Content warnings for this story (click here for guide):
As I wait in the corner, my forehead touching the wall, I hear the first car pull up. I shiver, firstly in fear, and secondly, because I am naked. I don’t move, though, except to gently rub the bruises on my bottom. I can’t risk any more of that. Mr Noon has gone to fetch something, which is never good.
***
I was driven here three days ago in a black car, my hands in cuffs. My academy uniform still had a stain on the hem from a rushed breakfast. The last thing I had needed in my position was to stand out for being late. I had to be boring, compliant, punctual…nobody should look twice at me, lest they recognise the President’s niece.
I was always a nosy child, if when I heard whispers among our flunkies that revolution was in the air, I thought very little of them. Our home was magnificent, with great paintings on every wall and ceilings that reached to the heavens. Not that you appreciate these things until you lose them – I used to put makeup on the marble statues and rest hats on their hard heads.
My uncle was a jocular man – always smiling and open-armed towards his family. Having no children or spouse of his own, he had insisted that my mother and I live in the palace (my father had disappeared six months before). I had not known poverty in my fifteen years, though I understood my mother and uncle had grown up poor and worked their way up in life. And in our country, there was no higher place than the Presidency.
On the face of things, you would never have guessed the country was restless. Every speech my uncle delivered from the balcony, the crowds would cheer, though when I think back now and really concentrate, I recall the black-clad policemen dotted throughout the crowd, and understand why.
It was an exchange between the butler and my nanny that first made me question things. As I stole downstairs for some water one night, I heard them whispering in the kitchen.
“My sister says they will probably move in before August.”
“How many rebels are there?”
“Hard to tell. They estimate 300. It could be more, could be less. Gold Lotus might be a ragtag gang or a fully equipped army. They’re recruiting from the schools, you know.”
“Will you flee?”
“I’ll stay for now, but if we need to run, we must run. Don’t wait for me. They will show no mercy to anyone affiliated with the family.”
“They have a new leader then?”
“Yes. Our dear master fed the last man to his dogs. Anyway, get on and act normally. We need to brazen this out.”
They vanished in opposite directions and I stopped still in the cold corridor, as unexplained fragments fell gently into place.
I had seen my uncle’s men drag a man through the courtyard. Uncle had explained later that he was a thief, armed and ready to attack. That the man was out of his wits and had been taken to the asylum. Sure enough, the man was yelling things about gold lotuses, a day of reckoning, children of blood…I had gone to my lessons, glad he had been caught.
There had been other things too. I remembered throwing tantrums, as children do, and each time seeing not irritation on our servants’ faces, but something else. I had mistaken it for sickness, tiredness, concern for me. It had been fear.
I had seen my uncle take my former nanny, Elizabeta, aside, after I had set fire to my history book with a match. It was a new edition, issued by the government just that year, with clarifications. I had been bored and naughty and wanting to play outside, but my uncle had asked me gently if Elizabeta had criticised the book. I shrugged. I was cross at her for making me study. The next day, my Uncle introduced my new nanny, and I was not permitted to ask about the old one.
After my eavesdropping trip, I went back to bed, but something was lodged in my chest. I kept hearing Nanny and the butler talking, and imagined the rebels as a tide of faceless soldiers, moving closer, closer. I remembered them saying one thing in particular:
“They’re recruiting from the schools, you know.”
My curiosity was piqued. Even at 19, I was short and slender, and could pass for a girl much younger. And I had never been to school, having been tutored since birth in private rooms. I bribed one of the maids to give me her old school uniform, and had her tell my uncle I was taking piano lessons. Then I instructed her to find a forger who could enrol me in classes under a false name. She faltered, and I was chilled by how easily I found myself switching from bribery to blackmail. I reminded her who my uncle was, and who he might believe. It was a gamble, but her reaction confirmed how my uncle was regarded. She blanched, and bobbed, and returned the same evening with the papers.
The next morning, I got up and put on the uniform. It consisted of a white blouse with short puff sleeves, a modest black pinafore with a pleated skirt, white knee socks, block heel Mary-Jane shoes and a huge red ribbon, which my maid tied into a bow in my hair. Lastly, I put on a black wool coat with red piping. It was a far cry from my normal silk day dress and ornate hairpiece, and I was confident I would not be discovered.
My school name was Dora Souza. As my chauffeur drove me to the school gates, I repeated it to myself like a mantra.
