Chapter 5

Iron.

The darkness seemed to stick to her eyes and her face. It glued her lashes together. It also had icy cold fingers that made her skin ripple with shivers. Her teeth clattered.

Life seeped back into her body. Gradually. First it warmed her slow, heavy heart. Then it spread throughout her flesh, fractions of inches at a time. But her fingers stayed numb, as did her feet.

She opened her eyes. Nothing changed. Then all came back to her. The blindfold, the gag... the awful people. The monstrous dog, its panting tongue. And the pain at the centre of it all. Her Mistress had done nothing to save her, nothing to protect her.

Most of all there was the shame. It was the shame of knowing how those people had been watching her. They had witnessed the wild pleasure that had seared through her bound body. And they must have concluded correctly that she had no control over the slut inside her.

A dry sob shook her shoulders. She had never felt so alone in her life. She was lost, confused, abandoned. How could Mistress have been so cold? And yet again so unbearably sweet when all was over? To dismiss her so cruelly again? How could she ever be expected to understand? She had fallen deep. She was a fallen angel. She lay crushed against a cold, indifferent stone. She hugged the marble. She begged it to open up and take her in.

She had seen the horror of the dog. And she had watched the people grin and applaud. Then she must have fainted. A sharp waft of smelling salt had brought her back to consciousness. She had gasped. And she had blinked the world back into focus.

She had lain on her knees. Her arms were still caught in the chains. But they had been slackened enough to allow her to sink down. The two men and the woman stood around the fireplace. They chatted and drank their drinks. The dog had gone. A gloved hand cupped her chin. It made her look upwards into the smiling face of Angique. It was the face of the Mistress she had found. And now had lost so cruelly.

"You must have had so much fun, darling", she said. "You passed out completely. Sweet Brynn has the most incredibly skilled tongue, don't you agree?"

The people looked in her direction now. They walked over. Undoubtedly they wanted to watch this slut from closer up. Kristie turned her head away in disgust. But Angique held her face in a vice like grip. She did not allow her to look away.

"Now let me make you a trifle more comfortable", she sang with her sweetest voice. She undid the chains at the wrist cuffs. Kristie let her limp arms fall to the ground. She felt the blood rush back with a million pin- pricks. Then she noticed that the strap at the back of her head slackened. She pushed the ball out with her tongue. Then she exercised her aching jaws. Sticky strands of saliva dripped down her chin onto her breasts.

Angique lowered herself beside the girl. She locked her green eyes into the darkened hazel ones.

"Now, Kristie", she said. "We know you are not a selfish girl. You had all this incredible pleasure Brynn gave you. Don't you agree my friends should at least share in that?"

Kristie stared into the treacherous emeralds. She did not know what to say. What did the woman mean?

One of the people walked up to her. He was a rather thickset middle-aged man. He could have been her father. He undid his trouser's fly and took out a fat, half-aroused cock. He took it in his hand and leaned in even closer. He slapped Kristie's the face with it.

"Suck it, you delicious little cunt!" he growled in a precise Oxford accent.

Kristie tore her face out of the grip of her Mistress. She backed off. She tried to struggle up, but her ankles were connected. She fell over on her side.

"Noooooooooooo...", she screamed. Then she broke down in a torrent of sobs.

Angique took her in her arms. She rested her against her tight leather suit. She wiped her eyes and cooed in her softest voice.

"Now don't, sweet thing. Don't make your Mistress feel so sad. Don't shame me into believing that you'd mock my friends. You would not make a caricature out of my authority in front of them, would you? I gave such a wonderful account of your progress and your talents, little one. Now please don't make me the laughing stock. How could I ever meet them again and not be mocked and ridiculed?"

She whispered on in this vein. The sadness dripped off her voice. It seeped into the ears of the rigid girl.

"Do you hate me, Kristie? Is that it? Have I caused you to hate me that you want to break my reputation?"

The answer was a low moan of utter misery.

Angique let her hand travel down the leather bound body. She slowly rolled a nipple. Then she let her fingers walk to the cunt lips. They were still spread open by silver clamps.

"Who are you, sweet Kristie? Please tell me who you are? You can't be this insignificant little waitress I picked up in America? Are you really this mindless little animal? Are you this girl that is only interested in working out her body and soaking up the sun? Are you the girl that went out with all these insignificant, clumsy lovers? All these pitiful clowns who so often failed to even give you a tiny orgasm?"

Her fingers had found the still tender clit. It stood up at the top of her wide-open pinkness. She rubbed it. She softly scratched it with her nail.

