This will make more sense if you haveread the previous parts of the story
It seems that they have indeed arrived, as Anne-Marie instructs Natalie to remove the blindfold, and to remove the binding from nOelle’s arms.
After a little while, Anne-Marie’s door is opened for her, leaving nOelle and Natalie briefly alone. nOelle wants desperately to ask questions, to use her newly freed hands to button her bodice, to cover her breasts, her sex — but she dares do nothing beyond imitate Natalie, who — apparently calm — maintains her position, waiting patiently until the door on their side is opened, and the chauffeur asks them, perfectly politely;
“Please, ladies, will you come out?”
nOelle is again in awe of Natalie’s fluid and sexy elegance as she transitions from her kneeling position to get out of the car, finding her own efforts sadly clumsy by comparison. She also envies Natalie’s seeming confidence about what to do once she has stepped out of the car, in the absence of any instruction, stepping to one side to make space for nOelle, then adopting an obviously well-practised pose, standing with her back to the vehicle, not too close, hands at her back, legs parted, head up, eyes downcast. nOelle again takes the redhead as her model, for lack of any other idea.
Natalie’s lovely breasts, the dark metal rings thick through the base of her perfect coral nipples act like magnets for nOelle’s attention (and now that nOelle sees more clearly, the soft flesh is also marked with darker stripes — what has made those?). She has to force herself to keep her head straight, eyes down.
They are facing what nOelle later learns to call the West Front of The Castle — a miraculously elegant and imposing curved sweep of tall French windows between colonnades, which to her heightened sense of exposure all seem to imply watching eyes.
nOelle trembles, desperate to twitch the bodice of her little dress tighter around her breasts, to tug the short skirts down where they have ridden up her thigh as she stepped from the car, but not daring to do anything but try to stand elegantly.
The woman she must now call Mistress is talking to the chauffeur behind the car, and reality bites for nOelle as the journey’s trance-like state blows away like morning mist. Standing there, all but naked, surrounded by strangers, miles from anywhere, in an unknown location, the simplicity of her imaginings in the car are revealed as just that, simplistic imagination; standing here, where it’s all too real, they provide no guidance, no confidence, no comfort.
It’s one thing imagining sexual outrage, punishments, humiliations, and quite another to be standing here, with a cool wind bringing your nipples to hardness, feeling more desperately vulnerable than ever — the park, in retrospect, seeming safe by comparison; there, all she’d have had to do was start screaming, to attract attention, to escape. Here, she can’t imagine screaming and running could do anything at all but bring shame and retribution.
This is real; she is in the power of strangers — people about whom she knows nothing apart from the threateningly sexual nature of everything they say and demand of her, and only Thierry knows she is here; the one who sent her here in the first place; more, he obviously knows the woman, and so must know what they are doing to her — must want this for her..
How can he? Does he really want this .. this shaming, this .. this, threat, this fear for her? A wave of despair threatens to drown her self-control; her throat constricts, eyes prickle, her knees start shaking again.
If Thierry were here, now, she would appeal to him, shamelessly, for some relief from this uncertainty — on her knees, if necessary; but since he is not, she has nothing to go on but his stated wishes — which were .. for her to choose for herself. Which she has done — in full knowledge, restated several times, that her consent would be taken as binding, that compliance would thereafter be ‘enforced’.
If .. if Thierry wants this for her, what does that mean? About her and him? About him?
She feels weak, terribly powerless, sad, and so, so vulnerable. If her wonderful Thierry has truly set her on this path, it seems impossible that she can break free of it, by combination of her general weakness and her learned reliance on him (learned with such soft gratitude, too!). It is all too believable that all her newly awakened sexual yearnings (awakened by Thierry, of course — with her, again so eagerly, innocently grateful) — these newly kindled fires in her, these new desires, will all be ruthlessly exploited by the woman in the service of bringing nOelle into some subdued condition like poor Natalie’s.
nOelle’s heart is breaking again; questions that she had told herself would just have to wait start pushing into her consciousness anew, insistent, fear-inducing.
Just what do they mean by ‘enforce’? Where is Thierry? Why does she keep going along with it all? What on earth is all this craziness in the first place? Who are these people? Is she really going to be ‘punished’? How bad will it get? What more sexual outrages will be perpetrated? What happens after 30 days?
Panic is rising in her, fast, her chest beginning to heave when she hears, ever so softly, but clear for all that, a voice, a light girlish voice, with an Irish accent to the French;
“You’re very lovely.”
Natalie’s lips are parted but still — it couldn’t have been her; but then, who else? Then the girl’s eyes flick sideways for a second and she smiles, so swift, so subtle that it almost isn’t there; her lips twitch, and the voice comes again — she is speaking but hardly moving her lips — speaking for nOelle’s ears only;
“They’re going to be extra cruel with you, because you’ve been provided by your lover. But you are beautiful. You’ll be wonderful. Anne-Marie likes you already, I can tell. Which is good — but also hard. It will be hard for you, but you must learn to let them take you, let them have you; it’s the only way.”
Natalie’s face is kind, her voice soft, and nOelle knows she is trying to be friendly.
The art of speaking without appearing to speak is a valuable ability, for a Castle girl — allowing precious and desperately welcome communication between those who officially may never speak to each other, never hear each other, except in the context of some order from one of those with dominion over them. Some acquire it rapidly, others never. nOelle is one of those girls for whom silence, speechlessness, an effective walling-in of herself due to the many restrictions, will fall heavily — against which, despite her yearnings, she will not find the will to struggle. She will find herself relying increasingly upon Natalie to speak for her, disempowered even among her sisters in submission.
