Judgment II: Mercy (3 page)

21

Judgment II: Mercy

by Denise Hall

Mary lowered her eyes and shook her head jerkily from side to side.

"Mouth closed," he told her, "eyes down, and follow me."

She trailed behind him, crossing the empty courtyard on feet so cold that it felt as though she were walking on needles. Just as he was pulling open the fortress door, a gust of wind knocked her into his back. She latched onto his coat to keep from falling to her knees, only to gasp through gritted teeth an instant later when Tane hauled her onto her tiptoes by a fistful of her own blonde hair.

He pushed her inside ahead of him. Barely had she cleared the threshold than did the wind slam the door shut.

Her breath steamed the air; it wasn't much warmer inside than out, and the only light came from the adjacent room straight ahead. That was all Mary had a chance to see, before he spun her around to face the wall.

"Bend over!" he barked, as cold as the air around them.

"Hands on the wall. Spread your legs." His broad hand cracked solidly across the very center of her buttocks. "I said bend over. And get those legs apart; don't make me repeat myself again!"

Being cold made Mary feel clumsy, slow and stiff. She spread her feet so wide, she could feel the strain along the insides of her thighs, and she adjusted her hands on the icy stones so that she bent straight over at the hips.

His warm hand settled between her shoulders, the heat of his touch emphasizing just how cold she really was. It slid slowly down her back along her spine to caress her bottom, his fingers stroking lightly over each summit before delving 22

Judgment II: Mercy

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between them. He skimmed the rim of her anus before moving further down, parting the clenched lips of her sex with his middle finger. He stroked her slowly up and down, the tip of his finger circled her hooded clit, around and around endlessly until she began to shake from more than just the cold. Without speaking a word, he then slipped it inside her, sinking that single digit in all the way up to his palm.

"Is this what you wanted when you came here?" he asked.

"Or did you have something more like this—" His hand abandoned her body, only to come crashing down on her right bottom cheek with brutal intensity. "—in mind?"

He swatted the other side just as hard, and Mary almost jerked upright.

"Oh!" She caught herself before her hands left the wall and quickly resumed her bent position.

"I asked you a question," he said.

Her teeth chattered. "B-both."

"You must think this a game."

"N-no..."

"Did I give you permission to contradict?" He swatted her again, this time his hand catching the tops of her thighs, right, left, right, left, four to each in rapid succession.

Her skin was so cold, the pain of it instantly flooded her eyes with tears. It made her back arch, and she wiggled her hips, fighting to keep from kicking or twisting away.

"I am not your friend," he said, and punctuated each statement with a slap so hard that it made her cry out. "I am not your buddy, your chum, or your pal. When you speak to me—" he delivered another teeth-jarring blow that had her 23

Judgment II: Mercy

by Denise Hall

arching up on tiptoes with a ragged gasp as her fingernails scraped the wall. "—you will do so with respect."

"Yes, sir!" she panted, then cringed, squealed and finally cried out in frantic desperation as he lay a vicious barrage all over her smarting flanks.

"Master!" he snapped.

And she cried out an immediate echo of, "Master! Yes, Master!"

The blows ceased and the heat of his palm returned to rest between her shoulders. He didn't say anything. As Mary stood panting and gasping, marveling at the fury of his bare hand and praying for it to be over, from behind them she heard a voice very similar to Tane's:

"Here's the leash. Who's the stray?"

"A little kitten," Tane rumbled, "I found mewling at the gates."

"And you brought her inside?" The owner of that sonorous voice chuckled. "Quite the Samaritan you've become."

"Hardly." Tane fastened the choke collar around her neck, then attached the leash. "On your knees, female."

Mary sagged down the wall to kneel upon the floor, so cold everywhere except where he'd spanked her. There her skin burned and stung, the heat throbbing deep into her muscles.

