wife of one King Arthur’s knights who was always being sent off on 
another quest. Thorn reflected on this worn theme of the TV, telling the frustration of a 
policeman’s wife who, whenever the sex act was about to start, was defeated by a jangling 
phone. He exclamation was involuntary, “Oh, Garth, do you have to!”

“Mademoiselle sounds like a wife,” Jules Lemaire suggested softly.

“Darling, don’t be a spoil sport!” Giselle added her own appeal. “Think of it. We’ll have 
three lovely days together. You’re still my slave, you know.” As further inducement she added, 
“Garth will go where ever it is and make millions and millions for Papa and himself.”

Alone with Garth while he packed, Thorn was adamant. “Darling, I’m frightened. I think 
something’s brewing. Don’t leave me.”

Bannock kissed her hastily. “I can’t take you, it’s no spot for a girl. I’ve talked to Jules about
you. You’ll be okay. And you’ve got Giselle.”

“Giselle want me for a prisoner again. I know it’s only a game but I’ll probably be terribly 
helpless. Oh, Garth, I want you to take me with you.”

“Sorry, no can do. I’ll make it up to you later.”

“Couldn’t I go on ahead to the USA?”

“Jules would be offended. And Giselle heartbroken.” He took his troubled Thorn into his 
arms and whispered, “Everything’s going to be all right, nothing can happen to you here. If 
you’re thinking of Madrid, forget him. He couldn’t get in the front door here.”

Thorn felt silly, a victim of overworked intuition.

They waved Garth Bannock farewell. When he was gone, Jules Lemaire turned to the 
troubled Thorn to say, “And now, my dear, Giselle and I have you all to ourselves.” He laughed
at her instant alarm at the innocent statement. “You are worried, my dear, you have had a bad 
time. I think it best I turn you over to Giselle.” He smiled at her. “She still claims title to you, 
you know.”

Thorn was relieved. She was afraid of Jules Lemaire. It might be pleasant to yield herself to 
the laughing mistress who would relieve her of all decision even at the expense of some 
discomfort. “Yes, M. Lemaire,” she said, “I think that would be nice.”

She was given no time to change her mind. Giselle, delighted and totally forgetting Pedro 
Madrid, led her uncertain guest into the wing of Giselle and another world. “Off with the silly 
clothes, darling, and then your hands behind your back.”

It was reliving a dream but dreams can often give pleasure. Thorn stripped naked and 
presented her hands and her back to her one and only mistress. Instead of her wrists, it was 
her elbows Giselle bound painfully. Then Giselle grasp a handful of Thorn’s hair, bubbled, 
“And not, Ma petite, I put you where I have longed to see you all these past days. Come, little 
pigeon, you dare not struggle.”

Giselle was right, Thorn dared not struggled. Between the hurt of tied elbows and the 
grasp within her hair, she knew she had lost all choice, she would do as she was told. But her 
heart quailed when they came to the huge door of a room only dimly remembered. Within 
stood a part replica of a cross, a stark and fearful post with a cross piece at its top to give the 
effect of a massive “T.” Giselle backed her against the massive wood, secured her waist to it 
with a chain, then freed her hair and arms, but only to bind the unresisting wrists to rings at 
the extreme ends of the horizontal cross piece. When she was done, Thorn had become an 
impaled butterfly with extended wings she could not move.

“It is an effect most beautiful, cherie. You would be most proud if you could see.” Giselle 
kissed her slave girl happily, tweaked her nipples, then loosed the chain about Thorn’s waist to
leave her standing in total freedom except for extended arms. The cords about her wrists were
very tight.

“You are most beautiful, beloved girl. Your beauty breaks my heart.” The youthful mistress 
stood to survey her price. Thorn cared little for this viewing of her nakedness. But she was 
used to nakedness now, clothes felt funny. If it was possible to feel near helplessness, Thorn 
did so then. The manner in which she was held was not painful and placed no stress. True, it 
exposed her shockingly, but she did not care when there was only Giselle to see. In sudden 
recollection she demanded, “Giselle, where’s Lisette?”

“She has been sent to visit cousins, darling.” She laughed at the edge in Thorn’s voice. 
“Fear not that I have her in some deep, dark dungeon. Papa simply wanted her out of the way 
for our homecoming. And since it will mean I can spend more time with you, I am glad she is 
not here.”

“This is a whipping post, isn’t it? But I’m the wrong way around.”

“You are not the wrong way around for the playing with your nipples or the whipping of 
your breasts. There is also the matter of your pubic area. Would it punish you terribly if I were 
to shave you there … ?”

This was familiar ground. Thorn assured her mistress she would be devastated to loose 
even a few of her fronds. She was sure that, given time, Giselle would somehow contrive to 
make her loose all her pubic hair. But it was useless to be alarmed. If it happened … Well, it 
happened.

“How long must I stand like this,” she asked meekly.

“You ask that too many times, petite. Choux,” Giselle warned. “It is not for you to know 
anything I plan. Perhaps I send in a man … Or a dog!” She laughed at her own humor. “In what
they might do there would be little to choice. I will not be so cruel.”

“Do I get to sleep with you tonight, Giselle, properly chained, of course?”

Surprisingly, Thorn was left alone. She experimented with the impossibility of getting loose
and with the placement of her feet. By crossing her legs she could in some small way shield 
her sex but she laughed away such tactics, there were no secrets left, Giselle knew them all. It 
would have been nicer to spend her time in good conversation in the lounge or being shown 
the country side. But if this was what Giselle wanted, then so be it. Thorn knew she had three 
days and knew they would be long indeed.

She was left in quiet solitude a couple of hours before Jules Lemaire appeared. His coming
was a shock, Thorn had truly supposed his interest in her had died. She suddenly felt many 
times naked as she always did on such an occasion and longed to cover herself but, instead, 
stood there totally exposed, her arms extended, her wrists tight bound. Quietly she said, “This 
isn’t playing fair, you know. You shouldn’t see me like this.”

The master of the chateau surveyed her quietly, drinking in every facet of her beauty, then 
shrugged. “You are right, I should not see you thus. Your beauty is enough to make any man 
break his vows or betray a friend. My ancestors would have called you a witch.”

“I’m only a naked girl. Cloth me and set me free and the ugliness will disappear.”

“There is no ugliness, only beauty. I have seen many but none even half as beautiful as 
yourself. I intent to possess you.”

Inspired by what he had said, Thorn saw a faint ray of hope she must exploit. “Free me 
from this post and possess me then. Possess me to your heart’s content. Then you, too, will be
free.”

“An interesting suggestion,” Lemaire said. “It is also an affront to my honor which I now 
punish. I am sure there is a whip around her somewhere.”

Must it always come to this! Always the whip or the cane. They dogged her footsteps 
where ever she went. Innocent or guilty, they flayed her skin and she was tired of them. 
Wearily she said, “It takes no courage or strength to whip a girl who is naked and helpless. If 
you whip me now, that will give you no honor. Please … Please, I am so sick of being beaten 
like a dog.”

“Then stop talking like a bitch in heat. I will whip you now. You deserve it.”

Thorn cried out at the agony and indignity of being whipped across her belly, breasts and 
the pubic area. A total of six strokes, burning, scorching, and searing with all the familiarity of 
other times. Thorn kicked, thrust, and struggled without effect. Even her wildest contortions 
failed to even quiver the timber to which she was bound. After the sixth cut she was sobbing, 
not in defeat but in frustration and anger.

“I hope you feel good about doing this. You have done nothing to change the real girl 
who is me. All you’ve done is hurt the girl you say you love.”

His arms were vital, his kiss passionate. Thorn wondered how old this man might be. There
was about him the timelessness of the fallen Satan who, in times past, was supposed to have 
ravished maidens. Unhappily, Thorn realized that if she could keep his main purpose at bay by
enticing his lust, she might still be an unmarried girl when Garth returned. She did Lemaire the
credit of believing he could contrive to marry her even without her consent. His stature was 
such that the priests might do his bidden.

“I am of another race and time. Take me and do as you wish with me, I will give you my 
body willingly for in the past you have been kind and I adore your daughter. Is there more I 
can offer?”

“You hand in marriage.”

There it was again, a recurring nightmare. Thorn moaned, “Please, I am not the girl you 
think. I am not a noblewoman to grace your table or bed. I can give you no heir to match your
blood. You should marry a woman of the French nobility.”

“I will marry you, Thorn Thurston, please to consent.”

A confrontation! It was the last thing Thorn desired. But if she falsely said yes, she would 
receive at least a night’s reprieve. Tomorrow was another day. But in feminine contrariness she
asked, “If I say no, what will you do me?”

“Torture you. You know all the old familiar ways, they’re as good now as ever. Sooner or 
later you’d break. I would sooner not take you before the holy man with broken skin or 
bruised flesh, but he will not see you naked. You will be dressed as a bride should be. If you 
ask him for help, your punishment will be worse than anything you’ve ever dreamed.”

Thorn shuttered, her hands twisting against their bindings on the rings. She was so 
exquisitely helpless this man Would own and control her at will. It was silly to fight him, he 
would win. As if from a distance she heard her voice saying, “I can’t fight you. There is no way I
can win. Marry me if you must, there’s no way I can stop you.” She paused before asking 
pathetically, “Please, may I stay this way a while longer so I can think. And would you please 
send in Giselle? I need Giselle terrible.”

In temperament, Giselle Lemaire was not Papa’s daughter. She protested vividly at the 
fresh weals on Thorn’s skin. “I thought not Papa would do this,” she said earnestly. “It should 
have been me who cut your skin. Darling, do you wish to be my Mama?”

“Of course I don’t! The whole idea’s crazy. But what can I do!” Hopefully Thorn asked, 
“Why don’t you set me free? Untie my wrists and let me go. I don’t care if you push me into 
the country side naked, I want out.”

Young fingers were tugging at the knots. “I thought not Papa would do this silly thing. He 
is behaving like a silly old man.” Giselle chuckled defiantly. “I want you not as my Mama. Think,
beloved, how everyone would laugh. You and I are of the same age. I want not to loose you 
but I set you free.”

It was too, too cruel! Giselle had untied Thorn’s left wrist to let her arm fall in weariness at 
her side, she was about to start on the knots of the other hand when Lemaire entered the 
room. He showed no surprise. “I expected to find you such engaged, Giselle. You will be 
suitably punished. Go to your room.”

Thorn was watching the old and the new. The older generation won. With a stricken look, 
Giselle meekly left the room. She said nothing, everything was understood. Tomorrow she 
would be punished in some way to satisfy the pride of Lemaire. Automatically Thorn raised her
free arm to the ring to have her wrist retied but Jules Lemaire waved the act aside.

“You have been spoiled, you have been indulged, you have been too much loved,” he said 
quietly. “Pain cures everything in the young, pain is my gift to you, my dear.”

It was a big room. In it there were many things besides the whipping post. Thorn did not 
fight, she believed it useless. Fighting would only inflame Jules Lemaire’s lust. It would be 
better to endure his punishment and, in humiliate, rid his mind of the fantasy of a wedding. 
She allowed herself to be pushed and pulled and postured, scarce noticing what was being 
done to her. At the end of a few minutes, Miss Thorn Thurston was seated solidly astride a 
contraption variously called the “horse,” the “bar,” the “plank’s edge.” But whatever it was 
called it was an outrage to feminine dignity, a thing no female should have to endure.

Jules Lemaire was breathing heavily but not from subduing Thorn. She now sat astride 
upon the edge of a plank, her feet dragged out to either side and tightly bound to prevent 
her falling to either side of her painful perch. As a further precaution, her wrists were bound 
behind her back and raised high to cause her to place her sex more squarely upon the surface 
most likely to cause her pain. She could not move.

“You will reflect quietly, my dear. We can be married tomorrow.”

Thorn was busy with gasps and moans. She was positive the plank was thrusting itself far 
into her flesh to eventually bisect the thing Lemaire should treasure most. The pain was 
terrible and there was nothing she could do. She gave a hasty glance from side to side to 
behold her tractioned legs and thighs reaching grotesquely towards the walls. She was almost 
as a ballet dancer doing the splits, and all her weight was upon that most precious and 
sensitive part of herself.

She moaned and said, “I will marry you. Please let me off this thing.”

“I prefer to give you time to reflect. My presence disturbs you. I will go.”

Thorn’s agonized plea not to be left alone fell upon silence. Her inquisitor had gone. She 
was alone. Hysterically she screamed, finding relief in the cry of agony she could not contain. 
Thereafter Thorn moaned steadily and sought motion as little as possible, everything hurt, she
could do nothing not loaded with pain. From time to time she examined her taut thighs and 
legs in disbelief they could be so stretched, and her pussy so crushed. The place of contact 
with the wood was pure fire. Her anguished pussy became the central point of the entire 
universe and seemed huge. Her wracked shoulders held her cruelly where she least wanted to 
be held.

Dimly she thought of Garth. But Garth was in another world. Lucifer had her now, a 
dark-eyed French man named Lemaire. The tortured girl began to hallucinate, her agony 
merging with time and space. Periods of unconsciousness gave her some mercy. Her labored 
breathing and moans were the only sounds in the dark room. Then Jules Lemaire and his 
daughter Giselle burst in upon her it was like an explosion in her mind. Even with the 
preoccupation with her own body and pain, Thorn could tell something was amiss. Giselle 
held her tight while the man who had placed her as she was slashed swiftly at his own ropes. 
Between them they carried her to Giselle’s bed.

It was the most exquisite sensation Thorn had even known. To have been lifted from the 
enemy within her loins was a miracle Thorn could hardly believe. She moved her stiffened and 
pained legs just to feel the freedom. In the moments that followed, Miss Thorn Thurston 
wanted nothing of the world, no names, no news, only to be left beneath Giselle’s loving 
hands and whispers.

“It is over, ma petite. Oh, sweetheart, how could Papa be so cruel. To think he could place 
such a punishment upon you when you belong to me. Cherie, can you ever forgive?”

When the ravishes of pain faded to the point of being bearable, Thorn realized her hands 
were still tied behind her back and was still naked. She listed more carefully.

“Darling, Papa desires us in the lounge. There is brandy.”

Loving arms steadied uncertain feet as Thorn rose erect and took her first few steps to 
savor the pain of aftermath within her loins. She wanted to touch and explore her pussy but 
could not. Her hands were still bound behind her back and inhibited her joy. Saying nothing, 
she allowed herself to be guided like a patient in a hospital.

“The man is not to be tolerated!” Jules Lemaire sat without his usual dignity to sip his 
brandy savagely, his features hard and grim. “I have treated you most cruelly, Mademoiselle. I 
do not expect you to forgive. I was a man possessed. I am possessed no more.”

“Pedro Madrid has captured my sister Lisette and taken her away,” Giselle said simply. “We 
are bereft.”

The girl was Thorn’s mistress held a brandy to the lips of her beloved and Thorn gulped 
gratefully, the liquid fire helping to disperse the last mental haziness of her punishment. She 
shook her head as if ridding it of memories and gulp the last of the glass. She asked for more. 
It was suddenly again good to be alive.

Lemaire said little. He and his elder daughter had evidently discussed this and reached 
conclusions. In the course of their new problems they had forgotten the girl straddling the 
plank below. Hours had passed before Jules Lemaire told his daughter of the persuasion he 
had brought to bear upon Thorn. Giselle was very much in charge.

“This so absurd man in Querida will return Lisette to Papa if I yield myself to him and 
become his bride.” There was a long, drawn out sigh. “I have agreed to do this.”

Thorn’s mind whirled swiftly on this fresh perspective. Giselle was confirming her belief 
that the French girl secretly desired what Pedro Madrid could bestow. Jules Lemaire might not
like the union but would realize there were worse things to which his daughter might be 
doomed. Longing to say something, Thorn fell back upon the trite, “If it is something you very 
much want to do, darling … Madrid is ridiculous but you can handle him. I am sure he’ll send 
Lisette home unharmed.”

In the silence that followed, Thorn realized the last word had not been said. Both Giselle 
and papa were gazing at her. It was Giselle who once again explained. “Pedro Madrid will not 
be satisfied with me, cherie, he wants you, too. We must be delivered to him as captives to 
insure the humiliation of girls who escape one time too much.”

Stricken by this confirmation of premonition, Thorn stared back at the watching eyes. Her 
corded wrists became doubly tight, the bindings eloquent in explanation. In any argument, 
those cords deep within her skin would be the final arbiter, overriding objections and carrying 
her again into captivity. Puzzled, she demanded, “But why me … I don’t understand?”

“We think it is because of Garth Bannock. Pedro Madrid will punish Garth Bannock by 
stealing you. Let us remember is it Garth who stole us from him, he will see it as no more than 
honest retribution.”

“And if I refuse?”

There was an awkward silence. Giselle went to the bar and returned with more brandy to 
be held to captive lips. Thorn drank deep as if seeking oblivion from these cross currents in 
which she felt herself a pawn. Dully, she asked, “Please untie my hands, I think you’ve 
forgotten.”

