Chapter Ten

For most of the night Susie lay awake, wondering how soon she’d get the chance to escape; how quickly she’d find the opportunity to get through an open door or window and run as fast as she could, as far as she could. But then she remembered Sophie. She knew she was more help to her sister on the outside fighting for Sophie’s release than she was as another prisoner on the inside, but she could never abandon Sophie and run away now. Why, Sophie might be in the next room, asleep on the other side of the wall, breathing deeply just inches away and dreaming of home. Susie knew she had to stay for the day or two it would take to find Sophie and rescue her. And with that decision made, she slept at last, dreaming it was Sunday morning and that she was at home, having breakfast in the kitchen with Sophie.

Waking up in the strange place was a shock, then a disappointment, and the comfortable glow that dreams of home had created were quickly dispelled as she got on with the task of communal preparing for the day. It wasn’t too bad; a bit like she imagined a boarding school to be, but with subtle differences. For a start there was almost none of the friendly chatter she’d expected; the mood was subdued as the girls took it in turns to wash, using the shower room in pairs. Susie followed suit, said little while she showered, and dressed in the plain white dress that clung to her, accentuating her breasts and the lack of a bra, and barely covered the skimpy white panties that were her only other garment.

Breakfast was preceded by prayer, another long sequence of chanted responses. Reinforcement, she thought, of the brainwashing she’d guessed at last night. The technique was simple enough, getting subjects accustomed to saying ‘yes’ to a series of innocuous questions so they’d be predisposed to reply the same way when asked the difficult ones. Getting them used to repeating key phrases over and over without question so that when the time came for them to do something they might otherwise have balked at, they were accustomed to making a positive response automatically, their own opinions overridden by the chanting of the throng.

All the time Susie was scanning the faces around her, making a rough head count of the hundred or so young people. None of them was Sophie, though it was hard to be sure because most of them were girls, almost all blonde and constantly shifting from place to place so it was hard to keep track of them all. Sophie could have been there, she concluded, and she might not have noticed. Another thing she hadn’t expected, although she didn’t know why, was that some of the members - only a few, admittedly - were young men, and like the girls they were predominantly blond. She found it hard to believe that the only people in Britain searching for spiritual guidance and peace were young and fair.

After breakfast Savage, the bulky lesbian, appeared at Susie’s side. ‘Come with me now,’ she ordered brusquely, and Susie rose to obey without thinking, following her into a small room with white walls and highly polished floorboards, empty except for a few scattered cushions. Sitting cross-legged on one of them was Raoul.

‘Today begins your acceptance,’ he announced. ‘She will see to it.’ His eyes alighted for a moment on the butch woman, and then returned to Susie.

‘So, what’s going to happen to me?’ she asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

‘What will happen is that you will find out all things you wish to know.’ His slight smile was cruel, she noticed, without a trace of humour. ‘And after acceptance is over you will have no interest in asking more questions. You will be glad just to do as you are told quickly and obediently.’

‘I would like to see my sister, though,’ she tried.

‘She does not wish it,’ he replied easily.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Susie challenged, unable to imagine that Sophie didn’t want to see her now she was so close.

Raoul gazed down at the floor for a moment, and when he looked back up at her there was something disturbing about his expression, especially his eyes. His lips were a tight line that hardly moved when he next spoke. ‘You have fire,’ he said, anger clearly seething just below the surface. ‘I admire this, in the right place and at the right time. This is not that place or that time. If you wish to remain here you must learn obedience and respect. That will be your first task.’

‘But,’ Susie’s heckles were up, ‘you told me I could see my sister! You promised!’

‘We have spoken of these things before.’ He was unflappable. ‘I promise nothing. You have promised obedience, and after you fulfil that promise, acceptance ends. Then you are one of us, and then will you be free to ask questions and choose your destiny. Until then, we choose for you.’

Susie’s arguments died in her throat. She knew she had to do whatever was asked of her until she could find Sophie. And she knew Raoul would not hesitate to protect himself if he felt threatened by her.

