Two turtle doves murmuring at her window woke Mandy just as a hand tapped on her door. Stung by the memory of Miss Partridge’s brusque intrusion last night – and blushing furiously at being discovered naked and enjoying her climax – Mandy appreciated the courtesy of the tapping at her door.
‘Mandy. Wake up,’ a voice whispered urgently.
‘Come in.’
It was the maid who had opened the front door on her arrival at Sternwood Grange, a large cup of coffee balanced in her hand. ‘Better drink this up, then I’ll get you into your uniform. We’re late.’
Dropping the sheet from her bosom, Mandy stretched out to take the large cup. The maid’s eyes widened as she glimpsed Mandy’s breasts: as ripely firm, if not as heavily fleshed, as her own. Mandy perused the maid. She was dressed in a green silk mini-kimono. Mandy knew from the clinging silk that the girl was naked underneath. The maid gave her name and smiled.
‘Thanks, Sophie,’ Mandy said sleepily. She was still drowsy from the deep sleep induced by the heavy country air.
Sophie padded across to the window. Stretching up, she parted the curtains, scattering the turtle doves. Sunshine streamed in. Mandy blinked. Focusing in the sudden light, she saw the reddened buttocks as the hem of the mini-kimono inched up briefly to reveal the swell of the cheeks. It was Sophie, she realised, who was being spanked last night.
‘Finished?’ Sophie encouraged.
Mandy drained the cup. It was freshly ground arabica. Dark, delicious and expensive.
‘Come on,’ Sophie said, taking the cup.
Next door, in Sophie’s room, Mandy watched as the maid rinsed the cup out and hid it under her bed. Puzzled, she said nothing as she took her turn at the sink to splash her face. Cupping the cold water up to rinse away her sleep, she shivered as it spilled down on to her breasts. Sophie came to the rescue, patting the nipples gently with a soft towel. At the touch of the towel, Mandy remembered that she was naked. Turning to dry her eyes, she saw the mini-kimono being abandoned. Sophie was naked too.
‘Panties, no bra. Regulations,’ Sophie said, sheathing her spanked bottom in tight cotton after throwing a pair to Mandy.
Miss Partridge entered the room without knocking. The large brown eyes raked the pantied girls. ‘Hurry along, the pair of you. It is already –’ She paused, sniffing the air. ‘Have you been drinking coffee?’ she demanded, looking directly at Sophie.
‘No, Miss Partridge.’ Sophie blushed, twiddling with her elastic waistband nervously.
‘I can distinctly smell coffee. Good coffee. Stolen, no doubt. Give me the cup, girl.’
‘There isn’t –’
‘At once.’
Sophie’s bottom bulged within the white panties as she bent down to retrieve the cup. Taking it, the housekeeper sniffed.
‘Arabica. You should, if you must, stick to instant, Sophie. I will deduct five pounds from your wages and see you in my office at ten sharp. Four strokes.’
Sophie bowed her head.
‘Now hurry up and get downstairs. Your duties await you.’
Miss Partridge went. Mandy broke the solemn silence. ‘You were spanked last night, weren’t you?’
‘Orange juice.’ Sophie grinned. ‘I pinched some orange juice. Mind you,’ she giggled, ‘I laced it with champagne. A girl’s got to have her buck’s fizz.’
‘Four strokes,’ Mandy murmured. ‘Does that mean –’
‘The cane.’
‘But you gave the coffee to me. It doesn’t seem fair.’ Approaching the mischievous maid, Mandy hugged her affectionately.
‘She just likes my bottom,’ Sophie laughed. ‘Can’t leave it alone. Come on, get dressed.’ She carefully passed Mandy a blouse. ‘Silk.’
Mandy’s head jerked up, almost betraying her.
‘Silk,’ Sophie repeated. ‘The blouse.’
Mandy blushed, angry with herself at the slip that could have exposed her.
‘Hell to launder,’ said Sophie.
Mandy’s blush deepened, remembering the wet stain on her sheet last night.
‘No bra?’
‘Nope,’ Sophie affirmed, buttoning down her blouse over her heavy breasts. Mandy was three buttons behind, delayed slightly by the sight of the dark nipples probing Sophie’s silk. She sighed as her own breasts kissed the cool silk, her nipples peaking and tightening as she buttoned it firmly over the swell of her bosom. Her brain whirled with urgent questions. How often did the brown-eyed housekeeper punish the maids? How? Spanking, strap or whippy bamboo cane? When would it be Mandy’s turn to bare her cheeks, bend over and surrender her bottom to the impending pain?
‘She’ll get you before sunset,’ Sophie said drily.
Mandy looked up, startled by the accuracy of the other maid’s mind-reading prowess.
‘Yes, you were. When will it be my turn, you were wondering. Don’t worry. It can be divine,’ Sophie whispered, busy with her cuffs. ‘When you go across Miss Partridge’s knee, your bottom is hers, utterly and absolutely. Know what I mean?’
Mandy busied herself with her cuffs, avoiding Sophie’s searching gaze.
‘Cute, eh?’ Sophie grinned, offering Mandy a black velvet pleated skirt. ‘There’s a starched apron to go with it.’
They wrapped their thighs with the dark velvet skirts and zipped them up in unison.
‘Quick, come on.’
‘No stockings?’ Mandy asked.
‘White ankle socks and white pumps downstairs in the maids’ room. Here, I’ll do that.’
Mandy was struggling with her apron. Turning, she offered the linen tabs to Sophie. Feeling the heavy breasts crushing into her, Mandy inched back a deliberate fraction, colliding her buttocks into Sophie’s thighs. The light touch of the other girl’s fingers around her hips as the apron was deftly tied and expertly adjusted sent tiny spiders of delight scurrying down her spine.