I had always imagined school as a harmonious choir of attentive students, in a rich brick cathedral of light and knowledge. I was unprepared for the blocky crate of a building, with its peeling paint and lumps of concrete. I had never been jostled or shoved before, but as we filed into barbed-wire-tipped gates, I was bumped and jogged without a thought. The casual contact was thrilling, but I could not enjoy it for fear of discovery.
Thankfully, the other girls wore similar uniforms, though the collar tips had changed from rounded to points since my maid had been a student. I kept my head down and hoped nobody would notice.
I handed in my papers at the main office, and was bundled along to History. But as I walked into the classroom and the door shut behind me, I realised there were no students at the desk. Behind the large table at the front of the room sat a well-dressed man with silver hair.
“Come in,” said the man.
“I’m sorry. I’m looking for my history class,” I said.
“I see. Well, this is it. That’s the intake clerks’ joke – it’s actually an induction. Your history, if you will.”
I gulped.
“Name please,” said the man
“Dora Souza.”
He opened a register and made a tick mark.
“Take a seat Dora. My name is Mr Noon. Now, where was your last school?”
“Jevena,” I said, thinking quickly. Jevena was managed by a different district government. Hopefully that would help me fool them.
“Ah, Jevena,” he said, noting it down. He stood and walked over to me, looming over the desk.
“Did nobody ever teach you how to address your betters?”
Well, no, as it happened. I had always been the better. I thought back to the servants in our house, and how they addressed my uncle.
“Sir! I’m sorry, Sir!”
He tutted and pulled out a black notebook.
“Better. But I’m afraid that’s a strike, Miss Souza. Did you have strikes in your old school?”
I shook my head. He smiled.
“For bad behaviour, you get strikes. These add up, and when you have accumulated a certain number, you receive a punishment. The more strikes, the harsher the punishment. Does that make sense?”
I nodded, then thought to add “Yes Sir.”
He strolled to the window. “As to the type of punishment, that very much depends on your teacher. But we do leave it to their discretion. Let me just assure you that it will be memorable and unpleasant, and usually tailored to the offender.”
I glanced across at the wall, where a rack of some sort hung, draped with a black cloth.
“Sir, are you the headmaster?” I asked. He laughed softly.
“We do not have a headteacher here, as only the President (Lord save him) may head up any hierarchy. You should know that, unless your last school was a den of dissidents. I will be taking you for biology.”
“Oh,” he added. “One more thing. We have been receiving reports about our girls – future wives, mothers and workers of this country, let’s not forget – meeting with boys to whom they are not engaged.”
“I would never do that, Sir.” I tremble.
“Good. Because the punishment for promiscuity is particularly nasty.”
He asked me about my grades, my hobbies and my goals. My maid had told me about her upbringing and suggested typical answers; she had known they might quiz a new student. I described being part of youth organisations run by the state, of enjoying red-thread needlework (whatever that was), of hoping one day to have children and run a farm for the state. I remembered to say “Lord save him” whenever I mentioned my uncle. It felt very strange, very tiring, like a game I was being forced to play until I slipped up.
Finally, Mr Noon asked me, “Have you ever been propositioned by spies, resistance organisations, propagandists or traffickers?”
I was feeling a little cocky. Instead of answering “No,” I puffed out my chest and answered that yes, I had once been urged to join a splinter group. I told him I had yelled the state code of conduct at the rebels until they ran for cover.
“Very good,” Mr Noon said, adjusting the bow in my hair. “I think we are done. Welcome to Geshenn, Miss Souza.”
“Thank you sir,” I simpered. “I will try to be a model citizen.”
He ran a hand down my cheek.
“May I go to class, Sir?” I batted my lashes. “I would so like to learn how to combat this scourge of insurgency.”
He laughed and offered me a hand up.
“What an honourable goal.”
“Lord save the President, Sir!”
“Quite,” he lit a cigarette. “You are exactly as she described.”
I froze.
“Sorry, Sir?”
“I said you are exactly as Elizabeta described.”
I backed towards the door, rattling the unmoving handle.
***
My forehead aches as yet more engines roar into the drive then putter out. I flush with horror when I consider what lies in store. Twenty men are due at the house tonight. Twenty men, each with a reason to despise my uncle. Their host has invited them with the promise of a rare treat.
The doorbell rings again and again, and male laughter billows from the lounge downstairs. My nipples are hard and sensitive, and I wrap my arms around myself, though they are just as cold. My shoulder muscles tense, and those in my bottom tense too, around something specific, which makes me blush.