Tane pulled the length of leash through the palm of his hand, tightening the collar and forcing her head up. "You left your name with your clothes out in the snow. Until I give you a new one, you will be called Blonde. You belong to me, and to any master with the whim to make of you his plaything. Do you understand?"

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Judgment II: Mercy

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"Yes, Master," she rasped, her eyes watering as she tried not to choke.

"You are nothing here. You have no worth or status. You are not even Product."

The other man came into view, looking down at her. There was a tight smile on his mouth, though his eyes, like Tane's, were cool and assessing. There was a strong family resemblance there; they could very well have been brothers.

"What are you going to do with her?"

"I admit, I haven't thought that far."

"You can't put her in with the Personals."

"Heavens, no."

"Can't put her in with the rest of the Lessers, either.

Where does that leave? Solitary confinement? We'll have a gibbering animal on our hands within the year."

Mary closed her eyes and concentrated just on breathing.

Her hands itched to grab the collar and leash and pull, giving herself just enough slack to draw air into her struggling lungs.

She clutched her thighs to keep from doing it.

"I suppose I shall have to give her a job," Tane said.

The other man laughed, but when Tane glanced at him without joining in, he promptly sobered again. "You can't be serious."

Tane sighed and his eyes returned to her. "In all likelihood, this won't work anyway, but my interest has been piqued."

"We haven't recovered from the last time that happened."

"Come now, Master Deaton. Where's your sense of adventure?"

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Judgment II: Mercy

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"In California," Deaton said caustically. "Where we still can't go because the Los Angeles police won't leave us alone."

"She's paid a lot of money to lay her submission before us."

Hands on hips, Master Deaton, brother to Daymon Tane, studied her again. "How much?"

"Eighteen times the price of a good Elite."

Deaton blinked twice, then began to laugh. Still laughing, he turned and headed back into the fortress. "Welcome to Judgment, Blonde."

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26

Judgment II: Mercy

by Denise Hall

Mary clung to the white tile wall with both hands, gasping as the pressurized spray of cold water hit her back like thousands of sharp glass shards. The cold wrung involuntary cries from her and her teeth chattered violently as the focus of that icy spray ran up and down the length of her body no matter how she twisted and squirmed.

A dark-haired, black-uniformed master held the hose. His harsh, guttural voice barked out a command in a language she couldn't understand, but the guard to her right, standing just out of splatter range, interpreted it for her. "Turn around."

Slowly, Mary turned to expose her naked front and the master gave it an equally chilly and impersonal dose of the cold water. She bowed her head, turning her face away so the hard spray wouldn't strike it directly, but the master spared her very little, the hard cutting fury of the hose punishing her breasts, stomach and thighs for what felt like forever. When he aimed for her labia, her hands clenched into fists, and Mary rose up on her tiptoes, throwing back her head with a high, keening wail that her chattering teeth warbled and mangled.

Then the hose was shut off.

Mary shook violently; she didn't think she'd ever be anything but cold again.

The guard at her right side, handed her a bar of soap and said, "Wash yourself."

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Judgment II: Mercy

by Denise Hall

Bowing her head, Mary dutifully lathered her skin. Her breasts, her underarms, her belly, her body was rippled with goose bumps. She kept her eyes firmly downcast, her face flushing as she bent to soap between her thighs and tried to pretend there weren't two strangers watching her do this. Her hands slipped over her buttocks and between, then ran down each leg in turn, washing quickly and blushing furiously as she did it.

The guard then picked up a razor and stepped in front of her. She held as still as she could while he shaved her, beneath her arms, her legs, then her pubis, until she was as bare there like a prepubescent woman-child. He then took his place once more out of splatter range.

Holding the hose before him, the master spoke, and the guard said, "Wash yourself again."

Mary repeated the process, rubbing her hands and the soap over every inch of herself, shivering and barely muffling a moan when the master turned the hose back on. The white tiled shower room echoed with her shrill gasps and cries as the icy spray stroked up and down her body again.

"Turn around," the guard told her once more.