‘You’ll do for me.’ The words came on sweet breath into her ear. Mandy closed her eyes and trembled, almost fainting with sudden delight as Sophie’s lips brushed the nape of her neck. Lick me, Mandy thought, her hunger for Sophie’s mouth upon her bare flesh growing ravenous. Lick me. Let me feel your wet tongue.
Smack. Mandy opened her big blue eyes wide.
‘Time to go,’ Sophie said in a husky voice, lowering Mandy’s pleated skirt down over the buttock she had just slapped. ‘We’ll really catch it from Erica if we are late.’
* * *
Erica, the senior maid who deputised for Miss Partridge – and who was permitted to punish the maids beneath her – was a slender thirty-year-old with cropped blonde hair and ever vigilant eyes. She nodded silently to Mandy and grasped the new maid’s hands firmly.
‘Nails?’
They were clean and passed her close scrutiny.
‘And don’t let me see you in a soiled uniform, lipstick or make-up.’
Mandy, chastened, stood smartly to attention as Erica detailed her tasks for the morning.
‘You know that you must not disturb the residents?’
Mandy nodded.
‘Get to work,’ Erica ordered, leaving to supervise the two maids busy at the Agas in the other, larger kitchen, cooking the residents’ breakfasts.
Sophie and Mandy prepared the trays. Like an undercover auditor, Mandy made a mental note of everything, estimating costs, outgoings and turnover. She was amazed to see solid-silver wine buckets, brimming with ice and bearing vintage champagne, going upstairs. From the box of empty bottles from last night’s dinner, she knew that the residents were not claret-shy, the stained labels revealing a penchant for the Bordeaux grands crus. The cellar must be cavernous. Nine trays were set, soon to be laden with tempting delicacies. Other maids, mere fleeting shadows in the corner of Mandy’s eye, skipped in and out to whisk them upstairs.
‘They only go as far as the locked doors,’ Sophie explained. ‘The angels take over from there.’
The basement kitchens were vast. Apart from the large, low-ceilinged areas, there was a pantry, a cold room, two larders and a still room. Mandy was confused and stuck close to Sophie. In the middle kitchen, where exposed beams spoke of their Elizabethan origins, the equipment was hi-tech, state of the art. As good and as expensive as any behind the scenes in a top London restaurant like L’Escargot or Le Pont de la Tour.
‘Some of the maids went to finishing school. Cordon bleu trained.’
Mandy had wondered at the provenance of the Bradenham ham in sherry sauce, quenelles of sole, quails eggs and fois gras blinis flowing from the inner kitchen.
‘We don’t fare so well,’ Sophie whispered grimly, avoiding Erica’s unblinking eye.
Three large cream-coloured American fridgidaires were lined up against the whitewashed wall of the smaller of the three connected kitchens.
‘More champagne?’ Mandy asked, nodding at them.
‘Orchids. Orchids and roses,’ Sophie replied. ‘Take a look.’ Opening the doors, she gave Mandy a glimpse of a perfumed profusion of fresh flowers stacked up neatly inside.
‘But the gardens are neglected –’
‘All this –’ Sophie swept her hands around, encompassing delicious foods, wines and flowers ‘–comes at night, when we are asleep. The vans bring it all down from London, twice a week. I’ve heard them unloading and loading.’
‘Loading?’
‘Laundry, and the rubbish bags. Sternwood Grange has no real contact with the outside world. We don’t even get to use the phone. It’s locked away.’
Mandy felt a pang – not of fear or dismay – just a sudden pang of doubt. Had she been foolish to rush headlong into this enterprise, like a fly darting into a sticky web? She tugged at the lobe of her left ear.
‘Don’t daydream, girl. Get busy,’ Erica rasped, tapping her open palm with a wooden spoon.
The first of the breakfast trays had started to return. Sophie and Mandy washed up, handling the Sèvres porcelain carefully, arms elbow deep in the prickling suds. Peering closer at what she thought to be a coat of arms as it emerged beneath a smear of sherry sauce, Mandy discerned a crop of sprouting bamboo canes. The pale-gold wands swayed with supple grace, pliant and pliable and ripe for harvest.
‘Sugar canes. West Indies? Or a Far Eastern connection. Malaya perhaps?’ Mandy asked.
‘Not exactly,’ was all Sophie said in enigmatic reply. Adding, ‘Though many find the bamboo to be the sweetest wood of all.’
As she dried each plate, cup and saucer, and stacked them with a layer of soft tissue in between, Mandy revised her audit, adding a nought to her initial figure of the potential value of Sternwood Grange.
‘Breakfast,’ one of the maids called.
After the delicacies consumed upstairs, Mandy was disappointed to sit down at the scrubbed pine table to weak tea, an apple and cold buttered toast.
‘Stop talking,’ Erica snapped at Mandy, who was trying to get acquainted with the other maids. ‘Eat up. There’s work to be done.’
Two angels came down and collected their breakfasts from the bottom oven of the Aga. Mandy envied their haddock. Her own repast was as meagre as it was brief.
‘I want the entire kitchen floor swept, scrubbed and disinfected. An old place like this is bound to have mice. After that,’ Erica continued, ‘prepare the vegetables. Sophie, peas and asparagus. And you’d better do some broccoli too. You –’ she addressed Mandy ‘– get those flowers into their vases, polish the wine glasses – they’re Milan crystal, mind – and then prepare the lunch trays. Eight will suffice. One of the residents is departing by helicopter at eleven.’
‘That means we have to keep away from the windows,’ Sophie interpreted. Don’t forget, we maids are not supposed to see the quality until we’ve been promoted to being angels.’
What windows, Mandy thought ruefully, gazing at the expanse of whitewashed walls around her.
