INTRODUCTION

 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea...

Excerpt from Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

She felt both sympathy and a curious fascination.

No one could fake the terror in the girl's eyes. The slender beauty onstage was either the greatest actress in Germany, which was highly unlikely given her tender age, or she was truly a naïve ingénue trapped in an unexpected nightmare.

Kate leaned slowly over the table and whispered into the recorder hidden in her purse.

"The Kennel Club, Berlin, 2:00 a.m. ... on-stage is Lyza, l-y-z-a ... she is naked, beautiful, and scared ... near panic ... the face and body of an angel ... an expression of innocent naivete on her face."

The voice-activated recorder was sensitive enough to pick up her verbal notes. She would need these later for her story. Her companion stirred, curious about why she was speaking into her purse.

"Wh... What did you say...?" she asked.

"Nothing," Kate answered, shushing her while holding her forefinger to her lips. "I wasn't talking to you, Amalie. Please, be quiet."

Amalie was a $200-an-hour fashion model she had hired to pose as her lesbian girlfriend. It had been a mistake. She was certainly beautiful enough for the role, but dumb as a rock, too dumb to stay quiet. She must know by now that I'm not gay, Kate thought, that I'm not here for the show.

The soft murmuring of the crowd stopped, and she turned back to the stage. Lyza's bound arms were rising slowly like a puppet. A rigger earlier had strapped cuffs on her wrists and tied them together with a black rope hanging down from the ceiling. He had done the same for her ankles, tying the ankle rope to a brass cleat in the floor. The ceiling rope was now tight.

Kate watched, fascinated as the girl's hard tits flattened against her chest and her skin tightened over her ribs. She seemed genuinely confused, almost hypnotized by the slow rise of her thin arms. Her large pointed nipples stood out against her dark areolae; her generous Venus mound tightened. The room lights lowered as sombre music began to play in the background, heightening the crowd's anticipation. Kate leaned forward discretely until she was over the purse again.

"A ceiling rope pulls her arms up slowly ... dark music plays in the background ... she struggles against the rope as it straightens her body, as it pulls her to her toes ... it's no use ... her suspension cannot be stopped, the only question is, how high?"

"What...?" Amalie asks again, her eyes locked on the stage.

"Shut the fuck up," Kate hisses. "I told you, I'm not talking to you."

"Who are you talking to then...?"

A man turns around and shoots an annoyed glare at their table. Kate reaches inside her tiny purse and turns off the recorder. She would just need to remember the details. That won't be hard, she thought; this show was not something she would forget very easily.

Lyza's hands rose higher over her head. The rope's slow pull increased the impression that this was all inevitable. Nothing could stop her suspension, nothing could prevent her punishment, her pain. It was clever, Kate thought, they were heightening the suspense with her gradually increasing terror.

She knew this was just the beginning. Lyza was moaning now in time to the music, twisting her curvaceous and supple body, hopping from one foot to the other in a kind of sensuous dance. Something terrible was about to happen and there was no escape for her; she knew it, everyone knew it.

The girl kept glancing into the growing darkness and crying out with increased urgency.

"Help..., help me, please..., someone..., PLEASE!"

The plea was gut-wrenching in its sincerity. It was hard to remember, nearly impossible to believe that this was an act, part of a performance. Kate suddenly felt overwhelming pity; she wanted to cry out in protest, to somehow appeal Lyza's coming punishment, but she couldn't move.

It was too dark now to see anything, to escape the coming atrocity. When had they turned the lights off, she wondered? She could hear people moving in the nearby darkness and a strange clicking noise. Zippers...? Was this the sound of zippers opening? A moan from behind then one from the side... She suddenly realized that people were fondling each other. She listened more closely and heard the distinctive slurp of a woman's mouth sucking a man's cock. Amalie's hand moved to her leg. Reluctantly, Kate lifted it off; she needed to stay alert to remember the details.

A single spotlight onstage illuminated the girl now. She was on her toes, twisting wildly, trying to break free of her suspension. The frantic look on her face convinced everyone that this was no act; the girl desperately wanted out. Her panic was turning the audience on. She might have agreed to appear onstage, but it was obvious that she had not fully understood what her performance entailed. It was too late now, she was trapped, her pain inevitable.

The more she pleaded and struggled, the more desperation she showed, the more she excited the audience. Kate tried to tell herself again that this was an act, the performance of a lifetime, but the words sounded hollow in her mind. This was real.

The ceiling rope lifted her off her feet with a sadistic, immutable slowness. Kate noted in horror that the cruel cords were pulling her pulchritudinous body as taut as a bowstring. The bondage popped her breasts, nipples, mound, and ass; it tightened her waist revealing her abs, lengthening her already long coltish legs. The skin in her thighs and calves showed the outline of her straining muscles. She groaned as the very real pain in her arms and shoulders spread to other parts of her body.

