Chapter 1

 

Alright, I can now admit I was a snob of the first order. I will also admit that I used Daddy's rank and position, and his wealth, to get what I wanted, when I wanted it and I was extremely disparaging towards persons of lesser rank than myself.

Daddy is the Earl of Hepburn and my name is Stephanie. Actually, it's the Lady Stephanie Amelia Burleigh, although I don't use my title very much these days. Neither Daddy nor Mummy, and for that matter my older brother Vincent and my smaller sister Anne, were like me. Daddy and Mummy are on numerous local committees and always extend a helping hand to the people in the villages around Hepburn. Not me. I liked the party life and I used my title and Daddy's money to enjoy myself to the fullest.

Parties and balls and outings and holidays were my life and woe betide anyone who got in the way of that lifestyle. All the remonstrances of my family fell on deaf ears but I know now that Daddy wasn't strict enough with me. Indeed, he doted on me, perhaps because I was a rather good-looking girl.

Oh, I was just nineteen when IT happened.

I am fair, slim, athletic and I knew I was quite beautiful. I also made sure everyone told me so, too. In short I was a pain in the proverbial, but I was out for a good time and I didn't care about anyone else.

 

IT happened at a ball.

We were at the Duke of Summerfield's house and I had gone to powder my nose - don't you just love those English euphemisms? Anyway, I was alone in the ladies room and then without any warning at all, I wasn't. In the powder room, that is.

I was standing in a room quite unlike anything I had ever seen in my life, or could have imagined for that matter. It had the proportions of Westminster Abbey. Yes, it was that high although not perhaps as long. But it was the material it was made of that startled me most. The pillars and walls, unlike the Abbey, where they are darkish stone, were of some glittering crystal-like substance. They scintillated and sparkled and they seemed to emanate a light of their own as well.

The floor was like marble but was even more beautiful than that wonderful stone. It too sparkled but whereas the walls and pillars did so with all manner of beautiful colours, with the floor it was with gold and silver.

Seated on a throne-like chair right in front of me near the back of the vast room was a being who had an aura of radiance about him. The throne was made of the same materials as the walls but the man seated in it emanated a radiance of his own. I felt it immediately. It was at once calm and peaceful but I also felt a sense of beneficence. He was dressed in flowing robes of some gossamer material of the purest white. His hair was also white but his skin was tanned and he looked to be in perfect health although of indeterminate age. Perhaps anywhere between thirty and sixty, I thought.

Around him were other men and women but their robes, while of the same quality, were coloured. I was reminded of the Pope and his cardinals.

As he stared down at me, his expression of goodwill changed, hardened and he now addressed me sternly: "Stephanie Burleigh, you are a disgrace to your family, your class and your country! In this new millennium and at your age, you should be well aware that rank carries responsibilities as well as privileges and yet you have shamed your family, snubbed your nose at your class and done not a thing for your country..."

"Who the hell are you?" I said, stung by his words, "and what gives you the right to lecture me? Anyway, where the hell am I?"

He smiled thinly then answered my questions, or some of them anyway. "My name is Archon and I am the magistrate of this province. You are, by the way, now on Arret, which is a sister world of Earth. It exists in exactly the same place and time as your planet, but on another dimension altogether.

"Unlike your planet, however, ours has been at peace for thousands of years. We have a single world government which operates as a meritocracy; that is, rank here is earned, not inherited. We have, as a result, developed far past your world since our resources have all been directed towards the betterment of our peoples and not the destructions brought on by wars.

"You will find many similarities between our world and yours, however, as well as many, many differences. Our basic geography is the same, as are our racial characteristics. Technologically we are far in advance of you and socially, well, we don't have arguments between individuals, let alone civil strife or wars between states. We operate as a single governmental unit and everyone in it has the same chances of success as anyone else."

"But why am I here?" I asked.

He smiled a little. "Until now, although we have for centuries been able to move to and from your planet and observe your wars and your revolutions, we have held ourselves aloof from you. Oh, we have come among you from time to time but always fitted in to your societies perfectly and seamlessly. You were never aware of our presence. We didn't interfere in your affairs however - until now.

