Stephanie's Trial (26 page)

Devlin
nodded.

With studied
calculation Amanda picked up the chain of the nipple clips and
pulled it up towards his chin. The serrated edges bit deeper into
the corrugated flesh. His cock twitched so much against the leather
skirt that for a moment Stephanie thought he was going to come.

'Get on with
it,' the man with the woman on his lap called impatiently.

'Yes, come
on...' one of the women agreed.

Amanda stepped
back. 'Begin,' she said, standing behind Devlin's back.

Stephanie
spread her legs slightly and raised the whip. Without hesitation
she stroked it down on Devlin's arse, her long black hair streaming
out over her shoulders, her naked breasts trembling with the
effort. She saw Devlin react, saw the pain turned to profound
pleasure as it always did. There was still sorrow in his eyes, but
it was sorrow not for what was being done to him, but because they
were not doing it under their own volition, that this was a circus
where, for once, it was not Stephanie who was the ringmaster, but
someone else.

After the
fifth stroke Stephanie began to sweat. It was hot in the windowless
room with so many people. She tried to concentrate on what she was
doing but out of the corner of her eye saw Andrew slip into the
room. Venetia, tall and elegant, was standing next to the door.
Andrew, in a shirt and slacks, stood beside her.

Stephanie
turned back to Devlin's buttocks. The red welts from the riding
crop lined his white flesh; there were darker red marks there too,
from previous days. She slashed the whip down again, his flesh
trembling in response.

'Six,' he
cried, his teeth gritted.

When Stephanie
looked back towards Andrew she could hardly believe what she saw.
Venetia had put her arm around Andrew's neck and was pushing her
tongue into his ear. At the same time her hand was massaging the
crotch of his trousers, gripping the bulge that was growing
there.

In all the
time Stephanie had known Venetia she had never seen her touch or
kiss a man, except on the one occasion she had been forced. She was
so astonished that the next stroke of the crop missed the target
and landed with no real force on Devlin's thigh.

'Seven,'
Devlin grunted.

'No,' Amanda
said at once. 'Do that again.'

Stephanie
tried to put her mind back on what she was doing. What did it
matter anyway? But as she landed the next blow full across Devlin's
ample rump she had a feeling it mattered very much indeed.

'Harder,'
Amanda complained.

By the tenth
blow most of the room had lost interest in the proceedings and when
Stephanie looked round Venetia and Andrew had slipped away. The
others were all engaged in some form of sex, coupled together by
hand or mouth or genitals. Apart from Amanda no one was watching
Devlin's punishment any more.

Stephanie
delivered the final two cuts in quick succession, sweat running
freely down her naked body.

If Amanda had
thought this public display would humiliate Devlin, if she thought
having Stephanie beat him would make it worse, she had not learnt
yet what Devlin was like. His enormous cock was on the point of
orgasm. Stephanie felt her own body moisten as she looked at it,
her memory of all the times it had reamed into her with such
devastating effect, making the process almost inevitable.

The rope that
held Devlin's arms above his head was curled around a pulley and
tied off on a cleat fixed to the stone wall. Amanda unwound the
rope from the cleat and let it fall. Devlin's arms dropped and he
moaned with relief.

'Unstrap his
ankles,' Amanda ordered.

Stephanie
dropped to her knees and obeyed at once. With the tip of his
fingers, out of Amanda's line of vision, Devlin touched her long
black hair affectionately. Stephanie almost swooned at such
tenderness.

'Stop that,'
Amanda said, seeing what he was doing as she moved forward. She
slapped his cuffed hands. 'I want to be fucked.'

She wriggled
the short leather skirt up over her hips. She wore a pair of bright
red lace panties that covered the triangle of her belly and the
tight curls of her black pubic hair, though the shadow of it could
be clearly seen under the material.

Amanda bent
over one of the wooden punishment frames, presenting her long plump
arse to Devlin, the red silk a slash of colour between her
legs.

'Come on,' she
said impatiently, 'and make it good.'

