"Hello, my boy! Come, stand beside me."

Whitby had spoken with soft-voiced authority. His long, silver hair was once again tied back in a ponytail that reached almost to his waist, and his beard once more freshly combed. He looked nothing like Tyler's idea of a Lord, though it was easy to tell that his outsized jeans and cashmere sweater which stretched unflatteringly over his belly were of the highest quality.

Unsure why the Lord of the Manor had extended him such hospitality, nevertheless Tyler was never one to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. Besides, the sight of the naked girl hanging by her wrists had been a very fine gift indeed. Facing the wall with her arms stretched tautly and her stiletto-shod feet six inches from the floor, she had seemed like the answer to a prayer for the gypsy. The manacles which encircled the girl's wrists were attached to chains which hung from the high, dark blue ceiling which was decorated with gold-leaf stars. Her serpentine back had borne signs of a recent beating and her bottom had been blotched with dark bruises. But before he could concentrate on her erotic beauty and defiled loveliness, Tyler had known there were the formalities to go through.

"Thank you, Milord." Taking up his position beside Whitby, he had waited for the introductions.

With an open handed gesture, Whitby had indicated a hard-faced, raven-haired woman. "Lilith, I'd like you to meet Tyler."

With a polite smile Tyler extended his own hand toward the thin woman who seemed to him to be approaching middle age with more make-up than was necessary. "Pleased to meet you."

Lilith, dressed in a deep red evening gown despite it being the middle of the afternoon, looked him over from his open-necked check shirt and leather jacket to his so-obviously-fake Armani jeans. Lastly, she turned her nose up at his scuffed, dirty trainers. With an unpleasant sneer, she ignored his hand and stepped back a couple of paces.

"Charmed!" In that one word her upper-crust voice had leaked a significant amount of acid.

A heavy jowled man stood beside her, wearing the business suit from his morning's meeting. He held out his hand in a pretence of friendship and shook Tyler's. He cleared his throat. "I'm Stapleton. Lilith is my wife."

We all have our cross to bear, Tyler thought, treating the woman to an unpleasant curl of his own thin lips. "Pleased to meet you, Stapleton." He nodded his head toward the girl. "Who's she?"

Lilith turned scornful eyes upon him and her acid-dripping tone was one of undiluted astonishment. "One doesn't ask their names, you stupid boy!"

Tyler bristled visibly. He was no boy and if she didn't watch her step, the posh bint would find out exactly what he was capable of.

"Not unless one intends to buy them," the woman had continued, "and only then to expedite the sale. To give them names is to give them a personality, and that makes it harder for them to grasp the fact that they're worthless whores, nothing but bodies with cunts."

"She's my slave," Whitby had interjected with the patient authority of a school master separating fighting boys. "Naturally, I thrash and fuck the maids, but they have their work to do. Inconvenient, but there it is. However, this slut has no function in the house other than that of providing my pleasure, whatever form that pleasure may take. Although extremely expensive to acquire, she costs little in the way of food, since one wants one's slave to remain lithe and desirable."

Tyler flicked a glance at Whitby and thought that the Lord should curb his own appetite.

"Occasionally it amuses me to share her with my friends. As you're about to discover for yourself, Tyler, she is a particular joy to chastise, a choice piece of flesh that marks up especially well. As you can see, I prefer to keep her permanently marked," he had casually gestured in her direction without looking at her, "not only because I find unmarked flesh particularly bland but also because...." he had given Tyler a look which, the young man felt, questioned his integrity, "because I simply enjoy inflicting pain. Once she is worn out and of no further use, she will be replaced. One hopes to recover one's initial outlay but it isn't always possible. A slave of this calibre, with a tight, responsive cunt, an even tighter back passage and a mouth with the capacity to milk a man dry is hard to come by."

