When She was Lucky
When she was lucky, she was able to lose herself completely in the sweetness of servitude - absolved of all responsibilities whatever, except that she dedicate herself completely to satisfying the desires of whomever it was that was using her.
She knew that it made no sense, but she felt that she had never been freer in her life than when she was in this state.
Even more crazy, but equally certain, was the fact that she was able to access this feeling more easily now, than ever before. And that this increased experience of perfect freedom coincided with the decision Anne-Marie had made to have her controlled absolutely - to have her made totally un-free.
For a month (or longer - or was it less? She had lost all sense of the passage of time), she had been kept chained, blindfolded, her hands locked behind her back when not ‘in use’ (and often then), been fed with bland pap like a baby at rigidly predetermined times, likewise had her bladder and colon evacuated by others at set times.
She had not dressed herself, nor cleaned her own teeth, nor brushed her own hair, nor applied make-up, nor spoken except when directly required to. Her muscle tone was maintained through computer controlled sessions with pads that used electrical fields. The lighting and all other conditions in her cell were likewise under automated control (there was some random programme of white and pink noise, with other occasional meaningless sounds, devised by one of the more eccentric members. Anne-Marie tolerated this, considering it irrelevant, but in this, she was wrong; as well as adding to the overall aura of total control, the random and intrusive nature of the sounds often made it hard to think, so that the girl’s inner life was severely curtailed).
Whippings (except, of course, for those inflicted by members for their own entertainment) had ceased, replaced by a programme of more subtle but controlling experiences at erogenous zones, designed to cross the boundary between pain and pleasure. These were short, but extremely intense, at unpredictable times, day or night, impersonally delivered by masked strangers, who seemed indifferent.
Every couple of days, Anne-Marie had the girl speak into a video camera, had her detail in her soft, light voice her observations of what this regime was doing to her, how she had increasingly become fixated on sexual stimulation and experience as the meaning and purpose of her existence, and how deeply satisfying this was to her. How confused she was becoming about the difference between sex and sexual cruelty - how increasingly, any stimulation was welcome, of whatever kind.
Failure to be sufficiently forthcoming in these sessions was punished by time in a sensory deprivation tank - which rapidly became unnecessary, as the girl found she came to appreciate the cruel cleverness of the mental game that was inflicted on her like this - acctually began to work with it, actively practicing complete passivity in the absence of any external demand upon her. The more she was made to explain it out loud, to develop her understanding of exactly what was being done to her, her awareness of what it meant for her, the more powerful the impact of the treatment became.
Asked if she knew that what was being done to her could only be described as brainwashing, she answered, in calm tones; ‘Yes, yes, I do .. know that. I guess”.
Asked if she was happy, she smiled, and said; “Yes, of course. I get so much pleasure. Thank you, Madam”.
Told that this treatment regime would end soon, that she was going to be made to live alone in an apartment for a month, that her access to, and support from, the Castle, would be strictly limited, that at the end of that month she would be made to choose between the two existences, she sobbed prettily (having long since learned that ugly crying was unacceptable), and begged to be told how she could perform more satisfactorily; anything, in effect, to be spared this forced return to the real world, spared from the burden of choosing.
When this video was made available to club members, access to her had to be rationed. Those who remembered the tempestuous, angry young woman who had been tricked into spending a long weekend at the Castle only eight months previously agreed that Anne-Marie was some sort of genius.
Addicted
How was it possible that such devastation, such stifling fear and such utter sweetness could share the same moment in her mind?
Why was she so needy for this? Though lately, needy had become too weak a word.
Addicted. Eve was addicted.
And as the number of people who knew of her weakness grew, and her addiction grew, the more often it happened that she was simply accosted on the street - a sneering grin; ‘Hello, slut. Let’s go to a hotel’. That was all it took.
Today, she hadn’t recognised either the woman or the man. Total strangers to her - although, for all she knew, they could just as easily have used her sometime when she’d been blindfolded, as recognised her from some Castle website, as they claimed.
It didn’t matter, though; her ability to resist is gone, even if she had the slightest right to resist; only the smallest hesitation, and then she had blushed, looked down, felt herself trembling, weak, heard her voice, soft, and, my god, how shamefully eager-sounding;
“Of .. of course; thank you, Sir, thank you, Madam.”
Shamefully, too, she knows where to go - has now learned of the local hotels that suit this experience, places where they don’t seem to care that she has been three times, with different men, women, stayed a few hours only.
The woman puts a hand on her shoulder;
“Just a moment. Before we set off; is that the handbag with the detachable stiffened strap - or will we need to stop and buy a crop? I want to really hurt you - thrash you between your legs before my husband uses you there.”
