Chapter One

Sophie and the Whipping Stool

 

'Your Masters find your naked breasts very beautiful, Sophia.'

Sophie gasped as she wiped water from her eyes. Yes, the note was there surely enough, stuck on the tiled wall of the shower cubicle, with the words hand-written in green-ink on a scrap of yellow paper. The note slid down the wet surface, swirled in the suds at her feet, and then wedged in the waste outlet. She stooped to pick it up, but the sodden paper fell apart in her hands.

Sophie stepped hastily from the shower. She ran, nude and dripping wet to her bedroom. Drawing on a long towelling robe, she sat before the dressing table and gazed at her distraught face framed with her short bob of slick blonde hair. An involuntary yelp escaped her lips as she saw yet another note attached to the mirror. It was written in green ink in the same curious scrawl. This message read:

 

"Unlike you, dearest Sophia, who may at present cover your nudity, my Masters do not permit me to clothe myself."

 

Beneath the note, propped against the mirror, was a large A4 manila envelope, bulky, a small package in fact, addressed in bold green letters to 'SOPHIA WINTER'.

Thomas, Sophie's large, neutered tom-cat, sat hunched on the dressing table beside the envelope, curled into a mound of white and fawn mottled fur. The cat watched with unflinching yellow eyes, his whiskers twitching as Sophie reached for the envelope, but then he suddenly snarled, his back arched, his hair stood end, and he lashed out with unsheathed claws, leaving scrapes of red on the shower-fresh flesh of her bare arm.

"Thomas!" she exclaimed in shock, hurriedly withdrawing her hand and wiping tiny emerging droplets of blood from her arm.

The six year old cat had been with Sophie since he was a playful and adorable kitten. Nowadays, minus his tom-bits, he usually remained impassive and haughtily accepted Sophie's strokes and cuddles as his due. He had never, ever, attacked her before. What was happening?

Sophie's hands trembled as she gingerly pushed Thomas aside and reached for the manila envelope again. Peering inside the package she saw some printed pages and a small bundle loosely wrapped in white tissue paper. She fished out the soft package and gasped in amazement as a long skein of luxuriant silky golden blonde hair tied at one end with a thin red ribbon draped over the palm of her hand. It was almost the same colour and texture as Sophie's own blonde hair.

Curious now, Sophie drew out the five sheets of paper. She saw they were covered in double-spaced, typed text. The print on the pages had not been produced with a modern word processor and laser printer; the letters were uneven along the lines and slightly indented into the reverse side of the paper under her fingers ... the text was probably typed on a very old typewriter.

Instinctively looking at the last page, Sophie saw a signature scrawled in green ink: 'Mary Constance'. Beneath it, in the same green ink, the author had penned: "This is both my warning and my gift to you, dearest Sophia."

Sophie felt weak. Hastily and yet almost fearfully, she turned her attention to the first of the typed pages. She swiftly scanned the opening lines:

 

Buttocks upraised and head low to the dust, I crawled forward as quickly as I could, my teeth clenched upon the thong of the steward's right boot as he strode across the courtyard. I was naked.'

 

And between the double-spacing of these opening lines, someone had written in green ink, 'They usually keep us naked, Sophia. You will quickly grow accustomed to it.'

Close to panic and angry too, Sophie looked up from the pages in her hand. Heart thumping, she reached for the torn envelope and studied it, noting the strange, foreign postage stamp. The postmark clearly bore the date: 15 March ... next year! That was almost three months hence. How was that possible?

Sophie was still considering this when the cat suddenly let out another ear-piercing screech but this time in pain, it seemed, rather than anger.

"Thomas!" Sophie exclaimed, reaching to stroke her pet. However, the cat hissed fiercely, arched his back and stood on straightened legs atop the dresser until she withdrew her hand. She looked at the animal in dismay, saying, "It's quite enough that one of us has nerves that are shot to pieces."

Thomas the cat opened his mouth widely, displaying needle-sharp white teeth in an anguished, silent roar that emerged as a mere, long hiss of air.

Sophie watched the cat with some concern for a minute or so. Only when he settled did she return her attention to the envelope. She checked the postmark again. Yes, without a doubt, it bore a franked postmark with a date almost three months hence. Sophie's heart began to thump. She took the package and lay upon the bed, arranging her robe decorously over her thighs before beginning to read the manuscript again.