I sneeze, and my forehead comes away from the wall, but just as quickly, I replace it, and listen to the clink of glasses below me.
***
Mr Noon was enjoying my horror.
“Did you not know Elizabeta was working for us? No, I don’t suppose you did. She’s very good, you know. One of our finest.”
I refused to believe it. Elizabeta had worked for us for five years. She had been diligent, kind and meek. I had shared my teens with her. She knew so much about me, from the date of my first period to the way I took my tea.
I shook myself. Whether or not Noon was telling the truth, I was in trouble.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I tried to look stupid.
“You’re no more Dora Souza than I am Angel Gabriel.”
“Yes I am,” I mumbled, looking down into my collar.
“Dora Souza,” said Noon, “was the name of my niece. She was taken away three years ago for possession of a banned pamphlet. Your uncle’s orders, I believe.”
I licked my lips nervously.
“My uncle, Sir? He’s a farmer in…”
Noon bent me over a desk and grabbed a fistful of my hair.
“Don’t lie to me, Ms Carella.” Then he leaned in and whispered. “Marisa.”
I breathed as evenly as I could, the wood of the desk hard against my cheekbone. I dug in the waistband of my knickers and whipped out a knife, stabbing Noon in the thigh.
He yelled and stumbled backwards, letting go of me. But I had forgotten about the locked door. I tried jamming the little knife into the lock, but it wouldn’t go and I screamed for help.
Noon was pulling himself up, using the teacher’s desk for support. He winced as he did so, and I could feel his fury.
I dashed to the window, but there were metal grids fixed to the outside. As I grabbed a chair and made to smash the glass anyway, the door clicked and opened, and a second man walked in.
“What’s going on?”
“Help me!” I begged. “This man is a dissident. He’s trying to hurt me!”
“You poor child!” said the man, who was tall and sturdy with a neat beard and grey suit. “Noon, is this true?”
“Yes,” muttered my teacher, his trousers sodden in dark red. “It’s true. I regret nothing. Death to the bloated tyrant!” He groaned and pressed his leg to stem the flow.
The second teacher, who introduced himself as Freeman, pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket and called for a medic. Within seconds, a white-clad woman burst through the door and began to tourniquet and bandage the wounded man, before helping him to his feet and taking him away.
“Sir,” I squeezed my eyes until they filled with tears. “This has all been very upsetting. May I go home?”
My heart pounded. The little knife still lay by the door where I’d dropped it.
“Of course, Dora,” said Mr Freeman. “We’ll have the school bus drop you home. I do need to ask you one or two questions first, though. Let’s go into the music classroom. I believe it’s empty at the moment.”
He stroked my hair and my neck prickled. I followed him to the room, and sat down opposite.
“I’m terribly sorry you’ve experienced this terrible thing. I have to say, I knew there were reports of a rising rebellion, but I had no idea they were among us. Our own staff, whom we trust, who shape our young patriots’ thoughts and deeds. Kidnapping random pupils to serve in their cause.”
He shook his head sadly, and I nodded quietly. The edges of my collar had never felt blunter. My hair ribbon had come undone and fallen onto the floor, snaking across the tiles like a second blood spatter. My hand trembled and I held it close to me.
He commenced his questions with my name.
“Dora Souza.”
“Previous school?”
I settled gingerly back into my practised life story. He wanted my family details, my grades, my former address, my blood type. And then he asked me if I was a virgin.
“Sir?”
“Are you a virgin, Souza?”
I was too shocked to answer at first, but he took my hands in his and brought his wolfish face towards me.
“Have you allowed a boy to touch you? Deflower you? Your character affects the credence of your statement. Promiscuous girls are, sadly, seen as less reliable witnesses But I would encourage you to answer honestly, nonetheless. After all, perjury will have you sent to the labour camps, as you well know.”
“I’ve never…” I sputtered, and shook my head. Labour camps? I was beginning to get a clearer picture of everything about my uncle that I had never questioned. It is easy to turn a blind eye when you are comfortable. Why would you ever imagine anything else? Nonetheless, I was telling the truth. Prior to now, I had never ventured outside the palace, and none of the serving boys had been allowed to wait on me alone. I had never so much as touched myself. I might as well have been one of those blasted statues.
“Good. Well, I think that’s everything,” said Freeman, and made a mark on a form.