United in their lust, together the small company regarded the blindfolded girl who was somewhere around Tyler's own age. And it was with fascination that he noticed that, on hearing herself discussed in such a manner, the girl's body had flushed a deep shade of scarlet. Her head lolled on one side and, though most of her face was hidden by her hair and the blindfold, he could see her open mouth and the string of dribble. Suspended by her wrists on the opposite wall she was naked, except for the black leather collar encircling her throat, the manacles on her wrists and shoes with narrow ankle straps.

As if rehearsed, in turn the three experienced dominants commented on her in cruel, mocking tones, beginning with Whitby whose own tone was unbelievably pretentious, Tyler had thought with an inner smile.

"As she hangs for our delectation, she is the epitome of a submissive, an appetising portrayal of the sensuous frailty of femininity."

His new, eccentric, aristocratic friend, though pompous, was nevertheless right; the girl was all of those things, and more besides. Smiling, Tyler wondered what her face was like for she had already been blindfolded and suspended when he had arrived. Never had he seen anything as lovely as the vision before him and he realised that his own feeble attempts at domination were clearly way off!

Stapleton was next to add to the captive's shame. He cleared his throat before speaking.

"She's a whore, beautiful, but a whore nonetheless. Even as she hangs there with the marks of the whip decorating her flesh, her cunt's wet and ripe for the rutting."

Tyler digested the depravity and the girl's obvious humiliation with indescribable joy as his cock pressed hard against his jeans. All he wanted then was to be let loose and allowed to get at the girl, not just in order that he could show the gathering what he could do but because he thought he would go mad with desire if they did not allow him access soon.

Lilith was far more scathing.

"She's nothing, just a dirty slut who should be grateful to be hung, like a side of beef, in such splendid surroundings. Her sort belong in the filth of the gutter," she gave Tyler a sideways glance, suggesting that he too was out of his natural habitat, before adding, "and she should consider herself fortunate that her worthless hide and shop-soiled cunt should be considered of marginal interest to her betters."

Then, all three turned to Tyler with a silent demand that he should add his voice to the girl's shame. He kept his eyes focussed on her for a full minute, thinking how the strain on her muscles must be tremendous. The undulating waves of her mahogany coloured hair had been parted at her nape and swept over her shoulders to cover her breasts. That, he realised, had been to give unhindered access to her back, already criss-crossed with scarlet lines that were the evidence of the abuse she had previously undergone.

Had he but known, the strain in her muscles had become raging fires and although merely supplementary to her discomfort at that point consumed her. Snivelling in anguish, she wished they would just get it over and done with. But Tyler knew nothing of her thoughts, nor would he have given any regard for them had he been aware.

"I've never seen such a fucking, filthy whore!" He was surprised by the hoarseness of his voice as he spoke with venom aimed at the poor girl who had never done anything to him and whose name he did not know. "If she were mine I'd flay the skin from her sorry bones."

"Please," Whitby said suddenly, handing him a whip, "be my guest."

Tyler gave him a little nod of gratitude as he took the whip without comment, fearing that if he spoke again his excitement would make his voice tremble and they would have thought him afraid of the prospect of whipping her. He had never held a real cat-o-nine-tails before or any other kind of whip and, as he approached the girl and positioned himself for action, he weighed it as if assessing its force. The handle, around thirteen inches in length, with a loop at the end, was covered in animal hide, though he was not inclined to guess from which animal. It was tan in colour, as was the whole whip. The nine tails were also hide and he had admired it enviously.

"A nice little whip," Whitby had told his companions. "I brought it back from Australia while visiting one of our mineral mines during the 80's...or was it 70's?"

So, probably kangaroo, Tyler had decided as he ran the sixteen inch strands through his fingers.

Lilith's snide, "A whip is only as good as the dominant who wields it," merely had the effect of making him more determined.

Tyler braced himself, drew back his arm and then, very smoothly, struck the girl across her shoulders.