 

"Enforced nudity was the least of my concerns on that fateful day, Sophia. My heart thumped wildly as I stole a glance through my long, blonde tresses: the whipping saddle had been set up in the courtyard. The sight of the Kislar Aga, mighty Chief Black Eunuch, filled me with dread. This hugely grotesque eunuch waited with a group of women, each of whom were clad in black burqas. Worse still, I saw the Kadin Salih there too, a tall, elegant woman in a long shimmering gown of midnight blue silk."

 

There was another hand-written note, this time scrawled in the margin: "Fear Lady Salih, Sophia!' It was another aside by the mysterious author, spoken directly to Sophie, as if the story had been written specifically for her. She looked at the signature on the last page once more: 'Mary Constance'. Shaking her head in bewilderment, Sophie read on:

 

"You must hurry," the steward hissed as he lengthened his stride, causing the silk of his baggy white pantaloons to billow against my shoulders in the warm breeze. The leather thong strain strained against my teeth, and I scurried forward on hands and knees.

Salih was foremost of the four kadins, the Sultan's honoured imperial concubines. She is the mother of Prince Farid. Kadin Salih is widely considered to be the hidden force behind the throne; the beautiful Salih, once a Rumanian slave, first enchanted and then ruled the King from the royal bed. Wily. Ruthless. Shrewd and skilled in court politics. Salih is a considerable woman and she frightens me.

I, Mary Constance, thought myself too unimportant to concern the imperious and powerful kadin. And the Kislar Aga, too? Master of the harem, sponsor of Kadin Salih, all-powerful adviser to the King - the whipping of a miserable white slave seemed of little consequence to such a mighty figure. I was abruptly brought to a halt, my forehead almost touching one of the Kislar Aga's buff-coloured, calf-skin boots.

"Kneel up. Widen your knees, raise your chin and straighten your back," Jiffa ordered, and I felt his hand upon my shoulders, posing me, carefully arranging my long blond hair.

 

There was yet another note, written between the lines: 'This is a beautiful, elegant position and it renders you exquisitely vulnerable - I urge you to practice it, Sophia.'

Sophie snorted contemptuously. Yet she momentarily, involuntarily, considered the scenario, imagining herself kneeling, naked, her thighs widely spread, helpless, open and under discipline. It caused a disturbingly warm feeling in the pit of her belly and she hastily pushed the thoughts aside.

 

I knelt, trembling, before the Chief Black Eunuch. He was resplendent in his long, wide-sleeved robe of crimson brocade; I was nude, of course, and the mound of my sex was smooth and devoid of hair, well revealing the high slit there. I could not quite remember how it felt to be clothed, so long had I been kept naked. (To be naked in the presence of clothed superiors seems natural to me now, as it will for you, Sophia.) My hair hung forward over my shoulder, virtually covering the honey-coloured halo on my right breast but allowing the long, pink nipple to peak through. It was not politic to change my position and, anyway, modesty was not permitted me.

I glanced up fearfully at the clothed female figures that surrounded me, seeing the implacable eyes that peered from the narrow slits of their yashmaks. Those brown eyes burned in fierce anticipation, and there was neither pity nor mercy there.

In all my time at the palace I had not seen this functional courtyard. I dared to look around. Beside the stables across the yard, a man was putting a large prancing chestnut stallion to a whinnying white mare that was tethered helplessly within a wooden frame. The stallion's massively tumescent pink penis hung hugely beneath his belly. I turned away; such sights had been hidden from young ladies in genteel and leafy Buckinghamshire, where I had spent most of my life until that time. How different things had become. I was now a naked slave and under discipline, with no more rights than the white mare who waited helplessly to serve the prancing stallion. I found myself stealing another look at the scene. The tethered mare was shamelessly flashing her clitoris at the advancing stallion, enticing him with her helplessness.

Beyond the stables, I saw a large treadmill that was turned laboriously by three sturdy young, black-skinned women, each of them naked, toiling beneath the whip of a merciless overseer. And to the right, a very fair skinned woman flailed grain with a long chain that was affixed to manacles about her wrists; the woman was completely bald, and the dome of her head was tanned by the sun.

Barely six inches away from my right knee, I looked down at a wide circular pit, sunken in the courtyard, some eight or nine feet deep and, perhaps, forty feet across, its sides of smooth stone. Six long and thick wooden shafts radiated from a hub at the centre of the pit, and a single donkey, chained to a shaft, strained to turn the huge wheel.

"Faster!" the pit overseer roared.

I felt instant pity for the poor beast as the man cruelly lashed its back with a long broad-bladed whip. The animal snorted in pain and strained forward.

"We shall see her punished," Salih told the Chief Eunuch with a wave of long, elegant fingers.

