All too soon they descended a steep path and reached a hidden door in the mountainside. David operated a concealed lever and they rode in, then the aperture slid closed again.
Kerri stared at the town before her. People were strolling along the sidewalks and loitering outside shops and pavement cafes. She could also see small figures working in the faraway fields.
'It's busier than Alpineglow,' she said.
'It certainly has a larger population,' David agreed. 'But nearly all of them are regular people. Only nine of them are miscreants.'
'I'm the tenth?' Kerri stared at him in consternation.
The overseer nodded. 'The other nine will be very pleased to see you. As you can imagine, their backsides have a very hard time.'
Kerri cleared her throat. 'And does this place have a Dance Bar like Alpineglow?'
'Two of them - and all of the patrons have implements to liven up the dancers.' The overseer patted his horse and it snickered softly. 'Trust me, sweetheart, your gyrations will be much in demand.' He looked at his watch. 'Let's take you to meet Sherr now. She runs this place.'
'Cher as in the singer?' Kerri asked.
'Well it's a different spelling. S-h-e-r-r,' David explained. 'Though with her black hair and pale skin she looks similar.'
'And does this place have a name?' Kerri asked faintly as a guide took the reigns of her horse and she dismounted.
'The residents call it Nemesis,' the man said with a sadistic laugh.
Kerri followed him to a yellow stone building with turrets. A girl of around twenty answered, wearing a white housekeeper's pinafore over a black dress. She'd obviously been crying - and when she turned her back to usher them in, Kerri understood why. The dress and pinafore were backless and the girl's bare bottom bore several livid stripes.
'Who did this to you?' Kerri whispered as she followed the maid into a large sunlit lounge.
'My Mistress, Sherr,' the girl replied softly. Seconds later a thirty-something woman entered the room and the girl curtseyed low.
'David - so nice to see you again,' the woman said, walking up to the overseer and shaking his hand. Then she glanced at Kerri. 'Is this the girl that's been causing so much trouble at Alpineglow?'
'Uh huh - she endangered many people by trying to break through a glass wall,' David said.
Sherr looked Kerri up and down. 'So, do you want to strip her or shall I?' she enquired.
'Mistress, I can undress myself if you wish,' Kerri said quickly, keen to avoid further hands on her extremities.
Sherr's stare intensified. 'Very well, take off your clothes.'
Aware that all three adults were watching, Kerri untied Jeff's shirt from above her waist then unbuttoned it. The maid stepped forward and took the garment from her. 'Follow me.'
A naked Kerri feeling ridiculous, they walked into a little dressing chamber. Laid out on the bed was a minuscule pair of white panties, stiletto heels and a collar with metal studs.
'Put them on now if you're to avoid a whipping,' the maidservant begged.
'Okay.' Trying to look indifferent to this latest disgrace, Kerri shrugged into the scrap of white cotton. It barely covered her pubic crease. The shoes also said fuck-me, for when she wore them she found that she had to take tiny helpless steps. Her sunkissed curves jiggled slightly with each movement and she felt like a whore on display.
'And the collar,' the girl urged.
'Christ, I hate these things.' Kerri buckled it in place. It felt alien and heavy.
'You have to wear it every time you go out,' the maidservant explained.
'Why?'
'So that anyone can clip a leash to it and lead you to the square for a public thrashing - or take you home for private punishment.'
Kerri felt a low rush of shock race through her belly. 'But surely I have to wrong someone?'
The younger girl shrugged. 'The slightest infringement counts as wrongdoing here.' She lowered her voice. 'Sherr sends out a weekly newsletter detailing each miscreant's misdemeanours. If she's been too busy to correct us she makes it an open season for other residents to enjoy.'
Kerri teetered about in her tiny pants as she digested this latest information.
'So where does everyone live?'
'I live here with Sherr. You're to live here too, help me look after Sherr's guests. The other wrongdoers stay with various overseers throughout the town.'
Kerri nodded. 'I heard it's called Nemesis. Doesn't that mean retribution?' She adjusted the collar in an effort to make it more comfortable.
