Discipline of the Private House (4 page)

Nicole could imagine Robert's sinister smile. The Chatelaine rarely found his suggestions other than acceptable. Nicole heard his heavy leather belt sliding through his fingers. She kissed the Chatelaine's smooth labia. She felt a bubble of excitement expand inside her. This was going to be painful, exhausting and very enjoyable.

'A good idea, Robert,' the Chatelaine said. 'Don't be gentle with her.'

Barat heard slow footsteps on the bare floor of the hall. After a while, there was a tap on the door. Olena had arrived.

Barat adjusted the bedside lamp one more time, tilting the shade to ensure that he would be in shadow while what little illumination the lamp provided would fall on the farther end of the single bed. He had covered the chair with books; Olena would have nowhere to sit but beside him, in the pale pool of light.

He waited. Olena knocked again, two tentative taps.

'Come in,' he said, keeping his voice low and controlled.

The door opened. Olena stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the harsh yellow light in the hallway. In spite of the swathes of rough cloth that the ridiculous

customs of their community condemned women to be cocooned in, he saw - or craved, or imagined -the bountiful curves of her body.

'Brother Barat?' she whispered.

'Come in,' he repeated. 'Close the door. And you may address me as "Barat",' he added. He thought that he might as well continue to take even the smallest of opportunities to undermine her faith in the community's ways. She closed the door and stood uncertainly in the shadows.

'These rooms are so small,' he continued conversationally. 'And the landlords don't provide much in the way of lighting. You can sit here, next to me.'

'On the bed?' she said.

He allowed himself a smile. Even if she could see it, she would interpret it as reassuring. He found her voice delightfully timid.

'Where else?'

She lowered herself on to the bed. The mattress was old and soft. She couldn't help leaning towards him, and jerked upright when her shoulder touched his.

'Sorry, brother,' she said.

'It's nothing,' Barat said. 'It's not like our country village here. So many people, so little space. We will have to learn not to mind touching occasionally.'

She turned to look at him. Heavens, but she was lovely. Her skin was lighter than his: the colour of milky coffee, and without a blemish. Such huge, dark eyes. Such full hps.

'Lean on my shoulder again. Just to demonstrate that there's no harm in it.'

She looked shocked. 'Again? But -'

He placed his hand on her back and pulled her towards him. She hardly resisted. He had to restrain an exclamation of joy. She wanted him. It was obvious.

Her shoulder came to rest against his. She was close enough to kiss.

'There,' he said. 'That's not so bad, is it? There's so little room in here. The commandments permit us to make allowances for the situations we find ourselves in.'

'Do they?' she asked. She smelt of soap and perfumed oil. 'So this isn't sinful?'

'Of course not,' Barat assured her. 'After all, I'm your guardian here. The elders appointed me to look after you. You can trust me.'

He heard her sigh. 'That's all right, then,' she said.

They sat in silence for a while, and then both started talking at once. Olena giggled.

'What is it?' Barat said.

'That's what I was going to ask you,' she said, laughing and displaying little white teeth. 'What is it you asked me here for?'

'Oh, all the usual things,' Barat said, taking the opportunity to lay a hand casually on her knee. Two pats, and remove the hand: mustn't make her anxious. 'How are you finding the work at college, are you managing to sleep in that tiny room. That sort of thing.'

He didn't wait for a reply. He knew that she found the college course straightforward, and that she didn't like her room. 'Don't you find the omnibuses oppressive? And do you think that people stare at you in the streets?'

'Perhaps,' Olena replied. 'Yes, I think they look at me. I don't like it.'

'I think it's because of our robes,' Barat said sadly. 'And, in your case, the headdress, of course. That must look very strange to the city people.'

Unlike Olena, Barat had spent some considerable time walking through the streets of the city, particularly in the seamier quarters, and he was aware that in this cosmopolitan environment even the most outlandish costume would pass unremarked. But he guessed that Olena felt self-conscious.

'You can take the headdress off,' Barat announced, and added, to allay her fears before she could state them: 'We're alone. I'm your guardian, I'm here in place of your mother and father. You would let your mother see you with your hair loose. It's all right.'

Olena was already reaching for the pins and the ties that held the ornate structure in place on her head. The thing must be intolerably uncomfortable, Barat thought; I'll have no difficulty persuading her that she need not wear it very often. Perhaps not at all, while we're in the city.

And she had such lustrous hair. Barat found himself reaching to touch it, and as Olena gazed at him he managed to turn the gesture into a wave of approval. Her locks, dark and wavy as the night-time ocean, fell to her shoulders and halfway down her back. She shook her head, and her tresses shimmered.

That's better,' Barat said. 'If you would prefer it, you can go without the headdress. Perhaps not when out in public, but certainly in your own room and when you're with me.'

Thank you, Barat,' she said.

He noticed that this time she had addressed him by name alone, without his formal title. Her cheeks were flushed and, although her head was lowered, she was continually looking up at him.

He smiled at her. She had to rely on him; she knew no one else in the entire city. She would do whatever he instructed her to do, as long as he could convince her that the community's rules could be interpreted sufficiently widely. And he sensed that she wanted to be convinced.

'Let me put my arm around you,' he said, 'to symbolise my protection of you.'

Olena didn't protest. He held her. He could feel her heart beating. Silently he cursed the layers of cloth between their bodies.

'Tomorrow,' he said, 'after your morning lecture, would you like to visit some shops? You know that I have been entrusted with a small sum with which to keep you clothed. I don't think the elders could object if we were to find you some clothing that made you a little less conspicuous in the street. And perhaps some more comfortable, simple clothes for you to wear when you're in your room and when you're with me. What do you think?'

'I'd like that, Barat! If you're sure it's all right.'

'Of course it is. Now, kneel in front of me. We'll say our prayers.'