“We did not forget, cherie, the little hands are safest as they are. It told Thorn everything. 
Giselle’s quiet words were as explicit as need be. The two of them would go to Querida 
together under whatever circumstances Pedro Madrid might dictate. For once Jules Lemaire 
was impotent and had nothing to say. Papa had been routed by a rebellion in a far away land. 
But Thorn’s concern now switched to her lover. Surely Garth Bannock would not be stymied in
a situation like this. She said so forcefully.

“But what can he do! He does not want you for ransom, dear girl, he wants you for 
revenge.”

“Then he’ll sell me to the brothel for sure. He’s already sold me to them once. I suppose 
the second time they’ll get me no charge.” Thorn’s eyes again swept those of her companions.
“Please don’t give in so easily. Please fight this silly little man. He’s by no means omnipotent.”

“I can bicker with the man for perhaps a day,” Jules Lemaire said, his eyes returning to life. 
“This I can do. But while I bargain with this absurd creature, you must remain our prisoner. I 
am sorry.”

“But supposing for any reason I am not returned to Pedro Madrid, what will he do to 
Lisette? What does he threaten?”

“She will be raped by his absurd army and then sent to the brothel for the rest of her life. It
is something I cannot permit.”

Thorn’s reflections were bitter and her voice betrayed them. “You will allow me to be sent 
to the brothel but not your daughter, is that it?”

“Lisette is my daughter, Mademoiselle, you are not. Again I express my sorrow.”

“Darling, when I am this man’s wife and have the power, I will make assure of your release 
where ever you maybe. His talk of brothels may be false. But if that is where you are, I will get 
you out, rely on it.”

Thorn began to feel hopelessness. Her voice became lifeless. “What do you expect to get 
back by that time, Giselle? You may take months while my body services fifteen men a day and
I wear the collar and chain of a whore. By then I probably would not want release.”

Father and daughter refused to argue further. They were looking upon her as one already 
condemned and as good as dead. Thorn saw it in their eyes. When Giselle possessed herself of
a handful of Thorn’s hair, the girl with tied hands made no outcry, she ceased to plead and 
went where she was led.

There was a terrible familiarity about the dungeon, a place that had often held her for 
others and then released her flesh. The naked Thorn stood in quiet despair as shackle after 
shackle was locked upon her limbs until her limbs must be freed of rope in order to accept the
metal of the irons. In full weight of this servitude, she stood there as Giselle stepped back.

“Look not at me like that, beloved girl, you break my heart. I am a bitch. But remember, 
Thorn, I go along with you. We will be together to the end.”

It was true. Thorn knew she underrated the sacrifice Giselle would make. Quietly she said, 
“Okay, okay, so we all lose. But why must I be ironed like this? Couldn’t you simply have 
locked the door?”

Giselle managed a wry chuckle. “Darling, it is what the doctor’s call a counter irritant. You 
will be so angry at your irons you will have less time to think about being sold back into 
slavery. N’est ce pas?”

It was as absurd as all the rest but sadly true. Alone after the shooting of the bolts, Thorn 
stood and fingered the links of her metal harness from which there was no escape. She freely 
admitted to herself she would escape if she could, sacrificing Lisette’s virtue in the conviction 
of being more use to the Lemaires as a free woman rather than a slave in a brothel. Thorn was
positive Garth would think of something and do something, some action she might share. But 
the Lemaires had condemned her with their chains. And, despite her anger, she felt some 
sympathy with their problem. Every since having first being kidnapped and joining Giselle in 
that cage, she had been property, for sale and barter. In these last few weeks she had never 
been a human entity but always a possession, held and governed by others. It was a 
frustrating condition but, gazing down at the chains holding her to the wall, it was a condition
she could not change or escape from. Thorn wondered how many girls had sat in the corner 
of a stone prison and reflected upon the events of life while fingering chains they could never 
escape. She shrugged disgustedly and sat against the wall to cry.

The chained girl slept fitfully, her dreams a melancholy sequence until Giselle brought 
breakfast and tended to her captives needs. Giselle’s usual liveliness was dampened by events.
But with wry humor she admitted that the dungeon and the chains were one last 
manifestation of the joys they had shared in the imprisonment of a girl. Pedro Madrid was 
unlikely to allow such fun and games, and any bondage either of them endured would be in 
earnest and with the sole intent of keeping them prisoner. For Giselle it was one last farewell 
to joy.

“Papa and all his silly games of making millions!” Giselle pouted. “I do nasty things upon 
them all. Papa is once more busy on the phone, I think about plans for you and me. He is also 
trying to locate Garth Bannock. Darling, things may not be as bad as we first thought. You and
I will have to yield ourselves as prisoners but our imprisonment may not last lone. Pedro 
Madrid will be no match for Papa and Garth Bannock.”

“That won’t do me any good in the brothel.”

Giselle sighed and played with her beloved’s chains. She kissed Thorn lovingly as though 
their sundering was close. “You are so beautiful, Thorn, and in my chains doubly so. I wish you 
could see yourself.”

“I wish I was without the chains and free of this place. That’s what I wish,” Thorn said firmly.
She faced her affectionate owner to make a stern demand, “Giselle, darling, why don’t you put
an end to this whole thing? Why not set me free? You can tell your silly Pedro Madrid I have 
escaped and vanished. Giselle, please let me go.”

“Pedro would not believe a word of such a story. And let us not forget Lisette. Papa makes 
a gift of both of us to get her back. Then, as Pedro Madrid’s wife, I can seek you out and free 
you. But for now I must keep you prisoner, even if it breaks my heart.”

“Oh, all right! But do you have to keep me in a dungeon loaded down with all this metal?”

“I will free you of them, beloved. Would it not be fun to tie your wrists and elbows, that 
makes such a lovely showing of your breasts? I could chain your ankles. That way you could 
roam the house and even go and talk to Papa.” Giselle giggled. “Why not ask Papa if he still 
wishes to marry you? Tell him you are ready and willing. Poor Papa, he would be most 
embarrassed.”

“What you’re saying is he wants Lisette more than he wants you and me?”

“I fear so. It is the guilt. You do understand?”

“All I can understand is I’m being traded off to a brothel. Sorry, darling, to be a bore on 
the subject, but it’s all I have to think about.” Thorn shifted against the bondage being applied
to her arms. “Giselle, must you tie my wrists so tight? I’m not an escape artist, you know.”

“Of course I tie you tight, darling, that way we don’t have to worry, neither of us. I am 
worrying about my dear Pedro’s next communication. Does he want us delivered or will he 
pick us up? Darling, we’ve become like the bag of groceries.”

“Please don’t use rope on my elbows, it hurts terribly.”

“I use the lovely bandage. It looks most good and holds you tight. Do not hate me, 
beloved Thorn, maybe I soon will be bound, too.”

Thorn cursed Pedro Madrid and all his works as she finally stood as the end product of all 
Giselle’s work, wrists clamped, elbows clamped, and now shackles on her ankles so she must 
walk in tiny, measured steps. She might well have the freedom of the chateau but these 
bindings were uncomfortable heading towards painful, and made a mockery of freedom. And 
they were having the usual effect on her. Giselle tested to exclaim, “It is still working, ma 
petite, you still are wet like Pavlov’s dogs. You look most charming with the so lovely breasts.”

The French girl paused in thought. When she spoke in was in heartbreak, “My beloved 
Thorn, all this I do to you may be for the last time, we do not know. There is a small thing I 
have wished to do to you with things I bought long since and have been saving for a special 
purpose. Would you mind?”

“You’ll do it anyway, go ahead.”

Thorn divined a purpose in the shapeless things. Their general contour and the small 
orifice dead center told here they belonged. Helpless but curious she stood still for her 
mistress to use this new and pretty toy. It was a task not to be taken lightly.

“Inside out like this, and the little tweezers through the center hole,” the French girl 
intoned as if reading from instructions. Thorn looked down to see her left nipple neatly 
clasped by the small jaws of the equally pincers and used to painfully draw out both her 
nipple and the breasts to enable the shapeless object to reveal itself as a shining silver film 
which greedily lapped itself to contour the lovely curves and, when the pincers released their, 
grip, to become a second skin and endow Thorn with a shining sliver breast.

“Darling, I should have used these on you before. Magnifique!”

Reluctantly Thorn was forced to agree. Her breasts, released from tension, assumed its 
normal shape and size to full out and expand this new and scanty covering through which her 
nipple peeked. Her first though was obvious, “But, Giselle, it will fall off, there’s nothing 
holding it.”

Giselle laughed and pinched the nipple lovingly. “This, I too do not understand. There is 
some sort of adhesive. I was assured they would not come off. Even now I cannot get even my
fingernail under the edge.”

“Do not tell me they’re on me for life!”

“This I do not know. But you have another lovely breast and this time the cone is of 
shining scarlet. Hold still!”

Thorn was feminine and could not but thrill to this extraordinary enhancement to a girl’s 
beauty. There might be a touch of the bizarre about a naked girl with one breast of sliver and 
one of scarlet, and with nipples protruding. She watched the process repeated, and then was 
led to the big bedroom mirror. At first she did not recognize herself, seeing only a loveliness 
from another world. But, after the first gasp, she was as pleased with herself as Giselle. 
Doubtfully she asked, “Will they still be on me when I am taken to the brothel?”

“Mais certainment!” Giselle’s giggle was inevitable. “They get you instant promotion. You’ll 
be the highest priced girl. Oh, darling, I’m so pleased with you.”

Thorn wished she could finger herself and these new and shining adornments. But she 
could not and realized it might be a long while before she had again that much freedom. In 
the meantime her breasts and nipples would flaunt themselves outrageously. If only she were 
not being sold to the brothel … If only … “

Without ceremony, Thorn clinked and rattled her chained steps to the office of Jules 
Lemaire, knowing she was fighting for her life, prepared to do whatever she must to prevent 
herself being sold once more. Jules Lemaire saw only two breasts, one silver, one scarlet. His 
intake of breath was clearly audible. Without preamble Thorn declared, “I will stop fighting, I 
will marry you. Please don’t send me back to the terrible face.”

Terrible internal turmoil was etched upon those dark eyes. “But you’re glorious! Absolutely 
glorious!” He took time to drink in the full effect. “Some trick of Giselle’s I suppose. I 
sometimes think my eldest daughter a menace. Why would she do this to you at a time like 
this?”

“To divert us from thinking. Please, I beg of you, don’t send us back.”

“I do not let you go without a fight. But I cannot discuss your fate, not now.”

“Have you contacted Garth?”

“Alas, no. But rest assured, I will.”

They stared, a would-be husband and a would-be wife. The unattainable seemed desirable
to both. Fascinated, Jules Lemaire came around his desk to gently explore the sleek surfaces of
embellished breasts. Deliberately he sought to lift away one of the lovely cones from the soft 
flesh. He could do nothing, lift nothing. Looking down at his exploring fingers, Thorn was glad
of his defeat. Now these sliver and scarlet cones were a part of her she wished to wear them 
for at least a few more days. She could not believe they would stay upon her for life. But they 
would certainly not leave for a while.

Returning to his desk and chair, Lemaire said, with heartfelt sincerity, “They make you 
erotically exquisite, Mademoiselle.” There was a heavy pause as his dark eyes sought the 
shape and wonder of the bound maiden who’s feet were chained so she could not run. “I 
cannot marry you, Mademoiselle.”

“Why?”

“You know why. You are the price of my daughter, a price I have to pay.”

“Very well, M. Lemaire.” The tone was cold and bitter. “Perhaps you will honor me with a 
visit after I am prisoner in the brothel in which you are consigning me. Think, you can possess 
me then for a modest sum. And if you find my performance less than you desire, you can have
them punish me. I expect they will let you watch my punishment for a further small payment.”

The dark complexion flushed. “You have a right to be bitter. Mademoiselle. I cannot expect
sympathy. But I am busy, perhaps on your behalf more than you know. Please go.” Jules 
Lemaire sounded like a man tossing away the world.

Thorn wandered aimlessly. Even though her feet were fettered, her steps were still her 
own. In this time of waiting she used them to once more explore the beauty of this ancient 
home. She had taken the lessor of two evils in offering herself to Lemaire. Anything was better
than that terrible place with a collar on her neck. But his refusal left her hurt and without 
surprise. She wondered how sincere his efforts on the phone might be. His first concern had 
to be Giselle, Thorn would come a doubtful second. But, on the other hand, if he could pull off
a twist of fate to best Pedro Madrid, he could take her as she was, bound and chained, and 
offering herself in marriage. Once more the barter principle was governing her life. She 
wondered what Giselle was doing and went in search of the girl she had once called mistress.

It was strange to tread the hallways and passages of this lovely place, bound and chained 
and naked. She wondered cynically if the paintings on the wall beheld her passing in shock or 
whether they had witnessed such scenes a hundred times since the painter had applied the 
oils. Thorn did not struggle to free herself, she knew it impossible. From time to time she 
looked, almost anxiously, down upon her shining breasts in the expectation in finding the 
amazing cones beginning to peel away from her skin. But it did not happen. They were still 
very much a part of her. They stuck so fast, it seemed more as if they had been painted on 
then pasted.

Thorn did not find Giselle, Giselle found her instead.

“Thorn, darling, they have come for us. The men are here. Those we have seen before. I 
have talked with them and now they are with Papa.”

“Giselle, dear, don’t panic, we knew it was going to happen.” Thorn was suddenly the older
sister.

“But I did not think so soon. Oh, Thorn, what are we to do!”

Thorn had reached resignation. Giselle had made her helpless, she could be taken 
anywhere by anyone. A gag would make her totally compliant. “We’ll do what we’re told, I 
suppose,” she said bitterly. “They’ll fasten us however they wish and march us off into slavery.”

The trio in the office had evidently said what they had to say. Thin-lipped, Lemaire kissed 
first Thorn and then his daughter. “You must forgive me, but I cannot bear what must be 
done.” He strode angrily from the room and from the two girl’s lives. His place was taken by 
guards who had handled them before. They wasted no time.

“Mademoiselle Lemaire, please to remove your clothes.”

“You don’t need me naked, you can take me as I am!”

“The clothes, please. And quickly, we do not argue.”

Angrily their master’s bride did as she was told. Naked she stood scornfully to await 
instruction. The enslavement of Mademoiselle Lemaire had once more begun. The slavery of 
Miss Thorn Thurston had never ceased.

The guards were swift, spending little time in admiration or wonder of Thorn’s breasts. 
Quickly they removed the bindings Giselle had so carefully knotted, and then handcuffed 
Thorn’s right wrist to Giselle’s left. Next they knelt and removed the shackle from Thorn’s left 
ankle, turned the irons around to fix it upon Giselle’s left ankle to leave both girls linked but 
able to move in a clinking awkwardness. Thus the two of them were ushered from papa and 
papa’s chateau to a waiting car. The lid of the trunk was open and they were invited to climb 
in, a task they first deemed impossible but achieved with remarkably little trouble by helping 
each other. The lid slammed shut and they were imprisoned in darkness. Awkwardly they 
arranged their chains for such comfort as they could find.

Giselle summed it up, “This is most surely for the birds!”

The captive nudities clamped themselves together. Ruefully, Thorn considered the 
condition of her breasts after this fervid clutch. The lovely cones would surely be soiled and 
perhaps breaking loose from her flesh. Giselle’s whisper was urgent. “I think our time grows 
short, beloved. I will love you always. I will get you free as quickly as I can. It may not take long
for I will make my Pedro’s life miserable until he does as I wish. Fear not.”

“He’s more likely to whip you until you stop trying,” Thorn reminded soberly. “I don’t think 
that little man takes orders. He simply gives them.”

“Madrid may keep me prisoner, but if he does not I will reach your Garth Bannock and tell 
him were you are. If I get whipped, I get whipped!” Giselle snuggled even closer. “Is it not 
sweet, ma petite, to be thus chained? I am very hot between my legs.”

In the darkness they played with their handcuffs and the shackle like toys, giggling as hand
followed hand and foot was compelled to obey its fellow. Thorn knew they should be in 
hysterics but this scene was old and had been played too often. When the trunk lid was raised 
they would simply begin one more chapter in captivity.

It was not as they supposed, nothing ever is. The face Thorn beheld when the trunk lid 
opened was the woman from the brothel, the woman who had been neither cruel nor kind, 
but simply a dealer in costly merchandise. No doubt she would now retrieve her lost 
possession. The girls climbed awkwardly from the trunk in shamed exposure before female 
eyes and stood uncertainly on the old abandoned road the Querida jet had used before. It 
was there again, half hidden in some foliage, the two guards standing by in amusement. The 
woman herded the chained girls into their best pace to the jet. This time one of the guards 
had a camera and the woman a whip. It was the same as before, nothing but scenery and no 
other human being in sight. Carefully Thorn extended a shackled foot and promptly stumbled 
to the rough surface of the road as Giselle absent minded failed to follow. There was laughter 
and the sharp cut of the whip across Thorn’s back. She stumbled hastily erect and helped her 
fellow captive’s steps.