'Sure does. They've been rebuking me since I came here,' the younger girl said. She lowered her voice. 'It's not like Alpineglow - Jeff's a reasonable man but Sherr loves to completely control us. Sometimes she makes me lap at her anus for half an hour until my tongue's so sore I can hardly lick.'
'So Sherr just rules you?'
'No, she rules the whole town - well, we wrongdoers.'
'That's enough whispering in there,' came a female voice - Sherr's voice.
The maidservant jumped up and raced for the door. Kerri followed, her bare breasts jiggling.
'Sorry, Mistress,' the girl said, curtseying all the way to the ground.
'You will be, Marian,' the sophisticated woman replied. 'Now parade young Kerri around the town.'
Marian bowed her way out of the room and Kerri followed.
'Will she punish you when we get back?' she murmured, trying to hitch up her little pants.
The other girl shrugged. 'Sometimes she just details my errors in her weekly newsletter and others carry out the punishment.'
Kerri felt surprised. 'Doesn't she like doing it?'
'Oh, she loves it, but she's away half the week.'
'So we have the house to ourselves?' This sounded more encouraging.
'Yes,' said Marian, as they began to stroll along a tree-lined sidewalk. 'But she has cameras in every room.'
A man in his forties was approaching them. As he reached Kerri, he went into his briefcase and took out a leash.
'Can I take her home with me? I've just received a nice new belt from the seamstress at Alpineglow.'
Kerri took an instinctive step backwards and was very glad when Marian shook her head.
'She's new. She hasn't done anything wrong yet. Mistress just asked me to display her around town.'
'Well, put my name at the top of the list for when she errs,' the man said matter of factly before giving Kerri's almost-bare bottom another lascivious look.
The girls walked on. 'I feel ridiculous in this. Is Sherr always so sadistic?' Kerri asked, keeping her eyes open for any kind of clothing shop or washing line where she could find a garment.
Marian nodded. 'She comes down really hard on us. I suppose it's understandable when you think that she's...' She broke off abruptly and put her hand over her mouth.
'She's what?' Kerri demanded, intrigued.
'Nothing. I'm not allowed to talk about that,' the maidservant replied.
'Oh go on - it'll be our secret.' Kerri touched the smaller girl lightly on the shoulder but the girl flinched away.
'No, she'd cane me if I told because she knows I especially fear the rod.'
At least they were agreed on something. For the rest of the hour Kerri followed Marian through the streets, aware of many curious glances. Kerri wondered out loud why each garden contained a little glass house, and Marian explained that these were where girls could be publicly whipped. 'It's less formal than a punishment in the marketplace, but more embarrassing than a totally private flogging,' she explained.
'And residents whip us a lot?'
Marian shuddered. 'All the time. There are only ten of us wrongdoers - including you - in Nemesis and dozens of dominant residents, so we're always being bared and thrashed.'
'And there's nothing we can do to protect ourselves?' Kerri queried, noticing that each resident who walked past her had a riding crop or tawse strapped across their body. Some had several implements.
'Just try very hard to follow all the rules,' Marian said.
For the rest of the week Kerri managed to follow the rules. She rose early each day and donned a new pair of tiny pants and a clean collar. The shoes also varied, sometimes being stupidly sparkly or having huge bows on them, but always having impossibly high heels.
Her tasks also varied. One day she had to clean the house. On another she had to work in the garden, her scanty apparel ensuring that she soon had a crowd sitting on the boundary wall, cheering. Her third day was given over to working in Sherr's stables whilst the fourth was spent behind the counter of the zone's main grocery store, the customers coming in to stare at her rather than buy.
Her costume was humiliating and she missed the familiar faces at Alpineglow but at least she was avoiding the birch.
All that changed on her fifth day when Sherr left the house carrying an overnight case. Kerri rejoiced that she could at last enjoy some freedom. She'd figured out how to dupe the camera's footage so that it looked like she was there even when she was not.
'I'm going to the shops to buy groceries for the household,' she called loudly to Marian, knowing that the cameras and sound equipment would pick up on her words and movements - and that when she returned she'd replace part of today's footage with yesterday's.
Kerri then crept to the dustbin and took out the carrier bag she'd hidden there earlier. It contained slip-on shoes, sunglasses and one of Sherr's dresses. Kerri had taken it from the laundry after it was cleaned.