"Now we have decided you are rapidly heading towards a destruction of your planet. Your activities are quickly exhausting its resources and in less than a century, if unchecked, it will become uninhabitable. Your scientists, however, are now moving very swiftly towards an understanding of the physics involved in the fifth dimension. If you were to discover it and came here in significant numbers, we believe you might infect our people with your belligerence and your other nasty attributes.

"Accordingly, we are moving to correct your errant ways. You, Stephanie Burleigh, are an experiment. You were chosen as a member of the hereditary upper class of Great Britain as a fine example of snobbery and utter disregard for anyone except yourself. We are going to attempt to turn you into someone more like your parents and siblings, who, by the way, are perfect examples of what inherited privilege ought to bring to an individual.

"I am afraid you are not going to enjoy your stay with us. We do not have crime here in the sense you understand it but when we do discover errant behaviour in a person, it is a simple matter to probe his or her brain patterns and correct the abnormality. Your planet uses other, vastly more barbaric methods however and so that you learn as a Terran, these will be now be employed on you.

"As a start, you are hereby stripped of your rank. You are now reduced to the equivalent of a slave, yes, just as they had in Roman days. You will now strip your body of that finery. As a slave, you are not entitled to clothing of any kind."

I stared up at him. Did I believe him? I think so. The building I was in, for a start... It was just too way out. It was the sort of thing one sees in a science-fiction movie and I didn't think any prankster could possibly have set it up. I knew it wasn't drugs. I have never touched them. I may have been a snob and all the rest of it but I didn't smoke cigarettes and had never over-indulged in alcohol, let alone tried the hard drugs.

But believing him was one thing. I wasn't going to strip naked for him, though. Not for anything! It wasn't that I was a prude. I had been keen on sports and at school we all showered together after a game of hockey or whatever and I had already had a few boyfriends, some of whom I had invited to my bed so I knew what was what in that department.

He sat there and watched me, his grey eyes boring into my blue ones as if reading my mind. "Well, slave? Are you going to remove your clothes of your own volition or shall I make you?"

"Make me? You can't," I said bravely; much more bravely than I felt, actually.

Again he smiled, and then his eyes seemed to turn red and I felt this unholy pain in my head. I collapsed on the gleaming, scintillating floor in a foetal position, my hands up to my head, pressing in hard to try and make the pain go away and screaming uncontrollably in an agony so bad I couldn't believe it.

It went away as suddenly as it came. "Change your mind, slave?" he asked politely.

I nodded my head furiously, scrambled to my feet and feverishly undid the fastening on my beautiful ball gown, stripping it off my body as if my life depended on it. Well it did, as far as I was concerned. I soon had it off my body, discarded like a rag on the floor beside me and then I had to address my undergarments.

Just as I was about to remove my slip, though, I saw Daddy and Mummy standing among the courtiers (if that's what they were), watching me gravely. I stopped what I was doing and blushed. "I can't," I said, "not in front of my parents."

"You can and you will," he said, his eyes started to change colour, turning just a little towards the pink and I felt just a tingle in my head. I screamed and although I felt utter humiliation at being forced to take off my clothes in front of them, I quickly pulled the silk garment up over my head, dropping it to the floor as I had my gown, then hurriedly reached up behind the back to undo the clasps on my bra. As they fell to the ground, I cried out in shame as I felt in my mind an intense sensation of prurient interest in my breasts, and not only from the males among the courtiers, either.

Not a one of them touched me, not physically anyway, but my breasts felt as if every one of those people were feeling me, their fingers and hands teasing my nipples into erection and their soft fingertips exciting the surrounding flesh until I was moaning in lust.

But then I caught myself and looked over to where my parents were. Their faces registered shock at my wantonness and I tried, desperately, to regain control over my emotions. I managed it, eventually, and now looked up at Archon whose face had now resumed its calm serenity.

"Continue disrobing, slavegirl," he said quietly.

I glanced at my parents. They weren't in the front row of courtiers but they could see me quite clearly and I was easily able to see their faces. I felt sick as I contemplated taking off my bikini panties, the last garment now left to me as the rest of my clothing was now scattered all around me on that beautiful floor.