Sounds of passion, fondling and fellatio, filled the room. Amalie's hand was gently massaging her back, moving gradually towards her ass. Once again, Kate pushed it away. This dumb bitch just doesn't know how to follow orders. Amalie should be the one onstage being stretched, Kate thought meanly; maybe a whipping would teach her obedience.

Suddenly, Lyza's groaning stopped at the exact moment the background music stopped. No one took special notice of the silence; something more important was at hand. There was someone else on the stage with the girl. The spectre was invisible in the darkness created by the spotlight, but everyone in the room could feel his ominous presence. No one breathed.

They all knew what was coming, but when the lash finally leaped out from the darkness, everyone jumped. A black snake wrapped itself around the girl's straining ribs and bit at the underside of her tit. She stared down then looked out, wide-eyed, into the darkness. For a moment, she was dumfounded then she let out a blood-curdling scream. It was pure pain ... pure, unbearable, unadulterated pain.

It consumed her.

Kate was both horrified, but she couldn't take her eyes off the girl. Her writhing body was vibrating the air creating palpable evidence of her agony. Animal-like sounds of passion filled the room. No one was holding back on anything now; the scene onstage was too intense, too graphic, too real. Everyone in the audience imagined themselves either in her place ... or wielding the whip.

The lash circled again and struck the underside of her other tit with sadistic symmetry. Kate could see a red comma-like mark, ending at her nipple. She could feel her own nipples and her clitoris tightening in sympathy. The lash struck out again, rounded her tits and nipped at her ribbed side. It moved too fast to be sure, but Kate had the impression it was a short bullwhip, perhaps four feet long, with a split end, like a snake's tongue. Suddenly, she realized that the music had started again, they were playing "Bolero." The whip strokes were coming with the same tempo, the same growing speed and ferocity as the music. Lyza's screams seemed part of the orchestration.

Kate sat shocked and paralyzed, her mouth hanging open. She knew the Kennel Club was at the extreme edge of bondage play, but she never imagined they would go this far, that they could draw this many people to such a horrific spectacle. She had been following leads for months, trying to find a gateway into the Kusnetsov trafficking network. This had to be it; the Kennel Club was at the very edge of legality; everything beyond this was criminal.

Lyza was screaming constantly now and drooling, her entire body shuddering with the rapid strokes. The music was approaching its crescendo. The sounds of sexual activity from the crowd were frantic, painting a vivid picture of pumping hands and sucking lips. Suddenly, the whipping stopped, and a black Hitachi vibrator appeared in the light. A man's muscled arm pushed it hard into the frantic girl's cunt and held it in place despite her terrible screams.

Her reaction to the vibrator was even more extreme than to the whipping. In seconds, just as the music reached its peak, she exploded. Her body began to contract and release with such violence that Kate was sure she was in her death throes. She had never seen anything like it, never imagined an orgasm could be so ... so devastating.

The spotlight went out, but from the sounds coming out of the dark, it was clear that Lyza's convulsions was far from over. Slowly, the sounds faded, and they closed the curtain. Several minutes of darkness followed then slowly the lights came up. A few guests, men and women, were still zipping up or wiping their mouths with linen napkins; most were just staring into the darkness, decompressing from the awful intensity of what they had witnessed

"Wow. That ... that was something!" Amalie said, clearly shaken.

Kate didn't answer. She glanced at the door near the side. This was her chance if she dared. She quickly unbuttoned the front of her blouse and walked through the door to the dressing rooms acting as if she belonged. She told the guard at Lyza's dressing-room door, she was her girlfriend. He looked sceptical until she pushed him back into a corner and gave him a bare-fisted hand job. He stepped aside, trying to hide the darkening stain on his pants.

Lyza was in a ball on the couch, still shaking under a blanket. Kate held her, whispering comforting sounds. It was a long time before Kate could get her attention, but she was patient. It was even longer before Lyza agreed to her proposal.

Her friend in Paris had told her this was Lyza's first and last performance; that it was an audition of sorts, a means of exhibiting her serious need for help. It seemed like a cruel condition, but those who controlled admission to the institute would only consider those in serious trouble.

"What's next for you, Lyza?" Kate asked innocently, using the girl's vulnerable condition to get her next clue.

"Dr. Otto Detwiler, Berlin," Lyza said in a dazed voice. "He told me that if I performed well, he would support my application."

Kate smiled and continued to comfort the girl.

 

***

 

The door opened, and Raven turned her head. A naked man stood outlined in the doorway. She could see his penis and testicles hanging between his legs. Adrenalin spurted into her brain; it was time. She pulled desperately on the straps holding her to the narrow bed. It was an automatic reaction, a flight response she did not control. She had been here all day, immobile, the straps holding her arms and legs open, her body splayed. More chemicals and a rush of blood instantly hardened her nipples, her clitoris. Her body jerked violently once again on the wicked straps.