"Oh my. Please say it isn't true, Kristie. Don't tell me that is who you are? For if it's true, you are a dirty little liar, you know? You lied to me when you called me Mistress. You lied when you agreed to come to Europe. And you lied to me when we sat on the stone in the Lago. You pledged your love to me. "I am yours forever", you said. You did say that, Kristie, didn't you? I warned you, but you insisted. You put your sweet little hand over my mouth, remember? Was it all a lie?"

Under her fingers the girl's hips started slowly to gyrate. She pushed herself closer. But she never answered. Her eyes had closed. She moaned through clenched teeth.

"Ooooooooh, sweet Mistress!", she exclaimed suddenly. "Don't call me a liar. You KNOW I am not!"

Angique just as sudden stopped pleasing the girl's clit. With her cum-dripping fingers she swept away the tears on the girl's cheeks. Then she said:

"Prove it!"

She pushed Kristie back and stood on her towering heels. Her arms were folded before her chest.

The girl knelt on the floor. Her ass sat next to her still chained feet. One arm supported her leather strapped body. Her wide-open eyes shot from Angique to the other people. Then they rested on the now totally erect cock of the Englishman. He chuckled and stroked his hard flesh. He made a slow drop of pre-cum dance down to the floor.

Kristie clambered to all fours. Then she did the most amazing thing. It made Angique gasp with surprise. The girl lifted her right hand. She turned her fingers up into a kitten's paw. Then she licked her nails and purred. She beckoned the fat man closer. Her pointed pink tongue ran across her lips.

A sigh went through the room. Kristie took the rigid pole in her hands. She started licking its dripping head. Her tongue drew a long, clear thread when she pulled back. It shone golden in the candlelight. Then she sank her lips over the ridge. All the while she kneaded the heavy balls and sent vibrating purrs along the shaft.

The Englishman had no comment. He shivered and threw his head back, groaning. Angique smiled: the poor guy had the chance of an ice cube in hell to survive the next minute. And she was right. Even before Kristie could take all of him in, he started to buck. Then he pulled out and shot his fat cream all over her face and skullcap.

Kristie meowed. She slowly scraped the globs of sperm from her face. Then she started licking her fingers.

Angique fell onto her knees. She embraced the girl. Then she pressed her mouth on Kristie's. She tasted the male presence and sucked the mixture of come and saliva into her own mouth. There she mixed it with her own spit and gave it back.

They took minutes to weave the sperm and spit into a snowball. Then Angique rose high on her knees. She held Kristie's head and let the endless threads of goo sink into the open cave of her mouth. She stroked the girl's throat to make her swallow it all.

Then the two of them hugged again. Their eyes connected. They shared a feeling so precious that even their breathing stopped.

The world around them seized to exist.

That night Kristie served the men twice. She also ate the woman's cunt. After each climax she crawled over to Angique and shared the crop with her.

When the friends had left, they lay in each other's arms. Angique sipped a red wine. She shared it with Kristie, exactly as they had been sharing all night.

"You will be punished, you know that, don't you, Kristie?", Angique said, almost off hand.

"Tonight you will be locked in iron as a punishment for your refusal. Do you understand that?"

In a reflex Kristie's mouth formed the word "but". But she never let it slip out. She nodded silently. Then she hung her head. All the hard won confidence and warmth was taken away from her again.

In the cold, marble place Kristie felt her consciousness return in full. She could lift her head a few inches. She looked around in the darkness. Angique had bolted her body down. She had been spread eagled on a large slap of cold, slick marble. It lay at the centre of a huge cage.

All she saw was gray in gray, shadows in shadows. The circle of torches long since had died. Before she left, Mistress had knelt beside her. She had kissed her neck. She had whispered: "I am so proud of you, sweet pet." Then she had left. She had turned a huge key in the door of iron bars that was set in the iron cage.

The last she'd heard were the echoing taps of heels. The cold had kept her awake. Then exhaustion threw its woollen cloak over her body.

Blood.

There was no clock, there was no ticking. There was no measuring of time. Only a shard of sunlight that travelled up the wall. But there was her heart. It cut the time into piecemeal morsels, just large enough to swallow.

If Brigitte knew anything, it was how to wait. How to find a thousand colours in the dullest gray. How to put her brain on hold and watch the grass grow.

She must have stood there for an hour. Her eyes had travelled all the curves and inlets of the Jugendstil ornaments. They crawled and twisted on the wall in front of her. It wasn't difficult for her to become an explorer. She trekked through a wilderness of elegant vines and leaves and flowers. She was a small naked girl in an adventurous labyrinth of green and black. She lost herself in a world of high winds and whispering heartbeats.