Down in the kitchens, the heat grew stiflingly oppressive. Mandy worked hard, losing track of time. Once, her mind wandered back to Notting Hill, her Mickey Mouse clock and her life of pampered ease. The arteries of London would be pumping traffic along less sluggishly now, after the early-morning rush hour. Back in her flat, Amanda Silk would be phoning Daphne’s in South Ken, reserving a table for a networking lunch of laptops, lobster and Marlboro Lights. Here in deepest Suffolk, Mandy was drudging – but securing her fortune. A glimpse into the huge wine cellar had added yet another nought to the rapidly revised estimate of Sternwood Grange’s assets. Her duties gave her full access to the kitchens and storerooms. There, she had glimpsed the dressed crabs, the entrecôte steaks, the venison, the sea bass and the white truffles in virgin oil. In another room – raided by Sophie for the delicious arabica coffee – she sniffed in the dizzying aromas of vanilla, walnuts, nutmeg, expensive teas and robust coffee.
One item puzzled her. A black chain, the links no bigger than a fifty-pence piece, hung down by the door. Leather cuffs were attached to the chain.
‘Jacobean game hooks,’ Sophie explained. ‘See, the hare was threaded through, there, and hung. All game was served very high then.’
‘An old curio, and original piece,’ Mandy said, automatically pricing it at two thousand at Christies.
‘Not exactly,’ Sophie said, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘It is still used, only it’s called the Gibbet now.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Don’t ask –’
‘You, girl. Mandy, isn’t it?’ Erica called.
Mandy looked up.
‘Don’t just stand there gossiping. If you’ve finished, give Sophie a hand. She has an appointment with Miss Partridge at ten.’
Erica stalked off. Mandy turned to Sophie, whose fingers struggled nervously with the pea pods. Neither of them spoke, their thoughts of the punishment to come preoccupying them deeply. Mandy wondered what it would be like, being caned across the bottom by the brown-eyed Miss Partridge. Sophie merely wondered why she liked being caned across the bottom by the brown-eyed Miss Partridge.
‘I’m supposed to be hoovering the Long Gallery this morning. I’ll never get it done.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Mandy said, remembering that Sophie had earned her coming stripes sneaking a stolen cup of coffee to her earlier that morning. ‘Of course I will,’ she promised, dismissing Sophie’s look of gratitude.
‘No, don’t do that, Mandy –’ Sophie gasped.
Mandy crammed a handful of freshly shelled peas into her mouth.
Swish, swipe. The wooden spoon cracked across her bottom harshly. Mandy squealed, and the stolen peas flew out of her mouth.
‘Don’t let me catch you stealing ever again,’ Erica snarled, appearing out of thin air. ‘And I’m going to deduct four pounds out of your wages to cover anything else you’ve had this morning.’
‘That’s not fair –’
‘Hands on the table, girl,’ barked Erica.
Mandy, stubborn and proud, refused.
‘Do it,’ hissed Sophie.
Mandy turned to face the table, bent down and placed her hands before her on the scrubbed pine. She flinched as, kneeling down behind her, Erica flipped the hem of Mandy’s skirt up over her hips. Mandy flinched again as she felt her panties being peeled down and a firm hand cupping her left buttock. Erica placed her hand, palm inwards, just at the crease between the upper thigh and the swell of the captive cheek. She squeezed, the buttock bulged. Crack. Crack. Crack. Mandy’s white pumps drummed the fragstone floor as the wooden spoon ravished her naked flesh.
Pulling up the panties and rearranging the pleated skirt, Erica rose and told the girls to get on with their duties. ‘You’re here to work. Work hard and obey. Understand?’
Mandy was on the brink of an angry response when Sophie, patting a stray wisp of her platinum-blonde hair, smoothly intervened.
‘She understands. It’s her first day. Mandy will learn.’ Sophie placed a protective arm around the new maid. ‘Come along.’
Mandy followed Sophie up the flight of stone steps leading from the kitchens into the sunlight above.
‘Be careful of Erica. That wooden spoon never sleeps. And she’s a vixen with the strap.’
‘Strap?’ protested Mandy hotly.
‘We get it at least once a week. Always some excuse –’
‘No way –’
‘Oh?’ The platinum blonde’s violet eyes flashed. ‘And what makes you so different?’ Sophie challenged, turning to confront Mandy as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘You’re just another maid. A girl in trouble like the rest of us here. London is too hot for you so you’re keeping your head down. And it’s a fifteen-mile walk to anywhere,’ she warned, adding with perfect logic, ‘but like the rest of us you’ve nowhere else to go or you wouldn’t be at Sternwood Grange.’
Mandy made no further protest as Sophie spelt out the rules, the rigours, and the dangers to a maid’s bare bottom that governed their life at Sternwood Grange. As Mandy listened, she thought of Aunt Clare and her true purpose here. She must, she knew, continue to play the part of a young woman in hot water, grateful to be given refuge. Drawing Sophie gently to her, she kissed her protectress.
‘Mmm,’ Sophie murmured, reluctant to peel her lips away from Mandy’s warm mouth. ‘Just be more careful. Adapt. Adapt and conform, or your poor bottom will suffer.’
They ascended an Adam staircase, drenched in sunlight pouring through a magnificent oval window.
‘I’ll take you to the Long Gallery.’
It was sixty, perhaps seventy feet long and ten feet wide.
‘King Charles spent a Christmas here. The Cavalier troops quartered hereabouts in the worst of the winter. They used to hold races along the Long Gallery. Naked wenches would compete for a prize of Seville oranges, a cup of malmsey …’
Or a coveted place in a royalist’s bed. Mandy closed her eyes and imagined the flickering candlelight, the bellowing laughter, the flushed faces – and the naked wenches, their tiny feet scampering the length of the polished floor. Bare breasted, eyes sparkling, they would race before their king. Fierce wagers, purses of gold, would be exchanged. Fanny, from the kitchens, fleet of foot, would be put against Susie, the spritely little minx who served the wine. Studded gauntlets would cup and squeeze the ripe breasts of the winner, and a gold sovereign would be thrust between her upper thighs. Lazy Susie, who had stumbled and lost pace, would be spanked by Lord Percy, the guttering candlelight winking on her hot reddened rump.