This evidence of kindness, of consideration, is so desperately welcome in the midst of her fear, of the harshness with which she has been treated, the shame that has been heaped upon her, that she almost cries. But as she works to contain this urge, she finds that, despite the awful implications of Natalie’s words, their total lack of anything that suggests escape might be possible, that this place is anything but serious, that this is not, after all, some pervy lifestyle role-play thing, but in total earnest, that despite all this, she does feel a little calmer.
It helps a little in the hours that follow to know that Natalie thinks she can learn, seems to assume she will be able to survive. To be able to put a name to the woman — know that her name is Anne-Marie; that, too is a help, although she can’t quite see why it should be.
Later, nOelle decides that she had started to fall in love with Natalie from that moment. For the redhead to be so thoughtful, so generous to her, to risk punishment for speaking, when she herself is standing there, dressed so provocatively — so obviously vulnerable herself, is something that stays with nOelle during the hard hours and days that follow.
Later still, though, nOelle realises that although Natalie is indeed kind and good, thoughtful and generous, she is also truly and deeply Anne-Marie’s slave — a slave in her heart, mind and soul — as well as bodily a fully submitted, lifetime chattel of The Castle, having asked to become so after only six months indenture (Natalie’s tale will be told, soon enough).
With this, it becomes clear that Natalie’s aim with these kind words had been meant as much to bring nOelle into the destabilising atmosphere of The Castle as they were intended to reassure. nOelle is not angry to see this — not then, when it is far, far too late (even if she had been angry, she has been forcefully and cleverly trained to suppress even the slightest irritation at its first stirrings; a Castle Toy is not permitted even impatience, as far as her betters are concerned. It was made clear during the calmer aspects of the training, that the expression of anger is always self-destructive to a slave, so that working hard to learn the techniques of suppression and dissipation will save pain in the long term. It was made despair-inducingly awful, later, to have expressed even a hint of anger). It does, though, make her belly lurch to understand just how perfectly, how smoothly she has been handled, how subtly powerful The Castle is in its machinations, how cleverly and smoothly trapped she had been, how obviously lost, even from the start.
Even after three weeks ‘full immersion’ in the life of a Castle girl, these realisations are as shocking as they are agitating, and nOelle urgently wishes she was somewhere with a chance of offering herself for violation, of inspiring some rough usage, some transgressive excess, to work out her emotions through. But since these thoughts have come to her in the dead of night, chained as she is in such a position that sleep is impossible, forcing her to think, distract herself, for fear of falling into hysteria (or worse, madness) at the incessant agonies from her tightly stretched shoulders, from the horrible, burning dryness of the thick, rough-textured wooden poles in her sex and rear — since she is so constrained, she has no option but to live through, in her mind, the shame and humiliations of those first days all over again, seeing them anew, now, in the light of her understanding of Natalie’s complicity in Anne-Marie’s machinations.
Now the Mistress and the chauffeur approach. Without so much as glancing at nOelle, the woman waggles two fingers, imperiously nonchalant, at Natalie;
“Come, you, pretty cunt; you’re on clubroom duty, as I recall. Remember to tell them, two black marks. Ask for it between the legs, will you? I want to mark your tits myself, later,”
She walks off toward one end of the colonnade, without a backward glance, Natalie following meekly, each hand grasping the opposite elbow, behind her back, her walk a carefully considered and practiced incitement to rape, all the more affecting because of her obvious vulnerability.
nOelle is trembling now, but when the chauffeur says, politely enough;
“You’re to follow me, Miss”,
She can’t think of anything else to do but obey, and follows him as meekly and docilely as Natalie had followed her Mistress.
Feeling her breasts sway, the cool breeze playing on her naked sex lips under the short skirts, nOelle trembles, but restrains herself from using her unlocked hands to clutch at her bodice, hold it closed. Something has changed in her; she feels it. The idea that she should avoid being ‘disobedient’ has lodged itself into her mind. Although the reality of this is infinitely more challenging than had been her dream-state in the car, an assumption around acceptance of their right to control her has stayed with her.
Here, she is walked around by strange men, her naked breasts on show; meekly clasps her hands behind her and trots along, following without question, feeling all the imagined eyes behind all of those imposing windows, watching her, judging her..
.. and so she tries hard to walk well, and to keep up, aware of a building stress in her as her obedience her acceptance is tested, but managing herself carefully, not letting the questions out.
Natalie’s words are sounding in her mind; ‘They’re going to be cruel to you .. extra cruel ..‘
Bizarrely, she finds them reassuring.
They are going to be cruel to her. However ominous this is, it’s a point of certainty — something she can prepare herself for — be sure is coming.
She bites her lip, frightened, but at the same time weirdly accepting of the idea — almost proud of the implication that she is in some way special — ‘you’ve been provided by your lover‘
There is something intense about this knowledge; it reminds her of times Thierry has challenged her in the past.
‘Be what you wish to seem.‘
Again, though, what is it that she wishes to seem? The only answer that comes to her is that she wishes to seem as desirable as Natalie — which in the circumstances makes a twisted kind of sense, but is at the same time clearly dangerous. She can’t imagine that any man, alone with Natalie, walking as she does, (un)dressed as she is, with her provocatively submissive sexuality so clearly projected — not throwing her down on the spot, or dragging her into the nearest bush to rape her. Can’t imagine Natalie doing anything other than sweetly offering herself up for it, either.
But still, she can’t think of anything else she ‘wishes to seem’, and if you’re going to walk around half naked anyway, there’s no advantage in looking ugly, is there? And so she pictures Natalie, tries to feel how it must feel to walk like that, to let your hips move like that .. without any conscious decision, she tucks her arms behind her back, softly clasping each elbow with the hand of the opposite arm, disempowering herself, deliberately, making herself vulnerable — visibly so, feeling her breath catch at the knowledge that she has done this to herself, without anyone asking or requiring of her that she should.
