Chapter Eleven

Open House

SOME TIME LATER, a familiar beeping roused Belinda from drifting, non-thinking sensual stupor.

The mobile! Good grief! Someone was ringing them! It ought to have been impossible – the batteries were flat – but a call had come through anyway. Rolling to the edge of the settee, away from Jonathan’s dozing form, Belinda slithered inelegantly on to the floor and picked up the phone.

‘Hello?’ she said cautiously, tugging at her French knickers which were tangled around her knees.

‘Belinda?’ queried the caller. ‘It’s Paula. Where the devil are you? I’ve been trying to call you but getting the “not switched on” message. What’s happened to you? Have you fallen off the edge of the earth?’

What has happened to us? thought Belinda, at the sound of her friend’s pleasant, extraordinarily normal voice. How do you describe to someone that you’re shacked up in a weird old priory with a 200-year-old Middle European nobleman, and you’ve had enough sex in two days to last six months?

‘Well, it’s a long story,’ she began, lifting her hips so she could pull the knickers up over her bottom. ‘But basically, we broke down in the middle of the night and took shelter in the grounds of this old priory … and now the owner’s asked us to stay with him for a while. As his house guests.’

Why am I telling her that? Belinda mused, instead of making arrangements to meet.

‘You jammy things!’ exclaimed the distant Paula, sounding so clear she could have been right there in the room. ‘Does this mean the rendezvous is off? I can go to Aunt Lizzie’s for a few extra days instead, if you like?’

‘No! Don’t do that!’ Belinda said quickly, as behind her Jonathan yawned and stretched. ‘Why not come here – to Sedgewick Priory. It’s fantastic and there’s loads of room. I’m sure Count André won’t mind. It’s open house here. And there’s a fabulous garden. A river. A folly, even.’

‘Wow! It sounds amazing,’ replied Paula, audibly impressed. ‘Who’s this Count André? He sounds a bit exotic to me … Is he a hunk?’

Belinda considered the question. Was André a hunk? Sort of, perhaps, though certainly not by conventional standards.

‘He’s very nice, actually. A perfect gentleman.’

‘Obviously not too much of a gentleman, from the sound of your voice.’ Paula laughed. ‘What’s he look like? How old is he?’

‘An angel’ and ‘about two hundred and thirty’ were the answers, but instead Belinda simply said, ‘He’s very good-looking. Sort of thoughtful … with blue eyes and streaky, blondish hair.’ She thought hard. ‘I’ve no idea how old he is really, but he looks around the thirty-something mark.’

‘He sounds divine!’ said Paula. ‘Are you sure he wouldn’t mind if I just turned up?’

‘Not in the slightest, I’m sure of it,’ answered Belinda, realising that she was sure. She had a feeling that André would grant her whatever she desired, possibly without her even having to ask him.

‘OK then,’ said Paula, sounding pleased and excited. ‘Gimme directions, and I’ll be with you as soon as I can. This is far too good an opportunity to miss.’ She paused and made a little ‘mmmm’ of satisfaction. ‘Count André, eh? Good grief, I can hardly wait!’

Belinda was instantly aware of a dilemma. How could she give directions if she didn’t know where she was? They had been entirely lost the other night, even before they had abandoned the car. And there had certainly been no Sedgewick Priory on the map.

‘Give me the phone,’ said a voice behind her, making her nearly drop the mobile. It had been Jonathan, yet he had sounded quite peculiar. Expressionless, almost robotic. And when she turned to him, Belinda saw a face that matched the spaced-out voice. Jonathan was reaching for the phone, but he was not looking at it, or at her, or at anything else. He looked as if he was in a trance, but at a loss for anything better to do, she handed him the mobile.

What followed was the most eerie thing Belinda had ever seen – and that was saying something, given the weirdness of the last two days.

Jonathan delivered a set of clear and very detailed instructions on how to get to the priory from the last town they had passed through. And throughout them he neither moved a muscle nor blinked his eyes once. Belinda heard Paula ask a question, and he replied, ‘Just a guess …’, continuing to stare into some inner middle distance. Without another word, he handed the phone back to Belinda.