I had expected this, of course. It was inevitable, for such was the cruel regime of the palace. When instructed, I rose to my feet, taking care to move elegantly. I stood to attention before the polished whipping stool, head held high, staring straight ahead as if oblivious of the women who looked on. I was no stranger to this terrible contraption, and schooled in the ritual. My heart pounded and, I suppose, the swift rise and fall of my breasts betrayed my fear.

"Forward."

 

Sophie turned the page and saw that a piece of ruled paper had been inserted between the typed sheets of the manuscript It was written in the form of a personal letter, the hand-writing almost childish, and bore the salutation, 'Dearest Sophia, from your sister in bondage.'

"Sister in bondage indeed!" Sophie scoffed, examining the ruled writing paper and noting its curiously rough and crude texture. Then, with some difficulty as she deciphered the sloping hand-writing, she haltingly read the short note:

 

'I am constrained to adequately describe essential procedures for your education. You must be assiduous in your lessons, dearest slave, I beg you, for your own salvation and for mine, too. It is my duty to train and properly prepare you for your new life and I dare not fail in my task. You will have to learn a very particular choreography for occasions when you are formally punished, my dear Sophia. As perfect as you may become, you cannot escape the rod and lash. So you should practise now to strive for a satisfactory presentation. Arrangements have been made to supply you with a suitable whipping saddle to aid your training. Pray heeded my lessons, dear novice slave.'

 

Sophie shook her head in disbelief and rising anger. Novice slave? Someone was having a good laugh at her expense. Was she supposed to take this nonsense seriously? She contemptuously threw the papers to the bed, although taking care not to dissemble their order. Rising from the bed, aware of a long, lissom leg escaping from her gown, she hurried to the kitchen.

Hair spilled over her face and she bit her lower lip as she filled the electric kettle under the kitchen tap. Only now did it occur to her that the language used by Mary Constance was almost archaic. She half-expected to find another note in the kitchen. Sophie looked around, taking in the modern appliances, the fridge, the automatic washing machine, all of the surfaces where a note may have been placed, but there was nothing there.

'Silly,' she said to herself, putting a spoonful of coffee granules into a mug

As Sophie poured boiling water into the mug, the door bell chimed and in her startled, nervous state, it almost caused her to drop the kettle. She placed her hand over her thumping heart and smiled weakly, saying to herself, "For God's sake, get a grip."

Sophie steadied herself and then went to answer the door. A delivery-man stood in the hall, thrusting a clip-board and pencil towards her as she pulled her peach silk gown more tightly round her body and looked at him quizzically.

"Sign here, Miss."

Beside him, there stood a tall package, perhaps 18 inches square and as high as the man's waist, wrapped in brown paper and tied with sisal string. "It's for me?"

"You are Miss Winter?"

"Yes."

"It's for you then."

"But, I haven't-"

"Please, Miss, just sign the docket. I've got a lot of parcels to deliver today."

Raising her eyebrows, Sophie accepted the pencil and signed the receipt. She thrust the clipboard back to the man, who nodded and turned to hurry away down the corridor, leaving the package outside her door. She tentatively tested its weight. It was too heavy to easily carry. So she dragged it into the hall of her apartment.

Quickly slamming the door shut and engaging the bolt, she ripped at the packaging. The brown paper tore away easily, and a curiously-shaped contraption that was revealed beneath her frenzied hands. She stood back, shocked, eying the strange item of furniture. It was rather higher than a standard a bar-stool, and it had a large, shaped leather saddle fixed atop four stout, outward-sloping legs, each of which had a short, shaped wooden protrusion some 12 inches from the floor.

Sophie frowned and tentatively pushed the contraption, testing its stability, but the design of the sturdy stool ensured that it remained upright. It seemed to be a carefully constructed piece, made of timber and leather, fashioned by a craftsman. The wood was polished and beautifully turned and jointed; the sensuously shaped leather saddle, oiled and gleaming despite its apparent antiquity, was finely tooled with intricate patterns embossed on its surface.

As she examined the piece, running her fingers along the slick leather, the letter box gave a metallic click and a single envelope dropped to the mat. She immediately went to the door and opened it. There was no-one to be seen in the corridor outside, either to the right or left. This seemed scarcely credible, given her speed in opening the door. It seemed impossible that a person could have cleared the corridor so swiftly. She frowned, staring suspiciously at the adjacent doors, but they were firmly shut. A frisson of cold panic rand down her spine as she considered the possibility of a predator lurking in a neighbouring apartment, and she hastily slammed the door shut and locked it securely.