Is this it, then — is this how these people operate? Through some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, where young women voluntarily offer themselves for .. for .. what? What is it that will be done to her, here, exactly?
She clamps down on that train of thought, viciously, knowing it leads nowhere happy. She will know soon enough what ‘cruel’ means, she thinks; until then, she can walk; walk like the lovely Natalie — or try, at least …
Her cheeks burn as she feels her breasts moving, swaying, thinking how she must look, bodice open, shoulders back, sashaying like a catwalk model, feet just to each side of a ruler-straight imaginary line, her hips rolling, her buttocks switching, the skirts swishing from side to side, drawing the eye to her buttocks, naked under the short dress. Like a whore, that’s how I must look.
She wants to hope that she looks as desirable as Natalie, though she is certain that she doesn’t. It is hard not to let waves of shame and despair overcome her, and she has to concentrate. Concentrate on walking like a whore; like a woman who deserves to be raped. Horrified, but at the same time unable to let herself look less than the best she can do.
There’s no leash this time; somehow, though, she follows as meekly as she had in the park (not knowing where she is, her purse gone, half-naked, where would she run to? As if she even could run in these high heels, ankle strapped as they are).
The chauffeur led her, not looking back, seemingly uninterested in her body now, through a tall french door, directly into a fair-sized room, warm after the cool outside air. Every bay of the pilastered walls holds a large mirror; nOelle sees herself reflected many times — re-reflected, too, from a variety of angles.
He turns and looks directly at her; she almost recoils, cringing a little, so unready has she been for his eyes on her, in a room, alone, this unknown man, her so vulnerable, so sluttishly presented — it is with the greatest difficulty that she contains her shock, her instinctive reaction to protect herself.
It comes to her, suddenly, that at some point very soon, strange men will assume they have the right to fuck her; that by coming here she has in some sense consented to this. Might he be the one to demand that she open herself to him? It has to be someone — what’s to say it isn’t him?
So why? Why does she force herself to stay still, not to cover her naked breasts? Why does she keep her arms behind her back — does she really need to emulate Natalie in everything — offer these strangers her vulnerability so helplessly? Why is she preparing herself in case he does want to fuck her?
There is no time to ponder this, thankfully, for he is speaking, businesslike, practical — although his eyes are on her breasts, not her face.
“I’m going to leave you here Miss — I’ll be locking you in. When you’re ready, you’re to remove your dress, then put yourself into these cuffs — your hands must be behind your back. Then, you are to kneel into this stool — do you see how it works?”
He shows her, in the most matter-of-fact way; shows her the leather-covered cuffs, joined by a short chain — shows her how the ratcheted metal prong can be pressed into a slot to lock each cuff; shows her how the strange stool works — there are two long leather pads, parallel to each other, angled upward somewhat, each with a groove down the centre to form a long channel. She is to place her shins against the pads, then kneel forward, into the grooves. He shows her how the pads will move, then; smoothly, toward the horizontal — at the same time moving away from each other, more so at the front, so that her knees will be spread wide apart.
She sees that she will end up kneeling onto the pads, with her thighs splayed; the pads’ movement will open her — wide — as she kneels onto them — he shows her all this, pushing first forward, then down, with his hands. nOelle blushes and trembles, realising just how vulnerable it will be to be settled thus, that this stranger knows just how it will be with her — naked, cuffed, positioned thus, opened — he has no doubt seen other girls in that position.
It is intolerable that he should ask her to render herself so helpless, so vulnerable. Suddenly, she feels like a frightened child, wants to cry, to beg him to have mercy on her, take her back to the car; she almost speaks, makes some small sound — at which he looks at her — directly, his face unreadable.
She remembers, with a sick jolt, that she is not supposed to look him in the face, and, cowed, fearful, weak, hating herself, but unable to be brave, drops her gaze, wanting to cry — what right have they to threaten her with punishment, just for looking at someone? Why should she accept this? Why has she accepted it?
But again, there is no time for such questions, and no capacity within her to look up at him, even, still less demand answers of him ..
“You understand, Miss?”
He wants an answer — how is she to address him?
Oh, but this is shaming! He must see how her nipples quiver as she trembles! nOelle feels as if she must implode, or collapse — this situation can’t continue — it just cannot!
But continue it does, since she is unable to move, unable to do anything at all save hold herself with some scrap of remembered dignity, wondering why this — this overtly sexual presentation of herself, half-naked, to a stranger should be what she chooses to cling to ..
Meanwhile, his silence is building its own powerful tension.
Inevitably, it is nOelle who loses her nerve first, her voice barely better than a whisper;
“Yes .. Master, I .. I understand.”
She wonders if she will implode from the humiliation, but he is already walking away, without a backward glance; having previously locked the french window they had entered by, he now exits through a door to the inside of the house.
nOelle hears the heavy old lock clank, and she is left, alone with her thoughts, with the knowledge of her consent, with Natalie’s promise of forthcoming cruelty, with the impossible memories of the strangest morning of her life, with the incontrovertible knowledge of her own weakness, helplessness, acceptance — collusion, even.
Why is she not surprised? Not angry? Not shouting her defiance? How can it be that she is so passive, so accepting? For the first time, she is forced to really consider the thought that has been with her for some while now. That Thierry has planned this — has always been planning it — has been preparing her for this day, this place, this fate, since they met. It seems so obvious now, that she feels a complete fool.
But even with this, with this assembly of many little details of their relationship into a convincing case that this is so — that he has seen her, from that first conversation, as a girl who could be brought to this — even now, she can summon no defiance, no anger, no resentment; for there is something that feels inevitable, now, to her, about her having been brought here, about her being in this elegant, cruel trap. Not only inevitable, even, but — so weird to have this thought in her mind — correct, proper; as if this is the place she ought to be. Where she deserves to be. Where she needs to be? Maybe all three.