‘Is Jonathan OK?’ queried Paula. ‘He sounds a bit out of it.’

‘He’s just tired,’ said Belinda, watching in perfect astonishment as Jonathan lay back again and promptly went to sleep. ‘It’s the driving and the heat. That’s one of the reasons I want to stay here. So he can have a nice relaxing time.’

‘Sounds great to me,’ said Paula cheerfully.

They chatted for a few minutes more, then said goodbye, the plan being that Paula would join them after visiting her aunt.

The instant the call was over, the mobile phone went completely dead in Belinda’s hand. No ready signal, no dial tone, no nothing. She gave it a shake then dropped it on the settee, feeling vaguely scared of it. Turning to Jonathan, she found him still fast asleep.

This is creepy, she thought, reaching out to brush a love-lick of hair that was dangling on his forehead. Just who the hell was it that had given those directions? It certainly hadn’t been Jonathan, she was quite sure of it.

Isidora Katori was shaking with excitement, although she strongly doubted that the average observer would have noticed.

Her powers serving her as well as ever, she had taken a route south from the city, letting her instincts choose the roads and the turnings. After an hour or two behind the wheel, she had felt an urge to pull off for a while, take refreshment and consider her next move, and a pleasant country pub with a beer garden had beckoned.

Not one for bucolic pursuits at the best of times, she had nevertheless experienced a growing anticipation as she sat in the shade with a cool drink and a light lunch. Her psychic awareness had sharpened to a degree that was almost painful when a young woman, carrying a lunch and a drink of her own, had asked politely if she could share the same table as there was nowhere else available in the sun.

Hiding her interest, Isidora had said, ‘Of course’, and after a few moments her new companion had taken a mobile phone from her bag.

The conversation that followed had been exactly the set of clues Isidora had been waiting for, and it had taken all her considerable self-control not to shout out in triumph as she had listened with her enhanced hearing to its contents.

He was here! Less than thirty miles away! And this rather ordinary young woman, with her phone and her shoulder bag, was expected as a guest in his house. It was high time to make some introductions.

‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’ said Isidora to her dining companion, gracing the woman with her most brilliant of smiles. ‘I do so love this part of the country, don’t you?’ She edged a little closer, along the wooden seat, towards her victim. ‘By the way, my name is Isidora … What’s yours?’

Jonathan had slept for half an hour after the strange phone call, and it was only when Oren entered the library, carrying sandwiches and a jug of juice, that he woke up and looked around, his face puzzled.

Belinda – who had been nosing around the library and discovering erotic literature which made her own recent exploits seem profoundly naïve – moved to sit down beside him as Oren served their lunch.

‘I had the weirdest dream,’ said Jonathan, when the blond servant had discreetly made his exit. ‘It was really vivid … Gives me the shakes just to think about it, although there nothing much actually happened.’

‘What do you remember?’ Belinda reached for a sandwich, and, taking a bite, realised they were smoked salmon, a delicacy she had only very rarely indulged in.

‘Well, I was in this stone-lined room, sort of round –’ He paused to sample his own sandwich, and his eyebrows shot up in appreciative surprise. ‘Anyway, it was dark, but there were candles burning all around. And there were draperies of some sort.’ He finished the sandwich. ‘These are brilliant!’

‘But what happened in the dream?’ prompted Belinda, recognising an uncannily accurate description of André’s tower room.

‘Someone held this card up, with blue writing on it. And I had to read it out aloud. That’s all I remember.’ He took another sandwich, put it on his plate, then added a couple more.

‘What did it say? The blue writing?’

‘No idea!’ said Jonathan blithely between bites. ‘I don’t remember a single word.’

I do, thought Belinda, eating her own sandwich but too preoccupied to appreciate its deliciousness. She herself could remember those directions almost perfectly, and the ghostly way they had been issued from Jonathan’s lips.

After their lunch, Belinda and Jonathan ventured out into the park for a walk.

Belinda said nothing to Jonathan, but the incident in the library had spooked her. André had intervened in their lives again and prevented them from leaving his house, but there didn’t seem to be any way to go back on their decision and leave. The mobile phone was dead again and there seemed to be nowhere to charge it, so they couldn’t contact Paula and make a new plan. They were trapped here until she turned up to release them.