But I knew Archon wouldn't hesitate to use that incredible power he had to give me another of those awful headaches and so I placed my fingers in the waistband of the panties and quickly pushed them down off my hips and thighs and then stepped out of them as they fell to the floor.

I was naked. Stark naked and once more I felt those strange fingers fondling my flesh, this time all over it. Fingertips grazed my cheeks and neck; palms gripped my breasts while more fingers traced lines down over my stomach, thighs and bottom.

I think I said I am rather athletic. I love to ride my mare and I play tennis and squash and I swim regularly in our indoor pool. Accordingly, my body is still firm and lithe and the thought fingers and hands (if that's what they were), danced a merry tune all over my body.

Once more I behaved as a wanton slut, my body revelling in the sensations those fingers were creating in me. I twisted my upper body back and forth, I leaned forward and back, always trying to get more of the delicious sensations...

But then it got worse. They started on my vaginal area and particularly my clit. In no time I was moaning in more lust and thrusting my loins forward to try and achieve more and more pleasure. I sank to the floor and laid out my body, twisting it like a snake, back and forth and while the sensations continued. I think my eyes must have closed for when I opened them, there were Mummy and Daddy standing over me, staring down at my antics in utter horror. Horror and some contempt, I have to say. I was appalled.

But then the feeling intensified further and once more I was powerless to resist them. The next time I opened my eyes, my parents were gone. But then, so were the sensations.

"Get up, slut," Archon said, his voice contemptuous of my weakness. "You now have an inkling of an understanding of our power: how it can be used to give pain and pleasure. That is not for you, though. Your society uses vastly more crude methods such as the whip to your flesh, electric shocks to the sensitive parts of your body, including your nipples and your sexual organs, and public shame and humiliation as weapons of correction. Also, of course, very hard labour. Such tools will be used on you until I am satisfied you are cured of your disgraceful attitude.

"As a start, we are going to remove your body hair. It tends to hide your sexual organs and we want you to have the full shame of total naked exposure. Additionally, so that you will remember your stay with us until the end of your days, we are going to brand you. Yes, like an animal on one of your American cattle ranches. Your skin will smoke and you will scream in more agony as the red-hot brand sears into the flesh of your belly.

"Our mark will brand you for life as a graduate of Arret's training. Be warned. If we see the need to bring you back here for back-sliding, it will be a permanent move. You will then remain a slave of Arret for the rest of your life.

"Take her away to begin her initiation as a slave of Arret!"

 

Two men who looked like guards stepped up to take custody of me. They were not dressed in the flowing robes of Archon and his advisers. These men wore a uniform of grey trousers and coat, rather like our British police uniform in style.

The moment they took hold of my now naked upper arms, we just relocated, in an instant, to what I presumed was police headquarters. It wasn't actually, although I didn't find that out for some hours. It was in fact a new complex built to house the local contingent of Earth-people brought here to be 'corrected'.

Yes, I know I said that Archon had indicated I was an experiment but such was their technology, they could create a building of the crystals, merely by ordering one. I think they used their minds to do this for I never saw any of them actually working with their hands. When they had finished with the building or fence or whatever they had made, they merely dissolved it, somehow storing the crystals in an energy form for later use in some other form. Sounds weird? It certainly did to me, but what a marvellous use of resources! Nothing was ever wasted and everything always looked brand new and in pristine condition.

So I was now in a largely empty Earth-slave facility where they were going to train me (they thought) to be a model citizen. I thought otherwise, already forgetting Archon's power to give me pain just by concentrating on my brain. I soon found these two guards, teachers they called themselves, were just as powerful although in a different way.

Their names were Sombat and Rak and while they were handsome and physically appealing, their faces were always neutral, at least in front of me, never once showing any emotion at all, whether they were disciplining me or sexually using me - for yes, they did this at their whim.

I was soon to learn to be on my best behaviour when either or both of them were around for pain quickly followed if I didn't.

Right now, they were going to strip me of my body hair and then shave me nude on top. I was still naked of course and once they had me in the 'school', they proceeded to feel me down. One stood to one side while the other proceeded to finger my flesh as if I was a side of beef hanging in a butcher's shop.