Despite being sure that, had he explained to her in advance even a little of what would happen today, she would have run away; still, she cannot help feeling as if — shocking, wild, indecent as everything about this morning has been — that there is something within her which is made for this place, something inside her which responds to this treatment, something in her that is .. what? Curious? No, that’s not it .. Hungry — that’s it. Hungry for something she might find here. If not, how can it be that she has made so little fuss, has been so easily suborned into obedience, into acceptance of these bizarre requirements?
In fact, as she looks at the frightened, revealingly dressed girl in the mirrors, the understanding that he believed from the start that he could bring her to this point is like a drug, like some heavy destiny, to which she must submit — a feeling which puts an end to any last tatters of defiance — for now at least.
This does not lessen the fear; there is no hunger in her for cruelty or for humiliation, she has no perverse desire to be offered sexually to strange men — these things are as horrifying to her as they had been yesterday — it simply makes it impossible to think of any way forward but compliance — if not willing compliance, then a performance of willingness, in the hope of avoiding cruelty.
Swallowing the hot, soft tears that come with these thoughts as best she can, feeling the trembling in her legs, the pattering of her heart, she sees that with each passing minute, the imaginability of changing her mind, of escaping from this waking nightmare recedes yet further. This room, the instructions she has been given, the atmosphere of casual certainty around her submission — the way that her acquiescence, her compliance with their outrageous and chilling demands is taken for granted — this is her new reality.
Tears threaten again; she feels her lips quivering. Her pulse pounds, but she remembers — Thierry wants her to be here; wants her ‘docile, pretty compliance’, has said that she will become more special, more valuable in his eyes as a result.
He wants her here.
And, despite everything, she wants his approval; and, too, the Mistress’ approval — and also, god help her, Natalie’s approval as well.
She can’t resist, can’t imagine how — can’t even imagine trying, to be honest with herself; so, there’s no question. Only her own fear. She looks up then, looks at herself in the mirrors — and sees a girl.
A girl; vulnerable, tentative, but not completely giving in — not quite, not quite yet; her dress provocative, open at the bodice — her breasts obviously free. Watches the girl, silently wondering — remembering the nOelle of less than a year ago, realising that she has indeed become something in that time, something already ‘more remarkable, more special’ than she could have imagined herself before. Knows that this could not have happened without Thierry.
She sees that girl — as if watching a stranger, a character in a movie — sees the girl, apparently calm now, make a serious decision, blinking hard, firming up her lips, standing straighter. The girl in the mirror pulls herself upright, into a position of self-awareness, self conscious presentation — and then, slowly, deliberate, begins to undo the last remaining buttons — the girl watches herself, softly, elegiac, pull the dress from her shoulders; sees it slip to the floor, immediately rendering her naked apart from stockings and heels, her breasts and sex exposed
The girl sees herself as she, for the first time in years, looking at her reflections, understands — accepts, wonderingly — how someone might call her pretty, call her sexy. Sees her own fleeting, sad little smile as she realises that it has taken this outrage for her to believe in her own beauty for the first time in her life. The girl, watching herself realise, all over again, her debt of gratitude to Thierry, who seems to know her so much better than she knows herself, Thierry who has enabled this rare moment of self-acceptance, of joy in her own being — in such unsettling circumstances.
I am! I am — a little, at least — I am pretty!
And now the tears that brim are tears of happiness, as much as they are tears of fear. Isn’t it worth it — whatever this is? To have been granted this moment, this soft joy, this validation? Is it?
And she knows, now, for herself at least, what Thierry has meant by ‘more special, more beautiful, more interesting’.
For the girl in the mirrors is light-years more interesting than mousy little nOelle had ever been. Than little nOelle could ever have been, without Thierry’s guiding hand, The hand that had, all the time, been guiding her toward this moment, to this place, to this dread sensation of utter vulnerability, of impending violation, of weakness, helplessness in the face of forces much more powerful, more certain, more demanding than she could ever be.
How can the two be separated? How can this specialness, this delicious new sense of herself as sexually attractive, be separated from this other sense of herself as sexually terribly vulnerable, exposed, coerced? Or are they aspects of the same thing? Is it only in such a setting as this place, this Castle, that she can accept herself as desirable?
She laughs, suddenly, seeing for a moment how clever they are, how clever this place is — she is feeling more with every second the weight of an institution at work on her, how this place is bigger than individuals, that it has momentum, mass, force, that she is very small indeed, very unimportant here. Understanding that leaving her here, alone, removing time pressure, leaving her with herself in this empty room, is such a subtle move; how strong, how very strong she would have to be to maintain any resistance here, how her submission, here, alone, to this room, will further entrap her.
Laughs sadly, recognising — accepting — that little nOelle is not going to even try to resist. That little nOelle is going to take the bribe — the service this place will offer to her idea of herself as desirable, and otherwise submit.
She’s not even going to try to resist; she’s going to accept the promise of cruelty — not because she wants it, but because this place is cruelty — such clever cruelty — that it comes with the territory. She’s going to accept the humiliation — because, accepting the cruelty, she obviously deserves to be humiliated; accept the mind-games, even knowing that she is not strong, that they will affect her powerfully, that she has already proved this by being such a willing subject for Thierry’s mind games, which have changed her…
She accepts that she wants — fiercely wants — to be desirable. Desirable here, on this place’s terms. Accept the cost.
Tears come to her eyes, but she blinks them away, smiling at herself, lips trembling, trying to be brave, trying to control the trembling of her knees (god help me I want to kneel).