Jonathan took his sketching gear from the Mini and Belinda had a book from the library – one of the risqué ones she had been looking at earlier – and they set off in the direction of the river. No one appeared on the steps to stop them as they left, so it seemed it was all right that they explore.

‘How old do you think André is?’ asked Belinda, a while later. They had walked all the way across the park and found a path through the woods, and were now settled on the bank beside the stream. Belinda had a suspicion that this was the very site where Jonathan had watched Feltris and Elisa make love, but she didn’t say anything. She just smiled at the way his gaze darted to one particular spot, and his expression became both dreamy and excited.

‘I dunno … Thirty. Thirty-five. Something like that,’ he said after a while. ‘I only saw him for a few minutes, And I was half-asleep anyway.’ He gave her a puzzled look. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘No particular reason,’ she said quickly, opening her book. ‘I just wondered.’

‘Well, he’s definitely older than us,’ observed Jonathan, as if that was the end of the matter. Holding up his pencil, he closed his left eye and measured the size of an object on the far side of the river, already deeply absorbed in his drawing.

You can say that again, thought Belinda, turning her attention to what lay on the page before her. She had discovered this treasure of perversion while Jonathan had been dozing, and been so intrigued – and shocked – by it that she had been compelled to bring the outrageous thing with her.

Not an entirely unsophisticated woman, Belinda was aware of some of the weirder practices people indulged in for pleasure. She and Jonathan had experimented a little when they had first got together, but they had never tried what was depicted in this lavishly-produced volume – the dark, cryptic delights of erotic punishment. It was all new to her, but the images were affecting.

The content consisted almost entirely of photographs of women being spanked. Some were from the very earliest days of photographic art, before the turn of the century, and some were from far more recent eras.

Paradoxically, it was the older, fuzzier prints that were most exciting. The women in them were swathed in voluminous layers of frilly underwear, much like the garments she was wearing now, and often trussed into tight corsets too. But in every case, their pale bottoms were exposed. Rounded cheeks appeared out of peepholes in the most decorous of knee-length drawers, or were visible only between rolled-up petticoats and the dark tops of snugly-gartered stockings.

Other girls and women were more lewdly presented, with legs raised or stretched apart in a variety of uncomfortable-looking poses, suggesting it was not only their bottoms that were being smacked. Seeing these willing victims – for almost all the faces visible were smiling, and others were clearly only feigning distress – Belinda found herself thinking again of last night on the terrace. Suddenly she wished André had spanked her when he could have done – when her bare bottom was pushed rudely out towards him.

She had never been punished for pleasure, but now she wanted to be, desperately. She glanced at Jonathan but he was engrossed in his drawing.

Returning to the book, she found that each successive page made her more and more excited, but one photo made her jaw drop in astonishment.

It was a picture of André – André chastising the bottom of a half-dressed, dark-haired girl. He was laying about her vigorously with what looked like a strip of leather; his face stern yet his eyes bright and lusty. The girl appeared to be sobbing, and her pretty mouth was twisted in an exaggerated moué of suffering, but between her legs there was a clearly visible glint. She was wet because her buttocks were being lashed.

Belinda came to a quick decision. ‘I’m going for a bit of a wander,’ she said casually to Jonathan. ‘I won’t be long.’ She paused, watching to see how he would react. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No, not at all,’ he replied, looking up and giving her a quick grin, then looking down again. ‘I’ll be fine.’ His pencil moved across the paper with a swift fluidic purpose, and Belinda knew he was totally absorbed.

Striking off down a path that paralleled the riverbank, Belinda walked as quickly as was practicable. She felt hyped-up, manic, and extremely naughty; and the leather-covered book seemed to burn her where it was tucked beneath her arm.

After five minutes, she found a little hollow just a few yards from the river. The mossy turf underfoot was soft and rather dry, and bushes around her provided a semblance of secluded privacy. A shaft of sunlight shining down through the canopy of trees provided just the right degree of illumination.