Of course I protested, at which Rak stopped, turned to his colleague and nodded, all without a word or a flicker of emotion. A cane now materialised in Sombat's hand. Yes, a real cane, made of rattan or some such material and an instant later, another one also miraculously appeared in Rak's.

"You have earned punishment, slave," said Rak. "Sombat will administer ten strokes to your rear. If you refuse to accept the punishment or fail to accept it stoically, I will then give you another ten strokes - and so on until you finally learn to comply. You will now assume the position for punishment: feet a half metre apart, hands clasped up behind your head."

I looked from one to the other of them. Both still wore a totally neutral facial expression and this unnerved me more than if they had been looking lecherously at my nakedness. I knew deep down they were deadly serious and while I couldn't even begin to imagine what ten strokes of the cane to my bottom was going to be like, I realised very quickly that ten would be better than twenty.

I therefore assumed the position ordered, looking down to place my feet where they were supposed to be. When I looked up again, there were Mummy and Daddy! They were standing not ten feet away from me and I cried out in shame as they stared gravely at my so naked body, their faces now registering sorrow rather than horror as back in Archon's palace.

"Daddy! Please get me out of here. I promise to be good from now on..."

He just smiled at me and then took Mummy's hand, holding it as Sombat took up position to my left side and slightly behind me. I sensed him raising the cane and then I felt this unbelievable burning across my cheeks. Forgetting the admonition to stay still, I leapt into the air and grabbed at my nether cheeks with both hands, screaming and yowling in pain.

Yes, I was weak. I know that in the first half of last century, the cane was used extensively in schools all over the world and certainly in Britain, but I believe then it was administered over panties and skirt or shorts. My stroke was to the bare skin!

I calmed down eventually of course and Rak spoke again. "You were told to take the punishment stoically, slave, however it was your first time and so you will be given one more chance. You have another nine strokes to come - unless you behave as abominably as just now, in which case you will be secured and Sombat and I will really punish you."

"Yes, sir," I mumbled, resolving now to take the pain without any more fuss. I looked across to my parents but they had now gone. I couldn't understand this weird appearing and disappearing on their part and I didn't ever learn what it was all about until I finally returned to Earth.

I resumed the position and while Rak slapped the tip of his cane into the palm of his left hand, Sombat now gave me the second stroke. It was just as bad as the first but I steeled myself, body and mind, to accept it although added to the continuing pain of the first stroke it seemed doubly as bad. It was as if they were using rods of red-hot iron, laying them across my bottom and holding them there. That's what it felt like.

The cane whistled slightly as it flew through the air then landed with a soft splat on my flesh. At that moment I felt the burning fiery heat and I so desperately wanted to repeat my action the first time: leap into the air, grab my bottom and scream blue murder. I didn't, because I had been warned. Fail again and I would have another ten strokes to face.

Each one was worse than the last but I now knew what to expect and was able to cope - just - with the horror of it. He strung it out of course, allowing the pain of the last stroke to sink in, add to the accumulated throbbing agony that now seemed to emanate from my globes but reach right down to my calves and up to my shoulders. I know the pain really was restricted to my backside but it felt as if it was all over me.

I stood there with my feet planted to the floor and my hands glued to the back of my head, concentrating on keeping them there to the exclusion of all else, and particularly the agony in my bottom and I think that ploy helped. I just refused to think of anything except my feet and hands and some of the pain at least seemed to recede and then Rak was telling me to lower my hands and stand up normally.

I couldn't believe it. Was it really all over? It seemed so. "And now I resume my inspection of your naked flesh, slave... Do you object?" he said.

"No, sir," I answered but my face was downcast in my shame.

He wasn't having any of that, however. "Look at me, slut, and tell me again, do you object to my fondling of your naked flesh?"

I looked up at him, my face as neutral as his own and said, loudly and clearly: "No, sir!"

