A noble Roman girl, Caia Martia, is given in a marriage of political convenience. She finds her husband, fifteen years her senior, repulsive. When she resists him he forces himself on her, and then takes to beating her in punishment for her lack of enthusiasm. Caia starts to vent her frustration on her slave girls, thrashing them and reducing them to grovelling fear. One of the slaves comes to yearn for the touch of her lash, and one day slave and mistress find heaven in each others' arms. After Caia's husband dies in battle, she inherits his vast wealth and moves to the Eastern provinces, where standards of Roman life are not so strict. A noblewoman living without a father or husband as master would be shocking in Rome, but in the East anything goes. Caia gradually acquires more slave girls, training them to love the biting sting of punishment at her hand. And she grows influential, a player in the power politics of the Roman world. When the Emperor Caligula sends his personal agent, the ruthless and cruel Petronius Gallo Severus, to sniff out traitors in the East, Caia finds herself high on his list of suspects. Having embroiled herself so deeply in webs of intrigue that span the Empire, will her position or her cunning be enough to protect her from the probing inquisition of the merciless Severus?
This is the second Petronius Gallo story, following on from Roman Games. It is the same story as the Extended Edition, but without the extreme hardcore ending which might be too much for some readers.
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EXTRACT
'Liar! You filthy little liar! I'll get the truth out of you!' A
flurry of strokes fell thick and fast, licking down the slave's
defenceless body. Prefect Severus cut into her on one side then the
other, over and over again. The dancing leather punisher scorched her
flesh below the armpits, then around the lower curves of both breasts,
then in several places down the sides of her waist.
'It's getting lower!' raged Gallo. 'So far I've only touched you
above the waist! Waste my time again and I'll punish you lower down!
Now tell me! What - did - they - say?' The last words were punctuated
with slashes that cut across Tuana's lower belly, below the
restraining strap across her middle. The last of them caught her
love-hairs, cruelly tearing a few of them out.
'I don't know! I don't know anything!' shrieked the terrified,
suffering girl. She had become accustomed to pain under the Lady
Martia's cruel hand, but nothing like this. Martia enjoyed inflicting
pain, but she was just a beginner compared to Marcus Petronius Gallo
Severus. He was an expert in the application of torment, and its use
in forcing cooperation from unwilling subjects.
'Now you're making me angry,' he said in a voice hard with
determination. 'Now I'm going to give you a taste of real pain.' Gallo
stepped back a pace to get the distance right, and flicked out the
leather tongue to touch the back of Tuana's knee. With lightning speed
he whipped it across and sliced at the other knee as well. The lash
darted and struck suddenly, with horrifying speed and precision,
wringing the most abject howls of anguished misery from the girl tied
helpless to the 'couch'. The tool worked its way methodically down the
insides of Tuana's spread and shackled legs, each time drawing closer
to her most vulnerable spot. Then when Tuana thought she knew where it
was going to land next, Gallo suddenly changed tack and cut low,
diagonally across the lower extreme of her buttocks, which projected a
little over the table's end.
The punishment room rang with hideous sounds as Tuana emptied her
lungs again and again in piteous torment, screaming out her terror and
agony. She twisted on the table like a demented thing, fighting her
bonds with all her strength, but her strength was nothing to a
well-made Roman torture table, and there was no way that she could get
free.
Suddenly the blows ceased. The Prefect waited patiently until
Tuana's noise died down a bit, and her breath started to come it
shallower gasps; he judged that she could speak now.
'So far I've been kind to you,' said Gallo Severus. 'I've spared you
punishment in the place that women fear the most. If you lie to me one
more time, that's it. I'm going to do you there.' He flicked the
leather out and it stung the air just above her sex. As it returned
toward him she felt its tip tickle her private hairs. 'And not just
whipping. I'm going to have you there. I'm going to go inside you. And
when I've had you, my men will have you too. And not just these three.
My whole staff. More than twenty men. Is that what you want?'
'No, sir, please, no, I couldn't, I couldn't bear it! Please, not
that, I'll be good, I'll tell you anything! Anything!'