When she lay down, on her side, Belinda suddenly felt shy. Her actions felt calculated, sneaky, rather grubby. Why did masturbation always seem unsavoury when it was planned?

It didn’t bother you the other night out here, did it? she demanded of herself, as she opened the book at the photograph of André. She thought again of the way she had wet herself in the clearing and of how the forbidden act had felt so voluptuous, then she grinned as her qualms dissolved like mist.

André looked extraordinarily handsome in the antique photograph. His long tied-back hair seemed a little anomalous for the date in the corner of the picture – 1899 – but his striped trousers, double-breasted waistcoat and high starched collar made him very much the fashionable gentleman of that age. And his rolled-up shirt-sleeves showed he obviously meant business. His arm was a poem of grace; a raised arc of readiness. Belinda could almost hear the leather swishing through the air.

When she turned her attention to the girl in the picture, she suddenly felt a wash of disorientating giddiness. She rubbed her eyes, then looked again, not believing what she saw.

The clothes and the pose were the same as they had been earlier; the flounces, the lace, the exposed buttocks, the flexed, entreating body. But the long dark hair and the slightly Latin face were gone, and in their place was a short, anachronistically elfin hairstyle and features that were impossibly familiar.

How? How on earth? Rolling on to her back, Belinda felt the book slip from her fingers, the pages rustle, and the covers clop shut and conceal the picture that couldn’t exist.

Suddenly, she felt herself falling, when there was physically nowhere to fall, and she realised that she needed to see more than just an image.

* * *

A knock on the door woke her.

Had she been dreaming? She felt very strange. Very peculiar. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, but then she remembered. She was at Count André’s house, the home of her handsome new benefactor. The exquisite continental nobleman for whom she would do anything: because he was kind and she simply adored him.

Belinda looked down at her booted feet, her stockinged calves and the hem of the most dainty and frilly petticoat she had ever seen. She had never been able to afford anything so pretty for herself, but Count André had lavished her with a positive mountain of expensive lingerie: chemises, bodices, corsets, petticoats, drawers – every extravagant frippery of lace, embroidery, and ribbonwork she could imagine. His only stipulation was that she wore them to be seen in – that she wore them at his special, private parties.

Thinking of the evening ahead, Belinda quivered.

‘Just one or two friends who might appreciate you,’ he had said, stroking her face as she sat on his lap. ‘You are a jewel, my darling. You know how I love to flaunt you.’ His gentle hand had begun to stray downward then. ‘I feel like a king when I see the envy in their eyes.’ Still descending, his hand had settled on her breast, squeezing it through the delicate lawn of her chemise, then sliding downward across the firm, unyielding panels of her corset before dipping into the open drawers she wore below. ‘I love to watch them covet you. Your magnificent breasts, your pearly bottom, your beautiful quim … I love their jealousy. The way they wish themselves in my place, so they could have use of you every day and every night.’

And yet Count André did permit his friends certain liberties. Belinda supposed he only did it to increase their envy, but he often allowed them to touch her. To play with her; intimately. To chastise her bottom and to cause her pain and shame. The idea was, she deduced, that what they could have for only a short time, they were bound to desire even more.

Tonight, Count André was holding open house for several of his most valued friends. They would have good wine, fine food, and entertainment. An erotic diversion of which she was the chief ingredient.

‘Come in,’ she called, responding at last to the rapping on her door. It was typical of Count André – even though he had rescued her from poverty, and to all intents and purposes owned her – that he should have the courtesy to knock before entering her room.

The door swung open and he took a step inside – a perfect picture of male sartorial splendour in his dark cutaway, his striped trousers and his dashing neckwear.

‘My dearest,’ he said softly, walking towards her, taking her hand and bidding her rise. ‘Let me look at you.’ He led her towards the mirror. ‘Let us look at you,’ he amended, as they stood before the glass.

Belinda saw herself as a fairy-tale figure, clad all in white. She wore an almost transparent white muslin chemise trimmed with embroidered lace flowers and ribbons, a fierce white silk tricot corset that made her breasts bulge and oppressed her already tiny waist, and a white cotton petticoat adorned with flounces, frills and bows of pure silk ribbon. Hidden by this, but to be seen eventually, were her drawers – also white, also frilly, and conveniently open – and her white stockings with their frivolous lacy garters.