“You don’t be silly,” their female guard said. “You march real good. You don’t behave, I 
whip. My name Marisa.” The voice became a studied sneer. “I pleased to meet you, Miss Thorn
Thurston and Mademoiselle Giselle Lemaire. We get along real good.”

The hobbled walk to the plane would have seemed interminable had the two girl been 
under any urgency to arrive. But they were not. They would cheerfully lagged back had not 
Marisa’s whip been very encouraging. They stumbled now and then and each was rewarded 
with a sharp, swift cut of the thong in some unexpected and often indecent place. By the time 
they reached the plane they were accomplished in the three-legged walk. Once more Marisa’s 
whip had not patience, sending them hurrying from step to step and into the lounge which 
now boasted neither desk nor Pedro Madrid. Some of the seats had been removed to give 
more space, space which Marisa used to her own amusement. Shackling each girl’s free hand 
above her head to leave them both in the postures of strap-hangers on a city bus. They might 
once have complained at being forced to stand but now kept their complaints to themselves. 
The whip was hung in full view and greatly influenced their decision in this matter.

“I think I gag you now,” Marisa said.

The captive argued and pleaded to such effect as to give Marisa second thoughts. “Okay, 
then. I no gag you,” she conceded doubtfully. “But you make beef or call me names or make 
screams then I gag you real good. You look real pretty way I got you fixed.”

It was horribly frustrating, standing joined together, each one with a hand raised aloft, a 
hand safely chained they could not withdraw. She poured herself a drink and, as the jet roared
its way above French soil to the Atlantic, sipped while enjoying the view of her handiwork. She
now had time to appreciate Thorn’s breasts.

“I heard ‘bout the way you got your tits, sweetheart, but ain’t never seen it before. The 
boys will pay extra for you. They don’t come off, do they?”

They had not come off, they were not even wrinkled. Thorn looked down at her silver and 
scarlet in surprise. They not only had not come loose but seemed more than ever a second 
skin. The knowledge of being of increased value to the brothel was a matter of no certain. 
Whatever she might earn for the management she would never see a penny.

Bravely she blurted out, “Why save me for you regular clients? Why not sell me to a really 
rich man? I’ll bet you could find one who would pay almost anything for me fixed the way I 
am.”

Surprisingly, the idea found favor with Marisa. “You mean turn a quick profit, honey. 
Maybe get a million for you? Maybe more? Them tits is really something.”

Thorn shivered under the amused scrutiny but took a faint hope in a new direction. It 
would be a simple case of one man being preferable to hundreds. The whole thing seemed 
incredible and she tugged in dismay at the hand held over her head. Marisa’s next word sent a
shiver down her spine.

“And as for you, Mademoiselle, if you ain’t got another pair of them tit covers, you’ll be 
just a working girl like any of the rest. But don’t worry none, you’ll do real good, you’re a 
looker.”

Thorn felt tension in the girl next to her. Giselle’s tone was derisive, “What do you mean? 
You don’t think I’m going to your rotten old brothel, do you? Don’t you know, Pedro Madrid is
going to marry me?”

Marisa put down her glass and gave full attention to a hearty laugh. “You’re gonna do 
what, sweetheart! Shit, I heard that story ‘bout you marrying the boss guy but it ain’t the way 
he told me. He sold you along with pretty tits here. Same price, same terms. That there Pedro 
Madrid is always gonna marry someone but he don’t ever get round to it. Don’t tell me you’re 
disappointed ‘bout it.”

The chained girls exchanged glances. This was not good. Suddenly it was believable that 
Giselle could share Thorn’s fate, but for Giselle the adjustment to her status and thinking was 
drastic and truly fearful. Her prospects were summarized neatly by Marisa. “You don’t want to 
marry him anyway. Shit, girl, the first time the government troops catch up with him, you get 
your little ass shot off same as him. Pedro Madrid ain’t every gonna govern no republic, all 
he’s doing is cashing in on what the Russian’s and American’s hand out.” Marisa chuckled to 
behold the puzzlement and fear on Giselle’s lovely features. “Don’t be disappointed, honey, I’ll
look after you real good. Any girl what puts in her twenty years with me gets turned loose 
with a pretty little penny in her pocket. I set a bit aside for them as we go along. So long as 
you spread your legs real pretty, I make a deposit in the bank for you. Not a lot, but after 
twenty years it adds up.”

Twenty years! To girls their age that was forever. Once more they exchanged a questioning
glance. A tear made its appearance on Giselle’s cheek, and then another to prompt Marisa 
into feminine sympathy. She clasp the weeping maiden so devastated by the prospects of 
endless copulations, and kissed away the tears, and gently patted the lovely breasts.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do when we get home,” she promised generously. “Before I take 
money for a trick on either one of you, I’ll let you watch a girl get punished for acting up. 
Don’t usually go to this much trouble but I’ll do it for you so you’ll know to be good girls.” She
patted two unhappy bottoms. “You probably don’t think it mounts to much, but believe me 
I’m doing a kindness. Now, both of you, cheer up and smile. How about a drink?”

Two sad maidens, firmly chained, sipped the offered glass without desire. Drunk or sober, 
what did it matter! Marisa’s honesty failed to inspire but finally they drank in desperation and 
the brothel keeper laughed to behold their eagerness.

“Do we have to stand like this all the way,” Thorn asked. “Can’t you chain us some way so 
we can sit?”

“When I get good and ready, girl. Remember, no beefs. You ask that again and you get the
gag.”

It was cruelly tiring and deeply shaming to stand thus for all to see. The guards edged 
back and forth several times in the confined space and contrived in so doing to brush against 
maiden skin. Marisa was tolerant, “You boys don’t need to come in here, you get back to your 
own place. These girls is mine. You don’t get to screw them this time. And from now on you 
can come to my place and pay the same as anyone else. I’ll give you a little bit extra time, 
though.”

Easement of the girl’s condition was not overly generous. But their wrists were unlocked 
from above and relocked to the back of one of the seats to allow the two of them to sit in 
reasonable comfort. They said a meek, “Thank you,” and were actually grateful. They had 
stood for more than eight hundred miles and the journey was long.

Having disposed of phase one, Marisa now moved on to items of more personal interest. 
“Don’t suppose either of you gals ever worked in a whorehouse,” she inquired. Both captives 
admitted to this deficiency in their education. “That there story ‘bout a fate worse than death 
ain’t strictly true. Don’t pretend you’re gonna enjoy the first few times. You could if you put 
your minds to it but you’ll be all tensed up and thinking what a lousy deal you got.” Marisa 
smiled at her captives. “You don’t get punished them first few times, we make allowances. But 
the second day you’d best shape up and I’ll be showing you why when we get there.”

“Does a girl ever enjoy it? I mean, do we ever climax?” Thorn asked.

“Of course you do. It’s a case of getting relaxed. After a while you get to enjoy it too 
damned much and you have to think about other things while he’s doing it to you. It’s a trade 
like any other and got its tricks.”

Marisa chuckled at some memories, unaware of the grimace on Thorn’s face at the 
unintended pun. “You’ll always keep us collared and chained,” Thorn asked anxiously. “Won’t 
we ever see the sunlight again?”

“Shit, honey, you sound like you missed a period, so damned anxious.” Marisa was 
amused. “Course you’ll see the sunlight. One of my best customers is an old chap used to be a
sergeant major in the British army. Every so often he comes around and we have a real 
honest-to-goodness drill. He puts the gals through their paces real good. Way we do it is we 
chain your feet real good and we all go out into the court yard and you do your physical jerks.
I pay the old boy off with free nookie for his trouble. He’s always beefing ‘bout the chains, 
wants them off so the girls can run around. But we can’t have that, now can we?”

Was it a reassurance? Thorn did not know. She supposed she was approaching a condition
where anything was welcome. For some reason she was deadly afraid of the collar going 
around her neck. It seemed as if it was the finally degradation, the final blow forcing her to 
spend a lifetime appeasing the lusts of men, but not to go out the ever open door. She looked
appealingly at Giselle. “Don’t you want to ask any questions, darling? Seems like we’re both in 
the same boat.”

“What I want is to phone my Papa,” Giselle said firmly. “I will tell him of this new thing, of 
this brothel. He will be sure to act.” She stared defiantly at Marisa. “This is a thing you must 
not do.”

Marisa looked puzzled at Giselle. Then she sighed and produced a gag. It was a very 
obvious gag, one of those things about which one need not doubt. Giselle eyed it with open 
hatred. “You needn’t think you’re going to put that thing in my mouth. No way! Shove it up 
the place on which you sit.”

It took Marisa only a minute to persuade her reluctant recruit to open wide her mouth for 
the mouth-filling wad and then the soft leather band across the young lips. When the leather 
was buckled behind her neck, Giselle was looking wildly in all directions but making only the 
slightest of sounds.

“Keep you quiet, honey. I can tell you’re one of them gals what can’t keep your yap shut. 
Always saying the wrong things. Let’s see now, where was I?”

“The English Sergeant Major,” Thorn suggested.

“Ah yes. He’s a nice old coot. I’ll let him have you the first time he’s up. He has good 
staying power and you might get a come out of it. But don’t ask him to let you loose.”

“Are there any tall, dark and handsome ones?” Thorn inquired without much interest.

“You’re right, honey, there ain’t that many. Mostly middle aged and real cheesed off with 
the whole thing.” Marisa chuckled. “Poor bastards can’t always get it up. So we got a couple of
trick rooms to help the poor bastards out. You know how it is. The silly twit wants to paint his 
wife’s ass green and she ain’t having no part of it. But we provide a gal and a pot of paint and 
mostly the guy goes away real happy and comes back for more.”

“Do we have to do that with them or is there a special girl?”

“You wanting the job, honey? If you’re any good I can probably let you in on it. But what 
would you want for that is a girl who doesn’t give a damn about anything. She has to have 
given up any idea about escaping and really enjoy her work. I got one now and I’m not sure 
you’d be anywhere half as good.”

Thorn sat in what she saw as a state of limbo, one hand cuffed to the back of the seat, the 
other to Giselle. She was ingeniously helpless and could have easily drifted into an acceptance
of her lot. But she was truly curious about her fate. Marisa had opened a whole bag of 
possibilities.

“About me being purchased … ? I mean not putting me in the brothel at all but selling me 
to some … Well, interested man? What are the chances?”

“Damned good, honey. But I’ll make the price high enough so it won’t happen real quick. 
It’s them breasts that’ll do the trick. I won’t be selling no gal, I’ll be selling a pair of silver and 
scarlet boobs. Whoever put them on you did you a kindness.”

“Do I have to work in the brothel while you find a buyer?”

“Wouldn’t you rather do that than sit in a cage?”

“Not really, I think I’ll rather be in the cage.”

“Tell you what, honey, I knows how you feel, I’ll make it easy for you. You choice the cage 
and I whips your pretty ass and back everyday until you change your mind. How’s that grab 
you?”

The whip again became the controlling force of her existence. Thorn faced the face in 
bleak realization and heard her voice saying, “Very well, I’ll do what you say. I want you to 
guide me, this is all so strange.”

“It ain’t strange at all, honey. You’re just kidding yourself.” She paused to sip her drink. 
“Every girl has a fantasy of being raped. Here I’m offering you fifteen times a day and you turn
and run. Every question you ask tells me what you got in your little mind. Don’t worry, 
sweetheart, you ain’t going no place.”

It was all so hopeless. Thorn tested her chains, purely a reflex act. She decided she might 
as well let the conversation drop since it gave her no comfort. She should perhaps try to sleep,
sitting beside the gagged and still fuming Giselle. But her inclinations did not count. Marisa 
was enjoying herself.

“I was telling ya about them rooms we got for helping a guy getting it up. Well, there’s 
also the guys who ain’t concerned about getting it up but like to watch what we do to girls in 
those two rooms, and there’s girls what would a lot sooner get their little asses whipped 
rather than spread their legs. I’m telling you this in case you’re one of them.”

“I’m not. Thank you.” Thorn had no doubts about men who wanted special rooms and 
special instruments by which to break a girl. She feared that always she would come back to 
the collar and the chain, a fate she could not escape.

“They want the damndest things, sweetheart, but mostly it to whip a girl’s ass or watch 
another gal do it for them. That’s something all men like. So I put the price up on them 
sessions and, although the girl ain’t always that grateful, I put a little extra in the kitty for that 
time when she’ll be glad to have it. Got any suggestions? I mean any cute notions about being
hurt or humiliated that might spring a few extra bucks out of a guy?”

Thorn timidly ventured herself sterile on the subject but was instantly reminded of “that 
there French guy, Lemaire.”

“He’s a known fruit, does all sorts of things to girls in that there castle of his. And then you 
was going along with Garth Bannock. Everyone knows Garth Bannock. And everyone knows 
the things he likes doing with girls. You ain’t gonna tell me he ain’t done a few things with 
you?”

“Well, no, I suppose not. He’s done things with me when we had the chance. But we 
haven’t had many chances. In any case, it really doesn’t matter to you. I’ll do them with Garth 
and love them because I love him. Love makes all the difference. Why don’t you sell me to 
Garth Bannock? He’ll buy.”

“Horse shit, honey! You gals and your dreams! You get the hots for a guy and then he can 
do whatever he likes to you and you think it’s okay. Some other bugger even mentions it and 
you snap his head off. I’ll give you a bit of training, do you good.”

Thorn clung to her most obvious hope. It seemed to entirely reasonable she could not 
understand Marisa’s failure to see its advantages. “Why don’t you contact Garth Bannock? 
He’ll pay for me. He’ll buy me.”

“And whip your ass right quick, I’ve no doubt.”

“I don’t see that matters if you’ve got your money.”

“We’re making a bit of progress, kid,” Marisa affirmed comfortable. “We got it figured you 
like being whipped by Garth Bannock but not some poor bastard that pays good money for it.
Can’t you see you’re way off center?”

She could see. She and Marisa would never reconcile divergent views. But the women was 
essentially good hearted. And if Thorn was to spend her life as Marisa’s prisoner, catering to 
men who’s wives don’t understand them, she might as well explore the possibilities of saving 
her own flesh at the expense of others. Thorn knew she could not help a single girl collared 
and chained in the brothel. But if she could use one of them, or one of their clients … ? The 
thought persisted.

Marisa was enjoying this comfortable passage of time with a girl who dared not argue and
was most diverting to look at. Her shrewd business sense was not forgetting for a moment the
cash value of the extraordinary breasts and nipples Thorn displayed. She had plans for Thorn, 
but in the meantime she could explain the pros and cons of brothel life. “We’ve talked a lot 
about whipped asses, sweetheart,” she mused thoughtfully, “but there’s other things, ya know.
You ever sat on a horse?”

“You mean that beastly edge of a plank? Yes, I have!” Thorn said with feeling. “It’s horrible, 
no girl should have to suffer that.”

“Or hung up by your thumbs?”

“No, not that. But I can imagine, I’ve been hung by my wrists enough.”

“Or having your pussy hair shaved? The boys pay a lot for doing it or watching it done. 
Most girls hate it.”

“I’ll hate it. Please don’t every let them.”

Marisa nodded. “So, okay, we’re doing fine. How about a big box full of rats with most of 
you inside but just your head and arms out so you could wave them around. That one gets 
more erections!”

It went on and on, beyond the bounds of decency, beyond even common sense. The 
chained girl accepted enough of the offered drinks to bring intoxication. After a while her 
answers became slurred and not always making sense, and were inclined to drift into slumber. 
Marisa, too, finally nodded and slept. Giselle’s eyes flashed above the gag. The hand chained 
to Thorn beat a metallic protest to what its owner was forced to listen to. On one cared.





CHAPTER NINE - PUNISHMENT OF WHORES


The ring bolt in the wall accommodated both chains comfortably. The collars upon Giselle’s 
and Thorn’s neck were identical, the trailing chains of equal length. There was, however, a 
significant difference between the two. Upon Thorn’s loins was locked a chastity belt of 
modern design to totally deny her possession by a man. Giselle’s pussy was open to all. The 
woman who had fastened them thus had gone away to leave them to their chained 
contemplation of their fate.

“I wish to die,” Giselle affirmed with great feeling. “I refuse to harbor the seeds of a 
hundred men. In fact, I refuse to lay upon the bed.”

Thorn noted the closed door. Her voice dictated reason. “Don’t take on so, darling, I don’t 
think we’re going to be raped in the next few minutes. Remember what she promised as 
preliminary? That’s still to come. Just hold your horses.”

Giselle sniffed. She believed nothing expect the collar around her neck and its trailing 
chain. She fingered both and even made motions as if to hurl both from her. She gazed upon 
the bed as if it were a snake pit. “I will kill them, I will kill them all,” she affirmed savagely. “If I 
had but a gun … ! Oh, Thorn darling, I am so unhappy. No girl has ever been so betrayed.”

“I expect they have,” Thorn admonished gently as she took the distraught young women 
in her arms and tried to give comfort here there was none to give.

Thorn took Marisa’s intention to teach them an object lesson at face value. There was 
kindness in Marisa along with the rough brutality of her vocation. Thorn wondered, with a 
trace of amusement, if she and Giselle were waiting for another inmate to deserve punishment
so she could become the subject of Marisa’s object lesson. But it did not matter, nothing 
mattered now.