‘The Roundheads were dug in the following Christmas,’ Sophie continued. ‘No more fun or Yuletide festivities. Grim lot, the Roundheads.’
Mandy pictured the scene. Fanny from the kitchens, now in drab black and grey, kneeling on the flagstones for communal prayers. Susie, now toiling in the dairy, being slowly whipped for dipping her finger into a jug of cream.
‘Don’t disturb the residents and don’t go near their doors,’ Sophie warned, wheeling out the hoover before returning to the kitchens downstairs.
The Long Gallery divided the East Wing from the West. The dark polished floor was covered with several thousand pounds’ worth – Mandy automatically put a price on everything she saw – of six-foot wide purple carpet. Both sides of the Long Gallery were punctuated by large double doors, six to her left and six to her right. Behind the firmly closed doors, massively hewn from oak, the residents were cosseted in expensive splendour. Was Sternwood Grange an idyllic rural retreat? A rest home, providing escape from the pressures and problems of the public glare? Mandy wondered about her late aunt’s enterprise as she propelled the whispering hoover along, playing the looped flex out as she ate up the vast stretch of purple. The rubber lead tapped against her thigh below the hem of her pleated skirt like the touch of a crop applied to a pony in dressage. The hoover glided in silence, passing the huge double doors; to her left, the East Wing and, to her right, the West. Suddenly, the machine stopped abruptly. Only the loss of the tiny red light told her that the motor had died. She had trodden on the lead, yanking out the plug thirty feet away. Retracing her steps, she passed the first of the stout double doors. A prolonged moan greeted her ears as she bent down to reinsert the plug. The moan was followed by a sharp shriek.
Fascinated, Mandy inched towards the doors on tiptoe. Silence. Had she been mistaken? She thought that the moan, low and sweet, had held a note of carnal suffering. The shriek had been a protest against sudden pain. Kneeling at the keyhole, she pressed up against the doors. Inside, she glimpsed a sumptuously furnished room. Down on the satin cushions strewn across the richly patterned carpet, a kneeling naked woman was burying her face into the leather of a saddle.
‘Lick,’ a stern voice commanded. ‘Faster.’
The naked young woman obeyed. Mandy saw the pink tongue sparkle as it lapped at the polished leather, staining the light tan a darker shade of brown.
‘Kiss. Kiss the leather.’ Swish, swipe. The instruction was delivered with a searing lash of a riding crop across the upturned buttocks. The whipped woman smothered her moan as, hugging the saddle to her bulging breasts, she crushed her parted lips on to the hide.
Mandy’s nipples thickened in response. She squashed her bosom into the ancient oak. In the room, the young woman lay face down, spread-eagled across the satin cushions. No, not exactly spread-eagled. Mandy saw that her ankles were bound together.
‘Turn over.’
The rounded cheeks, reddening under the kiss of the crop, sank into the cushion beneath them as the woman obeyed. Mandy raked her avidly from head to toe. The loose tangle of matted chestnut curls sticking to the perspiring face, the delicate, aristocratic features, the small, apple-like breasts, the swell at the hips and the long, tanned legs.
Two black velvet riding hats tumbled to the carpet at her side.
‘Put them on,’ snapped the voice of the unseen tormentress.
Placing a riding hat over each of her apple breasts, filling the velvet void within with her firm flesh, the nude gripped them, rotating them as she ground them harshly into her bosom.
‘Harder, bitch.’
The tip of the crop brushed the woman’s lips. She craned her neck up, lunging to snap and bite at it. The crop flicked down, settling under her chin. Slowly, with absolute dominance, the crop forced the nude’s head backwards and upwards.
‘Up.’ Crack, snap. As the naked buttocks swung around, offering themselves submissively to the crop, the crop greeted them with a withering slice, striping the punished cheeks and adding yet another thin red line. The girl squealed as she struggled up, hampered by her bound feet.
‘No, kneel. On all fours.’ The tip of the crop pressed the turmoil of chestnut curls down.
Was this a resident? Mandy’s tongue felt swollen and too big for her dry mouth. Her aching nipples tormented her. Her hot slit wept.
‘I believe you ride hard at hounds, Lady Davinia,’ the unseen speaker taunted.
Lady Davinia, the superbly buttocked beauty, nodded. Mandy watched the chestnut curls rippling.
‘Speak up, bitch. Louder.’
The naked aristocrat peeled her lips away from the satin cushion. ‘Yes,’ she confessed, her voice a thickened whisper.
‘We’re going for a little canter this fine morning –’ Crack, snap. The crop whistled down across the bare bottom. ‘– but I shall be up in the saddle.’
Mandy’s slit tingled and burned at the words. She forced her hand between her thighs, palming her pubis to ease the surge of excitement. Through the keyhole, she strained to steal a glimpse of the dominatrix but, as her line of vision swept towards the unseen speaker, she was dazzled by the sunshine. Blinking, she closed her eye, squeezing a tear out and wiping it with her crisp apron. She had been denied, so far, any clue to the tormentress – apart from brief glimpses of the red-sleeved arm swiftly delivering the cutting strokes of the crop.
Crack, snap. Lady Davinia moaned, drawing Mandy back to the keyhole. She spied the dark chestnut-hued pubic fuzz peeping between the splayed thighs as Lady Davinia dipped her tummy and jerked her bottom up eagerly for the crop.
In the room, on an unseen mantelpiece, a carriage clock struck. The Cambridge chimes tinkled the hour. Gazing at the striped bottom, Mandy suddenly remembered Sophie. Sophie was due to be caned at ten. Had the carriage clock struck ten? Or was it only nine? Mandy had lost all sense of time. Swivelling back, and sinking her bottom on to her heels, she peered through the keyhole towards the sound of the clock. Yes. There it was. She could just make it out. It was ten. Sophie’s suffering, she knew, was under way behind the frosted-glass door of the housekeeper’s office. Mandy smothered her cry of surprise.