The lurch of fear, her eyes flick up to meet the woman’s - she is supposed to show her emotions - the only time she is to look at them; to let them see just how devastating this is for her - the fear, yes, but also her helpless excitement at this cool threat of such intimate cruelty. So soon after the last time - she’s still so sore down there! But, of course, she is not permitted to say anything about that; only answer the question, lips trembling badly;
“Yes, yes Madam. The .. the straps are .. are quite stiff. There are .. cuffs .. and .. and a leash, inside, too.”
The woman laughs and turns to her man;
“The dirty slut carries the tools of her own destruction with her at all times. Makes you wonder why she’s permitted any freedom at all, the cunt.”
“Lead the way then, slut.”
Of course, Eve pays for the hotel - they tell her to get a suite for the day; no telling how long they’ll want her for.
She is permitted ten minutes to re-order her schedule. Her office are beginning to be tired of the sudden absences, the obvious lies. It can’t go on much longer before she’s fired.
“Or, before you confess your status to your boss - see if he has any use for a full-service office whore!” - as one woman who had wanted to talk afterwards had suggested - sitting over coffee as if they were girlfriends - instead of sadistic domme and nameless whore. Eve had liked her - even though ( or perhaps because?) she had been very formalistic, almost mechanically harsh in her cruelty, but she’d never seen her again. Silly - the whole point of the Castle - the terrifying glory of it - is that she is held in common, not permitted to become used to any particular relationship.
And now they’re in the room, and she is presenting herself for the whipping - after showing the woman how the straps could unlink from the bag, managing to remain coherent as she explained that the metal shackle could stay with the bag, or be left on the strap for added weight and bite.
“Oh, but I think we should use the shackle on your pussy, don’t you? You never know - maybe I’ll decide today’s the day to ruin you there. Anyway, you can strip for us now, pretty; don’t rush it - sexy but elegant, please - I’m a harsh judge, I warn you!”
And the toxic mix of feelings is so strong in her as she lowers her head and arches her back to expose her soft, vulnerable sex, the pretty little chain dangling down from her clit-hood, that she is quivering all over, smiling and feeling tears prickling her eyes at the same moment.
Devastating fear, trembling sweetness, breathless anticipation, intensity beyond bearing … welcome beyond all reason.
Crack!
“AAeeeah! gha! haaa-aa!”
“W .. One -Th .. thank you, Madam”. All her concentration is on conveying her gratitude in those few words.
At some point during that next hour, face full of Madam’s pussy, sex full of pain and Sir’s fat cock, the woman’s long, hard-lacquered nails torturing her nipples deliciously, Eve realises that she is going to ask Anne-Marie about giving herself over for full-time use, that she is going to give up on any idea that she has an independent life, that she means anything beyond this, and, losing all control, crashes into a jerking, bucking, squealing orgasm, without permission.
Defiance
She is defiant; using her anger and fear to sustain her.
“You have us - you have me, here. You have me naked - I can’t do anything about it. You can hurt me, I know. I .. I’ve seen girls whipped; I .. I know you can .. can break me. I’ve seen girls raped - I .. I know you can abuse me. And .. and I’m terrified of that - I don’t want that, and I will do what I can to avoid it. But .. I know I probably cannot.“
“Yes, you have me. I see you laughing. You know you have me. I .. I have to accept it.”
“But here’s the thing you need to know about me. Scared as I am, vulnerable as I am, open to abuse as I am, you only have my body. That is all that you will ever have.”
“You can break my mind even - I’ve seen that too. But you will never own it. What you want - what some of these girls give you - some eager, sweet sex-doll that plays along with your sick fantasies, your evil perversions - that you will never, ever get from me. Never.”
“I’m weak in so many ways. You have all the power. I can’t hurt you, I know it. And I don’t want you to hurt me. I .. I really don’t. Or .. or r..rape me. But you can’t, you’ll never, make me co-operate willingly. Anything you get from me, you bastards will have to get by force. Every. Single. Time.“
She’s crying by the end, but in a controlled way, and she forces herself to maintain eye contact, needing to impress herself upon them as an individual, as a personality, as someone, as forcefully as she dares.
In spite of themselves, some of the men are impressed. There is a silence; some of their grins seem a little stiff, pasted on. Not quite the easy expressions of amused superiority that they are hoped to be. The more experienced members, though, are impressed for a different reason. They look at the girl with some interest, now, mouths turning up at the corner, waiting for what comes next.
Breaking the silence ..