The two girls at on the bed and played with their tether, telling its links as a nun might tell 
her rosary. In the utter sterility of the room the iron they wore became potently real. There 
was little else, both maidens were as bare as the moment of their birth. Thorn did her best.

“There could be a mistake, darling, give Pedro Madrid a chance to catch up with it. He’ll 
have you out of her, I’m sure of it.”

“In the eye of a pig.” Giselle rattled her chain angrily. “If he does not hurry, I will have been 
raped a hundred times. There is no hope for either of us, I spit on Pedro Madrid.”

Thorn sighed hopelessly. What was there to tell a girl condemned to the violations of a 
thousand men! She, herself, knew of nothing to inspire any kind of optimist. There would be 
precautions against Garth Bannock storming in as he had before and carrying her off. Madrid 
would make certain neither Jules Lemaire nor Garth Bannock would get anywhere near them. 
She did not understand the story Marisa had told of Madrid’s change of heart. The 
advantages for him to marry Giselle were obvious. To consign both of them to a lifetime in a 
bordello was pure sadist and without profit. In Madrid’s enthusiasm for profit there must 
surely be some hope!

The condemned girl’s thoughts turned to her breasts upon which the metallic cones were 
adhering even more closely than before. Miss Thorn Thurston was still a young woman who’s 
nipples peeped seductively from the center of shining cones of color.

“It is so good I put them upon you, cherie,” the French mistress declared. “They maybe buy
you freedom from this place. I am glad for you having one master instead of thousands. She 
wrinkled her features in deep thought. I have forgotten who gave them to me but they are 
magic, they grip your skin more firmly than ever. It is best you wear them. In any case we 
cannot tear them off.” She managed a wry grimace. “Your nipples, they are always now hard 
and large. Does their response effect your fire below?”

Thorn’s fire was at a low ebb, sustained only by the collar and chain, and the loveliness on 
her breasts. “But, Giselle, didn’t you have another pair to put them on yourself?”

“Indeed, I did, cherie. But I was a foolish girl, placing them on because I thought them one 
big joke. I place them on you and they fall off in an hour. Now I do not thing they ever fall off. 
Yes, if I, too, wore such pussy-heating splendor, I, too, might have but one master.” She 
sighed. “But surely there must be some man to rescue us. I cannot believe the daughter of my 
Papa can be thus naked and thus chained! I keep seeing visions of lines and lines of those 
huge weapons men possess, all waiting for me to serve. Oh, ma cherie!”

Marisa looked at the two woebegone faces. “You two think you die, I know what you think.
But you will not die, no girl ever dies. When a girl belongs to me, she is well cared for.” Briskly 
she commanded, “You turn your backs, you cross your wrists, you stand still.”

It was all too familiar. Neither girl thought to disobey. The clicks and clasp of metal bands 
rendered them helpless. Their collars were unlocked and left on the bed for their return, their 
trailing chains a jeering promise. Marisa led them from the room.

It was a large, faceless place without character to which they were led. Its only furnishings 
was two slender poles, each bearing above a girl’s head the dangling links and wristlets to 
betray its purpose. Here and there around the walls were grim reminders of their bondage, in 
this case two collars for slender girl necks. Padlocks clicked shut assured their presence. 
“Please not to leave,” Marisa quipped before leaving the two of them alone.

“She thinks herself a droll,” Giselle said disgustedly. “Cherie, we cannot move from this 
place. Le petite chain gives no scope. We are here to watch, m’est ce pas? I think I close my 
eyes.”

The two girls waited in shivering expectancy, robbed of their hands and force to stank 
erect by the collars. They could do nothing, they were a captive audience. When the play 
began, it was all the more deadly for its lack of ritual, its total absence of drama. Two girls 
entered. They were dressed in neat but scanty tunics and appeared in no hurry. Thorn 
supposed they were both to be punished and authority would soon appear. But that was not 
the case. Upon reaching the two vertical posts the girls exchanged glances. One fingered with 
a button to allow the only garment she wore to tumble to the ground and leave her naked, a 
pathetic slenderness neither beautiful nor ugly. She was just a girl, and young. It was easy to 
believe this was not her first time.

A box Thorn had not noticed now enabled the naked maiden’s companion to stand high 
enough to tighten the leather bands around two wrists which offered themselves. Each band 
was tightened vigorously and buckled. When this was done, the girl to be punished stood 
between the poles stood with arms up raised as if in supplication to the sun. For a moment 
the scene possessed a terrible beauty.

The girl who still wore clothes and took from a hook on the wall a supple length of whip, a
vicious thong of leather short enough for perfect control. With her first trace of humanity, the 
girl who held it now ran it upon and down her victim’s naked spine as though to assure she 
who was to be punished of the reality of the events. The bound girl took a swift glance over a 
shoulder to acknowledge the attention and then stared straight ahead. Thorn’s heart went out
to her in sympathy.

It was then the girl with the whip noticed the couple against the wall, she motioned with 
the cruel instrument in their direction and smiled derisively at their impotence. Then she took 
her stance to indulge in a few preliminary swishes of the leather. Suddenly there was the full 
sweep of a young arm and the bitting whine of leather cutting air to imprint itself within the 
softness of a girl’s bare back. The naked girl responded by tugs at her wrists, a bowed head 
and a lifted leg which kicked at nothing. There was a gasp followed by a moan, but the girl did
not scream. Apologetically, she reassembled herself, as if in invitation to be struck again.

Thorn realize the two girls knew each other, perhaps they were friends. Perhaps the need 
to punish one arose out of some quirk of amusement in Marisa’s head. But even if this were 
so, the blows, following slowly one upon another, were neither light or simulated. They were 
terribly real and the sound of them caused the watching girls to wince. Thorn counted silently 
the deadly rhythm. After number twenty the whipped girl hung limp within her bonds, not 
unconscious but certainly uncaring. Her body glistened with sweat, her breathing was labored 
and choked with sobs.

It was then the girl with the whip turned her attention to the audience. She sauntered 
over, fingering the whip suggestively. In broken English she inquired, “You next?” before 
replacing the whip on the hook and walking from the room.

Giselle and Thorn stood unable to help as they watched a naked girl come slowly back 
from the pain into awareness. After quite a long time they were noticed and greeted with a 
volley of Spanish they could not understand. They shrugged helplessly, a gesture the girl 
understood. She nodded and returned to her pain to bother them no more.

Authority was long in coming, leaving the whipped girl to hang listlessly from the straps. 
The two who watched could do nothing except shiver in sympathy and from the menace of 
the place. For them, too, the aftermath of punishment held no rest.

When Marisa did come she failed to pay them heed but took her time to examine the back
and bottom of the whipped maiden, and then to set her free. There were a few words in 
Spanish before the girl put her tunic back on and, without restraints, walked slowly from the 
room.

“What you think?” Marisa inquired as she approached. “You like that? You want your back 
be whipped?”

Thorn felt she must say something, but what was there to say! Humbly she offered, “We’ll 
try and do what you tell us. We don’t want to be whipped. Thank you for letting us watch.”

Giselle said nothing. She was breathing heavily, still affected and afraid as their collars 
were freed from their necks and they were led from the ugly room. But in the passage, Giselle 
was handed to a waiting servant while Marisa propelled Thorn in another direction.

“You no bother with goodbyes, there is no need,” she said offhandedly. “You come with 
me.”

Marisa’s apartment was in stark contrast with the rest. It was modern and comfortable and,
above all, contained a bathroom. Thorn’s feet were now chained and her hands freed. “You go
have good bath, girl. You wash your hair. You make yourself pretty. I give you time.”

The absence of Giselle was almost terrifying in the vacuum left behind. Thorn sensed 
herself on the brink of strange new events. Obviously she was being groomed and she could 
take a shrewd guess why. But the bathroom was pure luxury which she took immediate 
advantage of. If she was to be a whore, she would be a clean and scented whore. The thought 
amused her.

Painstaking as she had been with her adornment it failed to please. “Now I do you right, I 
finish you off in style,” Marisa admonished. “Come, first the hair.”

It took a long time but Thorn was willing to agree it was time well spent. When her hair 
finally met with approval, she knew herself a hairdresser’s dream. “And now your face,” Marisa 
said with obvious relish.

It was not as bad as Thorn expected. It was lavish and vulgar and overdone, but once more
the end result was striking. Thorn had become a young woman no one could possibly fail to 
notice.

Next it was the incredible breasts. Marisa’s eyes had lingered on them lovingly throughout.
She now painted both the nipples black, and used oil and a cloth to polish the metallic sheen 
to perfection. Next Thorn’s naval and sex was lavished rouged, and her toenails painted a 
shinning black to match her nipples. Throughout it all she stood in quivering anticipation. She 
was then led to as smallish room, lavishly plush, with overstuffed furniture and cushions. 
There, in the middle on a rug, she was positioned and her wrists handcuffed to a chain above 
her head. Cynically the captive girl picked up the drift. She was a Houri of some Arabian 
fantasy, a captive maiden exhibited in all her stark beauty, hiding nothing, in gaudy shame for 
eyes that must surely soon appear.

“You look damned good, sweetheart,” Marisa assured earnestly. “I wouldn’t have believed 
them tits and breasts if I hadn’t seen them. I’m going to do all right with you.”

Once more there was the loneliness and the wait, always the wait. But nothing was hurting,
her chained hands were above her head but only high enough to assure a complete exposure 
of her body. Her ankles remained fettered, perhaps to prevent her kicking a prospective 
purchaser. Thorn felt very alone. Thought of what tears would do to her makeup prohibited 
their appearance. The sale of Miss Thorn Thurston was by no means swift. In spite of her 
shinning breasts, men came and looked and went away. To be thus displayed should cure any 
girl of shyness about her body, Thorn reflected. Within a few hours she heartily wished one 
would buy her and put an end to shame. She also longed to sit down.

The buyers did not come in all kinds, mostly they were middle aged and business-suited. 
Thorn believe them to be middle men for the true buyers. In there eyes was little lust but a 
serious interest in her breasts. The metallic cones absorbed the doubtful prodding and probes
of male fingers. Hardly any of them spoke, few were young.

Surprisingly, Marisa was not disappointed with the day. She did not accuse Thorn with 
failure pose or say the right things. Thorn had been careful not to mention escape to any of 
those who came to look, she was certain such action would lead to punishment. There was 
faint satisfaction in Marisa’s approval even though she had not sold herself. She was put into a
cage scarce big enough for her to curl up and sleep, hands innocently cuffed in front and the 
fetters still upon her feet. Thorn slept with only mild nightmares of her sale and the ravishing 
of Giselle. In the morning here was an hour in the bathroom again followed by a quick 
breakfast and a return to the small room to have her hands again chained over her head. It 
was almost like having a nine to five job.

The man who purchased Miss Thorn Thurston was the most unlikely of the lot, a 
hawk-faced ascetic Castellan who endured himself to his purchase by speaking fluent English. 
Introducing himself as Don Felipe Malabar, he inquired as to her name.

“I am a dealer in young woman, Miss Thurston.” His voice was suave, his eyes cold. “You 
are ideal for a client of mine, one who leaves with me a standing order for any suitable girl. 
You are most suitable.”

“Thank you.” It seemed inadequate but was all Thorn could think of. In a sudden 
inspiration she blurted out, “I would not dare say this, Senor, had you not said you were a 
dealer. But may I have you and names and addresses of two men who will pay a great price 
for me?”

“No, lam sorry.” Don Felipe had disposed of the question for good.

Thorn’s purchaser wasted no time. Her hands were lowered and cuffed again behind her 
back. She was led again to Marisa’s office were there was in impressive exchange of Spanish 
followed by an equally impressive exchange of currency, the size of which shocked Thorn. The 
ex-whore was then embraced warmly by her former owner and escorted to a waiting car, the 
trunk of which was invitingly open. Thorn was lifted into the dark cavern and the lid slammed 
shut. She was bought and on her way to a new life.

A new beginning.





CHAPTER TEN - THE HOLY HORROR


She seemed to be forever standing naked, her hands behind her back, before male eyes. 
Thorn hated it but understood its validity. She supposed Don Felipe could have asked her to 
sit down. The man behind the desk studied her with considerable attention. When Don Felipe 
spoke his tone was incisive.

“As I told you, Miss Thurston, I am a dealer. I propose to sell you to a religious order, the 
Brotherhood of San Junipero.” Don Felipe’s smile was bleak. “Perhaps you can convert them.”

“From what?”

“The redemption of young women from lives of sin. The brothers feel a Mission.”

“Then they don’t need me, I haven’t led a life of sin. Please, sir, don’t sell me again before 
you contact the names I can supply. They will make you rich.”

Don Felipe waved the suggestion way. “I will deliver you to the brotherhood this 
afternoon. They have a monastery on a hill top not far from here.”

Don Felipe became faintly human. “If you are wondering, I can only tell you the 
Brotherhood of San Junipero are a small, highly exclusive sect of very wealthy men who 
dedicate themselves to the redemption of supposedly sinful females. The roles they play and 
the methods they employ might always meet the approval of Holy Church. Once they accept 
delivery of you, escape will be impossible.” A cold smile flashed across his face. “I believe some
pleasures are made available to the inmates, and here have been cases of some of them being
so good as to lure a brother into marriage. I can only wish you luck.”

Once the mind of the chained and naked Thorn was hurled into turmoil. The faces and 
names of Garth, Lemaire, Giselle, and Lisette were fading in the face of a new unknown. It was 
strange to be standing here talking to this very civilized man who spoke to her on equal 
terms, totally ignoring her breasts and handcuffs. The Brotherhood of San Junipero sounded 
purely frightening.

“Did Marisa know who you were going to sell me to?”

“No, all my clients are treated with confidentiality.”

“It sounds like a revival of the Spanish Inquisition?”

Don Felipe nodded in agreement. “It has been called that, my dear. But that is an 
overstatement. It might better be called a place of entertainment for its members. They chose 
to cloth themselves in monastic order, it might more properly be called a club.”

“And they’ll use me in the same way as in a brothel?”

Thorn’s answer was a thin smile and shrug. An hour later she was again placed in the trunk
of a car to lay in darkness and a terrible expectancy as the car sped over unfamiliar ground.

The lid did not open for a long while after the car came to a halt, presumedly Don Felipe 
was collecting his check. When it did open Thorn was confronted by the rubicund features of 
a large and burly man dressed in the brown habit of a monk. His smile was friendly as he lifted
her bodily and lifted her from the underground garage. A quirk of memory prompted Thorn 
to remember the lines of a poem once read long ago. “The cape and cowl, the rope that goes 
all around, and day long blessed idleness besides.”

The man was strong, he carried her without effort, his voice bland. “Welcome to San 
Junipero, miss. Please pardon the chains, you will get used to them.” Thorn recognized the 
voice as American.

There were seven of them behind a long table on which there was a plentiful supply of 
pens and paper. Her bearer stood her upright in full view of all. He then joined the rest behind
the table to stare at her nakedness with full approval. It seemed evident the Brotherhood 
considered Thorn a good buy.

It seemed unlikely they could be serious about the pens and paper but each monk 
gathered pen and paper while their chairman intoned, “Since we are to redeem you, it is 
desirable we know the facts of your former life.”

Thorn had never felt more absurd. In these monastic surroundings, her flaming breasts 
were wicked obvious. The handcuffed girl wondered unhappily if they would be considered a 
hallmark of sin. But she was given no time for thought. The questions and to the point, her 
name, her age and origins. The works she had done and then the details of her captivities. The
monks worked busily.

“And now the details of you sin, miss.”

The monks gazed at Thorn expectantly, or was it hopefully! Thorn shifted uneasily beneath
their stare and clinked the shackles on her feet. Surely these absurd creatures did not expect 
her to blurt out a confession of sin? She said uncertainly, “I … I don’t know what you want. I 
only want to be sent home. I can give you the names of two men who will pay huge sums of 
money for my return … ?”

It was as if she had not spoken. The voice crispy said, “We will list your sins. First there is 
the matter of your breasts?”

Thorn explained the sliver and the scarlet as best she could. Her words were noted with 
the busy pens. “You will wear the colors as they are, as twin badges of your shame. And, now 
… “

The questions were heavily laced with sex. How many times and who with? Had she been 
willing or had she fought? Had she been punished and in what ways? Did she obtain carnal 
pleasure from the whip. The questions went on and on. Thorn’s responses came easily for she 
decided truth was easiest. The last question held the greatest shock. Would she voluntary 
consent to becoming one of the sisters of the order after she had been cleansed of her sins?

“Am I not a prisoner? Have I choices?” Her questions were a cry of anguish.

“You have a choice.” The girl who stood naked before a roomful of men was torn between 
laughter, tears and pure hysteria. To Thorn, at that moment, nothing mattered. It was 
ridiculous. A group of men playing games with a chained captive. In a natural desire for 
women instead of men in her chained nudity, she spoke with decision. “I chose to become a 
member of you … sisterhood.”

The pens sped across the paper as though with joy.