‘Good, I see you recognise the wisdom of obedience.’ He sounded pleased with himself. ‘Acceptance begins now.’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Go.’

Thick fingers grabbed Susie’s arm and the woman steered her through another door into a bigger room.

‘This is a class of new initiates,’ explained Savage, meaning the group of around a dozen or so sitting cross-legged on the floor. ‘And they are to witness you learning the first lesson of the New Believers... obedience.’

Susie wasn’t at all sure she liked the sound of that, but she remembered her promise to do anything and everything necessary to find her sister, and her resolve hardened. Then the ugly bully turned her to face an object she hadn’t really noticed as she came in, so distracted had she been by her predicament. It was a sturdy squat wooden device that looked like a short vaulting horse, the end nearest the wall slightly higher than the end facing the group.

Savage pulled Susie towards it, and she knew she had little choice but to acquiesce without objection and be positioned face down over the contraption, waiting without complaint while stubby fingers folded the skirt of her dress up onto her back and peeled her panties as far down her spread thighs as they could go. She knew only too well that the silent gathering had a full view of her naked bottom and damp sex, nestled between her parted thighs, but she was now on a mission and beyond caring.

She was made to grasp two small grips, and her feet were lifted and placed in stirrups, so she found herself in a parody of a jockey’s position on a racehorse, arms outstretched, knees bent, bottom raised in the air. Her wrists and ankles were secured in place with leather straps.

The pose she was in was actually quite comfortable, but she couldn’t relax because she felt so vulnerable with her knees bent and her bottom raised. Then she realised Savage was talking to the sheepish audience, her leather strap ceremoniously raised in her right hand.

‘You have learned about the opposing forces,’ she lectured, ‘and about the closeness between light and dark, between love and hate, between pleasure and pain. You have seen how easy it is for love to become hate, and how you can turn hate into love. And you’ve been told that we can use pain to give pleasure.’ She paused for dramatic effect, and possessively placed her left hand on Susie’s back, just between her raised and rumpled skirt and her buttocks. ‘Today we’ll be learning about some of the ways to produce that pain, and in doing so we’ll initiate the purging of this wayward girl’s contaminated soul...’

Susie had rarely heard such drivel, but bound vulnerable and exposed across the wooden horse she felt her buttocks clench with trepidation.

Saying nothing more and without warning Savage brought the broad strap viciously down across Susie’s poor bottom. Livid pain permeated her flesh at the first stroke, soared higher at the second and was dulled by the third, and the triple assault was laid on before she’d had a chance to cry out, though it left her gasping for breath.

Whack! Before she was able to ready herself another line of fire crossed both Susie’s buttocks. ‘Oww!’ she wailed at the injustice of the attack.

Whack! She howled again, her eyes blurring with tears and the horse creaking as her muscles instinctively tensed.

‘Perfect...’ whispered the brutish woman, her voice a little tight from the exertion. Another barrage assailed Susie’s perfectly positioned bottom and she writhed in pain, knowing there were deep red lines marking her soft flesh, her knuckles white as she gripped the handles fiercely. ‘Perfect...’ Savage said again, her voice a little detached as she slowly reached out to feel the heat in Susie’s blotchy and tortured bottom. Then she readied herself again and six more times the strap swept down onto Susie’s vulnerable flesh, causing her to buck each time, tears smudged on her flushed cheeks, her eyes clamped tightly shut. To her chagrin Susie knew her body had flowered, its petals spreading in arousal, her juices glistening so that all those watching could see the effect the beating was having on her. And even if they hadn’t noticed that, they would surely see the almost imperceptible movement as she instinctively ground her hips, pressing against the leather contraption to which she was strapped.

‘Excellent...’ breathed Savage, her eyes drinking in the vision of the beautiful girl strapped over the horse, sobbing quietly as a result of her expert handiwork. And then she gathered herself, seemingly aware again that others were watching the performance. ‘Good,’ she said, clearing her throat and turning to the silent ranks, the atmosphere in the room tense, ‘time for a break, I think.’