Discipline of the Private House (18 page)

'No, madame,' Jem said, trembling with fear as much as with excitement. 'Thank you, madame.'

The Chatelaine slapped Jem's backside. 'Now undress me, slave,' she said. 'Then climb on to the bed.'

Giving pleasure to the Chatelaine was no punishment. Jem adored the Chatelaine's high, conical breasts and their long nipples; she always enjoyed tasting another woman's sexual excitement, and using her tongue to penetrate and titillate. The fact that the Chatelaine required her to keep her bottom raised, and made her ask formally for permission to proceed with each act, and called her by the most degrading and obscene names, seemed to Jem to add to rather than detract from the experience.

Under Jem's expert tongue the Chatelaine came quickly and ground her vulva against Jem's face as, between the gulping breaths of her climax, she promised again to keep her new slave in chains for ever.

They ate a light meal: the Chatelaine had Jem feed her with her fingers, and Jem was then permitted to ask for the scraps, which she ate, sitting naked on the floor, while the Chatelaine ran a bath.

While she took small bites from the last piece of bread, Jem reflected that, so far, being the lowliest slave in the Chateau was far from disagreeable. Hunger, she thought, might be the most trying aspect of the place; that, and being continually aroused but not permitted to come.

She licked her fingers, and breathed in again the sharp, slightly lemony smell of the Chatelaine's sex. She felt a shiver of desire, and allowed her hand to fall into her lap, her fingers to curl around her shaven mound. It would take only a few slight movements to bring her to the edge. But she was a slave, and slaves were not to touch themselves without permission. She would have to ask; the thought of doing so caused another stab of desire. If permission were granted, the Chatelaine would watch her. And the pleasure, Jem realised, would be much more intense.

She got up, stretched, and strolled to the bathroom. In the doorway she sank to her knees. The Chatelaine was in the bath. The room was hot with steam, and smelled of the perfumed bubbles that rose in foaming piles around the Chatelaine's body.

'Madame,' Jem said, 'I apologise for interrupting. May I have permission to masturbate?'

The Chatelaine smiled. 'Certainly not,' she said. 'You are not here for your own entertainment. However, you may wash me.'

Once the Chatelaine had been covered in bubbles and then rinsed, and had had her breasts and her sex sponged until she had come again, Jem was allowed to reuse the tepid bath water for a few minutes in order to clean herself.

The Chatelaine also told Jem that, as long as she was quick about it, she could use the contents of the Chatelaine's dressing table so that she would look presentable for the rest of the day.

'Cosmetics are the only luxuries that you will be allowed,' the Chatelaine said. 'Not for your own benefit, of course. It's simply one of your duties as a slave to make yourself pleasing to everyone in the Chateau.'

Jem merely thanked her mistress very politely, and proceeded to help herself to perfume, powder, oils and rouge. She had succeeded in sampling all of the most expensive items in the Chatelaine's armoury when there was a knock at the door.

'I'm sorry to interrupt, madame.' It was Robert's voice. 'But the deportment class is about to begin, and I thought it best to check whether you had finished with the new slave.'

'One moment, Robert,' the Chatelaine called out. She almost ran to the dressing table, pulled Jem up, and kissed her. Then she held her at arm's length, nodded approvingly, and clipped the leash on to Jem's collar. 'On your knees, you pretty little whore,' she whispered. 'Now we'll see how long you can submit to real discipline.' She raised her voice. 'Come in, Robert. Take away this dirty little girl. And remember, don't spare her.'

The shutters at the windows kept Olena's room in half-darkness even when it was daylight outside. Nicole, on arriving with breakfast, had opened only one shutter, and then only slightly.

'It's late,' Nicole had said. 'But it doesn't matter: your next session is not until this afternoon. The Chatelaine and Master Robert have returned with a new slave. She's very special. It's all rather exciting.'

Olena had felt a sudden pang that she recognised as envy; she was already accustomed to being the centre of attention at the Chateau. The jealousy had been followed immediately by a wave of shame, as she had realised how self-obsessed she had become.