At first there had been the excitement of finally arriving. There was the arousal of new impressions and the sheer beauty of the place. But that feeling seeped out of her. Time went on and nothing happened. Nothing at all. Not even sounds came to her, other than the distant chirrups of a million crickets. The car had left right after she went inside. It took its rumble down the hill. Its sound drowned in the overall buzz of the background. The old woman never returned.

Any other might have got curious. She might have started a private exploration around the house, or even inside it. Brigitte was curious, of course. But she had been told to stay put, so she did. Little stirrings inside her might tease her. But she knew she could not go against the order. She knew it was part of what she was here for. To obey.

Flashes of her flight and her drive to this Villa projected themselves on the inside of her mind. She mused on the peculiar actions, or better: non-actions of the chauffeur. He must be gay, she decided. Or otherwise the powers of this woman Angique must be really awesome. She had almost thrown herself at him. He never took the bait. Even his bodily reactions seemed under control. Amazing.

To think these thoughts and stand naked in the cool breeze kept her nipples hard. She cupped them. Their cold, marble quality ran shivers down her spine.

After half an hour her awareness sank below the level of full consciousness. Her eyes just stared. They pulled the world out of focus. Her heartbeat lowered to a slow, lazy whisper.

Her thoughts came to a standstill.

Her heart cramped when the door crashed open. The sudden transfer from total silence into screaming action made it skip two, three beats. A black creature jumped her. A bloody minded fury it was, all clad in black leather. Even its head had been tightly wrapped.

The creature grabbed her hair with blood-tipped claws. It pulled her inside. It dragged her across the sill. She felt squirts of white-hot adrenaline dash through her body. Her throat squeezed closed. She was speechless although her mouth sprang wide open.

The creature dragged her along. It made catlike strides on towering heels. Brigitte was pulled through an impressive stone hall and down a corkscrew stairwell. The creature didn't care if her victim was hurt by the cold hard edges.

Deep down in the bowels of the house, it pulled a torch off the wall. Then it led the way through a long, vaulted corridor. It was adorned with fearsome gargoyles and chiselled monsters. A huge, iron studded door stood ajar. The black harpy pushed it open. They descended another set of stairs. It led them into a circular, incredibly large, high vaulted hall. It seemed to have been cut out of the Italian bedrock.

All around them torches burned. They breathed life into the shadows and played with another multitude of sculpted monsters. Naked human and animals' bodies were intertwined in sensual and obscene intercourse. In front of them iron bars rose out of the stone. They were at least twelve feet high and met at the centre to form a vast circular cage. The bars almost seemed to move with the torches' light. Their shadows centred on a big slab of marble. It rose about half a foot out of the darker granite floor.

A girl lay spread-eagled on the exact middle of that slab. She was naked except for a curious costume of finely mazed leather straps. She had been tied down with short chains. They ran from her ankles and wrists to dull shining iron bolts in the marble.

She did not move. Nor did she make a sound.

The black hooded creature turned around. Now Brigitte saw that its full, pale breasts swayed free. The crotch of the suit was open as well. It displayed a smoothly shaven cunt and pubic mound. The nipples were clamped with a delicate chain dangling in between. There was a tiny drop of blood. It seeped from between the silver jaws of a clamp.

Brigitte stood panting. Her breasts heaved as much as the woman's. The pressure of her blood started to sink slowly. The buzzing left her ears. Then the woman grabbed her hair again. She pulled her towards the cage. She pushed her naked body against it and handcuffed her wrists to the bars. They were about two feet above and to either side of her head.

Brigitte now stood tightly against the cold iron. She felt it almost cut into her flesh. Her feet were kicked wide. Then her ankles were tied to the bars, much like her wrists were.

"Watch!", the black cat woman growled. She lapped a slow pink tongue all along the iron bar, right next to Brigitte's face. Then she strode off. The torches' golden light dripped like liquid off her shining curves. She took a few high, rolling steps to the right. Then she opened a heavy door. It was made of iron bars, just like the cage itself. Inside, she returned to Brigitte and faced her. She stretched her arms and planted her leather palms on Brigitte's. Then she pushed herself forward. Her clamped tits drilled themselves into Brigitte's flattened chest. The long, sinuous tongue slid out of the mask's opening. It ran all over Brigitte's face. It felt hot like boiling lava. Brigitte closed her eyes. She felt the throbbing snake pass over her eyeballs. Then it traced her cheek and pushed itself between her lips.