She examined the envelope and saw that it was quaintly sealed with red wax. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the green ink and spidery writing: 'Sophia Winter'.

Sophie tore the envelope open to find two sheets of crude writing paper. She read the letter:

'You have now taken delivery of your whipping stool, dearest Sophia. Do you not find it incomparably beautiful? Imagine, the leather saddle has been polished by the soft flesh of countless punished slaves, including mine, and oiled with our deliciously anguished perspiration.

This will be anathema to you, I am quite sure, and you will try to resist with every fibre of your being. However, I beseech you, sweet slave, to soon strip yourself naked and commence your lessons in earnest. There is so little time to lose before your appointed time.

To use the stool correctly and with due ceremony, you must firstly raise your arms high and straight above your head as you step smartly forward and stand behind the saddle. Then you must bend forward gracefully to rest your belly upon the contoured leather. Bed your naked flesh snugly against the saddle and ensure that your breasts depend clear of the forward edge. Take care to position yourself well, dearest Sophia, for your own sake, to withstand the beating without additional buffeting.

Positioned in this way, you must reach down and forward to grip the bars at the side of the stool. This will present your upturned buttocks most delightfully. You must then learn to relax your tender exposed flesh, ready for the first exquisite stripe. Repeat this lesson often until you are proficient in your beauty and submission.

Ever your slave sister,

Mary Constance '

 

Sophie laid the pages aside on the hall table and she again stroked the leather saddle, this time with a new, almost hesitant curiosity. Her fingers trailed gently over the smooth, almost silk-like surface. She saw that there was a small hand wheel under the saddle, presumably to adjust the terrible implement. 'A whipping stool?' she mused. 'What kind of people manufactured such a beautiful object to inflict pain on others?'

She found herself imagining a naked woman lying atop the slick brown saddle and awaiting punishment. Sophia drew her hand back quickly, as if the leather was hot to her touch. Then, aware of the frisson of strange excitement tingling at her belly, she stepped behind the stool, feeling the roll of the padded leather against her waist through the thick material of her dressing gown. She half-bent forward, as if to lay her belly upon the saddle, looking down to see the short bars with fashioned grips for her hands, protruding from the front legs, and similar protrusions at the back, presumably footrests for small feet. Stout leather straps, stitched with buckles, were affixed at various points, presumably to confine a victim to the stool: one pair near the front handgrips, and one on both of the rear legs near the foot-rests, and more at what would be knee-height. Quickly, angrily, she pushed herself upright and stepped back.

The very sight of the implement, and the strange feelings it aroused in her, horrified and frightened Sophie. Without pause for rational thought, she rushed back to the bedroom. The typed pages of the strange manuscript still lay dishevelled and spread upon the bed. Sophie picked up the loose sheets of paper and tidied them before lying on the bed again.

However, before she could begin reading, the cell phone on Sophie's bedside table rang. The electronic burbling startled her; the tune was vaguely familiar, but it wasn't her usual ring tone. The insistent and repetitive electronic tones jangled against her already taut nerves. She snatched up the receiver and rose from the bed.

Sophie heard Caroline, her best friend from childhood, mumbling an apology at the other end of the phone: "Sorry to ring so early, darling..."

"It's okay, Caroline," Sophie said, "but it will have to be quick. I'm already late for work ... some weird things have delayed me this morning. "

"You are coming to the funeral tomorrow, Sophie?" Caroline asked anxiously. "Christ knows I need your support. I only flew back into the country today."

Caroline's father, Sam Clark, a retired Chief Constable and well-known worthy of his shire, had died unexpectedly the previous week. He was to be buried with some pomp, and Caroline, Sam's sole surviving family member, was required to play the dutiful hostess and grieving daughter. Sophie knew that Caroline had cut short a sojourn abroad to stage the funeral.

"Yes, of course, I promised I would," Sophie said, keeping the cell phone to her ear and wandering over to the dressing table to pick up the recently-received skein of hair. She then walked into the living room, feeling the silky hair in her fingers. The cat let out another wild shriek.

"My God, that was Thomas again," Sophie explained, brushing a distraught hand through her short blonde hair. "He's been making an unearthly row this morning, as if he's in agony. It's terrible. I'll have to take him to a vet, I suppose. Look, Caroline, it's been a really horrid day so far. I'll tell you all about it later."

After finishing the call, she dropped both the cell phone and the skein of hair into her large leather shoulder bag. Then she hurriedly dressed for work.