The walkie-talkie crackled into life, announcing that the bus was here. I worried for a second about what would happen to Noon, but let it slip away like raindrops from my coat. I was just relieved to be going home.
Mr Freeman waved me goodbye and headed back up the hall as I stepped out of the side door towards the waiting bus. I sneezed and the bus driver, a morose-looking man with black brows, passed me a handkerchief. As I put it to my nose, I noticed a sweet scent underpinned with chemicals. I made to take it away, and the driver smiled, clamped his hand over the cloth and held it there until it all went black.
***
I have always thought myself clever, but when your classroom only has one student, that’s not hard. Right now, I feel like nothing so much as a piece of meat, tenderised with a cruel paddle. I, who wandered miles of golden corridors daily, have to stand still like a clumsy dog while my mind spins, jitters and fizzes in anticipation of what comes next. I’ve been so stupid. At so many turns, I have been stupid.
***
When I came to, the bus was gone. I was aching – I must have fallen over. I was lying on a small, rickety bed and the inside of my head felt packed with paper. My school uniform had vanished, and I had on a short white nightshirt.
I sat up and my head throbbed from the chloroform. I reached up to scratch my neck and found I was wearing a slim steel collar. It was locked in place like a tough little halo. Was I in prison?
The door squeaked open and Mr Noon walked in, still in his neat suit. I grabbed the blankets and pulled them up to my neck.
“Good afternoon, Marisa” he said. “Or would you prefer we continue to call you Dora? I did enjoy our little game of Guess Who.”
“How did you…I thought Mr Freeman had you arrested!”
“It did look that way, didn’t it?”
“You intercepted the bus! Let me go!” I got to my feet and charged the door, but Noon caught me by the sleeve and grabbed hold of my hair like before. I winced as he pulled my neck straight, my little breasts standing out as he adjusted my posture.
Noon led me by the hair to the bed and pulled me face-forward across the covers, while I kicked and protested. He reached down beyond the far side of the bed and brought up black leather cuffs, clamping them around my wrists. I thrashed and kicked, landing a heel squarely into his injured thigh. He winced and groaned, but gritted his teeth and grabbed my ankles tightly. I screamed and yelled and threatened him in every way I knew, until eventually I ran out of steam and hung there, scarlet, angry tears streaming down my face.
“Now, you should learn fairly quickly that we expect certain standards of behaviour here,” he said. “And you, Miss Carella, are falling far short of our expectations. After all, the President’s niece should behave in a ladylike manner. She should be polite and respectful, just as her uncle’s citizens must be.”
I tried to kick again, but he was ready this time, and drew from under the bed two ankle restraints. They were linked to the handcuffs I wore by strong black webbing. He clipped me into them, stretching me out across the width of the bed, my white nightdress only just covering my modesty.
“What a spoilt little brat you are, Miss Carella. Fussing and swearing, attacking your teacher – disgraceful.”
“You’re no teacher!” I spat. “You’re a kidnapper and thug – and you’re a murderer too, I’ll bet. You’re probably planning to murder me.”
He laughed. “Oh, I can assure you I’m not. You’re much more valuable alive. And I dare say you’ll be more amusing too.”
In the hallway outside, I could hear someone making a telephone call. As I lay there, thinking about ways to escape, I felt a twitching at the hem of my nightdress, and flinched. Noon drew his finger along the cotton, brushing my thighs and bottom.
“Get off me!” I shouted, wriggling as much as I could.
“Get off you?” he said. “I don’t think you understand, Marisa. You’re mine to do with as I please. That is, until your uncle meets our demands.”
“GET OFF! HELP!” I screamed. The cuffs rubbed my wrists and the metal clips jingled pathetically.
Noon waited until I had tired myself out again, and resumed his exploration of my hemline. I felt a cool breeze as he gently lifted the cotton to reveal my bare bottom. I shouted and bitched at once, bucking once again. I cursed his family, spat into space, told him all the things I would have my uncle do to him as punishment, until –
WHACK! Noon brought down a hard wooden paddle on my behind. I was too shocked to cry out at first, but then it came down again – WHACK – and I found my voice.
“NO! NO! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME!”
Noon leaned in to whisper in my ear, as he had in the classroom.
“You’re going to have to learn one thing, young Marisa. You’re not the President’s niece here, pampered and protected. You are our prisoner, and our house-girl, and you’re going to learn to be very obedient indeed. You’re going to be learning quite a lot about humility here. It’s going to be very good for you. We’re going to treat you as your uncle has treated our country.”