After a little while, she has regained some control, and makes herself act calmly as she picks up the cuffs, frighteningly heavier and tighter than she expected, leather-clad steel, and conscientiously, carefully ensures that she is restrained, dis-empowered, rendered vulnerable, hands behind her back, breasts swinging as she, awkward, struggles to tighten the ratchet fully.
Her fingers are slow, terribly clumsy, almost numb with the fear, but she makes herself do the job as elegantly and smoothly as she can. Her pulse quickens; an observer (she isn’t looking at the mirrors now; ashamed, she looks at the floor) would notice that her nipples are standing stiffly to attention, as the feeling of powerlessness reignites the arousal she experienced in the car, under Anne-Marie’s predatory gaze.
Some rational, analytical voice, deep in her mind, understands that this mix of fear, powerlessness and strong sexual arousal is terribly corrosive, terribly dangerous, that self-preservation insists that she resist, call the bluff on this ridiculous charade.
At the same time, the knowledge — the certain knowledge — that she cannot — will not — find the will-power to do such a thing takes her around the same circle as before, of powerlessness, fear, arousal — only deeper. Her breath is slow and heavy now, as if she is a little drunk.
The feelings only grow stronger as she gingerly kneels into the strangely alive-seeming embrace of the stool, feels it forcibly part her lower legs, spreading her thighs, as she finds that unless she balances carefully, there is an unsettling wobble, so that in order to feel safe, she is required to keep her shoulders back and straight, her crotch irresistibly thrust forwards, ensuring that her breasts, her sex, are thoroughly displayed, no matter how much her locked arms might itch to cover her vulnerability, to deny this shaming open-ness.
She finds herself shockingly disempowered — docility and compliance more-or-less enforced, now, by this simple act of kneeling into this contraption (simple above, struts and weights and cables below); catches her breath at the strong mixture of eroticism and exposure this fills her with. She swallows a shudder of fear, trembling a little, catches sight of herself again in the mirrors, then looks immediately away, so shocked is she by the blatant lewdness of the enforced pose, the heavy breasts nevertheless proudly upright, the long thighs wantonly spread, the opened sex lips shamingly dark with her moisture — shocked and unable to address its message, its unmistakable import, to accept that this sex-thing is her.
And yet, within a minute, she is looking again — only to look away as if burned.
As the silence stretches, though, the golden light of the afternoon streaming from behind her now, as the minutes pass, she finds she must look again.
And then again, until at last she is staring, unable to stop, at the frankly arousing image in the mirror, unable to prevent herself from moving to see how such movement changes the picture, seeing how to improve it, to present her body more effectively, trying to process the powerfully contradictory feelings that assail her; the simultaneous shame and pride, the undeniable excitement, and the insistent need to cover herself — the gratitude and the fear, while the hypersensitivity shades inexorably into sexual arousal, however hard to accept this is.
The girl in the mirror is sexy. Really, turn-on sexy. And it is nOelle; nOelle, presented like this, naked, in this weird stool, legs forced apart, tits pushed forward — nOelle — she — is sexy — really, turn-on sexy. And it is turning nOelle on, seeing herself presented so. She is breathing more and more heavily, losing herself in the feeling, her hips beginning, softly, to work.
The watchers; Anne-Marie in her office, some of the members casually flicking through the various camera feeds, smile. This one looks like a natural. Good tits, too. Looking forward to the expression on that pretty, intelligent, open face when she first feels the riding crop between her legs, to her desperate eagerness to please afterwards…
She is in some sort of trance, then, when the lock clicks, and she jerks in shock, frightening herself as the stool wobbles, so that the two young women, one blonde, one brunette, who enter the room are entertained to see her deep blush and wildly panicked eyes, hear her shocked, weak ‘Oh!“, the quick struggle — immediately suppressed as the instability of the stool communicates the urgent importance of good posture.
They look at one another and titter, almost silently, sharing their memories of their own version of this moment — for it is one of the truths of this place that none of the girls, once initiated, has any real secrets of any sort from one another — each understands intimately what each has experienced, for the daily treatment of these girls forces them to expose, without possibility of dissimulation, the reality of the effect their treatment has upon them.
Denied the slightest modesty — all vestiges of feminine mystique ruthlessly stripped away, each of these two girls has felt the fear of the unknown, the frisson of powerlessness, of profound sexual vulnerability in the face of casually domineering strangers that nOelle is feeling now, and for each the experience is burnt into their psyches, and part of their daily reality.
The moment is fleeting, though. nOelle looks fixedly at the floor in front of her, all her energies now concentrated on calming herself, on concealing, as far as possible, the turmoil inside her, in the hope of minimising her shame. The task is hopeless — the girls see everything, smiling softly, if a little sadly, to themselves; but they focus on their task — to prepare nOelle for her presentation to the Masters.
The girls are dressed dressed in gauzy coat-dresses in dark colours, so that the nakedness underneath is suggested by rich shadows, swaying movements, as much as by anything seen. Nevertheless the bustier corsets they wear (very tight at the waist, extending upward to push naked breasts upward and forward) are clearly seen, by which token it is clear that no other underwear is worn. Dark silk stockings are clipped via suspenders to the corset. Other than this, they wear nothing but high heeled clogs, collars and cuffs like Natalie’s.
The blonde is classically lovely, blue eyes in a mild and perfect face with rosebud lips. The other is more striking, with a wide mouth and soft, red lips below high delicate cheekbones. She looks achingly fragile.
Despite herself, nOelle finds herself having to disguise the avidity with which she looks for evidence that either of these two have nipples pierced like Natasha’s. The rapid realisation that both do comes like a blow to the belly, and at the same time a hot fascination.
Will this, then inevitably be her lot? To be pierced so obviously, so whorishly?