'And don't try to cover yourself,' Nicole had continued. 'You know that you must try not to think about your breasts and your pudenda. Put your hands behind your back. Come and sit next to me; I'll feed you your breakfast.'

Olena had submitted to being fed as if she were a baby.

During the meal Nicole had caressed Olena's breasts and the insides of her thighs, in order, Nicole had said, that Olena could become accustomed to finding such attentions normal and not particularly exciting.

After the last mouthful of croissant and hot chocolate, Nicole had wiped Olena's lips and had congratulated her on managing to remain unaware of her breasts and her private parts throughout the meal. Olena had blushed and stammered, but had been too ashamed to admit that Nicole's gentle touches had left her in a turmoil of emotions, and that she had felt the tell-tale signs of her wickedness from the moment that Nicole had told her to reveal her body.

She had known that she should have told Nicole that her breasts felt warm, that her nipples felt hard and tense, and that between her parted legs she could feel the hot tickling that indicated that she was getting wet inside. And she had known that she should have immediately asked to be punished. As Nicole had cleared the plates and cups on to the tray, Olena had tried to raise the subject of discipline.

'Yesterday,' she had begun, T did badly in the tests. And Barat said I needed to be smacked again. Well, Nicole, the thing is that I think today -'

'Don't concern yourself with yesterday,' Nicole had interrupted with a smile. 'You'll learn how to be good. It may take some time, but we'll all do our best to help you. Forget about yesterday. We'll give you more tests today, and you'll have another chance to show us how well you can behave.'

Olena had almost burst into tears of frustration. She didn't understand why she found herself looking forward to the testing and the examinations, even though she knew that she was doomed to fail and to suffer the humiliation of disappointing Barat. And she had wished that she could make Nicole, at least, understand that the punishments were doing no good. At the end of the previous day's examination Barat had held her gently in his arms and had whispered encouraging words from the holy texts while Nicole and Isabelle, each concentrating on one buttock, had spanked her soundly with their bare hands and then with strips of wood. And although she was filled with remorse, Olena had found herself floating on clouds of inexpressible pleasure, anticipating each smack with a guilty thrill and revelling in the pressure of Barat's coarse robe against her naked breasts.

'But today,' Olena had insisted, 'I've already had some of those sinful feelings today. Dozing in bed, I was thinking about Barat.'

'And what exactly were you thinking about, Olena?' Nicole had asked with a knowing smile.

Olena had blushed fiercely, and had had to make several attempts to start her confession. 'I was thinking about touching his thing - you know, his penis. I was holding it against my face.'

'That's a very wicked thought, Olena.'

'But that's not all. You were there, too, in my daydream. You were sitting next to Barat. I was across the knees of both of you. And you were smacking my bottom, as you did yesterday.'

'Oh, but that's much better,' Nicole had cried. 'You see? You are already beginning to associate sinful imaginings with punishments. That's the way to banish those wicked thoughts. I expect you felt very pure and virtuous after your daydream.'

Olena had once again had to choke back a sob of despair. No: she had not felt pure and virtuous. She had touched her breasts, and had wanted to touch the places between her legs which she had known were sticky with the wetness that she seemed to produce so readily.

'Perhaps Barat and I will try the test that you have dreamed up,' Nicole said. 'Today, though, you can rest until it's time for your examination. I'll take you to the library now. I know you're used to studying, and it must seem like an age since you last had the chance to do some reading.'

Nicole had told Olena that she would be allowed to wear her robe in the public areas of the Chateau. The prospect of being permitted to cover her nakedness and to browse in a well-stocked library had pulled Olena from her pit of self-criticism.