He vanished from beside me, but only for a second, to bring down the paddle again.
“Let me go,” I sobbed.
“That’s not very grateful,” he said. “I want you to thank me for each punishment stroke. If you can do this, we’ll leave it at six.”
“Damn you!” I screamed. “Let me go!”
He slammed the paddle into my bottom, and it burned like hellfire.
“I’ve not started counting yet,” he warned.
“I won’t! I won’t thank you!” I cried.
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
At the sixth stroke, I couldn’t take any more.
“Thank you! Thank you!”
“Very nice,” said Noon, and I grimaced in humiliation. “Five more like that.”
“No!” I cried, but as he spanked me for the seventh time, I found myself crying out:
“Thank you!”
“Sir.”
“Thank you Sir!”
I pounded my cuffed hands on the bed, as he delivered four more strokes, each more agonising than the last. By the time we were done, I was mouthing “thank you”, tears running down my dishevelled face.
When Noon stroked my bottom, running a hand over my flaming cheeks, I didn’t resist.
“Now,” he said, “do I need to leave you cuffed, or can you behave?”
I mumbled something about behaving, and he untied me to collapse on the bed. Then he patted my head and left, locking the door behind him.
***
I hadn’t been broken at that point. I was in pain, and I’d surrendered once, but I still had some fight.
Now, as the voices bubble downstairs, I feel a familiar hand skate down my back and come to rest in the cleft above my bottom.
“Almost time for your debut, young Marisa.”
I flinch, but do not look back. I knew what will happen if I do.
“But first,” says the voice in my ear, “We need to get you properly attired.”
***
Back in my rickety bed, I plotted how to get to the telephone. I would ask the operator to put me through to my uncle, get help, get out of here. I didn’t know what they had in store for me, and I didn’t trust Noon’s promise that they would not kill me. Better to get out now than hope for clemency.
If I got out, I would make sure Elizabeta suffered.
My chance came when one of the younger lads came in with my food. He was skinny and short, and looked like he’d not had a decent meal himself in a while.
I groaned in my bed, as if in pain. He tried to ignore me, but found himself unable to shut himself off.
“Are you ill?” he asked, putting down the tray.
“I think…I feel dizzy…” I whispered, and he padded over to me like the sap he was. I flipped him onto the bed and climbed on top of him, jamming my pillow onto his face while he kicked and jerked. Eventually he passed out, and I removed it, not wanting to kill him. I hooked the underbed cuffs around his wrists and ankles, and slipped out of the door.
The telephone hung on the wall down the hallway. I dashed across, lifted the receiver and paused. The police? I had no way of knowing if they were loyal to my uncle. If teachers and servants could fall to these terrorists, who could I trust?
I whispered to the operator that I wanted to speak to the President. She laughed and said something I couldn’t make out to her fellow operators.
“Listen!” I hissed. “I’m his niece, do you understand? I’m in trouble. I need to contact him.”
Downstairs I heard footsteps, and prayed they would not come up and find me.
“Walk on, little sister,” said the operator, and hung up.
A voice came floating up the stairs.
“Wickton – is everything ok?”
I froze. The boy was out cold.
“Wickton? Do you need me to come up?”
I tried to deepen my voice as much as I could, calling
“Everything’s fine, Sir. Just staying to make sure the prisoner eats her food.”
“Jesus, Wickton, you sound more like a girl every time I hear you,” joshed the voice downstairs. “Never mind, lad. One day your balls’ll drop.”
The footsteps receded and I breathed again and picked up the handset once more. Who could I call? I had no friends outside the palace. I had no contacts at all.
If I went back to the bedroom now, they wouldn’t know I’d been out. Or I could try the oak panelling of the corridor; feel about for any secret passages. But something compelled me to try one more number.
“Operator. Which name please?”
“Freeman please. Geshenn Secondary School.”
“Hold please.”
I gripped the receiver so hard my fingers went white. The line was silent, silent,crackling, silent. Come on, I pleaded to myself. Please connect. Find him.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“Mr Freeman!” I gasped. “It’s Mar – it’s Dora. Sir, they took me! You have to help me! They’ve got me chained up in some house somewhere. I don’t know where. I don’t know what they’re going to do to me! Help me, please!”
“I’m sorry,” said the voice. “Mr Freeman is away from his desk right now. You should probably call the police.”