Her heart thumps and she is horribly aware that her own nipples are visibly stiffening. The girls are gentle, delicate even, yet thoroughly firm and assured, as they affix something to her cuffed wrists, then take an arm each, lifting her so that she can rise safely to her feet. In time, she will learn elegantly to dismount from these stools unaided, but for now, for some time to come, she will need assistance if she is not to fall; since she will often be required to place herself into a stool when nothing specific is required of her, this adds considerably to her vulnerability, her sense of powerlessness.
Her trembling is impossible to hide, and again the girls giggle to each other a little — sweetly, without the slightest malice, but still causing intense shame for nOelle. She cannot bear being naked in front of them, cannot bear them knowing that she has cuffed herself, displayed herself naked in the stool. Cannot bear the surrender that this implies. Cannot bear her own immediate and careful compliance as, at the slightest tap on her instep from the blonde’s foot, nOelle moves her feet apart, wide, realising that this spreading of her thighs is an insistent requirement here; hating it — knowing she will be complying with it as prettily as she can.
The blonde reaches down, pulls something forwards, between her thighs, and nOelle sees at once that it is another long leather lead, coming through her legs where it dangles from the cuffs behind her back. This one is wine-coloured; darkly stained — presumably with the juices of many other girls. Her heart breaks — for the second time in her life she experiences the impossibly transgressive sensation of a leash tightly pulled into intimate engagement with the lips of her sex.
She cannot suppress a little “Ah!” as it is tugged, and experiences a surge of revulsion as the girl gently but insistently tugs her toward the door.
Suddenly terrified at the idea of being led into an open corridor like this (led to what?), she utters a shout of rejection — which, unplanned, comes out as a weak and tentative ‘no’, and she pulls back on the leash, then sinks slowly to her knees, legs unable to bear her weight. This is not refusal to comply, so much as inability to comply — she is simply overwhelmed by sensation.
Again, the only response is a near silent exchange between the girls, amused and tolerant. They exchange a glance, a little shrug, then one of them goes to pull a bell-cord by the door.
Her nakedness, her bound hands are a terrible nerve-jangling knowledge, constantly demanding that she do something to save herself, protect herself! Something, now! At the same time, there is the terrible awareness that she lacks the will, the strength — and frankly — any idea at all as to what she could do.
She can only huddle where she is, trembling, looking at the floor — all her willpower exhausted, paralysed by fear — it occurs to her, very clearly, that now the cruelty will begin — that refusing to follow is a direct transgression. She is aware that, alongside the fear and disbelief at the idea of punishment, there is a certain relaxation in her, a certain strange relief. Soon, she won’t have to anticipate what it means to be punished — she will know. In any case, she can’t stand up if she wanted to — her legs are like jelly. Somehow there is relief in acceptance that her failure causes no surprise, no outrage in the girls; that this place accepts it, knows how to deal with her. That she will find out, now, what ‘enforcement’ means. Maybe it will help her comply?
Her hands move restlessly, stupidly testing the heavy cuffs. She is going to be seen by whoever comes, as a naked, cuffed girl, on her knees, leashed, submissively staring at the floor. It is intolerable — and yet it must be tolerated, because she cannot do anything else. It eats into her self-image like acid, this weakness, this implicit, helpless acceptance of the outrageous idea that someone is coming to punish her, that she is passively waiting for it — not even able to ask for mercy. Her trembling increases, and tears drip slowly from her eyes.
She realises with urgent desperation that she wants the girls to force her up, force her to move — wants anything rather than to be treated like this — like a naughty little girl, punished, naked, by and in front of strangers. But doing anything about this is also beyond her. She can’t find the strength to make the smallest sound. Tears gather; her lip trembles…
And still, nothing happens. The girls are murmuring to each other — perhaps talking, as Natalie had? nOelle can’t hear — they seem completely unconcerned at the horror, the unacceptability that nOelle, a grown woman, should be subjected to this.
Time drags; a girl soon learns that her time is of no importance at all, here. She will wait until her betters decide it is time — at which point she will be instantly ready to please; she will not be consulted, or informed; she is beneath consideration.
Footsteps.
Instantly, nOelle suffers for the first time ‘the slavegirl’s reverse’ — that sudden, heartfelt wish, in the face of imminent horrifying cruelty, to return to the previously horrendous condition of unbearable waiting.
Of course, a Castle Toy’s wishes are rarely granted.
The door; a mans’s feet — booted, facing the blonde, who still holds the leash. nOelle flinches, feels her naked breasts sway, hates herself for being too frightened to raise her eyes above his knees. The knowledge of her own wanton nakedness is like a fire, the conflict between the obvious, desperate need to do something to restore her dignity and the lassitude and fear that keeps her kneeling so submissively eats her from the inside.
Her breasts and sex are unbearably sensitive, tingling, trembling at the thought of being handled by this stranger. With a sickening shock, she realises that she is wet between the legs.
“What’s the problem?”
“Sir, this girl won’t follow.”
“Ah, the new piece. OK; you, blondie — I want your throat. You — hood and cuffs to the neck. Put her on the blocks and use the lifter.”
He doesn’t sound particularly concerned; bored almost. Shockingly to C, the blonde girl slips smoothly to her knees in front of him, clasps her hands meekly at the small of her back and leans in towards the man’s legs, the sound of her mouth working unmistakable, followed by other noises from deeper in her throat, then muted yelps as a strong-looking hand begins to twist her nipple, obviously intending to cause pain.
Right in front of her, here, right now, a girl is on her knees, deeply sucking a man’s cock, as ordered — taking him into her throat as he deliberately hurts her nipples.
nOelle has to struggle to stop herself screaming. She is shocked to an extent that surprises her. Shocked, but also fascinated. The girl’s hands remain submissively clasped behind her back as she is abused, and nOelle finds herself desperately needing to know — needing to lift her head to see the girl’s face, see how she takes it, how she shows the pain, but right at that moment she sees no more as a thick cloth hood is placed over her head from behind, plunging her into darkness.