Behind the clock, there was a mirrored panel. In the glass, she saw the face of one of the angels who had come down to the kitchens earlier to collect her breakfast. The angel, silhouetted in a haze of golden sunshine, was dressed for the hunt. Almost, but not entirely. A black velvet riding hat perched on her head. An unbuttoned red hunting jacket allowed her breasts to spill out. Shiny black leather boots hugged her lower legs. The angel was, otherwise, quite naked – except for dark leather gloves and the crop quivering in her right hand.
Mandy knew at once what she never could have imagined. She knew the truth of Aunt Clare’s enterprise: Sternwood Grange was an erotic playpen for the rich. An exclusive palace of pleasures where the wealthy could indulge their darkest desires.
In the mirrored panel above the mantelpiece, Mandy saw the angel wrapping a thin leather harness around her naked hips and buttocks. The gloved fingers tightened the short straps. Grinding the heels of her polished boots into the carpet, the angel turned and bent down briefly, presenting her buttocks to Mandy’s gaze. Mandy licked her lips as the bare bottom bulged, the cheeks seemingly threatening to burst the crisscrossed strapping. The taut leather harness rendered the cleft between the cheeks a severe flesh-crease. Rising up to face Mandy once more, the angel produced an eight-inch ivory dildo, kissed its blunt snout fleetingly, then jammed it into a socket in the harness at her pubis. The gloved fingers slowly twisted the dildo, tightening it, before slowly stroking its gleaming length. Lady Davinia whimpered. Mandy saw the black boot pinion the whipped buttocks imperiously, crushing the swollen cheeks down in a display of utter dominance. The angel’s fingers continued to skim along the shaft. As they were withdrawn, the ivory phallus sprang up, alert and erect. Mandy swallowed, and used both hands to steady herself against the oak.
Crack, snap. The crop seared down across the buttocks still flattened by the controlling boot. Lady Davinia screamed softly into her satin cushion.
‘Head up,’ the angel snarled.
Still writhing after the fierce stroke of crop across flesh, the nude tossed her chestnut curls. A leather glove descended and taloned a fistful of the shining hair. ‘I said head up, bitch. I need reins to ride you, don’t I?’
Straddling her naked mount, the angel squeezed her polished boots against the hot buttocks. With her left hand still clutching the chestnut mane, and her right hand gripping the crop, the angel guided her splayed thighs down on to the helpless woman below. Thrusting her hips forward, the rider pressed the tip of the dildo into the exposed nape of the aristocratic neck. Lady Davinia shivered. Easing back, her riding boots shuffling carefully, the angel swept her hips and thighs slowly, raking the length of smooth ivory down along Lady Davinia’s spine. Mandy heard the satin-smothered moan, and tensed as she watched the bound, naked feet twitching frantically in their strict bondage. The angel paused, the tip of the dildo now dimpling the reddened cheek of the left buttock. Slowly, a heartbeat at a time, the probing snout centimetred towards the rosebud sphincter winking wetly between the parted, whipped buttocks.
The chatter of an approaching helicopter, and the chorus of scattered rooks startled from the elms, broke the spell holding Mandy in its thrall. She blinked. Steadying herself, she put her hand down, accidentally forcing her palm on to the upturned plug on the carpet. The flash of pain cleared her brain.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Miss Partridge, treading the purple carpet silently as she approached.
Mandy, kneeling on one knee, looked up, the plug in her hand. She blushed.
‘You’ve been spying, haven’t you? Listening at the door.’
In the silence after the roar of the helicopter, Mandy could hear her heart hammering. A squeal came from behind the oak doors – where the angel was riding the nude.
‘I trod on the lead. The plug came out.’
‘Stand up,’ the housekeeper hissed, now towering over Mandy.
Another sound – one of anguished ecstasy – echoed from behind the doors. Mandy tried to ignore the image burning in her brain: the leather boots controlling the imprisoned thighs, the glove-held hair, the red jacket from which perspiring breasts spilled and bounced. The soft whisper of flesh riding flesh.
‘Lift up your skirt. Quickly,’ Miss Partridge demanded.
Mandy dropped the plug and obeyed. The housekeeper knelt down and inspected Mandy’s cotton panties. Mandy tried to suppress the image of the angel astride her naked mount, the length of ivory dildo disappearing a fraction at a time with every hip-thrust as the crop cracked down. Just as Miss Partridge pulled the panties down to examine Mandy’s labia, the maid bubbled her wet excitement. Mandy shivered with both fear and shame as she heard Miss Partridge sniffing at the heavy tang of arousal.
‘Wet,’ the housekeeper pronounced. ‘You’ve been spying. Pull your panties up and get downstairs at once. I’ll see you in my office when our resident has departed.’
The helicopter coughed, roared and rose up into the sky above Sternwood Grange. Banking steeply, it veered towards London, its shadow skimming the Suffolk treetops below. Mandy heard its departure from the housekeeper’s office. Having seen the resident off, Miss Partridge would be returning any second now. The door opened. Mandy froze – relaxing a little as Sophie looked in.
‘What –’
‘She caught me. I was listening at the door. I didn’t mean –’
‘She caught you spying? You’ll get six, at least. Come upstairs to my room when it’s over –’
Sophie disappeared abruptly at the sound of approaching footsteps. Unlike the silent tread upon the purple carpet nine minutes ago, Mandy heard the housekeeper’s measured steps across the flagstone floor.
Miss Partridge closed the frosted-glass door behind her firmly, turning the key in the lock. Mandy wiped her wet palms into the apron at her thighs.
‘I’m extremely busy this morning and extremely angry. I have little to say to you other than to express my deep disappointment at your wilful disobedience. I believe that actions speak louder than words. Bend over.’