Lev had two beds in his room: a soft king-size monster for himself and a twin-size for her. Hers was wrought-iron with leather straps for her neck, wrists, forearms, knees, and ankles. Instead of a mattress, it had a metal grate that felt like a thousand knives after a few hours. Sometimes, when he finished with her, he allowed her into his bed. She considered it a kindness, which she gratefully repaid with her mouth and tongue.

The first swipe of the spanking paddle landed on the inside of her thigh. The pain exploded in her brain, but she didn't scream. It was only after he had placed half-a dozen others in the same region that she allowed the sound of agony to escape her lips. It was a game they played: she resisted as long as she could, and he stopped before she lost consciousness.

When he finally mounted her and slipped his penis inside, the hair on his legs felt like a cheese grater against her raw skin. This was the way they liked it, a combination of pain and pleasure so intense that there was no room for other thoughts. Their fucking had a purity to it, a focus that was unattainable by any other means.

Her hands fluttered wildly as his mouth covered hers; she cocked her head and her tongue darted inside. She couldn't move any part of her body other than her midsection, which she jerked up and down with increasing ferocity, in time to his thrusts. The Devil's brew of joyful sexual stimulation and agonizing pain pushed her to the edge of a climax, but she held back. Disciplinary pain had firmly entrenched the decree that her release was secondary to his.

He signalled his coming with a death grip on her tits and a full-body contraction that turned him into a jerking piece of steel. Her release was much the same except that her cervix continued to squeeze his penis with the savage intent of greedily pulling out every drop of cum.

After, he lay on her for a long time. She ignored the growing pain from the grating as she licked his neck and nibbled on his ear. She hoped he would invite her into his bed but knew there was a fifty-fifty chance that he would leave her to suffer for the night. It was his choice, it was always his choice.

His choice...

This wasn't exactly right: she had agreed to become a slave; she had chosen him over all other men. Those were her choices; his choice was the quantity of pleasure and pain she received in her role as his slave. There was no other way... And it was what she wanted, what she needed. He was what she needed. The only coda in their life together was his growing obsession with revenge. He could not seem to let it go and it was affecting him, changing him.

He rolled off her, unbelted the eight straps holding her to the grate, and easily lifter her into his bed. As usual, she felt an immense wave of gratitude and happiness. It was strange, no matter how badly he hurt her, a single act of kindness, of love restored her joy.

 

Chapter One

 

Every head turned to watch Kate walk across the lobby.

Beautiful, long-legged women were plentiful in London's posh hotels, but there was something different, something sexually arousing in the way Kate moved. The effect of women like her on men was well known, characterized by increased saliva, sudden spurts of adrenalin and testosterone, and a jolt of electricity to the medulla oblongata.

"Excuse me. Where would I find the bar?"

The concierge pointed to a corner of the lobby enclosed in palm fronds. She smiled her thanks and turned to follow his direction. A moment later, she was waving to another attractive woman. They embraced, exchanged greetings, and ordered drinks.

"I have a way in. What do you think?" Kate asked in a whisper.

"What do I think...? It's the opportunity of a lifetime, Kate," her friend said. "I would give my left arm for a story like this, any reporter would. You can't be serious about having second thoughts."

Kate leaned in. The bar was nearly empty, but she was clearly nervous about being overheard.

"I'm not backing down, Leah," she hissed angrily. "I know it's a big opportunity, but it's also dangerous. You weren't there, Leah. The show I saw in Berlin was shocking; it affected me, rattled me a lot more than I expected."

"And yet you had the presence of mind to pump this girl for her contact..." Leah said sarcastically.

"Yes, I spoke to her, to Lyza. She told me the show was a test, an audition that would allow her to demonstrate her serious interest. She had gone to a doctor; he told her about a sex clinic in Romania but insisted that she perform before he would submit her application. What kind of a doctor sends his patient to a BDSM club?"

Leah shrugged off the rhetorical question.

"I think the clinic is part of the trafficking network I've been investigating," Kate continued. "At least, this is where it starts. The girls I've interviewed are all talking about an institute that does research on sexual abnormalities. I'm sure I'm on the right track."

Leah sat back, smiling. They had been close in college and remained friendly. This story was the kind of opportunity they had talked about, dreamed about.

"Look, Kate, if you don't want the story, give it to me. My magazine follows celebrities, but I'm sure I can sell it to a sister publication. If not, I know people at a dozen tabloids who would buy it. There are dozens of stringers who have the looks to pull this off. They would take it over from you in a heartbeat. How did you find this story anyway?"