She walked quickly till she came to a shop doorway then slipped into the dress and took off her collar. She also put on the dark glasses and comfortable low shoes. After a moment's hesitation she hid her more whorish outfit behind a small bush.
Now Nemesis was hers for the day! Kerri walked till she found the Dancing Bar and ordered a drink. As with Alpineglow, everything seemed to be free to the hardworking residents. Mirroring Alpineglow, each of the drinkers was given an implement to help encourage the half naked dancer. Kerri looked at the razor strop she'd been given but didn't use it on the weeping girl's arse.
After two glasses of champagne she strolled over to the fields and watched the men and women tending the crops, then she went on to a salad bar. She was just about to head home when a female called 'Sherr!' and tapped her on the shoulder. Kerri turned - and the woman stiffened, looking confused.
'You're not Sherr. Why are you wearing her dress?'
'We must have the same dress,' Kerri stammered.
'No, Sherr's is an original. I imported it for her myself,' the woman said. She looked at Kerri more closely. 'My God, you're her new housegirl. There's something going on here. You're supposed to wear your collar when you're outside.' She turned to the waiters. 'She's a dissident, recently brought in from Alpineglow. Get your security guards to take her to the public square and tether her. I'll track down Sherr.'
'She's left town,' Kerri said forlornly, hoping that it was true. Two security guards had arrived and were standing on each side of her, one of them slapping his palm warningly against his leg.
The woman hurried away as one of the guards fastened a collar around Kerri's neck. It was even heavier than her usual one. He clipped a leash to it and ordered her to walk before him to the square. At least they weren't making her crawl there, Kerri thought but the thought didn't console her much.
As she stumbled towards the marketplace, word went out that a public question and answer session was to take place. Soon residents were hurrying past, presumably to get the best seats. She was consumed by a horrible feeling of deja vu.
She arrived to find dozens of people sitting around the square. This was a less formal looking square than Alpineglow's, the main difference being the trees planted at intervals. Plus the centre of the square contained a short fence that didn't actually fence anything in.
'Strip,' one of the security guards said.
Realising that resistance was useless, Kerri lifted Sherr's dress over her head and handed it to the guard then kicked off her pumps and pulled down her tiny knickers.
'Walk around showing off your tits and pussy,' the second guard said.
'How?' Kerri asked, playing for time.
'Hold these beauties up and flick your nipples out,' the man said lasciviously. 'And squat down to show everyone your pretty pubes.'
'Squat where?' Kerri asked, procrastinating further. She couldn't face having everyone staring at - or worse, touching - her nakedness.
At that instant a youth on horseback approached and spoke to the guard for several moments.
'We've located your Mistress,' the guard explained, turning back to Kerri. 'She says that you're supposed to be working, that you've left the grounds without permission and stolen her favourite dress and shoes.'
'How was I to know they were her favourites?' Kerri muttered.
'That's hardly the point, is it?' the guard said unbuckling his belt. He pointed to the nearest tree. 'She says I've to start your public punishment so stretch up and take hold of that branch.'
Kerri did so, the movement exerting a pull on her arms and on her thigh muscles. To her surprise, the guard immediately cuffed her wrists to the branch. Now she was held in situ, stretched taut.
'You've got a nice arse,' the guard with the belt commented, walking around. 'Has it been thrashed before?'
'Too much,' Kerri mumbled shamefacedly.
'You must want this, really,' the guard continued, 'else why would you have stolen Sherr's clothes?'
'I needed some excitement,' Kerri admitted softly, 'and was going stir crazy at Chez Sherr.' She tried not to show him how apprehensive - hell, frightened - she was.
'Well, sweetheart, you're in for a lively time now,' the guard replied.
He swung the belt at her haunches. Kerri squealed and tried to push her body forward but her cuffed wrists limited her movement. When she'd calmed down slightly the man swung the leather strap again.
Kerri jerked, and the movement exerted a cruel pull on her arms. She stood on tiptoe to relieve the stress - but that made her arse an even more sticking-out target. She danced and flailed about as the belt made repeated contact with her defenceless hemispheres.
'I want Jeff!' she screamed into the crowd. 'Jeff doesn't know this is happening! Jeff wouldn't allow me to be beaten this hard!'