Mandy’s blue eyes widened in alarm. Miss Partridge narrowed hers.
‘No, leave your panties alone. Touch your toes, girl,’ the housekeeper murmured, selecting a bamboo cane from a choice of seven stacked in the corner by a filing cabinet.
‘Right over. Feet together for the first three strokes, then apart for the next three, understand?’
Mandy whispered her obedience. She shuddered as she felt the tip of the yellow wood flick the hem of her pleated skirt up over her hips, and clenched her buttocks as Miss Partridge thumbed her panties down. Using the cane tip against the exposed cheeks, Miss Partridge judged the distance. Mandy closed her eyes tightly.
‘Your first taste of discipline?’ the housekeeper asked, her tone almost politely conversational.
‘N–no,’ whispered Mandy thickly, dreading yet adoring the dominant tap of the cane against her bare cheeks.
‘Nor the last, I’m sure,’ Miss Partridge observed.
Swish. Mandy’s eyes opened wide as the flash of crimson exploded in her brain. The supple bamboo had sliced down, lashing her bottom harshly. Swish. The second stroke, crisply stinging, seared her defenceless buttocks. Her fingers splayed in a reflex of anguish. Swish. The third cut of the cane sliced down with an evil whistle, leaving a reddening line of pain across the punished cheeks.
‘Feet apart. Hands behind your knees,’ Miss Partridge instructed.
Mandy almost stumbled forward as she struggled to obey, hampered by the tight stretch of her panties just above her knees. The punisher steadied the bending girl with a tap of the yellow bamboo. Head down, with her bottom presented perfectly for punishment, Mandy hoped that the pungent perfume from her wet slit would go undetected. Both her buttocks and her face burned with shame and pain. The tip of the cane quivered as it lightly grazed the outer cheek of her naked bottom.
‘Naughty girl,’ the housekeeper murmured, her tone stern but not angry. The bamboo traced the curve of the buttock down to the crease of the thigh. Sweeping inwards, it paused at the glistening fig. Mandy steadied herself against the swoon that threatened to engulf her. The punishment was sweet, the dominance delicious. Sophie’s words haunted her. When Miss Partridge dispensed discipline, she owned your bottom utterly. Mandy surrendered to the truth of these words – and, inching up on her toes a fraction, submitted her bare buttocks to the cane.
Swish. Swish. A merciless double swipe of supple wood swept down across the upturned cheeks. Mandy squealed and grasped her legs tightly as if squeezing out the pain. A dreadful pause ensued. Miss Partridge had lost the button from the cuff she had undone in preparation for the punishment. Scanning the flagstone floor, she pounced, retrieved her stray button and pocketed it. A silent scream welled up inside Mandy’s throat. Her bare bottom blazed beneath an invisible flame of pain. The housekeeper had accidentally brushed against the bare buttocks with her thigh when scooping up the button, grazing the swell of their hot curves with the fabric of her skirt. Mandy moaned at the fleeting touch: so unexpectedly delicious, so disturbingly delightful. Confused, her mind in sudden chaos, the bending girl struggled to deny the dark joy dictated by the Judas wood. In her tumult of emotions, she forgot about the sixth stroke.
Swish – Miss Partridge hadn’t. The thin cane sliced down, planting a kiss of savage affection across the scalded cheeks. Mandy’s left leg shook uncontrollably despite her gripping hand.
One. Two. Three. The tip of the cane, now wet and stained with the lust-juice from her slit, tapped her bottom as it counted the six red lines. Satisfied, Miss Partridge took a linen hankie out of her pocket, first drying the tip of the cane and then applying it to the labial lips peeping between Mandy’s thighs. Mandy gasped aloud at the intimacy, and the dominance, of the touch of cool linen against her hot, silken flesh. Miss Partridge pocketed the hankie and replaced the cane in the corner of her office. Pacing back to the bare-bottomed girl she had just chastised, she cupped the ravished cheeks and slowly squeezed. Mandy cried out – a shrill squeal of tormented delight. Shutting her eyes tightly, almost as if unwilling to witness her own actions, she thrust her captive cheeks up into the controlling hands that held them, squeezed them, possessed them. She thrilled to their firm control just as she would when a tight silk brassiere imprisoned her bulging breasts.
Silence filled the room. Mandy sensed that Miss Partridge was savouring her moment of supreme sovereignty. Her punisher would be gazing down at the punished bottom, examining the blushing cheeks intimately. Surrendering completely to these delicious sensations of submission, Mandy wept freely from her slit.
Miss Partridge squeezed harder, then swept her thumbs upwards, widening the captive cleft. Mandy tensed, clenching her cheeks tightly, fearful of what she desired. Miss Partridge spanked the left buttock sharply.
‘Back to your duties, girl. I hope I don’t have to punish you – too frequently.’ Once again, the tone was excitingly ambiguous, a stern warmth blending with the sweet severity.
Mandy stood up, her head spinning. Tugging her panties up, she winced as they hugged her hot bottom, and blushed as they grew damp at her pubis. Her heart was beating wildly and her caned buttocks burned, but deep down inside her a strange sensation blossomed. Tugging her panties up into her flesh, she tried to name the nameless feeling of this new, unexpectedly pleasurable, aching anguish.
‘You got six. I said you would,’ Sophie murmured, tracing each reddening line across Mandy’s bottom with her fingertip. ‘I only got four.’
Mandy cuddled into Sophie’s embrace. Staring into the mirror, she counted the four scarlet stripes across the other maid’s bare bottom. They were upstairs, their uniforms abandoned across Sophie’s bed.
‘We haven’t much time. It’s always so busy at lunch. This’ll make it better. Give me your bottom.’
Mandy turned, offering her buttocks to Sophie. The naked platinum blonde knelt, her face inches away from the punished buttocks before her.