‘You are a vision,’ murmured Count André, so elegant yet so predatory behind her. He was caressing her throat slowly with the fingers of one hand while with the other he was cupping her womanhood through her undies. ‘A perfect plaything.’ Nipping her ear, he pressed harder against her mons.

‘My lord,’ gasped Belinda, beginning to wriggle. The constriction of her corset was making her sex doubly sensitive at the moment. All her lower organs were bearing down on it from within. ‘Oh please … Oh please –

‘Later, my sweet,’ he said, squeezing harder, just once, then releasing her. ‘You must contain yourself and give up your pleasure to amuse my guests.’ He stepped away from her, then took a length of soft white ribbon from her dresser. ‘Let me tie your hands so you do not touch yourself until we are ready –’

‘Oh, please, don’t do that!’ she cried, begging for a different boon this time. She felt so vulnerable when she was bound; so frightened. The sense of being quite helpless was almost too exciting, and even though she would never dash away exploring hands for fear of offending Count André, at least when she was free, the opportunity was there in theory. When she was secured, she could do nothing, and her body was available –

‘But I wish it,’ he said softly, his voice as kind as ever but shot through with a thrilling steeliness.

Bowing her head, Belinda held out her hands at an angle behind her and meekly let her slender wrists be tied.

It was difficult to descend the stairs in high-heeled boots when your hands were bound, but Belinda managed it, with Count André’s guiding help. He supported her elbow solicitously, letting her lean on him if she needed, his attention as courtly as if she had been a royal princess.

‘Do not be frightened,’ he said, when she balked on the lower landing after hearing convivial voices in the parlour. ‘Remember how proud I am of you … How I prize you above all others … Now hold your head up, and show them your perfect, graceful posture.’

‘Oh, well done, André old chap,’ said an English voice as they entered the room. A hearty-looking fellow gave Belinda a long appraising glance.

‘She’s divine,’ said a woman, her tones aristocratic, her eyes filled with lust.

‘You lucky thing, André,’ said another, older woman. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a tender morsel like that –’

‘Is she as good a looker underneath all those fancy clothes?’ said a second male, this one florid and rather coarse in appearance. ‘What about her tits, her arse and her fanny?’

‘She is perfect in every aspect,’ said Count André evenly. ‘And you may inspect any part of her you wish in a little while.’

There were one or two others in the small appreciative group, but for the time being they confined themselves to looking at her.

‘Come along, Belinda,’ said Count André, leading her forward into the centre of the room. ‘Stand here and let my friends admire your charms.’

While the count attended to the needs of his guests, refilling their glasses and making idle smalltalk, Belinda stood still where he had left her, blushing furiously. She knew the fragile material of her chemise barely hid her breasts at all, and she could feel the heat of many eyes upon her nipples. Her maid had rouged her there, in preparation for just such eager scrutiny.

‘André darling,’ said the woman who had called Belinda ‘divine’, a handsome brunette with a small and petulant mouth. ‘May I uncover her breasts? They look so delightful. I’d rather like to hold them.’

‘Of course, Mabel,’ said Count André genially. ‘Please proceed.’ He took a sip of champagne and winked at Belinda over the glass.

Mabel hurried forward and began unfastening the buttons of Belinda’s chemise. ‘Oh, she is just the prettiest thing,’ she exclaimed, folding aside the thin muslin and easing Belinda’s aching breasts forward. ‘And rouged nipples too. How droll! André, you are so naughty! I do so love that, especially when they’re firm and pink to start with.’

Belinda clenched her jaw as Mabel began to handle her. Pinching, rolling, pulling, inflicting little pains that did diabolical things down below. She felt desperate to move her hips, to work them to and fro a little; to do anything that might assuage her growing tension.

‘Do you whip them?’ enquired Mabel, cupping both Belinda’s breasts and pushing the nipples inward until they touched. ‘I’m sure they’d look absolutely glorious if they were wealed.’