But Devlin was
too far gone. He moved to stand behind her and poked the tip of his
cock forward but the hot pleasure the beating had created in his
arse had made his body boil with need. His spunk was heavy in his
balls. He knew he could never hold out.

It didn't help
that everywhere he looked was sexual provocation. Paul, his cock as
hard as a bone, was lying on the frame. Amanda was bending over
with two women astride his thighs and facing each other. They clung
together and bounced back and forward so his cock alternated from
one sex to another. Their mouths were locked in a kiss, their
breasts pressed together. Or there was Mick enthusiastically
tonguing a former slave who had seated herself on a wooden upright
chair, normally used to hold its occupant immobile by means of
straps on its arms and legs, and had hooked her thighs over his
shoulders.

Everywhere
there was sex. And there was Stephanie, naked, her body glistening
with sweat.

He pushed his
cock against the red panties as Amanda reached behind her to pull
them aside. He felt her hand brush his cock, and then the heat of
her labia and the brush of her tight curls. That was too much. As
Amanda wriggled her arse back at him, to get him between her labia,
his cock exploded and spunk, white hot spunk, splattered over the
panties and the wet flesh of her outer sex.

'You bastard!'
Amanda screamed at once. 'How dare you?'

She swung
round, bumping against his cock with her hip. 'You're going to have
to be punished all over again.'

Stephanie
smiled to herself inwardly for the first time in days. There was
one thing she knew: there was no punishment Amanda could devise
that would give Devlin anything but the extremes of pleasure.

Everything was
still and quiet. Stephanie had been returned to her cell after
being allowed to shower. She had fallen asleep almost immediately
and had slept deeply, the best sleep she had had for days on the
cold stone floor. But she had been started awake.

Her heart was
pounding, pumped with adrenalin from whatever shock her
subconscious had perceived. She listened, trying to hear any noise.
The little strip of light under the cell door was still there, as
it had been every night. No one had ever turned off the corridor
lights. But she could hear no reason for her sudden alertness.
Everything was as it had been and, as far as she could tell, ever
would be.

Shifting her
position on the stone floor, Stephanie closed her eyes again. She
yearned for the comfort of one of the mattresses that lay abandoned
in the corridor outside. However she arranged herself on the floor,
after ten or twelve minutes the cold, hard stone was making her
body ache anew.

Some minutes
later she must have drifted back to sleep because she woke again
with a start, but this time recognised the noise that had woken
her. The light in the corridor outside had been switched off. She
heard footsteps too, which was even stranger. Why would someone
turn off the lights and then walk down the corridor?

Almost
immediately she heard the bolt on the cell door being drawn back.
The noise sounded like a bullet being shot from a gun in the
silence of the cellars. The door creaked open and Stephanie was
dazzled by the beam of a torch shining right into her face. It
swung away and down onto the floor as the cell door swung closed
again and the footsteps walked over to her. She recognised the
strong smell of perfume.

'Venetia?'

'Yes.' Venetia
knelt on the floor in front of her and shone the torch into her own
face. 'Are you all right?'

'What are you
doing here?' Stephanie said. There could be only one answer she
hoped, her heart suddenly thumping against her ribs, unless this
was some cruel game devised by Andrew.

'I couldn't
come any sooner.'

'What do you
mean?'

'They watched
me like a hawk. For the first week they kept me chained up in my
bedroom. 'It's only the last three days that I've had my freedom. I
didn't come right away in case it was a trap, but I think they
trust me now. Oh Stephanie, I'm so sorry...'

'They trust
you now?'

'I mean Andrew
does.'

'Why?'
Stephanie saw a shadow of emotion pass over Venetia's face in the
torchlight. She already knew the answer to her question.

'Why,
Venetia?'

'Because I
agreed to go to bed with him. It was the only way. He kept asking
me. Over and over. I knew he'd never trust me unless I did.'

'Did he hurt
you?'

'No, no. It
wasn't so bad. And now he's stopped watching me all the time. They
even let me go to the mainland on my own.'