Thorn was again picked up and carried from the room.

The girl was naked, her hands tied behind her back with cord, tied tight enough for Thorn 
to observe the indentation in the youthful skin. The young ankles had been spread to the 
ends of a two foot long bar and then tied. But there the cords bit deeper still as they took the 
weight of a suspended maiden upside down. The girl’s lovely hair, falling in disarray, just 
managed to sweep the floor under the stimulus of whatever motion the girl might make. Her 
labored breathing in the unnatural pose was enough to defeat immobility. The hands, wrong 
way up, were continuously seeking as though to correct perspective and bring their owner 
back to normal. What was most remarkable to Thorn was the girl’s attitude. Breathing hard 
and pink-faced, she contrived to bring an air of normalcy to her greeting as if being upside 
down were so common place as to not evoke comment. Her voice, even though from the 
wrong side of the tracks, was delightfully American.

“Don’t worry, kid, I get this for half an hour. The bastards don’t dare left a girl for longer 
for fear something will pop. If you keep your cool, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

It was one more impossibility in an impossible day. Thorn wore still her handcuffs and 
fettered feet. She longed to help this girl but she could not reach the bound feet and did not 
even try. Nor could she reach the winch. Desperately she said, “I’ve just been … Well, 
kidnapped. I don’t know what this is all about.”

“It’s about girls. Lot’s of girls for rich men to play with. They screw us or do things like this 
everyday, except Sunday.”

The upside down girl contrived ah authentic sneer. “I suppose they stay at home with their
wives and children on Sunday. This is the weirdest bunch of monks you ever heard of. San 
Junipero, my ass! I never heard of him until I was brought here.”

“They kidnapped you?”

“Some bozo I don’t even know did the kidnapping. He sold me to this bunch of pricks. 
Don’t look so worried, dear, I’m not going to die. They don’t ever let girls die. We cost too 
much.”

“But doesn’t it hurt? Isn’t that terrible?”

“My ankles hurt but they’ll last the half hour. If I had enough sense to keep my hands still 
they’ll just be in a tight bind. But I just sort of feel like I have to keep trying to get them loose. 
So they hurt, too.” The strung-up girl actually managed the bitterness of a laugh.

Thorn felt a shocking inadequacy, she could do nothing. Yet here was a girl who needed 
help. Woefully she explained, “I’m still chained and leg-ironed the way I was on delivery. I can’t
do anything. Is there some reason they’ve put me in here with you?”

“That’s they way of beginning a brain wash or a training or whatever you call it. I’ll be 
surprised if I were the only exhibit, there’ll be others.”

“I’m trying to make sense out of this,” Thorn said. “What did you do to deserve this 
punishment?”

“I didn’t do nothing this time. I’ll admit there’s been times I did dumb things. And I 
sometimes I think a girl might as well. If we don’t do things, they’ll invent reasons to punish 
us. Girls don’t escape nothing here. Not unless one of the big boys falls in love with you. That 
don’t happen often.”

It was one more big discouragement like the dungeon chains at the Chateau Lemaire. For 
a girl less resilient than Thorn, the brothel would have been better. She continued to stare at 
the suspended girl who now continued her matter of a fact conversation.

“How’d you get them sliver and red tits, darling. I ain’t never seen anything like that. That 
there might get you a big shot.”

More explanations, more futility! It would all led nowhere in this castle of concupiscence. 
In all her captivities Thorn had felt no greater dejection than now. She was about to ask more 
aimless questions when the door opened and a nun appeared. But this nun was like no other -
she was naked, except for the coif and its trailing veil. She was naked from neck to toes, hers 
body possessing its own quality of loveliness. She was undoubted well under thirty. Her 
conversation was also normal.

“Has Rosy been filling you up with nonsense, dear?” she asked in concern. “You only want 
to believe about half of what she says. I’m going to take you where you’ll hear a bit more and 
the same advice applies. The poor things are under a bit of stress and apt to extravagate a 
bit.”

Monks and naked nuns! Both obviously housed in a monastery or would it be a nunnery? 
It did not matter. Thorn allowed herself to be led from the room and down a passage while 
her new jailer explained, “They handed you over to us girls for training. You won’t like us any 
better than the men but that doesn’t matter. We want you to get some first hand knowledge 
of what this place is about so I’ll show you some of the girls undergoing penitence and 
punishment. Save a lot of explaining and helps you understand. We know you’re confused and
lost, and make allowances for it at first. Ah, here we are, take a look at this.”

The chamber held five girls, all of them what Marisa would have called “quality stuff.” Each 
was enduring what the youthful sister described as penitence. One stood forlornly with wrists 
and neck in a pillory. One was bound so tightly to a post as to make her flesh bulge around 
the cords and cause her pain even to breath. She did not struggle, her head was listlessly to 
one side as she bore the anguish of cords criss-crossing her breasts and a needless pair of 
cords passing through her crotch, cutting so deeply as to be nearly invisible within lips made 
for love. Number three was partly suspended by her thumbs, the thin cord biting deep into 
each thumb, her toes only partly able to take her weight. The girl’s eyes were closed but she 
was bitting her lip as if in determined effort to make no outcry during the duration of this 
punishment. Thorn wondered if all of them were of thirty minutes duration. It seemed unlikely.
The fourth was partly hung up by one ankle by a single loop of rope. Her ankle had been 
pulled up enough for her hips to leave the floor and leave her resting only on her shoulders. 
Her hands were free but impotent, she could reach nothing that mattered. It was torture of a 
mild kind but torture anyway. Number five was strapped very competently to a whipping 
bench, her derriere thrust high and inviting whatever instrument was to be used upon it. It 
was this fifth girl who drew the nun’s attention. Nonchalantly selecting a cane from a rack on 
the wall, Thorn’s escort approached the bench.

“Are you ready for your five, Jane?”

The bound girl looked fearfully at the cane but made no demur. Her voice was clear and a 
trifle forced. “Yes, Sister Mary, I am ready. Please cane me.”

Sister Mary caned Jane with vigor and expertise, every girl in the room wincing along with 
the punished girl. The cane made a terrible sound and the imprints of it raising up proudly on 
the bottom of its victim were a testimony to a true punishment. When it was over, Jane’s voice
rang true to form, “Thank you, Sister Mary. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“They are all wonderful girl,” said sister Mary. “I will leave you alone with them. Girls, this 
one’s name is Thorn.”

“Who kidnapped you?”

“Have you been punished yet?”

“Are those San Junipero’s chains you’re wearing?”

“Surely you’re not a voluntary?”

The questions flooded over Thorn as the girls eagerly talked, each seeing Thorn in light of 
her own condition. They knew she would soon be one of them, why else would she be there. 
Thorn answered all questions, even the ones about her colored breasts. The girls assured her 
they were out of keeping with San Junipero and would mark her for trouble. Once again, 
Thorn was conscious of the plight of these girls being an everyday thing, unworthy of 
comment. Punishments were evidently implicit to the place.

She went from one of them to another bearing timid smiles and, in a curiosity of which she
was ashamed their bonds and making assessments of their pain. Of Jane, the caned maiden, 
she asked why she remained strapped to the bench since she had received her punishment.

“It’s to keep me guessing if I’ve had it all,” Jane informed without concern. “They always 
leave us this way. I could get five or six more, or be let loose with nothing.”

When conversation lagged it was suggested, with a giggle, that she go and examine the 
room next door. Wonderingly, she obeyed.

At first sight it appeared the girl was kneeling in prayer but Thorn’s fettered footsteps 
made too much noise. The naked girl tried to turn but it was then Thorn observed the cunning
of this penitent pose. The girl was held as she was by a rigid metal frame ingeniously curved 
and shaped to hold her exactly as she was. The frame would have seemed a shapeless piece of
wrought steel without the girl. But now it seemed as if the girl was forced to pose and the 
shinning metal molded to her body. At its top the shape ended in a rigid collar, hinged for the
placement of a maiden neck then padlocked. Jutting from its center was a right angle bracket 
to which the forearms of this girl were tightly bound, the hands disappearing into polished 
metal gloves which held them in the perfect replica of pray. The wrists were tight bound, thus 
the fastened girl must view her imprisoned hands before all else. Her waist had been tight 
bound with strand after strand of rope to the vertical section and her ankles tied rigidly to an 
extension from its base. But while this contraption drew a gasp from Thorn, the gasp turned to
an indrawn breathlessness at sight of the shaven head. Every particle of hair had been shaven 
close to leave the makers scalp bald. When Thorn came around before the prisoner, she was 
greeted simply.

“My name is Jennifer. Don’t worry. I’m doing penitence.”

Thorn made a wondering circle of the kneeling maiden, telling her name but not knowing 
what else to say. She sensed something different from the other punishments she had been 
forced to view. The shaven head was bad enough but now she saw the object of the prayful 
pose was a perfect facsimile of a goat standing upon a pedestal. It was standing on its hind 
feet, one of its fore hooves holding a candle, the other beckoning in obscene promise to 
anyone within its view. Beneath the horned head was a goatish leer, its gaze longing upon the
kneeling girl who now explained further.

“I’m a true penitent, I came her to absolve my sins. You mustn’t feel sorry for me. My 
punishment only lasts two weeks and then I’ll be cleansed and become a nun with all the rest.”
Her features assumed a radiance of happiness.

Thorn stood still, almost in awe, to gasp at the appeal and beauty of the kneeling girl. Yet 
she was revolted by the obscenity of the goat. Thorn thought of devil worship but this was all 
to cynical for that. Someone would be laughing.

“You mean you came here voluntary?” she asked doubtfully.

“Of course.” It was as though there could be no other answer. “I was feeling terrible about 
myself until I met Brother Sabastian who explained about San Junipero and how they would 
help me cleanse myself. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Good god, no! I’ve been kidnapped. I think all this bunch here want with a girl is to 
torture her.”

“Oh, you’ve been in the punishment rooms. Most of the girls who get themselves 
punished are dreadfully cynical about it. They’re not like me, they don’t want to be saved.”

“All any of us ought to want is to get the hell out of this place,” Thorn stated. “Haven’t you 
ever tried to escape?”

“Don’t say such things! You look like a nice girl and I’m sure those chains you are wearing 
are comfortable. Why would anyone want to escape?”

“You can’t move, can you?” Thorn asked in simply curiosity. “You’re really fixed.”

“Immobility is part of penitence.” The simply words sounded like a quote. “Please don’t 
think I like looking at that terrible goat. He’s part of my penitence, too.”

Thorn suddenly remembered a question that had been nagging at the back of her mind. 
“All the girls speak English. They sound as though they come from the USA. I don’t 
understand … ?”

“That right, they’re brought here from where ever English is spoken. Some of them were 
tourists or came here to work. The brothers believe that only English speaking girls have 
possibility of redemption. They don’t bother with the girls over here but that is something I 
don’t know much about.”

Thorn’s mind went back to something from Alice in Wonderland and the white rabbit. She 
had never felt such a demanding need to escape from anything as right now. All the girls and 
those in charge of them were a step beyond believability. Jennifer’s next words added to the 
unease.

“I’m sure you must be a penitent because of your breasts. They’ve painted your breasts far 
more beautifully than mine. They painted mine a plain, old red because of my worst sin. You’ll 
look beautiful when they place you in penitence, you look lovely now.”

It was true, the girl’s breasts were both painted dark red. “Why don’t you join the class up 
the end of the passage way?” Jennifer suggested. “I’m not really suppose to have visitors. 
You’re breaking my penitence. I’m awfully sorry.”

It was a polite dismissal but Thorn was glad to go. There was something sweet about the 
girl and the pose in which she was fastened. But there was also something sinister about the 
scene, also. Without hope of improving sanity, she traversed the passage, annoyed that her 
fettered feet should so loudly announce her arrival.

There were several things about the class room to raise an eyebrow. The teacher’s rostrum 
was replace by a low platform the entire width of the room. On it was the teacher’s desk, the 
black boards, but more shockingly there were two pillories, one to each side. One was empty, 
the other held the neck and wrists of a girl upon who’s head was still the coif and the veil 
clamped about her neck and falling down one side. Each student wore the same, but that was 
all. The sister directing the class was similarly attired.

The other strange thing was the shackle upon each girl’s left wrist and the short chain 
securing it to the desk. It hampered nothing, all were busy writing.

The teaching nun spared attention for the noise of Thorn’s fettered progress. As if she 
were expected, she was motioned to a vacant desk. As in a dream, she sat down. The 
presiding nun, still smiling, left her desk to unlock Thorn’s handcuffs and to shackle her left 
wrists as the others.

“My name is Sister Candice, Thorn. We won’t expect much of you this first afternoon. You 
can simply observe and get yourself adjusted.”

As if in helpful intent, the nun grasped Thorn’s right hand and locked both circlets of the 
handcuff upon its wrists.

“There, my dear, they’ll be handy when needed. They won’t bother you.”

One hand shackled, the opposite wrist encircled by two steel bands. The class had shown 
little interest in the proceeding and automatically went back to work with the nun’s return to 
her desk. Thorn’s mind was in too much of a turmoil to easily grasp the subject they were 
studying. It appeared extremely obtrusive. But she found herself extremely interested in the 
girl in the pillory. No doubt there would be a shaven pate beneath the coif, but facing the 
class in the stocks the black triangle of the pubic patch proclaimed itself blatantly. It could not
be hidden. From time to time the girl moved her weight from one foot to another. Some times
the hands clenched and unclenched while the owner took sheepish glances at the class. But 
mostly she just stood with bowed head within the yoke. She gave the impression of having 
stood thus a long time.

The class droned on, a roomful of naked girls ridiculously dressed. Thorn took care to keep
her feet still and quiet the rattle of her chain. Those who worked made a constant clinking 
sound with their shackles as they turned pages or picked up pens or paper. Now and then the 
teacher would fix a pupil with an eagle eye and bark a question at the unfortunate girl in a 
manner to daunt courage. Mostly the questions were answered correctly but inevitably there 
came a maiden who stammered and finally admitted she did not know. As if all was 
prearranged, and no doubt it was, the teacher unlocked the shackled wrists and led its owner 
to the vacant pillory. This time the delinquent was forced to position herself with her back to 
the class. It was not hard to understand why.

Sister Candice surveyed the rackful of pain making instruments upon the wall to chose a 
supple length of flagellum. The face and hands of the girl she had just locked in the pillory 
were not visible to the class but she now ran the flagellum up and down the naked back and 
played it lovingly across the naked bottom. The unfortunate recipient of these attentions 
changed foot to foot and wiggled awkwardly in response. But no word was spoken, the 
convent of San Junipero had little need of words. The leather cracked across the pert, waiting 
bottom with a terrible impact Thorn recognized all too well. There came a gasp from the 
unseen lips, and the bare bottom jerked away as much as the imprisoned head and arms 
would allow. Slowly it returned to the center position to await another blow. Across its twin 
young cheek the scarlet brand of the flagellum was rising. The class was breathless.

Five strokes, that was all. The girl who received them handled them with what Thorn 
thought commendable courage. The loudest sound she made was an involuntary moan but 
never a scream. When authority put away the strap, she left the punished flesh in full view with
its owner firmly fastened as a lesson to all. The class resumed its work, quite obviously the 
punishment just pasted was routine and nothing to arouse comment.

“You may as well have dinner with the girls,” Sister Candice directed. “Afterwards there is a 
directive for you to attend Brother Sabastian in his study. Any of the girls will show you the 
way.”

Thorn finally glimpsed a ray of hope as she made her way towards the study of Brother 
Sabastian, this was not a place for hope, it was insane. San Junipero had made no concession 
to the coming interview. The handcuffs had been replace on both her wrist behind her back, 
no doubt to prevent her impeding Brother Sabastian’s inevitable assessment of her charms. 
Awkwardly and of necessity backwards, she answered the call to enter the holy study.

It had been called a study, it was far closer to an office, all the furnishings of business were
plainly evident, including a magnificent desk. From that Brother Sabastian arose with hearty 
greeting, his Midwest accent and friendliness doing much to reassure his naked female visitor 
that at last she might consider the Order of San Junipero somewhat less than nuts!

“Miss Thorn Thurston, isn’t it? This is a pleasure, please do sit down.” Brother Sabastian 
turned his visitor slowly around a couple of times before seating him across the desk from him
in a plush chair. “I’m from Chicago,” he informed. “Most of the brothers are from around those
parts. And we collect only Anglo-Saxon girls or a reasonable facsimile. You’re a damned lovely 
girl, Thorn. How’d you get them breasts?”

Brother Sabastian was a damned good listener and Thorn had much to say. When she 
paused for breath, he said bluntly, “I like you. Maybe it’s them colored tits, but I like you 
anyway. How’d you like to belong to me special? It’s a real promotion. You’d be what we call a
Lay Sister.” He chuckled with pure enjoyment. “And that pun in intended, for sure. You’d be 
laying down only for me and not shared among the boys the way most the girls are. What’s 
you say?”

“I don’t know what to say. Please, I’m lost.”

“Sure, sure, it’s bound to be a bit of a shock for a gal. Maybe it will help you make up your 
mind if I clue you in on the background.”