She waited for the next lash but it didn't come. Instead the guards started to murmur to each other and to the youth on horseback, who was clearly some kind of intermediary.
'Jeff's in Nemesis today. He'll be here to talk to you in ten minutes,' the guard with the belt explained at last.
'Untie me, then,' Kerri gasped.
'No way. Sherr said you were to be kept publicly tethered.'
'Jeff's more important than Sherr,' the British girl protested and was surprised when the security guards grinned. They left her tied to the branch, her arms straining upwards, her bottom like a beacon in the centre of the square.
Soon she saw the familiar figure of Jeff Rendell walking up to them and smiling at the guards. 'Untie her.'
'I knew they were being too vicious,' Kerri whispered, rubbing her newly-uncuffed wrists then cupping her nether cheeks.
One of the overseers brought him a big armless chair and he sat down in it and patted his lap.
'Bring her here,' Jeff continued, 'and lay her over my knees.'
What was he doing? Humiliated but determined to get him on her side, Kerri walked over and prostrated herself across his lap. Maybe he was just doing this to keep the crowd happy. That hope was deflated when he put his large palms on her small, sore globes.
'Oh Kerri, here a few days and already they've had to publicly tan you. Are you going to spend your entire life stealing things?'
'I didn't exactly rob the Bank of England,' Kerri muttered. 'Just borrowed some of Sherr's clothes.'
'But you're supposed to be operating under a rewards for good behaviour scheme,' Jeff reminded her. 'Only you rarely do sufficient good deeds to earn any rewards.'
'I have my moments,' Kerri shot back.
'Name one.'
She thought and thought but couldn't find a single positive action on her part.
'You're selfish to the core,' Jeff said. 'That's why you're here in the first place, because you ruined me.'
'How?' Kerri asked for the twentieth time, not really expecting him to tell her.
'Only when the student is ready to hear the answer, does the teacher tell,' Jeff replied mysteriously.
'So what happens now?' Kerri whimpered as he continued to palm her flesh.
Jeff sounded sad but determined. 'You get whipped until you learn your lesson and repent.'
'You mean you're going to leave me here?' Kerri whispered. 'That Sherr's a total bitch. She's got me parading around in ridiculous panties and cleaning her fucking house like I'm a slave.'
'You had your room cleaned for you in Alpineglow,' Jeff pointed out, tracing a finger down her buttock crease. 'You had outfits made to measure for you by Roberta. But you still found plenty to complain about there.'
'Okay, so maybe I was ungrateful,' Kerri admitted.
'Sounds like it,' someone called and she realised that the chairs were wired for sound, that everyone could hear.
Kerri was facing the ground so she couldn't see him but she sensed he'd straightened slightly in his chair. 'Ah, here's Sherr now.'
'I thought she was going out of town,' Kerri whimpered.
'We were both going away on business later today - but that's put on hold now,' Jeff replied.
Kerri quailed as two female feet appeared in front of her. She looked slowly up at the tall dark-haired Sherr. The woman's lipsticked mouth seemed even more displeased than usual. 'The first day I leave you alone and you resort to stealing, lying, impersonation and character assassination,' she said.
'Character assass...?' Kerri started, confused.
'Yes, I heard your comments over the sound system. Apparently I'm a total bitch who treats you like a slave.' She shook her head. 'You have the best meals, your own room. I don't think four or five hours of work a day is too taxing. It's your attitude that's all wrong - not this place.'
'Sorry, Mistress,' Kerri whispered, hoping to alleviate whatever was coming.
'You're going to be very sorry by the time Jeff's finished thrashing you,' Sherr said. She went into her case, produced a mini-paddle and handed it to the man. Then she brought out a soft cord and tied Kerri's hands in front of her at the wrists.
'I've already been sorted by the guards,' Kerri said quickly as Jeff ran the paddle over her arse.
'That was for stealing. This is for calling your Mistress names in front of the entire town,' Sherr explained. A guard brought her a seat and she sat down then put her fingers under Kerri's chin to tilt her face up. 'I'm going to watch you squirm now, Kerri. And I'm sure that before long I'm going to hear you beg.'