As she followed Nicole through dimly lit corridors full of baroque decoration, however, and as they silently passed and met other inhabitants of the vast mansion, Olena became increasingly conscious that she must be the only person in the Chateau who was not displaying her body. Several men and women, who hurried along the passageways as if on urgent errands, wore nothing more than arrangements of leather or rubber belts. Olena noticed with a shiver that all of these scurrying people displayed naked bottoms, and that some of the bottoms bore scarlet stripes. Other, more languid men and women were slightly more fully dressed, but in costumes that, like Nicole's, seemed only to draw attention to their bodies.

And, as ever in the Chateau, from behind the closed doors issued sounds that Olena was beginning to be able to decipher.

A few of the men and women in the corridors greeted Nicole with a smile, a word, or a kiss on both cheeks; all of them, however, stared at Olena. She imagined that they could see through her robe and were inspecting her naked body; that they could see into her heart and discover the extent of her sin. She told herself that she was being silly, and that they were looking at her simply because she was covered from neck to feet. She was flustered and blushing, however, and very relieved when Nicole announced that they had arrived at the library.

Behind the tall, ornately carved doors was a long, high-ceilinged room that smelled pleasantly of leather and dust. Halfway along one wall logs blazed in a vast stone fireplace; on either side there were only shelves laden with books. The yellow light from lamps mounted on wrought-iron pedestals picked out the gold embossing on book spines that were tall, short, wide and thin. The other side of the room was divided into small alcoves, each of which contained more shelves, a solid wooden table, fitted seats upholstered with red leather, and a high, square window of bottle glass through which could be seen only the dim daylight and the overhang of the battlements. The library was empty and, apart from the crackle of the burning wood, silent.

'It's warm in here,' Nicole said. 'If you take the alcove opposite the fire, you'll be very cosy. You can hang your robe on one of the hooks behind the door.'

'My robe?' Olena asked, even as she began to undo the buttons. 'Am I to be naked?'

'Yes, you silly thing,' Nicole said, laughing. 'There's no one else here. You won't be disturbed. You must wear your robe when walking through the Chateau, of course. It's a question of modesty. But when you are alone, or with others who are helping to train you, you must be completely naked.'

As Olena struggled, with some assistance from Nicole, to pull the heavy garment up to her shoulders and over her head, she realised that, although it was an alarming prospect to be naked and alone in such a grand chamber, she felt happier without the robe. As the hem reached her waist she felt the heat from the fire on her thighs and buttocks, and wondered momentarily how she would be punished later in the day after her inevitable failure in the tests. Nicole tugged on the robe and Olena's breasts fell free; she felt a stab of sensation that was too exciting to be painful.

Olena saw that Nicole, returning from hanging the robe on a hook, was appraising her bared body. She knew that she should cover herself, that she should demand the return of the robe. But Nicole and the others seemed to like looking at her breasts and her bottom, and she could not deny that she enjoyed the attention. It seemed that there was no end to her wickedness. In the city she had been prey to thoughts that she had feared were not strictly in accordance with the correct behaviour required by the community; here in the Chateau she was discovering that she was more vile than she had ever imagined.

With her heart thudding in her bosom and her inner voice, accusing her of deliberate wrongdoing, echoing in her head, she folded her arms behind her back and thrust her breasts forward as Nicole drew near.

Nicole smiled, caressed Olena's left breast, and lowered her head to place a kiss on the nipple. 'Very good, Olena,' she said. 'If you offer yourself up to temptation, it will become easier to resist.'

'Thank you,' was all Olena could say. But she was thinking: Please touch my breasts again, because I know you desire them, and I'm proud of them being big and smooth and firm, and I'd love you to squeeze them and kiss them so that they feel heated and tingling and give me those sticky, itching feelings in my secret place. Another voice in her mind was telling her that she was becoming more and more wicked and defiled, and that she deserved to be punished severely. And beyond that voice, in the centre of her being, lay the thrilling fear that no amount of punishment would be enough to drive her from sin.

'I have to go now,' Nicole said. 'The Chatelaine has other duties for me. I'll return later. You'll be all right here, won't you?' She touched Olena's breast again, briefly.