A silence which is agony for the girl, still not used to involuntary nakedness in a room full of fully dressed men, all strangers to her; agony that must nevertheless be endured, for her condition is as she has described it - totally controlled, totally vulnerable. Inviolate thus far only because it has been so ordained by Anne Marie, although the girl doesn’t know this, doesn’t know why she hasn’t been used, abused, ill-treated like the other girls who arrived with her. She refuses to cower on the floor (although she would like to - to feel the safety, to cover her nakedness more thoroughly), and so must stand, exposed, feeling their direct, evaluating eyes roaming across her body with obvious selfish and greedy intent (not to mention obvious expectation). In some ways she wishes she had the strength to stand fully upright, to keep her hands at her sides, not to betray her shyness at all - but she cannot manage this level of defiance, and so cowers a little, shamed, humiliated, but able to find some inner core of willpower, of defiance, enough to enable this outburst.
.. breaking the silence comes a slow handclap from Anne-Marie, maintained for long enough to be clearly ironic; then more silence. Wishing she wasn’t, the girl is trembling, despite the tropical warmth of the island climate. Then at last, Anne-Marie speaks - not to the girl, of course, but to the members she works for;
“We hear versions of this little speech three or four times a year. Girls who make it are well worth the extra training required. Much more satisfying than the air-heads she sneers at; significantly more sexually responsive, slow to habituation - typically retaining authentic responses of shame, horror and outrage well into the second year, strongly characterful - one can usually pick such girls from a line-up even three years in; moreover, due to this inner strength of character, they attract much higher resale prices once we are through with them, twice as likely to be classified as mistresses or even wives by their eventual owners.”
“In short, gentlemen, a diamond in the rough. But in order to properly achieve her value, you will have to allow the training staff to continue to manage her in detail for some while yet.”
There are some murmurs of dissent, of disappointment. Anne-Marie ignores them, and turns to observe the girl, noting that the effect on the pretty of this little speech has been as intended. She smiles, letting the girl see just how predictable, how easily contained even her most daring and desperate act of defiance has been.
“Indeed .. ” says the President of the Island Great Table, finding the perfect way in for something he finds it necessary to emphasise rather too often;
“.. this is the point at which I must remind you all that you are responsible for using the app on your phone or smartwatch to read the arphid of any girl whose status you are unsure of before using her. I know, I know, this feels like a restraint on action, when what we promote here is free use without restraint of lovely young women.“
“Nevertheless, these are the rules. More experienced members will remember that when these rules have been relaxed, member satisfaction has dropped considerably after even a relatively short period - and that similar rules - even more restrictive ones - have always been voted back in with large majorities.“
“Anne-Marie’s management regime is based in extensive - I might almost say obsessive - analysis (an uneasy smile - he is uncomfortably aware that he is almost frightened of Anne-Marie: finds her annual month at Castle Island as unsettling as he knows it to be invaluable) of what brings and maintains girls to the highest possible standards of pretty responsiveness to our savage and greedy tastes. Some self-imposed restraint turns out to be of value, even for such individuals as ourselves.”
The impact of these two speeches on the girl is interesting, and instructive (and of course completely as intended).
She has already been moved some way along the path toward capitulation. Her defiance has been punctured; she is cowering on the floor, curled into a protective ball, sobbing softly now, trembling visibly, her desperate effort made to seem meaningless, revealed to be insignificant in the face of the implacable juggernaut of power, skill, momentum and willpower which these people - and particularly this Anne-Marie - possess. She is undone by this confident exposition of the extent to which they understand her, evaluate her, how serene their confidence is; by how magisterial Anne-Marie is.
Anne-Marie goes to her, squats down at her side, speaks softly to her, gentle - almost sympathetic;
“Take this moment, pretty - you will not often be permitted others; let the knowledge sink in; understand that you are ours; that every aspect of your existence became ours the moment you consented, the moment you got on the plane. The road we will take you down will be hard, that’s certain. But it will be studded with moments of such intensity as have been attained by few women throughout history. You are special; remarkable, and highly valuable. I myself will take charge of the process whereby you will be nurtured, polished, brought to shine. Your resistance will be part of that process - invaluable; but it will not protect you, nor provide for you any refuge whatsoever from the requirements which will be imposed upon you. That part of you will not be erased - for as you have just heard, it is valuable to us - but it will be walled in, locked away, deep inside you; it will learn that it must respect the limits we impose upon you, that it may not impede the willingness, the sweetness with which you will offer yourself to service the slightest whim of your betters - no matter what anguish that service may bring. It will be brought to the acceptance that we permit it to remain because we like to see it in your eyes, because we like to know that you know just what it is that we have done to you to render you a Castle girl. Because it adds a frisson to the experience of using you.”