Shocked, nOelle cries out, but this is cut short when somehow the bag is tightened around her face and a soft rubber lump fixed to the inside is expertly pushed into her mouth. More tightening, and she is effectively gagged.
She panics, struggles, but frightened as she is; shocked, kneeling, cuffed, hooded and gagged, this has little effect, and soon the cuffs have been re-arranged, her arms lifted in front of her, wrists pulled gently but relentlessly to the back of her neck, the fixed there. nOelle feels desperate vulnerability, now, as her breasts sway freely.
Sweating now, panicky; increasingly terrified by the prospect of imminent punishment, by the confinement of the hood, she is encouraged to her feet and made to walk forward, then made to understand by firm settling of her shoulders that she is to stay put; grateful, now, to be clear what is expected of her — finding herself pathetically eager to please, she does her best to stand well as she is momentarily abandoned.
Noises — of the blonde-girl’s continuing rough usage in service to the man’s cock, joined by unprocessable mechanical sounds, muffled metallic noises.
Steps — the girl is back with her; further adjustment at the back of her neck, and now she finds that her wrists are linked to some sort of tie that pulls upward — any other than limited movement away from that pull delivering immediate pain; she could easily wrench her shoulders painfully, she realises, and forces herself to stay calm.
Now her feet are lifted, parted, one at a time, to a higher level — not far, a few centimetres, but she is glad of the reduction in tension at her shoulders. For a few seconds, anyway. She hears the girl’s wooden soles clacking across the floor, again, then a curious squeaking, clicking sound — the noise from before, only louder now, stressed, and she feels herself stretched upward — her arms, her neck pulled toward the ceiling!
nOelle, shocked, squeals into the gag, moves her foot, to discover that it has been resting on only a small raised block — it swings free. She sways, sickeningly, all her weight on one foot, terrified of falling and dislocating a shoulder, of choking, desperately repressing the panic that she knows will make everything worse, searching needily for the block with her right foot, dimly aware of the spectacle she must present — naked, cuffed, gagged, swinging her leg wildly, breasts jiggling, sex on show — how ridiculous and shaming that spectacle must be — but dares not let such thoughts stop her — she must!
Ah — there it is; she sobs into the gag with relief, only to realise that the raised blocks are moving apart now, one at a time, forcing her legs to open, parting her thighs, putting more strain on her neck, her shoulders.
She begins to cry, helplessly, rendered abject by terror — only to jerk and moan as a blaze of pain crosses her taut backside. He is whipping her!
In point of fact, the flogger used for this first punishment is almost a toy, applied with minimal force; it is the psychology of the situation and the inexperience of the girl which ensure that the impact is what is intended. Impact on behaviour is what Anne-Maries’s regime is all about. Members, of course, are mostly interested in hurting girls, making them scream and beg, for fun. A Castle girl learns to distinguish between the two if she wants to ‘do well’ — a tricky concept for a Castle girl, since ‘doing well’ requires becoming more fully submissive, even less of an autonomous being; which clearly does not ‘do well’ for the girl herself.
Desperate to keep her feet in the high heels on their little raised blocks, her hands restrained at the back of her neck by the tie, the only evasive action she can take is to gyrate her hips — which has no effect whatsoever on the accuracy of the punishment, but which is very entertaining to watch (the cameras have been carefully set for good angles to the whipping place), as her buttocks clench, then relax, her hips switch from side to side, then jerk backwards or forwards, her firm breasts jouncing.
Each stroke, and each awful tension between strokes, is its own perfect nightmare; the anguish, the agitation, never relents. She thinks she must die from it, the intensity is so devastating — but there is no release, only each new torment — a blow, horrifying, shocking, impossible to accept, a desecration too awful to take in, accompanied by frenzied, desperately constrained, horribly shaming jerkings and wrigglings in hopes of dissipating the pain, then the terrible wait for the next blow, during which the fevered imagination conjures up pictures of how she must appear, unwanted but insistent foreboding that she is now to be raped, forcibly penetrated by a cock wet with the spittle of the other girl, then rising fear of a further blow, clenchings and twistings of the hips in a vain attempt at avoidance, then another blow — devastation all over again, trying to scream into the gag — scream anything, anything she can think of to get this to stop — beg, offer anything — horribly distressed by the impossibility of forming intelligible words, even, through the rubber in her mouth.
It is impossible to believe that she can live through the compound agonies of this intolerable experience, and yet it seems she cannot even do what she would dearly like to do — faint. There is quite literally nothing she can do but allow herself to be whipped.
She is given 12 strokes only (although she would estimate double the number if asked), but is hyperventilating and sobbing brokenly when, at a lazy signal the gag and the hood are removed.
The return of sight, the removal of the gag, serve to smash her last vestiges of self-control, and she starts to scream and thrash. The fact that, cuffed, up on the blocks, on high heels, her ability to move is constrained by her fear of falling becomes utterly insupportable, and she is quickly on the verge of hysteria. Only the certainty that losing her footing will bring added agony gives her the strength to control herself.
This point is noted by the footman (for such is the man’s position). A girl who succumbs completely to hysteria and falls off the blocks during these early days is generally a lower value recruit, in the long run, and he will comment on this in his report to Anne-Marie later. He watches her as with one hand he pulls the kneeling girl’s head in toward his groin, while lazily foraging between the other girl’s thighs from behind, causing her to gasp and moan (whether in pain or pleasure it is hard to be sure), her hands submissively behind her neck, as she bends deeply at the hips to open herself as fully as possible to his casual and intentionally rough invasion of her most intimate crevices, only the occasionally gasping moan betraying her distress.