“Thank you. All I know now is I’m some sort of a prisoner.”

“That’s the way a gal should be. No sense having gals running around loose. Gals belong 
to men and that’s the end to it.” Brother Sabastian exuded a warm friendliness. “Damned 
simply really. We’re a bunch of guys who’ve got a bit of loose cash and decided we’d build this
here monastery and fill it with girls.” His tone became more sincere. “We like girls. We like girls
better than most guys and we’ve got the money to buy them. Of course there’s a bit more to 
it than just screwing. I guy could screw himself to a frazzle in this place. But I guy can get a 
piece of tail in Chicago so we wouldn’t have bothered with San Junipero if it hadn’t been we’re
all a bit of a bastard and we like to whip a girl’s ass - if you ain’t ever whipped a girl’s ass, try it,
it’s wonderful.”

Brother Sabastian’s smile flowered full force. “After we’ve been whipping little asses a while
we realized there were other possibilities. So we fixed up these rooms - and you ain’t seen all 
them yet. And got the classes going and had a bunch of equipment made like the pillories, 
the stocks, and the penitent frame. It adds a whole new dimension the poor stiffs back home 
don’t ever get to see. Shit, we got more applications for membership than we know what to 
do with. And the price goes up all the time so we don’t ever need to be short of pretty gals. 
We’ve discovered you can buy pretty gals all over the place, same way we bought you.”

Miss Thorn Thurston listened in a measure of relief. What Brother Sabastian was saying 
was she had a choice between servicing one man or servicing many. It was indeed a 
promotion and her answer was obvious. “I’m sure you’re doing me an honor,” she said 
hesitantly. “But, if I belonged wholly to you, would you torture me the same way the other 
girls get tortured?”

Brother Sabastian registered shock, his voice became heavy with reproof. “Don’t never use 
that word here, honey, ain’t no such thing as torture in this here monastery. A little discomfort
there may be. And I’m damned sure there’s times when any gal would like to pack up and 
leave if we let her. But the way we look at it is a sort of mild discipline. Believe me, gals need it.
You need it and you’d get it with me. But you’d only get it in the ways I like it and at the times 
I want it. What being a Lay Sister really means is you share my bed and you’re available to me 
any time I snap my fingers. You’re for my exclusive use, unless I loan you out to one of the 
boys or a sister. Half the time you’d be romping around with the rest like you’ve a look at. 
Hell, gal, you ain’t gonna tell me you ain’t gonna say yes!”

It was an unimaginable choice to have to make. Thorn did not know this man and might 
not even like him. Brother Sabastian’s good will might be an easily changed facade. But under 
the shrewd scrutiny of the man across the desk, Thorn knew she really had no choice. If she 
refused she would make an enemy of Brother Sabastian and probably spend the rest of her 
days enduring the pains and discomforts she had earlier been shown. Feeling false and having
to consciously inject enthusiasm, she said, “Of course, Brother Sabastian. Thank you. I accept 
your offer. Thank you for selecting me. I know its an honor.”

“Damn right it is, sweetheart. Now we got that settled, I should mention that there’s a little
ritual a gal has to put up with any time she accepts the position of a Lay Sister. The boys all 
feel it’s a test of sincerity, and it goes along with image we’re trying to maintain of San 
Junipero. Anybody told you about it?”

Always another hurdle to cross. Thorn sighed, relinquishing her vision of being kissed and 
hugged and having her bottom patted before being taken to bed. She glimpsed the 
possibility of the brothers lacking virility due to age and good living without exercise. She said
that no, no one had told her anything and what was the ritual all about.

Brother Sabastian got to his feet and consulted his watch. “About time I got you started on
it, sweetheart. Come along. We call it the Vigil. Like the old time knights used to do before 
going into battle. Come along, my pretty.”

It was a chapel, not a very large chapel, but adequate for its purpose. At the far end, upon 
a raised dais, was an oversized brooding statue of a creature not unlike the goat she had 
previously seen in another room, but far more resembling the popular concept of Lucifer, with
something of the more legendary Devil with his cloven hooves.

“He ain’t really Satan, honey,” Brother Sabastian boomed reassuringly. “Us boys call him 
Old Joe, but the girls have to call him Asmodious. I ain’t sure but I think that’s just another 
name for the devil but we try to be a little bit different here at San Junipero. After you’ve had 
your vigil, you’ll be able to check things out with the other girls.”

In the subdued light everything was eerie and ominous. But since she was naked and 
helpless anyway, Thorn allowed herself to be prodded and pushed and positioned as Brother 
Sabastian wanted. A pair of vertical poles or slender columns were visible ten or fifteen feet in 
front of the brooding image. Thorn could guess their purpose and shivered in unhappy 
anticipation. Brother Sabastian shoved her down to kneel, not between the posts, but directly 
to their rear. She felt him fumbling with the fetters on her feet and a moment later they were 
cast aside to be replaced by clamps already fastened in the floor to close over each of her 
ankles far enough apart so she was not able to close her knees. With her legs thus secured, 
Brother Sabastian unlocked her handcuffs and raised Thorn’s right arm and hand up and 
forward towards the appropriate column from which hung a short chain and metal cuff. The 
shackle clicked home snugly on her wrist. The other wrist followed to the other column and 
Miss Thorn Thurston found herself kneeling in the posture of supplication or worship of what 
San Junipero choose to call Asmodious. When she sought to sink back comfortably on her 
heels, she discovered the chains would not allow her. Brother Sabastian now clasp around her 
neck a metal collar and clicked it shut. From it a chain led back towards the floor.

“Keeps you sort of respectful like, if you see what I mean.”

Thorn saw what he meant. The posture was almost as diabolical as the horrible creature 
she must gaze at while thus held. She struggled but discovered that, while a good deal of 
motion was possible, none of it was beneficial. She could move neither forward nor backward. 
When she looked up wanly at the man in the habit of a monk, but who now had taken on the 
guise of inquisitor, she asked, “How long?”

“Best we don’t tell you, honey, sort of keep you guessing.”

Thorn guessed it would be useless to plead or to change her mind. In total helplessness 
she suffered the searching fingers and hands of a man who, by the simulated magic of this 
place, could now call her his property. Miss Thorn Thurston kneeling before a replica of Satan 
was now fed up in no uncertain way. Nothing sexual about her was ignored. The hands were 
knowledgeable and made her gasp, knowing that, if they continued, she would become 
sexually aroused. But they suddenly stopped.

“You’re a real woman, all right, Miss Thurston. You and me are going to have a lot of fun. 
You’re a real damned lucky woman, if I do say so myself. All you have to do now is put in this 
time to prove you’re really one of us and don’t make promises you don’t keep. I’ll best not 
stick around, the whole essence of this here test is you’ll be alone. Shout all you want, honey, 
there ain’t no one going to hear.” He bent to kiss her forehead in a brotherly manner. Then he
as gone and Miss Thorn Thurston was alone.

It was like being in a spider’s web. She could move everything but free nothing, everything
mocked her efforts to either escape or to find comfort. Thorn was kneeling and would stay 
kneeling upright until released. She wondered how wise her choice had been.

Asmodious had all the attributes of man. His Satanic leer encompassed the kneeling girl 
with her raised arms and kneeling legs as if preparing for the most momentous rape of all 
time. In the gloom and menace of her plight, Thorn could almost believe in him stepping 
down from his platform to impale her with a Satanically huge rod, then laughingly resume his 
pose. She shook her head and determined to close her eyes if the vision of this horned 
creature generated such horrible thoughts instead of the laughter she though it deserved. But
the most prominent feature of Asmodious was the huge and erect phallus arising from 
between his polished thighs. Thorn wondered if girls were impaled upon it to spend a 
different kind of vigil. She shifted in every motion her metal bonds permitted and was force to
concede she had not been immobilized. But the motions were valueless other than to ease 
muscles that were cramped. Almost with longing she wondered when Brother Sabastian 
retired to bed and she would be taken there to service his male desire. She settled down to 
wait.

Time passed. The fastened girl could keep no trace of it and could not tell if it were 
minutes or hours before Sister Candice came with doubtful solace.

“Ah, Thorn, my dear. I see you have chosen the wiser course. But I know this vigil is not 
easy for you so once more you are offered a choice. Ask me to free you now and you will 
become one of the girls and will never again be eligible to become a Lay Sister. Several times 
while you kneel thus, the choice will be offered. Do you wish me to free you?”

“No!”

“Very well, dear, I think you are wise. You will be asked the same question several times 
during the night,” Sister Candice departed.

The night! All night like this! Panic possessed the kneeling girl. It was a panic without 
profit. In frantic panic Thorn hurled her nakedness against her bonds but all she did was tire 
herself. The graven image leered down as though sharing her frustrations and her fear. She 
closed her eyes.

It was probably around midnight when the girl was brought in to keep her company. An 
anonymous and naked maiden who’s wrists had been crossed and bound behind her back 
and bound with thin cord to assure maximum discomfort. She was propelled by a pair of 
sisters who kicked a small stool into place between Asmodious’ feet and forced their charge to
kneel thereon before forcing her mouth to the huge phallus and forcing it down until the end 
of the metal phallus was deep within her mouth. A collar clicked around the youthful neck and
the sisters went away as if busy with other matters and unconcerned with girls who would 
worship Asmodious in two quite different ways.

The stress Thorn was beginning to suffer under the stimulus of fascinated horror at the 
scene before her eyes. The girl struggled, desperately trying to raise her mouth off the Satanic 
sex but the collar and chain defeated her efforts. The giant phallus was firmly within the warm 
wetness of her mouth and would stay there until someone turned a key.

The youthful hands behind her back were straining in futile effort. After a while the effort 
ceased and the youthful head lost its tension to accept within her mouth the shaming object 
of male lust. Soon two naked young women, each kneeling, paid Asmodious the tribute of 
their pain.

Throughout the night Thorn repeated her negative whenever offered freedom. She 
suspected the query came every hour on the hour but could not be sure. From time to time 
she raised her hurt knees the little bit she could, then let them fall again as they had been. It 
was a brief easement of an increasing pain. Her arms became lead and gradually she had to 
allow herself to hang from her wrists. The chain and collar on her neck were an enemy against 
which she could do nothing. Here and there she slept. In the morning she was freed and taken
to a bathroom and from there to a bed to which her right ankle was firmly shackled that she 
might not stray. San Junipero was pleased.





CHAPTER ELEVEN - LIFE SENTENCE


“It’s evening again, honey, I let you sleep all day.”

Brother Sabastian was naked, siting beside Thorn on the bed and looking down at her with
infinite benevolence, I’m proud of you and I’m giving you a reward. Thorn did not need to ask,
the weight of the shackle on her ankle told her she was still subject to a man’s will. With a sigh
she sprawled upon her back, opened her legs and raised her knees. She was not going to be 
whipped or tortured any more if she could possibly help it.

Brother Sabastian did not exactly set the world on fire for Thorn with his thrusts and love 
making. But within her mind Thorn paid him tribute for being a good perform and no more 
obese than a girl could bear. In a voice lacking emotion she said the only thing she could 
think to say, “Thank you, Sir, I am glad I pleased you.” Then added, “How should I address you,
is ‘Sir’ correct?”

“Yes, I like it. Keep it up, honey. What say I take you out to …”

She could not possibly have heard right. Thorn gasped, “You must be joking? Take me to 
dinner … ?”

For Brother Sabastian nothing was impossible. Thorn soon found herself scantily attired, a 
correct hairdo and her hands firmly locked in handcuffs. When she and Brother Sabastian 
were speeding down the highway in a huge Cadillac, she summed it up, “I don’t believe this, 
Sir. It can’t really be happening, is it?”

“You bet your pretty little ass it is, sweetheart. This is for real. Us boys, we got ourselves a 
road house a little ways down so we can take our girls out now and then. Won’t do you a bit 
of good to scream or run or ask for help, the staffs all on our payroll. And you don’t have to 
feel embarrassed about them handcuffs, people who got where we’re going know all about 
them.”

Thorn’s heart soared. Handcuffs only! The rest of her completely free! It was too good to 
be true and she resolved instantly to run for it at first opportunity. Surely there would be 
someone at a public place who would offer refuge to a poor girl. As if reading her thoughts, 
Brother Sabastian said, “Guess you’re thinking about taking a powder, honey. I wouldn’t if I 
was you. Gets you punished real bad. How ‘bout I put leg irons on you so you ain’t tempted?”

It was too, too cruel. To give a girl a glimpse of freedom and then snatch it away. Leg irons
would kill any hope of fleeing from anywhere. But on the other hand, she would not be 
punished. It showed the measure of her submission to San Junipero that she quietly accepted,
“Yes, thank you, I think you’d better lock the leg irons on me when you stop the car.”

“You’re a damned sensible gal,” Thorn’s owner said proudly. “I knew I’ll got a winner with 
you. And don’t think I don’t sympathize. Any gal in your situation is gonna think of running 
away the first time she gets the chance. I ain’t really aching to cane the soles of them pretty 
feet.”

“Is that what you do to girls who run away?”

“Sort of appropriate, don’t you think?” Brother Sabastian chuckled. “A girl ain’t gonna do 
much running after she’s had the cane across her feet bottoms.”

Thorn shuttered at the steel hand in the velvet glove. But when they reached their 
destination she positioned her feet obligingly to allow her companion to lock them in leg 
irons with no trouble. Miss Thorn Thurston entered the dinning room with handcuffed wrists 
and hobbled, clinking steps. But no one seemed to see.

It was an excellent dinner and Brother Sabastian an interesting conversationalist. The 
attentive waiter showed no evidence of having noticed Miss Thorn Thurston’s joined hands.

By the time they got back to San Junipero, it was once more bedtime. But there was no 
waiting vigil for a girl who had behaved so well. Thorn was relieved of irons and told to strip 
and lay upon the bed. It was useless to argue, she did as she was told, watching in only a faint 
curiosity as her ankle was again chained.

“Best not to give you temptation, honey. Always fix a girl so she knows where she’s at, 
that’s my motto.” Brother Sabastian tugged at both ends of the shackle to assure his prisoner 
she was safely held. “Got to get my sleep, you know. Can’t have you roaming around in the 
night.”

Thorn moved to make room for her companion in the bed. She then performed, under his 
direction, a variety of sexual services she would preferred to not do. As she drifted into sleep 
she supposed it was not all that different from being married.

It was exquisite luxury. Breakfast was brought to the room by a girl in coif and veil who 
looked at Thorn in obvious envy. They ate at the table after Thorn’s ankles had once again 
been ironed.

“Don’t let’s take no chances, honey.” Thorn’s feet had been fettered so long she did not 
care.

She would be kept naked and always in some way restrain, Brother Sabastian explained. 
Thorn was constantly aware and shiveringly conscious that all about her in this place were girls
undergoing various punishments or sitting chained to a desk to learn things she did not 
understand. Her own role had become simple. Bitterly she reflected it was not all that much 
different from Marisa’s brothel. She told herself that at least the bed at San Junipero was 
softer and the food superior. But a chain was a chain and she was safely chained!

“It’s a cute little dingus,” Brother Sabastian said proudly. “Does any girl a bit of good to sit 
in there a while. And what’s more, it don’t hurt none. Get your little ass in there, sweetheart.”

They were standing by a cage made of massive wire mess and locked impressively by two 
padlocks. It was not really large enough to house a girl but, with a few contortions, it would be
possible for one to dispose herself within. She would not stand, nor would she lay stretched 
out, but no doubt this was the motive behind its dimensions. It was so strongly and rigidly 
constructed it would be a waste of time for any girl within to seek escape. It was placed on a 
massive stand about two feet above the floor. Brother Sabastian was obviously proud to 
display one more of San Junipero’s instruments of torture for girls. He unlocked the padlocks, 
and motioned Thorn within.

“In you go, honey, you’re gonna love it.”

Thorn miserably realize she had no choice, it would be this cage or something worse. 
Timidly she ventured, “But must I be handcuffed and leg-ironed? Inside there I can’t do 
anything anyway.”

“That’s right, honey, inside here you can’t do nothing so it won’t hurt you to wear them 
pretty trinkets on your wrists and ankles. Come on

It reminded Thorn of childhood and playing “houses” with any small structure available. It 
was fun then, it would not be fun now. She knelt and edged her way within with considerable 
difficulty from her handcuffs and leg irons. When she was safely within and heard the padlocks
shut, she contrived to turn into a siting position and survey her new home. Sardonically she 
said, “You are giving me a chicken’s view of the world, Sir. Why am I in here?”

“Honey, you shouldn’t have to ask that,” the midwestem voice reproved. “You’re in there 
because I like to see you in there. I get a charge out of it. Even when I’m not here I’ll get a 
charge out of thinking of you locked in there and me out here with the keys. Damn it, I’m 
getting an erection just talking about it. Sweetheart, you’re a potent young woman!”