Olena kneeled and lowered her head over her hands, which were clasped together only a finger's length in front of Barat's knees. Barat prayed devoutly: he prayed for the day when the two of them would be like this, but naked, with Olena's slim fingers curled around the shaft of his erection. He knew he could make his prayers come true.

'So it's decided,' the Chatelaine said. 'You'll send Stefan and Itomi to find and bring back our wandering twosome. It's that tall, dark-haired fellow Heinrich, isn't it? And who is with him?'

The steady rhythm of Robert's lashes seemed to Nicole to slow a little as he considered his reply. 'Leila,' he said. 'A young girl. Much admired. It's difficult, madame, to prevent some of the trainees from forming attachments to each other.'

'No doubt. And you're sure this won't be a case of sending out two incompetents to round up two miscreants?'

Robert delivered a quick, stinging lash to Nicole's sore bottom. He seemed reluctant to bring the discussion to a close. 'Stefan and Itomi aren't incompetent,' he said. 'Merely inexperienced.'

His belt landed again, on Nicole's left buttock. The tip caught the sensitive skin of her perineum. Her yelp was muffled because she was in the middle of kissing along the length of the Chatelaine's labia.

'And the missing couple should be easy to find,' Robert went on. 'They are never apart. They can't bear to wear anything but the leather harnesses they became accustomed to wearing here, and so during the day, when outside, they shroud themselves in very distinctive long robes. They look like a mendicant monk and nun. Even Stefan and Itomi should be able to track them down. We know which part of the city they were sent to live in.'

'They're probably just having too much fun to report in,' the Chatelaine said. 'They're young and headstrong. And they will have to be chastised most severely.'

'Talking of fun, madame,' Robert said, 'may I point out that Nicole's posterior is now bright red, and she's quite obviously ready for penetration. In fact, she's almost dripping.'

'Not so fast, Robert,' the Chatelaine said. 'Nicole is here for
my
benefit, not yours. Press your mouth hard against me, Nicole. That's right. Now push your tongue inside. That's lovely. Now, Robert, give her ten more strokes. Very hard. I want to feel Nicole being pushed into me with each one.'

Somewhere in the midst of the ensuing blaze of pain that engulfed her rear end, Nicole felt the Chatelaine's hands grasping her head, and the Chatelaine's thighs clasping her face, and the Chatelaine's voice urging Robert to strike harder. Nicole's mouth was running with the Chatelaine's sharp juices. Her world had been reduced to the taste and smell of the Chatelaine's hot vulva; the burning, throbbing pain of her arse; and the equally insistent throbbing of her clitoris and nipples, demanding attention.

Nicole dimly heard Robert's voice. 'With your permission, madame, I'll insert the large ivory phallus into Nicole's vagina, and for her anus I'll use this.'

'Very impressive, Robert, as ever. Lubricate her well, first.'

'Of course, madame,' Robert said. Nicole thought he sounded thwarted. She felt his fingers delving into her sex and smearing her wetness around and into her anus. 'I'll ride her hard, madame, so that you can feel the thrusts.'

'How very considerate,' the Chatelaine said. 'Nicole, you can start licking now.'

It felt to Olena curiously wicked to leave on a light - even the dim illumination of the bedside lamp - as she undressed. Vanity was a sin, but she couldn't resist the idea of looking at her body reflected in the mirror. For the first few days she had kept the small mirror turned to face the wall, but Barat had told her that it was all right to use it, in order to check her appearance before leaving for college, for instance. It still felt wicked to pick it up and use it to inspect her own naked body. And even if that wasn't a sin, she was sure that there was something wicked and shameful about the feelings that she had when she thought about Barat, or her body: the warmth between the tops of her thighs, and the sinking sensation, like being scared but much nicer, in the pit of her stomach.

Her breasts - she said the word to herself, in a whisper, and shuddered - seemed to have grown each time she looked at them. She was sure they were larger than those of any of the other young women on her course. Olena liked her breasts. She knew it was naughty to touch them other than when strictly necessary, of course, but when she was washing herself, or dressing, she sometimes found herself stroking them. It felt very pleasant. The skin of her breasts was soft, yet she found that as she caressed them her breasts became firmer. She liked the fact that they were now so large and round that they looked almost too big for her girlish chest and shoulders; when she lay on her back in bed, her breasts would overlap her armpits; standing, she could create a deep valley between them by moving her arms together only slightly.

When she heard her fellow students talking about the necessity of padded underwear and low-cut dresses for making the most of their busts, Olena felt smug - which was a sin - and, even worse, she felt envious of their freedom to display such charms as they had.

But Barat had said that she could have some different clothes. Perhaps, while they were shopping, she would dare to suggest that she should have some new underclothes, too. She knew the kinds of things that young women wore here in the city; she averted her eyes but she couldn't help catching glimpses of advertisements for lingerie and swimming costumes. In fact, some of the clothes that the students wore were so sheer that she could see the underwear beneath.

She imagined her breasts no longer compressed within the stiff bodices that she had brought with her from home, but instead supported in cups of coloured lace. She imagined wearing a diaphanous dress, with nothing underneath but a tiny pair of panties. It was so pleasurable to have such imaginings; surely they couldn't be sinful? But she knew they were.

She moved the mirror lower and found herself looking at the reflection of the deeply shadowed triangle of dark curls below her belly. She looked away quickly; this area seemed to her to be the centre and source of the wicked feelings she was having.

Instead, she held the mirror at her hip and twisted her head in an attempt to see her bottom. This was, she knew, a part of her body almost as forbidden as the area between her legs, but she had heard the other girls on her course talking quite openly about their own bottoms - usually complaining that they were too big - and also, to Olena's amazement, discussing the bottoms of some of the male students.