‘No, I do not,’ replied Count André, coming across to where they were standing and touching each of Belinda’s nipples with one forefinger. ‘I prefer to see her breasts unmarked. It is more aesthetic, in my opinion.’

‘A pity,’ said Mabel, sounding slightly thwarted. ‘What about clips? Have you tried them on her? Apparently the best ones can be quite excruciating.’

‘Oh yes, clips can be very becoming,’ said Count André thoughtfully. ‘If you wish to experiment, you will find a selection of appropriate ornaments in the usual drawer.’

‘Wonderful!’ cried Mabel, releasing Belinda and nearly skipping across to the secretaire. ‘Oh yes, these are just the thing,’ she said, reaching in and bringing out some tiny silver objects, then returning to stand in front of Belinda. ‘The very thing. These will look so pretty.’

Taking each breast in turn, Mabel screwed on the wicked silver clips, tightening each one to a terrible, crushing pitch. Belinda felt tears trickling down her face as they were adjusted, as much from shame as from the clips’ fierce effect. The horrid pressure on the tips of her breasts only increased the arousal that surged within her. She bit her lip in a hopeless effort to keep still.

‘Does it hurt, my dear?’ enquired Mabel, brushing away Belinda’s tears, then kissing her on the mouth. When Belinda nodded, she gave each clip an additional turn. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll take them off in a minute or two.’ She grinned devilishly. ‘And that will hurt more than having them on.’

‘Courage, my darling,’ whispered Count André, when Mabel had retreated in search of more wine. ‘See how beautiful you look,’ he said, directing Belinda’s attention to the large mirror that had been set up at one side of the room for the express purpose of letting her see her own humiliation.

Belinda observed her flushed face, her glowing skin and her maltreated nipples, and knew that she was indeed beautiful; the very picture of submissive, erotic suffering. She wanted to lift her petticoat and open her knickers too, so she could show all the party how aroused the pain made her.

Like a white-clad living ornament, she stood waiting while Count André and his friends drank their wine and discussed her appearance. Some of the observations they made and some of the things they proposed to do to her made her blood run cold. If she were to belong to any one of the others, she knew she would suffer unimaginably, but at least she felt safe in Count André’s possession. He respected her and his limits were hers too.

‘Let’s see her arse then!’ said the crude man after a while, breaking away from the others. ‘It’s high time she felt a taste of the lash.’

‘Yes, perhaps you are right, Henri,’ Count André said pleasantly, obviously humouring the man. ‘Come along, my sweet,’ he said to Belinda. ‘Let me undo your hands so you can pose more comfortably to receive your punishment.’

‘You’re too soft with her,’ said Henri, licking his lips. ‘If she were mine, I would have thrashed her by now, bonds or no bonds.’ He moved closer, then grabbed her cruelly, his fingers digging into the softness of one buttock. ‘And I’d have sodomised her too. It’s plain as day that she needs it. She’s got a loose, wanton look about her, André old man. She needs a proper taming.’

‘You’re probably correct, Henri,’ murmured Count André as he unfastened the ribbon around Belinda’s wrists.

Belinda trembled as she looked into her beloved’s eyes. If he wanted his friend to possess her backside, she would endure it, but only because it was his – her master’s – wish. And if Count André would hold her hands and kiss her lips while his friend took his pleasure, she could almost believe she would enjoy it too.

‘Now, my dear, perhaps you would kneel on the chaise-longue?’ said André encouragingly, as if she were a nervous fawn to be coaxed out of hiding. Taking her elbow, he helped her up on to the padded, velvet-covered chaise, and then pressed down on her back so she assumed the right position – resting on her elbows with her rump up in the air.

The pose was difficult to hold, especially with her clipped breasts dangling down like pears and throbbing cruelly. Belinda swayed a little, then felt her spirits lift as André touched her cheek.

‘Would you assist me, Pierre?’ she heard him ask another of his friends, one who had not yet spoken. ‘Perhaps you would be so good as to uncover Belinda’s bottom?’