'Oh, I really
thought you were on their side.' For the first time since the
rebellion began Stephanie felt her eyes prick with tears: they were
tears of relief.

'I know. I'm
sorry. I had to pretend. I saw that on the plane. If they'd brought
me here and locked me up I'd have been no use. At least this way I
had a chance.'

Stephanie
reached out and hugged Venetia in her arms. For a moment they did
nothing, Stephanie completely overcome with several strong emotions
at the same time; the resurgence of hope which she had suppressed
for so long, her gratitude that Venetia had not deserted her, and
the feeling of actually being held by someone again, the human
contact she had missed so much.

'Listen,'
Venetia said eventually. 'I've got to get back before I'm missed.
Tomorrow night, when you're taken up to Andrew, you've got to trick
him somehow.'

'Trick
him?'

'You should be
alone. You've got to find a way to overpower him.'

'Why
tomorrow?'

'Amanda's
going over to the mainland for the day to get provisions. I've got
to go and pick her up in the evening. If I can overpower her on the
journey back and you can do the same with Andrew, I can release
Devlin and we're free. We can take the boat and go.'

'How can I
overpower him?'

'You'll think
of something. But you've got to do it. If I come back here with
Amanda trussed up like a chicken and Andrew's still free, they'll
put me down here with you and that's our last chance gone.'

'I'll think of
something. Oh Venetia, I'm so glad... all those things you said.
The ways I treated you in London I should never have done
that...'

'Forget
it.'

'You wouldn't
even look at me.'

'I daren't. I
couldn't. I knew if I did I might give something away.'

'I
understand.'

'Getting them
to trust me was the only chance we had.'

'I know, I
know. You knew about the security code for the files then, for the
hard copies...'

'Yes. I knew
they wouldn't be destroyed.'

'I couldn't
remember if Devlin had told you.'

'Oh yes. If we
ever get out of here, the files are all intact. A nasty little
surprise for Andrew Harlock. I've got to go.'

'Don't worry,
I'll think of something.'

Stephanie
embraced Venetia again briefly. She wanted to kiss her, she wanted
to pull her down onto the stone floor and press herself into her
magnificent body, to feel her warmth again, her breasts and her
long powerful legs twining around hers. But there would be time for
that later. If the plan succeeded.

Almost as
quickly as she had come, Venetia was gone and Stephanie heard the
bolt sliding home on the cell door. The sound momentarily provoked
a chill of depression in Stephanie's body. She seemed so cold now
by contrast to the warmth of Venetia's embrace.

But the chill
dissipated rapidly. Now there was hope. Now there was something she
could do. She stood up and paced the cell, the chain attached to
her ankle dragging against the stone. She tried to remember
everything she could about Andrew, everything that had happened
when he was at the castle and everything that had happened since.
His arrival coincided with a visit of two newcomers to the castle,
a married couple called Clarke, and his display of insolence had
been rewarded by the wife, Jacqui, who had teased him incessantly
until he had literally begged to be allowed to come - naturally
without success. It had been the first of the lessons he had had to
be taught. The first, Stephanie now knew, of the humiliation he had
harboured and cultivated brooded upon and that he was out to
revenge.

But then she
remembered something that had happened that same night, after his
experience with the Clarkes. It was something that might be very
helpful. Stephanie smiled broadly to herself.

By the time
the light came on in the morning - at least Stephanie assumed it
was morning - and food was pushed in on a tray, Stephanie had a
plan. It might not work but at least it was a plan.

She tried not
to let her new optimism show. She wanted to appear just as weary as
she had been on the other days, and trudged to the shower with her
head down and a general air of depression. But it was difficult and
she was delighted when the cell door was closed again and she was
left to her own devices.

Whether it was
the thought of the possibility of escape or the fact that Venetia
had not betrayed her that made her most happy, it was difficult to
say. She wished she could have talked to Devlin. She couldn't wait
for the time to pass before she was called up to see Andrew. Time
had always dragged in the cell but today it went by as though in
slow motion.