"Good." He moved in and now began an inspection of my nakedness that was at once extraordinarily humiliating, but also extremely exciting. Sexually exciting, I mean. Once more I began to moan as he teased my body into a number of fantastic orgasms - and then, as suddenly as they had disappeared a few minutes earlier, there were my parents - and now my brother and sister as well, all standing around me, watching as this 'teacher' so lecherously fondled me into a series of climaxes.

I moaned now in shame as well as sexual excitement but those people were so expert at this art that I was powerless to oppose them and I had to wear the shame of being masturbated by Rak in front of my family, alongside the incredible pleasure he was arousing in me.

Sombat had to move in and support me when my legs became too weak from the intense pleasure his partner was creating in me and supported my body, but Rak continued on with his fingering until I was close to the point of exhaustion. At that time, my family just disappeared once more.

The two teachers now placed me on a table which also just appeared from nowhere. My arms and legs were stretched out to its corners and fixed there, and then a thing that looked like one of our electric drills appeared in Sombat's hand. He proceeded to use this gadget to depilate me.

I suspect it could have been a painless operation but that wouldn't have suited them and so, as he aimed the point of the thing at my right armpit, I felt a series of shocks. It was just like a rather severe electric shock. I know because I once touched some live mains wires and I know how horrible mains power electricity is. This was just the same. I struggled in my bonds while Rak ran his hands over my flesh, apparently enjoying the play of my muscles as I strained this way and that to try and cope with the shocks.

Sombat did my other armpit, then my legs, finally coming to my vagina. Like most modern girls who wear bikinis from time to time, I kept this area trimmed, both in extent and length but they wanted me totally naked down there and as the man waved the instrument back and forth over my pudendum, the hairs that remained there just dropped out.

Down there, though, it was even more painful than in my armpits and now I really bucked and heaved. Neither he nor Rak seemed concerned at this, however, the one continuing to wave his infernal machine over my body while the other went on fondling my flesh with his soft fingertips.

This fondling, of course, was for real this time. Back in the palace, not a one of them had touched my naked body, but here, I could see Rak doing so. The sensation was identical however and I marvelled at these people. They were like us in every respect but they seemed to have mental powers unlike any I could even have dreamed up - and I am something of a science fiction buff.

My bottom still raged at me - and was made worse by my contortions on top of that cold metal table as Sombat worked his machine over the hairy parts of my body and now the pain he was creating added cumulatively to that agony so that I moaned continuously now, even as Rak was rousing me to yet more orgasms.

It was weird. It was utterly horrible on the one hand; and yet the pleasure Rak was rousing in me was better than anything I had ever felt before, all at one and the same time. Unbelievable? I agree. How can one feel pleasure and pain at the same time? I have no idea but it's what I felt!

Sombat finished at last and now Rak moved to the head of the table. In his hand was a pair of electric shears and now my beautiful head of gleaming blonde hair, the silvery tresses that hung down to my shoulders when not made up into a coiffure, were being shorn like a sheep's fleece, wafting down onto the floor until my head resembled that of a criminal, cut to within a millimetre of my scalp!

But Archon had said I was to be made bald and they did that now, shaving my head until it and my eyebrows were as bald as a billiard ball and just as smooth. A mirror appeared (I had now begun to accept these miraculous appearances and disappearances of things and people) to show me my new look while Rak released my bonds so that I could stand up once more.

I stood in front of the cheval-type mirror and cried out in shame and mortification at my new image. I was now so naked! Yes, I had been so when they had made me strip out of my clothes in the palace, but now it was even more so. My sexual organs were now totally exposed, the gash between my legs displayed to the view of the two teachers - and now, horribly, to my parents as well for they now appeared once more, staring at me from the side in new horror as they took in my naked body and even more naked head.

The thing was, I was no longer beautiful! I thought it must have been my hair that had made me so for without it I looked like a store dummy. I started to cry but my parents' expression didn't change. They still looked disapproving and horrified at my previous wantonness. There was no sympathy in their expressions at all. It didn't help. My sobs now got worse - at least until Rak told me to pull myself together or he would give me something to really cry about.

I stopped my sobbing instantly and rubbed my still very, very sore bottom. I knew exactly what he was talking about and no way did I want another ten strokes of that cane!