‘Of course, mon ami,’ replied Pierre, his voice refined and pleasant. Belinda felt happy that it was he who was uncovering her. Monsieur Pierre was dark and handsome, his features exotic and Eastern, and he had always been a little kinder than the others. He would enjoy her punishment, certainly, and the spectacle of her red and fiery bottom; but she sensed finer feelings beneath the surface of his lechery.

Even so, she flinched as she felt him deftly adjust her clothing; lifting her flounced petticoat, then dividing her loose, open knickers.

A gasp of approval went up around the room, and all those assembled moved in a little closer to improve their view.

‘That’s a sumptuous arse, André,’ observed Mabel, her voice slightly breathy. ‘What I wouldn’t give to have one like that to beat whenever I wanted.’ Belinda heard the swish of silk as Mabel sidled close, then felt feminine fingers touch the furrow of her bottom. ‘She’s so sensitive too. Ooh, how lovely! Like velvet to the touch.’

Despite the awkwardness of her position, Belinda bit her knuckle and tried not to respond. Mabel’s drifting fingertips were as light as a feather, and they seemed intent on lingering. Belinda felt the whole of her bottom groove being explored, her anus being palpated, her sex-lips being patted and pushed very gently. Where she had been rough with Belinda’s breasts, Mabel was tenderness itself with her nether regions; but in the pit of shame, the woman’s cruelty was easier to bear. Suddenly, Belinda yearned with all her heart for the lash – the blessed instrument that would both elevate and focus her.

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Henri who came to her aid.

‘I’ve had enough of this shilly-shallying about,’ he said, pacing the room grumpily. ‘When is she to be beaten? It is what you invited us here to see.’

‘Of course,’ said Count André courteously. ‘We will begin in a moment. But first perhaps another drink for you all?’

Belinda remained motionless on the chaise while Count André dispensed hospitality. For a few moments, she perceived herself as they might – not really a person but just a human entertainment. She pictured herself as such – a study in still life. A mass of white linen, a creamy rounded bottom, a set of stockinged legs, and feet in buttoned boots. And at the centre of it all, her wet, blushing pudenda and her shadowed anal crevice. The image in her own mind made her sex pulse and quiver, and she felt a great urge to gyrate her naked buttocks.

If only one of them would touch her again. Rub her. Insert something into her. Her unfulfilled need for stimulation was intolerable; she was almost beside herself. And yet she knew that if she touched herself, she would be dismissed and found wanting.

After what seemed like an interminable wait, Count André spoke up. ‘And now it is time,’ he said solemnly. ‘Henri, will you take the strap from the drawer?’

Belinda heard the slight squeak of the drawer being opened, but there was no other sound. Breaths were bated and she sensed lips being licked all around her.

‘I will beat her myself first.’ The leather strap hissed experimentally through the air. ‘And then, perhaps, someone else would care to take over?’

There was a chorus of heartfelt ‘yeses’, ‘absolutelies’ and ‘with pleasures’; there seemed no shortage of candidates to torment her.

The next thing Belinda heard was a series of tiny rustling sounds – her beloved count removing and folding his jacket, then rolling up his sleeves.

‘Mabel. Pierre. Perhaps you would be kind enough to hold her in position?’ Belinda sensed her master moving into place somewhere close behind her. ‘Henri, I think you will find that the seat by the secretaire will give you the best view.’ The strap swished again. ‘Julian and Madame Clermont, perhaps if you stood a little to your right you too would be better able to see.’

Unable to stop herself, Belinda whimpered when Mabel sat down beside her on the chaise and took hold of her hands. At the same time, Pierre took her by the hips, raising them higher and making her part her thighs further. ‘That’s it, Mademoiselle,’ he whispered to her. ‘Spread yourself a little more.’ Belinda felt him sit down beside her, then felt one arm slide over her and secure her around her waist, while his free hand settled snugly on her vulva, middle finger crooked so it compressed her swollen clitoris.

‘Oh no! Oh dear God!’ keened Belinda, feeling the familiar spasms tremble beneath that fingertip.

But just as her vagina began to convulse, the leather strap lashed down heavily across her bottom. There was a moment of complete blank shock, then it was followed by a raging slice of pain.

‘Oh André!’ shrieked Belinda in her agony and ecstasy. At last her exaltation had begun.