‘Mmm,’ Mandy sighed, parting her thighs slightly and pushing her bottom back into the healing touch of cold cream-dripping fingers busy at her flesh. ‘That’s wonderful.’
Sophie dipped her fingers into the pot of cream once more and applied them to the proffered cheeks. With slow, circular sweeps, she soothed the ravished flesh. ‘Nearly done,’ she whispered, lightly stroking her fingertip down along the cleft. Mandy moaned, clamping her thighs together.
Sophie kissed the flesh before her. ‘More?’ she teased, murmuring the word directly into Mandy’s warmth.
‘Yes,’ Mandy gasped. ‘Yes,’ she added urgently, surrendering completely to her implaccable, inner desires wakened by the cane.
Sophie paused, her cream-anointed finger at the base of Mandy’s spine. Slowly, deliberately, she dragged it down, forcing it between the quivering cheeks. The lubricated fingertip slid down along the flesh, sensing no resistance. Mandy planted her feet apart and surrendered her bottom to the devilish delight, her excitement sharpened by the knowledge of her wickedness, her forbidden sins of Sapphic pleasure. The fingertip came to rest against the rosebud of her anal whorl. For a brief moment, her heart ceased beating, the throbbing pulse at her throat stopped still. Gently, then with an increasing touch of dominance, the fingertip probed. Mandy’s brain kaleidoscoped with a riot of spinning images: the angel’s dildo penetrating Lady Davinia as the rider’s black leather boots squeezed the whipped bottom; the touch of the housekeeper’s skirt against her own ravished cheeks; the inquisitive touch of the cane tip at her weeping fig; Sophie’s face at her bottom, so close, so very close.
‘Not now,’ Sophie sighed, withdrawing her finger. ‘It’s late. Erica will be on the prowl.’
‘Please …’ mewed Mandy, inching her bottom back to regain and reclaim the finger.
In seconds, Sophie had dressed and gone, zipping up her pleated black maid’s skirt as she vanished through the door.
Mandy stood still, naked in the sunbeams. Her hot slit pulsed as a rush of understanding and self-knowledge swept over her. Alone in the bedroom, she listened to her heartbeat in the silence of the room. Approaching Sophie’s bed, she knelt down, pressing her belly into the corner of the mattress. Between her thighs, her fig split wide open, fully ripened by the blaze of her kindled heat. The wet labia kissed the mattress as Mandy crushed them into its soft solidity. Gripping the edges with both fists and thighs, she rode the corner of the mattress with increasing fury, dragging her clitoris and slit repeatedly down against its rough graze.
A renewed riot of images tumbled behind her tightly shut eyes: burning images of submission, punishment, domination and sweet surrender. The voyeuristic glimpses of the angel dominantly mounting the naked aristocrat, Miss Partridge thumbing the cleft between the cheeks she had just striped with the bamboo cane, Sophie’s probing fingertip at her anal whorl.
Sophie. Mandy murmured the name slowly, allowing the vowels to fill her mouth like too big a bite of fudge cake. Sophie. The stray wisps of Sophie’s platinum blonde hair. The soft glow in Sophie’s violet eyes. Mandy thrust her hot wet flesh savagely against the mattress in a frenzy of lust. Sophie’s lips kissing her bottom – Mandy started to climax – Sophie’s dripping finger – the climax gripped her inner muscles in its fist of velvet steel – Sophie’s finger probing, probing – Mandy’s knuckles whitened as they gripped the mattress – Sophie’s probing finger sliding into her tight warmth – Mandy screamed aloud and came. She came violently, hammering her hips into the mattress and crying out aloud: Sophie’s name upon her parted lips.
The sunbeams turned from gold to crimson, and then from crimson into black as Mandy, ravished by her orgasm, trembled on the very brink of consciousness, never before having experienced such violent delights or such savage joy. Buckling under her climax, she shuddered and gasped as it raked her naked body mercilessly.
Both the heat and the silence of the late afternoon bore down oppressively on the four maids as they toiled in the kitchens under the ever vigilant gaze, and hovering wooden spoon, of Erica. High tea was a pleasurable ritual that all the residents took seriously. Eggs were carefully boiled and shelled, cress washed and diced, crabs dressed, six types of cakes sliced and plated and no less than seven blends of tea brewed in pots of Georgian silver. Scones were split, their fluffy crumbs exposed to receive clotted cream and fragrant raspberry jam.
There was a loud crash: the kitchen reverberated to the sound of a stone jar smashing down on the flagstones. Erica pounced, her wooden spoon erect and alert. The guilty maid fingered her apron nervously.
‘Big deal,’ Sophie said, cutting a large chocolate cake carefully. ‘It’s only a pot of jam.’
Mandy, catching the delicate aroma of framboise from the scarlet ooze treacling from the splintered shards, knew better.
‘You stupid girl,’ Erica hissed. ‘You’ll find that a costly mistake.’
‘French conserve. Eight pounds a jar,’ Mandy whispered.
Sophie whistled and nodded, throwing a sympathetic look at the miserable maid, already down on her knees and scrubbing at the stone floor.
‘Five pounds deduction,’ Erica snapped, ‘from each of your wages. As for you, girl, it’s the Gibbet.’
‘It’s only jam,’ the unlucky maid wailed.
‘Only jam?’ echoed Miss Partridge, entering the kitchen. ‘That is a singularly expensive conserve supplied exclusively from France.’
‘The Gibbet?’ Erica prompted eagerly.
‘Yes,’ the housekeeper confirmed. ‘These wretched maids must be taught a lesson.’
Miss Partridge withdrew to her office and an expectant silence settled over the kitchen.
‘Strip,’ Erica commanded, tapping the palm of her hand impatiently with her wooden spoon.
The maid, a dark-eyed little minx called Sonia, peeled off her uniform and stood, naked and fearful, her head bowed, her hands cupped inwards to hide her pubic fuzz.