Kate shrugged. Leah was her friend, but in the news business, it was better to keep your sources to yourself. This was even more important when it involved Russian oligarchs and the Russian mob. Leah was right though, Kate thought: any ambitious reporter would jump at her story. The problem was getting inside and finding the proof. Until then, it was all rumours and speculation.

"Come on, Kate, you can trust me. How did you get on to this?"

Leah pulled out her vaping gear and began to puff, expelling huge clouds of water vapor.

"It's, ah, from a contact I have in Paris," Kate mumbled. "She knew this girl, Lyza, knew that she was asked to perform in Berlin, knew she was trying to get into the clinic."

"So, what's next...?" Leah asked.

"I sent Mark Addison, my editor at GNS, an email proposing the undercover assignment. I'm meeting with him in an hour. After that, I will make the final decision."

"Good luck then," Leah said, raising her glass. "Remember, if you decide not to go for it, let me have your notes. Maybe a sex clinic is just what I need..."

 

***

 

Kate crossed her legs and took a deep breath. She needed to calm down, to avoid becoming emotional with Mark; he would use it against her. Editors were traditionally protective of their young reporters, especially women.

"These people are dangerous and smart, Kate," he said firmly. "They have connections to the Russian mob. What makes you think you can fool them then just walk away once you have the story? This would be a difficult assignment for anyone; you just don't have enough experience."

Kate bristled at his abrupt dismissal of her idea wondering why he was so strongly against her proposal. Whoever he sent needed to be young and pretty and therefore inexperienced. She had just wanted to discuss the possibility of going undercover with him, but now it sounded as if he was forbidding it.

Forbidding it...!

He sent male reporters into dangerous situations all the time, it was the nature of their work. It was how a reporter earned his or her stripes. How would she advance in this business if he denied her opportunities like this? The double-standard was infuriating, but she hid her feelings. He would just shut down the conversation if she called his objectivity into question.

"It is consensual, Mark," she argued evenly. "From everything I have found, there is no evidence that anyone is coerced into anything. This is why they are attracting such amazingly beautiful girls, girls with a brain. I've interviewed dozens, some just said no and backed out. Why would it be any different for me? If I feel uncomfortable or in danger, I will just walk away and use what I have."

"You have nothing," he said loudly, "a few interviews with some air-heads, rumours about a high-end trafficking network ... nothing!"

He shook his head refusing to consider her argument. It was obvious he thought she was too ambitious for her own good, too young, too inexperienced...

"You are too beautiful to move under the radar in an organization that traffics in beauty.

"I'm sorry, Kate, I said no and that's final. I am not sending my youngest and most junior reporter into a situation where we have no control. I know it might be an important story, and you have done great work taking it this far, but you are not going undercover. That's it."

Kate stopped talking and stared at him. She couldn't believe it. She had come into this meeting half-hoping Mark would talk her out of the assignment. She never expected him to shut her down so completely. He was right: it was a huge risk, but it was one she wanted to take. The way he was shutting her out was infuriating.

For a moment, she tried to be objective. Sure, it was dangerous, exposing criminals was always dangerous. Any yes, she was scared, but she was also confident she could pull it off as well as anyone. Sex didn't mean as much to her as it did to her friends; it just wasn't her thing. Her indifference would be an advantage; it would allow her to remain objective. The men she was up against were Doms, knuckle dragging Neanderthals, who viewed women as sexual playthings. Someone like her could fool them, she could use their prejudices against them.

"Mark, please, consider the upside to a story like this. It will be a big win for us, for GNS. I know it's a risk, but I can handle it." Her lower lip began to quiver. "I am going to become a journalist."

He smirked and closed the file.

"I'm sorry, Kate. I'll find someone else, someone with more experience to get inside. You will continue to be part of the story, but there is no way I am going to send you in alone."

She stared at him again, shocked. Mark had never treated her as a decoration. When the front office wanted to put her on camera to do background and colour in a tight dress, he had fought back. Now he was turning on her, treating her like a, well, like a cunt. Suddenly, rage boiled up clouding her judgement.

"Fuck you! I believe in this story. If you don't want to help, I will do it on my own and freelance it. There are going to be lots of buyers."

His mouth tightened into a hard line. Editors didn't respond well to threats especially when the threat was to sell a story to the competition. She waited for the explosion, but it never came. His expression changed from anger to resignation to acceptance.

"You cannot do this on your own, Kate," he said quietly. "You need a new identity, papers, a plausible background story, convincing contacts... You think these people are stupid? They are going to check you out thoroughly before they let you inside. This is not something you can wing. Don't be a fool."

She stared back, undaunted. He was right of course, but she would find a way. She had always fought against the prejudice her looks invited, always found a way around the obstacles. There was no chance she would drop this story just because she was young and a woman. They looked at each other for a long time, neither saying a word.

"Okay," he said quietly. "If you are going to do it, it's better that you do it with our help. I just hope you don't end up dead or on someone's leash."