“I need to speak to him,” I begged. “When will he be back?”
“Right about now,” said a voice behind me, and there, next to a dazed Wickton, stood Noon and Freeman.
***
Well of course he was part of all this. For all my expensive tutors and private library, I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face. If I’d had my wits about me, I’d never have left the palace, no matter how bad the news seemed to get.
A voice comes now from the bedroom.
“Marisa dear, come through. I’ve got the most adorable outfit picked out for you.”
I feel my bruised bottom throb, and trudge towards the light.
***
I dropped the receiver, and it clattered against the panelling.
“What a naughty little girl you are, Marisa,” said Freeman. “Leaving your bedroom without permission, using the telephone to slander your hosts, nearly suffocating poor Wickton here…You may be a President’s daughter but you are behaving like a brat.”
“I should have left her manacled,” said Noon. “My apologies. I thought she would be no trouble.”
Freeman smiled. “Not at all, Noon. Anyone would assume so, given the privilege this girl has known. But it seems perhaps she has known too much, and would benefit from a little more discipline. Wickton, fetch my red bag.”
Freeman and Noon rounded on me, cornering me at the end of the hallway. I screamed again and lashed out with kicks and spitting. I took a huge vase from its stand and hurled it at them. They both sidestepped and the porcelain flew between them, smashing against the far wall.
“Dear me,” said Freeman. “I dare say your strike book is filling up very quickly. What a little brat you are.”
“Get away from me!” I screeched, grabbing the stand and wielding it in front of me as they approached. “I’ll kill you both!”
Neither man seemed fazed. Noon stepped forward and twisted the stand away from me with his strong wrists. At the same time, Freeman swept his leg behind my own, sending me sprawling.
As I lay on the ground, Noon straddled me and tied my hands together. Behind him, Wickton returned with a maroon leather bag which rattled when he put it down. He unclipped the clasp and brought out a cloth gag with a soft rubber ball attached. I clamped my mouth shut and growled in fury, so he simply held my nose until I gasped, then pushed in the ball and tied the soft cloth ends around my head.
I thumped my hands on the ground, and Wickton laughed softly.
“Noisy creature,” he commented to Noon. “We have some work to do if we wish to make her our obedient little house-girl.”
“Quite,” said Noon. “Perhaps we could take her back into the bedroom and get started.”
I bucked as he lifted his weight off me, and he grabbed a hunk of my hair to still me and make me acquiesce. It burned my head, and I could only follow him to alleviate the pain. Once Noon, Freeman and myself were inside, the door was locked. I was allowed to stand up and shake out my aching body.
“Now, Miss Carella,” said Noon. “It’s time you learned that you are no longer a little princess in a golden chamber. Your uncle’s tyranny and your spoilt existence came from the suffering of others. Now you are going to make amends. And if you insist on being difficult, you too shall suffer. Do you understand?”
I glowered and tried to spit at him, but the gag meant my spit drooled down my cheek. This raised a chuckle between my captors.
“I do suggest you try and behave,” said Freeman. “You already have a fair few demerits, which we will deal with now.”
He put me back across the bed, face down, and clipped my rope bonds to one of the cuffs to stretch me out. I lashed out with my legs and those were once again shackled.
“I like her in this pretty little nightshirt,” said Freeman, “but I do think she needs it removing for punishment.”
I protested into my gag. No! They couldn’t strip me! But as I wriggled and thrashed, the two men simply fetched scissors and placed them at the hem of the dress.
“I would stay still if I were you,” said Freeman, laying the cold steel of the scissors against my skin. “I’d hate to slip and injure you.”
I stopped dead. The scissors bit into the fabric and I made muffled cries as they made their way up the cotton, exposing my back and bottom to the breeze in the room. Noon (I think) pulled the two halves of the dress apart, and I burned with shame as I felt their eyes on me.
“Why, she already has some marks!” observed Freeman. “Did she give you trouble, Noon?”
Noon nodded and related my earlier actions.
“I should like to administer some punishment myself for that one,” said Freeman. “Particularly as this little viper was the cause of your original injury. Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” said Noon, and I heard a grin in his voice.
The next thing I knew, a familiar piece of wood was being gently patted against my behind. I sobbed into my gag but my sounds were far from words.
“Six,” said Freeman. “More if you interrupt me.”
I closed my eyes and cried out as the first stroke came down on my already-bruised bottom.