Alone in the tiny cage and in the room, Thorn arranged herself as best she could but 
without comfort. There was scarce enough room to sit erect and it was easiest to drape her 
chained hands over her knees and rest her cheek thereon. There was no view from the cage 
but her mind was alive with speculation. One by one the names flitted past her vision in a 
hopeless parade of those who would rescue her but would never know where she was. Her 
principal home was Garth, but how could he know where she was or who was her jailers? With
all his strength, he remained a human male against San Junipero’s massive citadel of stone 
and bars. Consumed by longing she wept.

The cage was designed to shame its occupant, no girl could display herself to advantage 
when locked within. The accommodation of her limbs and the bowing of her head was a 
constant humiliation, a humiliation compounded by a stream of girlish visitors who came to 
see the new girl and gain what gossip she could tell them of the outside world. Thorn 
recognized some of them as the girls who were on display punishment when she first arrived. 
Now she had joined their ranks, subject to the will of a man who’s word was law.

“I’ll bet he screwed you royal.”

“Did he take you to dinner? They always take you out to dinner that first time.”

“Have you been whipped yet? Don’t worry, you will be.”

“It’s a pity one of the superior sisters didn’t take a liking to you, it’s better to belong to a 
woman than a man. Or don’t you think?”

The girl in the cage tried to reply honestly in what was really a matter of thrust and parry. 
She was laughingly told of varying lengths of time these girls had spent as she was now, all 
were familiar with the cage. Just as she would become familiar with other implements of 
maiden discomfort.

There was no animosity, the girls seemed satisfied with the status she had acquired. Some 
admitted to being Lay Sisters and giggled over the pun. Most said it wasn’t so bad after the 
guy got used to you and didn’t want to be whipping or screwing you every hour of the day or 
night. A few vowed they didn’t want to leave San Junipero, even if the chains were taken from 
their hands and feet, they liked their master and the things he did to them. Among this group 
were the penitents, still convinced of sin and the need to exorcise it with pain. Thorn came to 
realize the varied reactions San Junipero had imposed upon its inmates, no two prisoners 
seemed alike, but that was what they were regardless of attitudes, they were prisoners!

One by one the captive girls went about their own affairs to leave Thorn within her cage 
alone. By that time she was longing to stretch, to move, to do anything except simply sit, 
hunched over within the mesh. She remembered Brother Sabastian’s assurance he would think
of her throughout the day and gain erections from that. But that was of little consolation to 
Thorn, who had already sampled his potency without the aid of any stimulus beyond the 
shackle upon her foot. It was then, while she was counting the possible hours until release that
the hearty voice of Garth Bannock broke her mediation.

“Got yourself in another jackpot, eh! Damn it, Thorn, I ought to leave you there.” His 
chuckled was without sarcasm. “Remind me to buy one of these cages when we get home.”

No girl had ever been more aglow with joy. Thorn bumped her head against the mesh and
clutched at it with joined hands to gaze in adoration at the man who had rescued her before 
and was about to do so again. She knew herself willing to sit in a cage like this forever if it 
gave him pleasure.

“Oh, darling,” she said in a choked voice, “how on earth … ?”

Garth wasted no time. He was wearing the habit of a San Junipero monk but beneath it 
and hanging from his belt were bolt cutters and other tools. He used the bolt cutters first to 
destroy the door and one side of the cage, almost spilling Thorn out onto the floor. He then 
cut away her leg irons but left the handcuffs on her wrists. Thorn did not ask why, she knew!

With the admonish to “with until I get you out in the car,” Garth picked up his bride to be 
and carried her past stairs and opened doors towards the outside. Suddenly there was a figure
in their path, a large man in a monk’s habit. Apparently he had just come out of a door and 
was as surprised to see a stranger carrying one of their girls as they were to see him. But Garth
hardly slowed down his quick pace as his free hand shot out and connected squarely with the 
monk’s jaw. The monk’s head snapped back and he crumpled to the floor. Another minute 
and they were out in the sunlight and his waiting car. He tossed her into the front seat, got 
behind the wheel, and drove away.

“I don’t believe this, it can’t be happening,” Thorn gasped and remembered having said 
something similar before. “Darling, won’t they be chasing us?”

“They might chase you but they won’t chase me,” Garth assured laughingly. “Turned out I 
knew one of the Brotherhood. He owed me a favor and this is the result. He simply put me 
wise as to where to go and what to do. He won’t say a word and the rest will be guessing. I 
found out about the damned place from Marisa, she’s a lady who’s willing to impart 
information for cash.” Garth chuckled. “Poor old Jules Lemaire, he’ll be having kittens!”

They had not yet kissed, it was something they would have a lifetime for once safe away. 
But mention of Marisa brought a flood of remorse to the rescued girl. With joined hands she 
clutched Garth’s arm to plead, “Giselle? Did you see Giselle?”

“Giselle!” Garth affected unconcern, an absent minded recollection of a name. “Oh, you 
mean Papa’s eldest daughter.”

“Garth, darling, don’t tease. Where is she?”

“In the trunk of this car, of course, where else?”

A naked rescued girl sat in stunned silence, groping with the impossible. “You’re kidding,” 
she demanded, “I just don’t believe you … “

“Want me to stop the car so you can have a look?”

“Gosh, no, keep driving like crazy. I still don’t feel safe.” Thorn was panting with 
excitement. “I still don’t believe what you said about Giselle, I think you’re pulling my leg. But, 
if it did happen, how did it happen?”

“Like I told you, Marisa’s very fond of money. She’s moving some place away from Pedro 
Madrid’s influence. Damn it, she’s rich enough!”

Thorn sat behind her master in pure glory, wondering why she every doubted this giant of 
a man to whom stone walls and citadels were mere trivialities against his strength. Returning 
part way to earth she asked, uncaring, “I’m naked, does it matter? And do you want to keep 
me handcuffed?”

“I want you as you are. Don’t ask silly questions. If I take those handcuffs off, I’ll put you 
into something worse.” A second’s pause then he added, “Or better.”

Thorn thrilled to his masculine authority. How wonderful it was to have no decisions, to let 
this wonder of a man do everything she could not do herself. But, guilty, her mind returned to
Giselle. “If Giselle is really and truly in the trunk, shouldn’t we do something about her?”

“Not much to do, pet,” Garth’s tone was casual as though discussing luggage. “I’ve got her
nicely handcuffed, both hands and feet. I’ve also got her gagged just in case she chose the 
wrong time to say something. Believe it or not, darling, she’s every bit as happy as you.”

It would be true, of course! Thorn cast guilt aside in the realization Giselle’s rescue was 
every bit as dramatic as her own. Fearful of the answer to the question she still had to ask. 
“Garth, did she … did Marisa … was Giselle actually … ?”

“Yes, she was.” Garth’s voice was only slightly sober. “Marisa had her in a neat little room 
with a collar and chain, and whip hanging on the wall. You’ll find quite a few whip marks on 
her skin. She didn’t take kindly to her new profession. But she had only been trying not to 
work at it a couple of days. I’ve forgotten how many times Marisa told me she had been 
entertaining clients. But it was more than two or three. Don’t worry, cupcake, the experience 
will do her a world of good. I’ve never seen her look better than when I walked in.”

“What girl wouldn’t!” Thorn was filled with joy, an ecstasy of freedom actually enhanced by
the steel circlets on her wrists. She had never known such an intensity of happiness, such a 
tremendous sense of lightness about her world. Like a child she longed to climb all over the 
man behind the wheel, but that would come. In the meantime there was the matter of Giselle.

“What are you going to do about the poor darling?”

Garth sighed, he was enjoying himself and would tease his darling until she could bear it 
no longer. “Two or three possibilities,” he admitted thoughtfully. “It might still be possible to 
negotiate that wedding of her’s to Pedro Madrid. It does have certain advantages.”

“I don’t see any, I think you’re still teasing.”

“There’s also the possibility of returning her to Papa. Lisette is safely back in the family 
fold. This would sort of return Giselle to square one. Think she’d be happy?”

“Giselle will never be happy without a man. And since I refuse to let her have you, I don’t 
know what she’ll do.”

“I’ve been thinking along those lines. How about we don’t return her anywhere? We simply
keep her for ourselves. She’s make you a marvelous lady’s maid. If we keep her feet chained so
she can’t run, that is.”

“I don’t need a maid. And you’d probably keep my feet chained. Both of us would look 
damn silly with mistress and maid both in the same bondage.”

“Jealous?”

“Yes, I am. I don’t want her climbing in bed with you, that’s the first thing she’d be up to. I 
couldn’t trust either of you in the same house, she’s far too much temptation.”

“Well, how about keeping her in this cage I’m going to buy, that is when she’s not in use?”

“She’d still be highly visible and I wouldn’t trust any man when Giselle is around without 
any clothes on. Darling, please send her back to Papa.”

Garth was reluctant to allow the delightful conversation to drop. The whole matter of 
Giselle held interesting possibilities. His voice became casual. “How about I marry Giselle and 
keep you as her maid. I expect she’d loan you to me occasionally.”

“No she wouldn’t, and I won’t, and you mustn’t even think of such a thing.” Thorn was 
unwilling to share even a tiny bit of Garth. “Maybe that idea of talking to Pedro Madrid isn’t 
such an bad idea. Garth, absoutely no Giselle in our home.”

Garth was delighted with Thorn’s responses. True, they were predictable, but it was fun to 
tease her. “I still think the idea of marrying Giselle with you as her maid has a lot of merit. You 
wouldn’t be entirely neglected.”

“You’d whip me every Friday, I suppose?”

“Not unless I whipped Giselle, too. Mind you, that’s not a bad idea to give both of you a 
taste of leather every week. Girls get shockingly uppity without it.”

“I’ve heard enough. You can let me out of this car and take your Giselle to … Well, 
anywhere you like.”

Garth stopped the car to give his arms the opportunity to reassure his bride to be. He 
admitted to himself that Giselle was something of a problem because, while it would be easy 
to return her to Papa, that would not solve her problem and would make her unhappy. Giselle 
would want to be near Thorn. With lordly maleness, he waved aside the question of lesbian 
but knew the girls had engaged in such acts before and would surely do so again if given a 
chance. He sighed and reached his own decision.

“Garth, dear, where are you taking me?” Thorn was surveying an increasingly unsavory 
neighborhood. When they reached the docks on the waterfront, her heart was thudding 
painfully. Visions of shanghaied sailors and bartered maidens flooded her mind.

“These are the docks and you and I are going back home on a freighter.”

“But why? Oh, Garth, I don’t understand.”

“You think I can do anything but this is outside my territory and that bunch at the San 
Junipero place have got a lot of clout. They bribe the local cops. The last thing I want is for us 
to be arrested at an airport. I would get my wrists slapped and you would be whisked away 
forever. They would make sure I couldn’t get at you again. Let’s place it same.”

“But a freighter? Don’t freighters take forever?”

“They are a bit slow, my dear, but I’ve arranged a program of entertainments for you. 
Believe me, you won’t be bored.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that. What are you keeping up your sleeve, Garth?”

“Just my arm, darling. Don’t be fussy. You know you’ll love everything I’ve prepared.”

Secretly, Thorn had little doubt he told the truth, she would adore anything he had in 
mind for her. A freighter sounded a little frightening but she remembered reading somewhere
that people actually took tours on them. Compared to her various imprisonments, a freighter 
would probably be nice. She kept quiet in excited anticipation while Garth maneuvered the 
car. When they reached a gang plank with a guard, he draped a blanket over her shoulder 
while he went to the trunk to pick up a naked and indignant young woman who obviously felt
misused. Ashamed of her amusement, Thorn realized what forethought Garth had used in 
gagging the otherwise highly vocal French maiden who now was pink-cheeked and struggling
against two pairs of handcuffs. The guard got in the car and drove it away while Garth and his 
small harem mounted the gang plank as if familiar with the whole vessel. He led the way to 
where a man, presumedly the captain was studying the charts.

“I’m putting both of them in the brig, Skipper,” Garth said seemingly to an old friend. “No 
need to disturb you, I’ll look after things.”

Once more Thorn was assuring herself this could not possibly be true. As if reading her 
thoughts, Garth briefly explained, “I own this ship. That guy works for me. What I say here 
goes.”

Without another word he carried Giselle and was followed by a quivering Thorn to a lower 
deck and a massive steel door impressively augmented with locks. With a single hand he 
unlocked and motioned Thorn inside. Uncertain, but unafraid, she obeyed the gesture and 
stepped across the threshold into what she instantly recognize was the ship’s brig. Garth sat 
Giselle upon her feet and said quickly, “You two can make out. I’ll be back in a minute.”

The brig was brightly lit, it’s steel was stark, its rivets numerous. There was a narrow bench,
that was all. The two naked girls stared at each other in a mixture of emotions before Thorn 
threw her chained hands over Giselle’s head and captured her to hold her close. She 
unbuckled the gag. They kissed endlessly in a terrible hunger until Giselle panted, “I am so 
very much helpless, ma petite, I am handcuffed twice. What does this most crazy man do with 
us?”

Thorn laughed. “I don’t know and I don’t care. After the awful places we’ve been in, 
anything is glorious. Darling, was it very bad?”

The French girl took a couple of hops with cuffed feet and with hands behind her back. 
She flopped upon the bench. When she replied, it was with a seriousness not usual to the 
bubbly girl.

“It was most terrible. I was made to wear the collar and the chain, and I was whipped if I 
did not smile as if I longed for those terrible prong things to be thrust inside me. Ugh! I have 
been greatly shamed. I will never marry.”

“But, darling, every girl gets those things inside her sooner or later and we go on living,” 
Thorn said. “It was the collar and the chain and the whip that made it so bad for you, you poor
thing.”

“And that Pedro Madrid, he comes nowhere near, he sends no message. Except to Marisa 
to tell her I am not a poule. I do not wish to be a poule. All those grinning faces and those 
erect things pointing right at me … Ugh!”

Thorn gently kissed Giselle’s breasts. “It’s all over now,” she whispered. “Garth has us, we’re
safe.”

“I am never safe, cherie. I have a bottom all men desire to whip … ! Marisa, too, whipped 
me when she said I was a naughty poule and did not do the spreading of my legs as she said 
to. Oh, Thorn, I wish to take a thousand baths.”

Giselle looked around with disgust. “I cannot do it here in this iron box. I think we are both
still prisoners and my bottom will be whipped again.”

The two girls clung as best they could. Giselle was almost entirely helpless but Thorn did 
her best, hugging and kissing, to tell of her own adventures and disasters. In the middle of this
communion Garth returned. His first act was to kiss his recovered possession and then to take 
the handcuffs from Thorn’s wrists and put them in his pocket. Then he turned Giselle around 
and changed her handcuffs from back to front. But that was all! The daughter of papa and of 
Le Belle France remained helpless and without gratitude.

“I cannot separate my feet, M. Bannock. Please to unlock them.”

Garth’s grin was sly. “I didn’t think you’d ever want to separate them again. Don’t you 
know when you’re well off?”

“It is bad to make jokes about my spreadings and piercings. Please to release me.”

“How about a nice set of leg irons?”

“Thank you, but no. I do not desire leg irons. I do not desire to be chained at all. Please 
return me to Papa.”

“Your Papa has disinherited you, sweetheart. He thinks you became a poule to avoid 
marrying Pedro Madrid. He says you have covered the name of Lemaire with shame and that 
Lisette is now his only child.”

“You cannot mean this so awful thing!” Giselle was stricken. “My Papa would never be so 
cruel.”

Garth grinned and patted a wan cheek. “Well, sweetheart, we can probably talk him out of 
it and he’ll take you back. But you’ll be second to Lisette, and there’s another thing you won’t 
like. Your Papa thinks that after being at Marisa’s place your soul needs cleansing via your 
bottom. He tells me he had purchased some excellent canes and whips.”

Giselle had buried her face within her chained hands. She now cocked an inquisitive eye. 
“How bad will Papa whip me, M. Bannock? If it is not too hard … !”

“Figure it for yourself, honeybunch. You’ll be in disgrace at least a month. That little 
bottom of your’s can get a lot of attention in thirty days.”

Giselle considered the thirty days. Thorn and her master exchanged one of those looks 
only lovers know. He led her outside into the warm night and relocked the door. “You don’t 
like Giselle,” Thorn accused, still unbelieving the freedom of her hands.

“She’s a spoiled brat. By the time I’m finished with her, she’ll learn she’s not the only 
pebble on the beach.”

Garth kissed his freed slave lovingly and held her close. “Come alone, sweetheart, we’re 
going to have coffee with the captain.”

“With me! Like this! Garth, darling, I can’t, I’m naked.”

“I told him you would be, mustn’t disappoint the poor chap.” He kissed her again and 
again. “If you belong to me, you won’t wear clothes except on state occasions. Okay by you?”

“Okay by me.” She knew Garth would love her and mold her to his desire. And, anyway, 
what did nudity matter? She had been naked so long it was her natural state. “Garth, you want
to show me off, don’t you?” she accused laughingly. “You want him to admire my body so 
you’ll feel proud and possessive. Don’t think I don’t know.”

The captain was like his ship, a little old and a little rusty. But at sight of Thorn he shed at 
least twenty years and took longer to shake her hand than was necessary. “Has she no 
sisters?” he inquired of Garth. “If you know of another such as this, I would be most grateful.”