“If, as seems unlikely, we are unable to achieve this desirable state of affairs, we will break you totally, crush all resistance, so that you do become one of those helpless fuck-bunny girls that you so despise. Members enjoy those girls, too.“
And when the girl quivers violently, as these word sink in, as she looks up into Anne-Marie’s eyes, her own eyes wide, deep, liquid, full of a great doubt, Anne-Marie lifts her chin with a gentle but implacable finger;
“Don’t worry, little one - all worries can cease now. You can do no wrong - not while we have you. You are truly beyond Good and Evil now, for every response of yours, whether desirable or not, annoying or pleasing, is here considered to be as innocent of moral content as the actions of a butterfly. You are, simply, a creature - a creature over which we have assumed total control. It is we who take the burden of morality in respect of your being henceforth. We will do evil to and with you, certainly, and sometimes good, too; but this is of no consequence to you, for you cannot influence what we do with you. No thought, desire, or impulse of yours will ever have real purchase on the world again. You have quite simply ceased to matter, except in one respect - the entertainment value to be experienced of you by the members of this organisation.”
And she holds the girl’s gaze until her eyes close and she curls in on herself. The trembling becomes more violent. Again, Anne-Marie allows her this privilege for a little while, knowing that her words are burning deep into the pretty’s psyche, doing their work on her. But it is less than a minute before she signals to the waiting footman, who cuffs the girl’s hands behind her back; gently enough, but without the slightest ceremony and then, at Anne-Marie’s gesture, grabs a fistful of hair at the back of her head and sharply pulls her head up, so that she is once again face-to-face with Anne-Marie, who speaks quietly still, but in a voice that carries an iron core of certainty and resolve so that is impossible to doubt that what she says ordains the future.
“Now, I’m afraid that it is time for horrible suffering to be inflicted upon you - specifically at your lovely breasts, and here, between your legs. You will be brought low; temporarily destroyed, in truth, in front of all those here who care to watch. It will be terrible. You have done nothing to deserve this - your little speech pleased me greatly. But it suits my purpose with you to have you suffer so, at this specific point, and nothing you can do will avert my will.”
After this day, the girl will find it all but impossible to look at Anne-Marie’s face; even from a distance, even from a place where she herself cannot be seen. She will not be able to be close to Anne-Marie without trembling noticeably, without her knees feeling weak, without wanting to cry. Even years later, as the nominally ‘free’ wife of a Castle member, the mistress of her own household, the outwardly respectable patron of several charities, a visit to her home from Anne-Marie will reduce her to this, and on the rare occasions when she attempts to defy her husband - suggesting that they should hire a Castle girl in, say, to satisfy the needs of a visiting friend - it requires only a musing as to whether Anne-Marie might like to meet the old friend, come for dinner during his stay, perhaps, for her to change her mind, and proclaim herself eager to demonstrate her devotion to her husband by offering herself in this way.
And then it is back to the sympathetic tone;
“Will you rise now and approach the frame, or will you be forced? Either way is acceptable to me. You may wish to know that I find you lovely, 17-9, truly delicious. You should answer right now, girl, if you can.”
“Alice! Alice!” screams the girl, in her head. She must always remember that she is called Alice, although the identification 17-9 has been tattooed at her wrist, and on her shoulder-blade, and at the top of her inner thigh, and she has seen other girls electro-shocked for insisting, desperately, sobbing, on their names.
Somehow, she finds the strength to make herself stand, knees wobbly, chest heaving with incipient panic; she hates being man-handled by the horrible, insensitive manservants (interestingly, even deeply conditioned airhead girls, well into their third year - no girl is retained past three years - will go to great lengths to avoid this - walking elegantly, hips switching, breasts swaying, toward horrible humiliations rather than be dragged like an animal), but even her strong will cannot sustain her as she gets close to the heavy timber whipping frame, and at the last she is indeed roughly manhandled into place, sobbing and begging freely now.
One of the younger members says to Anne-Marie;
“By God you’re marvelous! - she’s broken already!”
Anne-Marie smiles a little at him, complacent, and makes a mental note to invite him and one or two of his friends to tea, three days hence, to interview the girl, discover just how multi-layered a thing a strong personality can be, to try to help them towards a deeper understanding of what subtlety and persistence it takes to build the sort of girls that maintain the Castle’s whispered reputation and insanely high fees. Probably a waste of time - but she has agreed with Andrew that they do need to encourage those members with any interest to learn more - to sustain and develop the viability of all that they have built.
The girl’s cries are entertainingly heart-rending; her struggles, her desperation highly stimulating, and other girls are rapidly called for, as many watchers find themselves in need of urgent relief.