‘Arms up,’ Erica barked, propelling the naked girl across the flagstones to the Gibbet, the wooden spoon speaking twice across the maid’s bare bottom.
Sonia stood beneath the leather cuffs suspended by the chain from the ceiling. Erica threaded Sonia’s hands and wrists through the cuffs and, having secured her victim, yanked at the chain above. Sonia’s arms arrowed upwards, suspending her naked body. Mandy stole a furtive peep over her shoulder. She saw the naked girl’s tiny toes whitening as they scrabbled on the cold flagstones below.
‘Sonia will be in the Gibbet for two hours. Each of you will lose money,’ Erica informed the rest of the assembled maids, ‘due to her stupidity. Two strokes each.’
‘What does she mean?’ Mandy whispered.
‘You’ll see,’ Sophie replied.
The maids were ordered to line up.
‘Quickly,’ Erica rasped. ‘With one maid short you’ll have extra work to do this afternoon. Remember that, and your loss of earnings, as you stripe her.’
Mandy gazed at the suspended maid. Sonia spindled slowly, presenting her breasts, belly and pubis, then turning to reveal her hip, thigh – and, finally, her ripe peach buttocks. Mandy’s nipples thickened and peaked as she gazed at the plump swell of the pink cheeks. Sonia’s bottom was undoubtedly both spankable and biteable – but now it was to be beaten. Mandy, at the end of the queue, realised she was part of a punishment squad.
The maids stepped up briskly, accepted the wooden spoon from Erica and cracked it down twice across the vulnerable cheeks. The suspended girl’s naked bottom was perfectly poised and presented for punishment. Mandy’s heart fluttered. She closed her eyes. Swish, swipe. Swish, swipe. The little minx squealed and jerked, rattling the chain above her. Mandy blinked and looked up. The punished maid’s fingers splayed out in their cuffed bondage, signalling her suffering. Swish, swipe. Swish, swipe. Sonia squealed again, almost drowning out the dry rattle of the chain. Sophie’s turn came. She stepped up, accepted the wooden spoon and gripped the handle tightly. Sonia’s toes curled in anguish as her naked feet paddled the flagstones. Up in their leather cuffs, the maid’s wrists writhed. Swish, swipe. The spoon swept across the reddening cheeks. Swish, swipe.
It was Mandy’s turn. She accepted the spoon with a trembling hand and took the short step forward that brought her within striking distance of the suffering maid’s buttocks.
* * *
‘Your first time? Never punished before?’
‘Yes. No. I mean –’
‘Nice?’ Sophie teased.
Mandy blushed in her confusion. Yes. It had been nice. It had been wonderful. She remembered how the pliant flesh had absorbed the swishing spoon. Sonia’s soft cheeks had flattened under the first stroke, and shuddered beneath the second. The wooden spoon had made a satisfying ‘splat’ across the cheeks, blazing their pink sheen with a fiery crimson.
Mandy tossed her head back and enjoyed the stream of warm water. They were sharing the shower together. Two naked girls forced into the intimacy of the confined space. Bosoms collided, nipples grazed and peaked. Wet slippery thighs conspired to entwine. They kissed, slowly and deeply, Mandy felt the force of Sophie’s pubic mound pressing into her own. They kissed again, flickering the tips of their tongues into each other’s open mouths. Mandy took Sophie’s lower lip between her teeth, her slit on fire as Sophie’s tongue found the roof of her mouth. They embraced, hugging each other’s wet nakedness. Sophie’s fingers came to rest against Mandy’s labia. Palm inwards, she opened the tingling flesh lips as her thumb prised up the clitoris.
‘So? Which would you rather be? The spanker, or the spanked?’
‘I don’t …’ Mandy hesitated. ‘The spanker. No. I mean …’
‘Both?’ Sophie whispered.
‘Both,’ murmured Mandy huskily, recognising the truth as she spoke it. ‘Mmm,’ she whispered. ‘Both.’
Giggling, Sophie spun round, squashing her face and breasts into the tiles. Jerking her buttocks up as she braced herself on arched feet, she waggled her bottom and pleaded to be soaped. Mandy palmed the soap, conjuring up a luxurious lather, and spread the creaming suds over each rounded cheek. Sophie gurgled her delight and spread her wet thighs wide. Mandy’s throat tightened as she saw the cleft yawn invitingly. Emboldened, she skimmed her fingertip along the ribbon of velvet deep between the buttocks. Sophie cried aloud, and begged for more, urging Mandy to be firmer, much firmer, with her bare bottom.
Mandy knelt, the shower drumming down on her face and shoulders, and gripped the hips, drawing the bare wet bottom closer to her parted lips. In the rain of water, her white teeth sparkled.
‘Shush. Someone’s coming.’
Mandy rose, chastened by Sophie’s whispered warning.
They heard the echo of two pairs of approaching footsteps. Shivering, they huddled together. The plastic curtain of the first shower rustled as it was dragged open. The footsteps neared. Another shower curtain scraped the rail as unseen hands flung it wide open. Mandy pressed her body into Sophie’s. Who could it be? Two angels, perspiring after pleasuring the residents? Two naughty maids, coming to shower after a long day’s toil? Erica and Miss Partridge, prowling for bare bottoms to punish?
‘Excellent,’ they heard a voice rasp. ‘That almost completes my tour of inspection. We’ll examine the maids’ rooms next.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find everything in order,’ Miss Partridge replied. ‘Go ahead, Miss Flaxstone, I’ll catch you up. I’ll just turn this tap off in here.’
Miss Flaxstone. Mandy’s brain froze. She did not hear the curtain of their shower being dragged back. She did not hear the gasp of surprise, or see the flash of jealous anger in the housekeeper’s wide eyes. All she heard was her heart hammering furiously as her wet bosom crushed against Sophie’s soft breasts.