"Aaaarghh!" The poor captive's full-bloodied scream had echoed around the room and it was then that he recalled the screams which had wafted out through the open window and floated across the immaculate lawn when he had first arrived. The sound had set his cock twitching at once, and it had not stopped twitching since. Except such sounds could not have emanated from this girl, he told himself, since the chamber in which he and the others were gathered was underground.

He admired the thin red lines which were beginning to rise across the girl's shoulder and felt a moment of intense pride. He drew back the cat and brought it crashing down again, listening to the resulting, highly satisfying Thwack! which had set the girl screaming again.

"Good..." Stapleton cleared his throat again, "for openers."

"Beginner's luck," Lilith said dismissively.

"Again," Whitby had encouraged, "another half dozen and then I'll give you the benefit of my vast experience."

Tyler narrowed his eyes and drew his brows together in concentration. With his heart pounding and his cock feeling more uncomfortable than ever, he once again drew back his arm, bringing it down once again in a smooth and decisive movement.

Thwack!

"Aaaarghh!"

The whip felt comfortable in his hand and it was with confidence that he aimed again, and again, making the girl scream at the top of her voice. He laid down the remaining lashes with accuracy and, he thought, rather stylishly, and had immediately adopted the idea that the thrashing of a beautiful girl was an art form at which he longed to excel. And, as the livid red lines obliterated those which had already been there, he knew he was on a journey of fantastic self discovery.

When he had done, there was a spontaneous round of applause. Even Lilith somewhat grudgingly shown her appreciation for a job well done. Proudly, Tyler stood aside, faced the gathering and, crossing his arms held the handle like a Pharaoh's flail with the whip's nine tails dangling.

Whitby stepped forward and, rather reluctantly, Tyler handed the cat over.

"You learn fast, my boy. Now, watch a virtuoso at work!"

Standing back out of harm's way, Tyler watched as his mentor laid down the first six, vicious stripes, hardly giving the slave's screams time to die before he struck again, laying the fanning strands down over the marks Tyler had etched across her already defiled skin.

"See what you can do this time," Whitby again handed over the whip.

Impressed by the Lord's skill and agility despite his age and the effects of over-indulgence as he had flayed the poor slave, Tyler had been determined that he would prove he had the potential to be as great a whipmaster as Whitby. But before the eager young man could begin again, Whitby approached the girl closely. Grabbing her hair, roughly he dragged back her head. And Tyler, seeing her face for the first time, noted that beneath the blindfold knotted tightly at the back, tears streaked her face.

Whitby addressed her in a soft voice lacking in warmth. "Listen, my little bitch, you're being whipped today by one of my best pupils to date. But your screaming is putting him off his stride. Keep your mouth shut or I'll see to it that things get much, much worse!" Releasing her, he had instructed Tyler, "Two dozen, once again across her shoulders. Begin!"

Copying the elder man's stance, Tyler readied himself. And then he let fly.

***

After two hours of near constant abuse by all those present, the girl's shoulders, buttocks and thighs were criss-crossed with scarlet and she bit into her lip in an effort to contain the pain. Of course, the small gathering cared little for her distress. All that had mattered to them throughout her terrifying and degrading ordeal was that she had remained conscious and fit for use.

Her lithe, young body gleamed with sweat, and a more stark contrast to the tall, well-groomed woman who stood watching with her hand on her hip would have been hard to imagine. When she had taken her turn and plied the whip, Tyler had been surprised by the fury of her lashes, noting that they were equally as vicious though nowhere near as accurate, as those of Whitby himself.

The chains which had taken her weight during the time her agonized screams had continued to echo around the room, had clinked merrily as she had twisted this way and that to avoid the lashes and had added greatly, Tyler thought with a smile, to the overall enjoyment of the occasion. Now, as they stood around chatting, ignoring the lovely girl who hung limply in her bonds, they awaited the arrival of Whitby's manservant. When he arrived, Tyler noted that he was even older than the Lord and somewhat leaner.

"Take her down, Alfred."