The length of time it takes for a girl to realise that hysteria has no useful result is also a useful indicator, although less sure. He is interested to notice the moment at which she crosses back over the threshold to self-control — entertained to see the evidence of her realisation that, as long as she is chained here, he can do as he likes with her, anything but striving to present herself as ready to comply is futile.
It isn’t that she becomes instantly calm — indeed, gusty tears break out — but that these are tears of self-pity and humiliation, not of uncontrollable despair. The girl has begun to know that she has lost some aspect of herself — has understood at some level that she will never again be a girl who has not been whipped, naked, by a stranger, in front of witnesses, who has not, at some level, accepted a stranger’s right to whip her.
She is now a girl who does not scream her rage at him, but instead is now doing her best, remembering Anne-Marie’s comments in the car, to make herself pretty — however shaming that is. A girl who calculates that shame might be worth accepting if only it will help her to avoid further beating. He sees this realisation come over her, and the corner of his mouth lifts — it is exciting watching new girls tamed, and his crisis comes on.
nOelle wants to cringe, to pull her elbows in, at least, to cover herself just a little, but from somewhere comes a knowledge that this will be unacceptable, that she risks more punishment, and so she stands, quivering, sobbing still, until his hand in her hair, tight, hurting, turns her face toward him.
She looks at him directly for a second, into his open grin, before fearfully dropping her gaze, to find herself looking at a fat red cock jerking its sticky load into the blonde’s face. Her eyes are red — clearly the combination of forced deep penetration and the cruelty at her nipples has made her cry, but she is calm and even manages a pretty smile as she dips her come-slicked face to lick him clean, before murmuring, a little hoarse; “Thank you, Sir”‘, and tenderly re-fastening the tie-string front of the old-fashioned breeches he is wearing.
But his attention is on nOelle, the girl to whom he has just casually delivered the first sexually cruel beating of her life;
“That’s right Miss. You must control yourself — you are required to keep your face beautiful at all times. The threshold for punishment is very low — the slightest hint of dissatisfaction can earn you cruel treatment at any time”
His voice is calm as he caresses her left breast with the leather strands of the flogger — perfectly gently, but with clear promise that punishment of her soft breasts is not an unthinkability. She bites her tongue urgently, hurting herself, the urgency of at least outward calm strongly impressed upon her.
“You will learn quickly, Miss, that pretty obedience is required of you at all times. Do you understand?”
He sounds almost bored! She can’t! She can’t submit — agree to this appalling statement — it’s simply impossible! Obedience! In the face of this .. assault! vice! depravity! But who then, is the owner of the soft, submissive voice that comes from her own mouth, the voice carefully, eagerly communicating willing submission, a total lack of resistance born of desperation to avoid ‘cruel treatment’?
“Yes .. Yes, Sir .. Thank you Sir.”
It feels as if her heart must break.
“Very good Miss. If I may say, you’ve lovely tits — natural too, from the sexy way they jiggle.”
Crude as this compliment is, she finds herself foolishly, shamingly grateful, unable to quell a weak little smile as a deep blush suffuses her cheeks. How can it be that she can feel the slightest warmth towards this man who has just had her chained, beaten her, traumatised her by fucking the mouth of a girl in front of her?
A fresh spill of soft tears finds its way down her hot cheeks; she feels the sob make her nipples sway, watches him grin appreciatively, can do nothing, chained as she is, but let this happen.
He likes her breasts! Helpless pleasure at the compliment — even from him!
This moment stays with her. For the rest of her time there, whenever she knows this man is present, she will find herself shamefully determined to show her breasts in the most alluring way, such is the need within her for him to maintain this judgement of her. She will feel desperate and ridiculous, but none of that will stop her considering how best to display herself for him. He likes her breasts, and she finds herself pathetically eager to encourage him. In the days that follow, no other man ever compliments her directly, although plenty of crude comments about her pass between them.
She closes her eyes tightly, forces herself to breathe, bites her quivering lips, struggles to control her trembling knees, feeling unutterably vulnerable, her sex splayed, her breasts swaying, her chest heaving. Something inside her breaks and she is aware that she has sunk a little deeper into acceptance of this hardly believable world.
“Some of the gentlemen will be sure to tickle them with the cane, Miss, and very pretty they’ll look too, with a few good markings. Carry on, girls!”
And he leaves, as casual as if he had just finished a conversation about the weather, while nOelle helplessly processes the appalling thought that remaining here implies that her breasts will be whipped harshly enough to leave visible marks. Like Natalie’s, she thinks.
The two girls, both of whom have received crude and invasive sexual attentions as a side-effect of C’s disobedience, gather themselves calmly and steadily, rearranging clothing, the girl who received his seed using a small kerchief to clean her face.
nOelle tenses, expecting perhaps some spite, some retribution. Instead she is shocked to see the two, when facing each other (and, thus, they believe, shielded from cameras) exchange little smirks and saucy looks — the one wiggling her tongue at the other suggestively. The only reference that is made is while the brunette is releasing her wrists from the lifter, when she talks from behind nOelle in the same under-voice that Natalie used in the grounds;
“You look shocked now, girl, but I’d wager a whipping you’ll come hard for them soon enough — you’re just the type.”
nOelle trembles at the import of this, the casual certainty in the girl’s voice, friendly enough despite the awful words, but she finds herself shamingly keen to give no cause for further dissatisfaction, and now forces herself to accept the terrible intimacy of the leather leash at her sex, and follows the blonde, pathetically concerned to be somehow elegant, as she is led through the door into the corridor it connects to, the other following behind; striving to at least appear as if she has control over her body, over something.