And Mary turned, bracing her hands up on the wall as the hose punished her back, bottom and legs. She was so grateful when the master finally shut it off. Her knees knocked together. She hugged the wall and shivered.

The master handed the hose to the guard, who re-coiled the length, and picked up a worn gray towel. He brought it to her, draping the scratchy fabric over her shoulder until her trembling fingers could uncurl themselves to pick it up.

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He watched her fumble to dry herself, his dark eyes veiled and unsympathetic. Then he spoke.

"My name is Master Boyden," the guard interpreted. "I am in charge of all New-comers from the moment they arrive until they are released into the Pit. For the next month, you and I are going to be inseparable. I will teach you our language, I will teach you our rules, and if, for whatever reason, you decide you do not want to cooperate, I will also make you very sorry for your incorrect choice. Do you understand?"

Shivering in her damp towel, her wet hair dripping down her back, Mary looked from the guard to Master Boyden and nodded.

Master Boyden spoke again, four short words in his hard, guttural language.

"That means, 'Yes, Master Boyden'," the guard told her.

"Repeat it now, and I would recommend you commit that phrase to memory and use it often while you're here."

Mary had to repeat the strange phrase four times before she said it adequately enough and loudly enough to satisfy the frowning Master Boyden. Wrapped in only the harsh towel, she then followed him out of the shower room and down the long, dark corridor, deeper into the mountain fortress, until they arrived at what looked to be a doctor's examining room. She balked in the doorway when she saw the table with its cold metal stirrups, but the guard behind her simply flicked her flanks with the end of the switch he carried and Mary meekly crept into the room.

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Judgment II: Mercy

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Waiting for the doctor to arrive, shifting nervously from foot to foot, her gaze flitted from the upright scale to the exam table and the nearby tray with all its gynecology tools, then to the blood test equipment set up across the room.

Mary swallowed hard. She tried to keep her breathing slow and even, but she'd never liked doctors' offices. She could have cheerfully missed every one of her annual exams, except that Richard always made her go. He would drive her there in fact, and accompany her into the office so he could watch. She remembered how he used to say he was going to order one of those tables for their home, so he could perform those exams on Mary himself. She couldn't help but shudder, almost grateful then that his attention had turned to Mahogany and China.

When the doctor finally arrived, he did not come alone.

Tane came with him, followed by what was probably every master within Judgment. There were more than twenty, all dressed much like Master Boyden, the stark black of their uniforms broken only by a silver insignia where a right breast pocket might otherwise have been. All were somber and unsmiling, and most stared directly at her with dark stares that made her very nervous.

This was what she'd wanted, Mary reminded herself. But she clutched the towel tightly around herself and shivered nonetheless.

"This is the last time you are going to hear English while you are here," Tane told her. "But the time we spend waiting for our words to be translated to you is time spent out of the 30

Judgment II: Mercy

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Pit and away from our duties. Product, by their very nature, are not as quick to obey the guards as the masters."

"Should we wait for Shipe?" the Master Doctor asked, donning a long white lab coat over his black uniform and reaching for a pair of plastic gloves.

"No," Tane said. "He is supervising the Personals."

"All right then." The Master Doctor handed a clipboard and paper to Master Boyden. "Would you keep the log?"

"Of course." And to her, Boyden then said, "Drop the towel."

Reluctantly, Mary let her damp wrap slide down her body and she stepped free from the folds. Up until tonight, Richard had been the only man to ever see her unclothed. Now she had the eyes of over twenty men watching her every movement. She kept her own downcast and tried not to think about it.

"We'll begin over here." The Master Doctor led her to the scale. He checked her height first. "Five-foot-five-and-a-half inches. One-hundred-twenty-seven pounds."

And Boyden documented both.

Then she was moved to the lab station, where the Master Doctor prepared to draw her blood. Mary offered up her arm willingly, but turned her head aside and closed her eyes when she felt the tip of the needle prick her skin.