It became an intimate trio in the low lights of the Captain’s Cabin. Thorn blushed 
delightedly at the captain’s compliments, and drank coffee and ate sandwiches with gusto. 
She had eaten nothing since San Junipero’s breakfast. She thought of the wire cage and 
wondered if Garth would really buy one. The captain was unperturbed at her chains, but 
apparently had trouble understanding the full relationship between Garth Bannock and the 
two girls he brought aboard.

“Mr. Bannock tells me you must be kept in irons in the brig, dear lady?” The captain was 
obviously uncertain of his ground. “This is most unusual. Is it as you desire?”

“Of course! Whatever Mr. Bannock wishes to do with me will give me happiness.” She 
twinkled at his concern. “I have been ironed many times, it is nothing new.”

“You are undoubtedly in love.” The captain poured fresh coffee. “Bannock, you are the 
luckiest of men.” There was the briefest of pauses. “But is there not a second young woman? It
seems to me you said …?”

“I’ve got her in the brig. She’s a French kitten who needs a bit of training. I think I 
mentioned to you about tying her to the mast and a few other little attentions.”

“Ah, yes.” The captain was obviously still in the process of trying to catch up with his ship’s 
owner. “And these other things?”

“I want thinking of spreading her out on the deck and giving the crew carte blanche. Make
a nice little bonus for the boys and won’t do her any harm.”

Thorn listened aghast but with a thrill of amusement. Giselle would survive anything but 
would probably be highly vocal with the honor of herself, La Belle France and Papa at stake. 
The crew was not large, it would not be as bad as Marisa’s house. Thorn listened again as her 
master took up the thread.

“I had thought of giving the little vixen a mild whipping with the crew lined up to watch. 
Nothing severe, you understand, just a dozen strips on her pretty skin.”

“As you wish, Mr. Bannock.”

“We could also trice her up to the rigging. That’s a beautiful nautical term. First thing 
would be to hose her down. Might as well do it up on deck so the boys can hear what she has 
to say about it. The water should be cold, of course.”

“You are not thinking of the keel haul, or the hanging from the yard-arm by her wrists?” 
The captain sounded anxious.

“No, we’ll stay with what is more or less standard stuff. But, by the time I’m through with 
her, Giselle will be a well behaved little mademoiselle.”

When leaving the Captain’s Cabin, Thorn was given no opportunity to wonder. Garth 
picked her up bodily since her feet were still chained and carried her to his quarters. The ship 
might be rusty but the quarter’s maintained for the owner’s use might have been in one of the
better hotels. They shared the bath, playing like children. And when Thorn was flung as a 
captive maiden upon the bed she asked innocently, “What, no chain upon my ankle?”

“It’s a long way to swim to shore, sweetheart. Besides it will be a nice change for both of 
us. I always wondered how much better it might be if you had both feet.”

“I will do my best, Sir.” Starry eyed she asked, “But what of Giselle? Are you going to leave 
her like that?”

“No worse than you being in there fully ironed, my pet. There’ll be a member of the crew 
look after you little darling, don’t worry. She’ll probably try to seduce him for the key to the 
door.”

She used both her feet to the best advantage possible. In the morning she was told she 
had used them very well.

She would never be quite certain of Garth. His love was for sure but his caprice was 
unpredictable. She knew him a firm believer in the bound female, the manacled maiden, or 
the feminine captive who gazed sadly through the bars at lost freedom. They shared this 
sense of beauty in bondage to cement them together always. Ironed in the brig, Thorn 
consoled herself with the knowledge of other things to come and a rosy future. Giselle had 
disappeared.

It had happened very casually after breakfast. Garth had handed her over to a crewman 
who had obviously been well briefed. He was a polite young man with a tendency to blush 
over the intimacies of his assignment. With his shyness and feeling a liking for an 
unsophisticated boy, Thorn behaved outrageously.

“I hear you’re going to put me in irons, Mr. Branscom?”

“That’s right, Captain’s orders. What’s ya done, miss, to get yourself chained up in the 
brig?”

“It’s too awful, I can’t talk about it. Are the chains heavy?”

The chains were surprisingly heavy. Thorn was uncertain how to take Garth’s promise of 
being in irons, it might have been only handcuffs, but these massive wristlets, anklets and 
collar, all linked with equally solid, relentless chains, were somewhat daunting even to the 
spirit of a maiden much in love. But Thorn extracted as much amusement from the occasion. 
“Do you think I’ll be whipped, Mr. Branscom, as well as kept in irons?”

Mr. Branscom blushed, rather well for a male, swallowed hard and replied, “Gosh, I 
wouldn’t think so, ma’am. You’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you, Mr. Branscom, but I really haven’t been terribly naughty. I’ve been hoping I’ll 
be whipped with just an ordinary whip and not a cat-o-nine-tails. Do they have a 
cat-o-nine-tails on board?”

“You’re having me on, miss.”

Laughing within, Thorn kept Mr. Branscom on the edge of disbelief. “No really, I’ve been 
whipped many times. I’m afraid I often misbehave.” Smiling brightly, she volunteered, “That’s 
why I’m kept always naked. It’s so much easier to whip a naked girl than one with her clothes 
on.” For a moment Thorn thought she had gone too far. Mr. Branscom’s blush deepened and 
he suddenly became very busy with the heavy chains.

When they were snapped shut on Thorn’s ankles, they felt like a ton of weight. When he 
straightened up, holding the equally heavy wristlets, he muttered, “I hope you won’t hold this 
against me, miss, I don’t have any choice.”

He was an attractive young male. Thorn felt assured he could be easily seduced had she 
any serious wish to escape. She had none but it would be amusing to shed the irons and walk 
free upon the deck to everyone’s astonishment. It was a small diversion she would keep in 
mind. Looking down at the placement of irons on her wrists, she was surprised to discover 
connecting chains between hands and feet to prevent her raising her hands above the level of
her waist. Next was the iron collar, a band of metal which proved snug upon her neck when 
closed and doubly heavy when the chain from the wall was padlocked. Thorn giggled, “I can’t 
even get near the door, let alone even go through it … !”

Mr. Branscom was alive with chivalry. “I’ll sit down if I were you, miss. These irons is awful 
heavy. But I can’t do nothing about that. Sort of drags on you, don’t it?”

“I’m sure I deserve it, Mr. Branscom.” Thorn lowered her eyes in demur innocence. “I wish I 
could tell you of the terrible things I’ve done. This punishment is really very mild and much 
less than I deserve. I’ll try not to complain.”

Mr. Branscom was gazing at the maiden he had ironed in frank interest. A naked Thorn 
was almost too much for his inexperience. The chained girl was quite sure it was Garth who 
chose Mr. Branscom for this task, sensing the amusement Thorn would find in him.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Branscom.” She effected a giggle. “I’m sure you do it to all the 
girls.”

Mr. Branscom fled.

Thorn was almost glad to be alone with her thoughts, there were a lot of them. She 
reviewed her captivities and was well satisfied they should end like this. The irons with which 
her limbs were weighted and the iron compartment into which she was securely locked were 
both signs of love. Other’s might scoff but she knew it was true. She wondered if Garth would 
take her to his bed that night.

Thorn wondered what Giselle was going through. But the girl would survive even though 
Giselle was her own worst enemy and would probably provoke Garth into more punishments 
than she really deserved. She sighed in the knowledge that there was nothing she could do. 
She stretched out her chained feet to examine the manner in which she was ironed. There was
a somber beauty about the bands and links from which there was no escape. They 
embellished her, and diminished nothing. Amused by what was probably a foolish act, she 
rose to her feet to accept the weight of every links and the drag upon her neck. Cautiously she
tested and discovered she could take two hobbled steps in any direction. But that was all, 
beyond that the tethering chain upon her collar snapped her back to obedience. Such an 
ironing would be terrible to a girl destined to a prison at the end of the journey. The irons 
would mock her every day and night before delivering her to a barred cage at the end. Thorn 
shivered. Garth was amusing himself, that was all.

Thorn was not summoned to her master’s bed that night. As the hours wore on she 
became increasingly anxious and increasingly irritated by her captivity. In early evening Mr. 
Branscom brought supper, a covered pail, and a gigantic blush. Thorn did not feel like teasing 
him. Mr. Branscom said he was not suppose to answer questions and fled, leaving Thorn to 
her loneliness. The bolts and locks of the metal door were a knell of doom. Thorn ate her 
supper angrily and drank the water. It was simply fare, designed to accentuate her condition. 
But her knowledge of being played with could not discount her increasing distaste for being 
ironed and abandoned in the brig. For as long as she could she kept at bay the thought of 
Giselle taking her place in Bannock’s bed. It would be his right. They were only slave girls and 
he was undoubtedly their master. Giselle would be sure to give Garth the very best of herself 
and Giselle’s best might be habit forming. Miss Thorn Thurston cried herself to sleep upon the
bench.

Mr. Branscom remained uncommunicative at breakfast but sprung a real surprise. “I’m to 
leave the door open, miss, and to tell you you can do anything you like.” He unlocked the 
padlock on her collar chain to allow it to clang uselessly against the hull.

“Anything I like! When I’m ironed like this! Thorn was angry. “The only thing I can do with 
all this iron is fall overboard!”

Mr. Branscom was shocked. “Oh please, miss, don’t say anything like that. It’s a lovely day. 
You’ll enjoy it on deck.”

“With everybody looking at me and me clanking like a blacksmith’s shop?” She paused 
expectantly. “Are you quite sure you weren’t told to take me out of these irons?”

“Quite sure, miss.”

Thorn stood up sulkily, her clenched fists no higher than her waist. It had been easy to eat 
because she could raise her feet, but when she stood erect the irons came into the full glory of
their purpose. Her ankles joined, her wrists joined, and the four chains met at a ring above her
knees. Thorn debated whether to sit and sulk all day or brave the sun and stairs. She chose the
latter but was shamed by the terrible racket as the walked on metal decks and stairs. When 
any member of the crew passed by they said a polite “Good morning, Miss Thurston,” but 
appeared oblivious to both her chains and her colored breasts. Both the silver and scarlet 
were still firm and shinning as ever. Thorn had ceased to be conscious of the shame of mem 
just as she had lost concern over nakedness and bonds. When she stepped noisily onto the 
deck the first man she met was Garth. He kissed her and patted her bare bottom with male 
assurance.

“I wasn’t going to carry you up,” he said cheerfully. “And I was wondering if you’d have the
nerve.”

“Are you going to keep me in irons the whole voyage, Garth?”

“I’m not going to tell you. Damn it girl, don’t be so sulky. You haven’t been in irons for 
twenty-four hours yet.”

“It feels like twenty-four days.” Thorn sniffed disdainfully. “Who did you sleep with last 
night?”

“Obviously not you, my pet.” Garth’s eye twinkled down at her anxiety. “Would you believe
me if I said I slept alone?”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Giselle?”

Thorn’s master fingered the irons approvingly. “I should punish you for that suspicion and 
for doubting my word.”

“Go ahead, whip me. Everybody whips me for everything.”

He laughed at her dour and made adjustments to the hair she could not touch. “You really 
are a sad little girl, aren’t you? Come along, darling, I’ll cheer you up.”

It was a heavy wooden crate with apertures between each wooden slat. Within and glaring
at them in outrage was Mademoiselle Giselle Lemaire. Her greeting was typical, “Let me out of
her, you great big pain in my ass. I demand release.”

“Cute little trick, isn’t she,” Garth observed. “She’s been coming up with these little cracks 
since you last saw her. She’s been in the crate all night, in case you wonder.”

“Unless you let me out, my country will make the declaring of the war.” Giselle was in fine 
form. It was now as though she saw Thorn for the first time. “What has this awful hole of the 
ass done to you, ma cherie? You are so loaded with the iron! C’est terrible!”

Thorn was inclined to agree but did not dare. Metallically she went closer to the crate to 
observe Giselle’s hands still handcuffed and the other set still on her ankles. She felt a flood of 
guilt about her unwarranted assumption of her master’s conduct.

“Do you not smell some awful thing?” the prisoner of the crate demanded. “This wooden 
box is for the animals, animals have been prisoner within just like me. It stinks! I demand 
release.”

Poor, darling Giselle, she always said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Thorn was still 
too filled with her own guilt to say anything at the arrival of the hose but stared in fascination 
at the motions as the unkind jet sought its cleansing mission in ever corner and crevasse of 
the crate, a washing with included Mademoiselle Lemaire. While the hose performed its 
mission, the occupant of the crate was highly vocal, not with words, but with yelps of anguish 
and squeals of indignation. The jet was cold and when it shot full force between two slats, 
hitting on maiden flesh, it became a punishment Giselle could not evade.

When the hose was finally taken away to leave the crate and its contents dripping water 
and steaming in the sun, Garth Bannock picked up his bride to be and carried her back to the 
brig. He replaced her collar and padlocked it to the wall chain. He then seated himself a few 
feet distance on the bench and cupped his knee in his hand to face his prisoner.

“You said okay to this, remember, sweetheart?”

The sweetheart squirmed. “Yes, I remember, I haven’t behaved very well, have I? Sulks and 
beefs and tantrums - and that wisecrack about Giselle … ” Thorn faced her master almost 
defiantly. “Okay, I’ll be a good sport about my behavior. Punishment me.”

“How?”

“By leaving me like this, I suppose. I’m so damned bored and lonely and thinking silly 
things. Keeping me in irons is probably the worst punishment you could name. I’m sorry.”

Garth’s eyes were devouring her, savoring every word. “Very well, I’ll take you word for it. 
You’ll stay the way you are and amused yourself with thoughts of Giselle and me in bed. How’s
that?”

“Please don’t remind me, I’m so ashamed.”

Garth nodded, this girl was pure gold. “I won’t tell you when I’ll set you free. But when I do
I’ll take you out on deck and have that blushing boy tie you to the mast and whip you. That 
satisfy your guilty little conscious?”

Thorn was on fire with penitence, her voice vibrant with feeling. “I deserve it. I won’t 
complain. And I’ll try not to make too much noise.”

He kissed her and left her in her chains to deal as she chose with the long hours ahead 
which would led her to the mast and the whip. Thorn found herself strangely calm and 
strangely certain the punishments she just accepted would lead her to the promise land. She 
realized that being placed in irons inside the brig had been a test, a test she had partly failed. 
But now she was. at peace with herself and able to fact the next twenty-four hours with peace 
of mind. The whip was a far more cleansing agent that the hose and its icy jet. Thorn played 
happily with the links of her chain until the coming of the night.

It was Mr. Branscom who unlocked the irons. Seeing his blush Thorn knew that without the
wristlets and anklets and collar, she appeared far more naked to this boy than before. Knew, 
too, that she would be an object of sexual desire. Innocently she said, “You’ve been very nice 
to me, Mr. Branscom, may I kiss you.”

It was after the long, drawn-out kiss that Branscom’s conscious hit him. “But I’ve got 
orders to tie you to the mast and whip you … !” He sounded devastated.

Thorn patted his cheek, it was wonderful to have her hands again. “That’s right, you have 
to whip me. But remember, I deserve it, I’ve been bad. I want you to do it properly, whip me 
hard. Promise?”

Mr. Branscom’s promise was incoherent, but hand in hand they mounted to the deck. His 
hands were more competent than his mouth. He raised Thorn’s hands to place one hand to 
each side of the mast then bound them there with an unsuspected skill, he bound them very, 
very tight.

Thorn stood, exquisitely vulnerable. While she waited for Mr. Branscom’s return with the 
whip her audience began to gather. First was Giselle, handcuffed to a rail where she had no 
choice but to stand and watch. Then it was the crew, lining themselves up on either side as 
though under a previous orders. Garth and the captain were no where to be seen. When Mr. 
Branscom returned with the whip, Thorn gave him her very best smile. “Remember what I said,
Mr. Branscom.”

Mr. Branscom remembered. Whether he enjoyed whipping her or not, Thorn could not tell.
But she was truly whipped and had to force herself not to scream. Mr. Branscom was a good 
servant and if his master’s mistress must be whipped, and it was his job to whip her, he would 
do so with a clear conscious and with the full strength of a guiltless arm. By the time he 
delivered twenty strokes, Thorn was glistening with the sweat of pain, her metallic breasts 
heaving as she panted out her pain, her head bowed in shame for all to see. In the frightened 
glances she made back over bare shoulders, she saw no sign of Garth.

The crew dispersed, Mr. Branscom and his whip with them. Even Giselle was led away. The 
whipped girl was certain her master would allow her to stand as she was to enjoy her pain and
await his pleasure. A long time passed before his hand found the nape of her neck and the 
fingers turned her neck for his kiss. His voice so near and gentle made everything worth while.

“You will stand here one hour, sweetheart, then I carry you to our bed and ravish you. Any 
complaints?”

“None.” Thorn watched him go. She was flaming with desire and urgent with the 
tenderness of love. She turned to face the mast and her pinioned hands.

Miss Thorn Thurston waited patiently.


THE END