“It’s no good. I need her speaking if she’s to thank me,” said Freeman, and untied my sopping gag. My mouth was red and wet like a crying child’s.
“What do you say?”
“Go to hell,” I hissed.
WHACK.
“Nooo,” I moaned.
“What do you say?”
WHACK.
I was unable to catch my breath. My head was full of little explosions and my behind was on fire. I couldn’t give in –
WHACK.
“Thankyouthankyou!” I blurted, and immediately hated myself for giving in.
Freeman was very amused.
“Doesn’t take much with these pampered little rich girls, does it? Good little Marisa. Now we can actually begin your six strokes. With a thank-you for each one, lest we start again.”
The paddle came down and down in a shower of sparks, each time harder than the last, and I found myself begging, thanking him as if he were a god.
When it was over, Freeman stroked my bottom, causing me to wince in pain and shame. I did not fight back this time, or curse him, or threaten him with my father’s armies. I sobbed to myself, my naked bottom speckled and blotched like a map.
At last he removed his wandering hand and unfastened my bonds. He turned, with Noon, to leave, observing: “I think another session like this, perhaps filmed to send to your uncle, and we might introduce you to our comrades. A guest of honour, so to speak.”
“Oh,” he added, just before they locked the door. “Should you need to use it, there’s a chamber pot in the corner. It’s an antique and you won’t get another, so don’t break this one.”
***
Noon is standing by the bed. On the maroon covers he has laid out a number of items. There is a pristine white ribbon to tie in my hair, a pair of white stockings, trimmed with lace, a pair of lacy white wrist gloves and a new ball gag, also in white lace. There is also a black box, which for now he leaves closed.
“Come here,” he says evenly. I look behind him and see a series of hooks on the wall. A cane hangs from each one, and I wince, thinking about the consequences of refusing.
***
Later that morning, Freeman and Noon set up a camera and had me kneel before it, wearing nothing but my collar. They handed me a wooden dildo and told me to suck on it. Horrified, I refused. Calmly, they invited in the young lad, Wickton, and asked him to hold me down across the bed.
“We could simply restrain your niece, Dear President, but since she injured our comrade here, we thought he might appreciate being part of her punishment.”
The camera whirred, as Freeman and Noon took it in turns to cane me, asking after each stroke whether I would like to suck on the toy for the camera. My face was level with Wickton’s belt buckle, and I could see him getting hard as he watched.
And then I could take no more. I whimpered and snivelled, and begged, and they bade Wickton let me up, my bottom striped in furious reds and purples.
They put me back on my knees and handed me the toy, and I put it right into my mouth and sucked it and sucked it, crying all the while. The camera consumed the whole shameful spectacle.
“I think she is ready,” said Freeman. “Tell our comrades that tonight we shall have a celebration, and they are all invited to meet our charming new house-girl.”
***
As I stand, hanging my head, in the tiny lace apron, gloves and stockings, I am sick with dread. Any moment now, Noon will send me out to meet his guests: the niece of their enemy, my little breasts on display, stripes screaming across my bottom, theirs to do with what they will.
“Just two more details to add to your costume, Marisa,” Noon says, opening the long black box. He draws out a strange object, shaped like a blunt little tree, with two silver bells hanging from the end, tinkling. Then he bids me bend over the bed.
I hesitate and he grabs a cane from the wall, swishing it loudly. I bend over, trembling.
Next thing, I feel a wetness, as he pulls apart my cheeks, slipping a gooey finger into my anus. I gasp and wince, as this is followed by the object from the box. In it goes, all the way, until only the tiny bells protrude from my bottom. I stand up, blushing, and they jingle sweetly.
Noon leads me downstairs by a ring in my collar, carrying the cane in his left hand as a warning to me to behave. The din of male voices grows louder, the closer we get, and I want to cry, to run, to scream, but daren’t.
Outside the door to the party, he announces he wishes to add the final touch. He makes me get down on all fours like a hound, and fixes a weight to my collar. It is neat but heavy, and stops me lifting my head high enough to get up.
“But how will I…move?” I whimper.
“Oh, I think you’ll find you can drag it along by crawling,” he smiles. “This should give you a taste of what life is like under your uncle’s rule. And as you crawl, that should make your bells ring very prettily. Yes, I think our guests will find you delightful.”
So saying, he opens the door, announcing “The Presidential Niece, Miss Marisa Carella! Gentlemen, who would like the first dance?”