As soon as the woman started kissing, Brigittee knew who she was. And she knew that she had known all along.

"Mistress", she groaned. And her legs started to tremble without control.

The woman chuckled and pushed herself off the bars.

"Watch!", she purred again. She prowled to the supine girl at the centre of the cave. Her shoulders were bent in a high arch. Her heeled feet made catlike strides. A leather crop sprang to her hand. She started caressing the body on the marble with its tip.

The girl's skin twitched in reaction to the touch. A soft moan filled the hall. It sounded tiny and forlorn in the huge space.

"Mmmmm, sweet little pet", the cat woman's voice answered. "You are awake at last. Awake, after your shocking performance last night. Aaaaah, Brigitte, ma belle... she is such a greedy slut. You should have seen her. How she came. How she screamed and shook when the hound licked her open cunt. How she let her throat be filled with my good friends' sperm and juices. Her face and tits were sprayed with it. I thought she'd never stop."

A new moan sounded. It was louder now but not less desperate. The woman cut it off by making the crop land on the inside of a spread thigh. It cracked in the echoing hall like an explosion. Two more cracks followed. They mingled with loud howls from the girl. Heart breaking sobs followed their echoes.

The woman turned and watched Brigitte. She chuckled. Brigitte was stunned by the sudden violence and the obvious glee. Then the woman spoke again. A tinge of disappointment crept into her voice.

"Yes, she was amazing. But first she made a fool of me, last night, you know. She thought she could refuse me my pleasure. I gave her Brynn, my wonderful dog. He made her come gloriously. But she was selfish, weren't you, little whore?"

And again the crop came down. It crashed onto bare cheeks and left lines of darkest crimson.

"Soooo selfish", the woman crooned. "The lil slut wanted all the pleasure for herself. She refused to share it with my friends. Bad egoistic creature."

She sank to her knees. Then she bent over the girl's whipped flesh. She slowly started tracing the welds with her tongue. It made the girl moan louder.

"Selfish, yes. But also sweet, mmmmmm, so incredibly sweet she is."

The tongue lapped in easy strokes. It went all over the shivering thighs. It followed the leather bound hills of her buttocks. Then it disappeared inside the crack. And it dwelled on the tightly closed little hole at the centre.

The licking went on for minutes. The girl's gasps came faster. And each gasp ended with a whimpering moan.

Then the woman stopped. She crawled to the wrists and ankles of the girl. She opened the rings connected to the short chains and dragged the girl up against her. She softly kissed the lolling head, then dragged her over to Brigitte. There she propped her up. She pushed the limp body against the bound woman.

"Mmmmmm, sweet Kristie. Meet Brigitte. She just arrived from Canada. She came all the way to see you suffer. Say: bonjour, Brigitte, because she speaks French, you know. That is, when she isn't moaning with pleasure. She is a whore too, you know. Une méchante saloppe, n'est-ce pas, Brigitte?"

Brigitte stared in the face of what must be a beautiful girl, a really sweet blonde doll. But right now all kinds of emotions contorted it. Saliva ran from the weak, open lips. Tears and snot dripped from the nose and cheeks. She must have bitten her lips cruelly. Blood seeped from little cracks. Her neck seemed unable to keep her head upright.

Soft groans struggled to pass the swollen tongue. The lips tried to form words. Maybe she said "Bonjour, Brigitte".

Maybe she just uttered her misery.

The black cat-woman dragged Kristie back to the altar. Brigitte had begun to think of the marble slab as a place of offerings. The woman laid the girl down. Then she pulled at a lever that was set into the floor. Chains dropped from the distant ceiling.

She attached them to the wrists of Kristie. Then she pulled the limp girl up until she hung from them. Her feet were inches off the ground.

The woman stood eye-level now with Kristie's round, sweet tits. She rolled the nipples and pinched them both. Then she took the crop and started slapping them softly. She built up an increasing rhythm.

"She likes this, doesn't she?", she asked, over and over again. "Watch them rise and swell, Brigitte. They must ache by now. They are like little marbles that crown her soft full tits. They beg for a sucking mouth, don't they, Kristie?"

The dangling girl moaned. She gave no answer. The woman tweaked one nipple hard. Now the girl squealed.

"Answer, slut!", she yelled.

"Yes, Mistress," she groaned.

The woman once more abused the tender flesh.

"Yes what?"

The words of the desperate girl were hardly a whisper.

"Please, suck them, Mistress."

The woman unzipped the tight hood on her head. In one sweep she tore it off. Her black hair danced around her pale face. It framed dark set eyes and a dark red mouth. She grabbed the girl at the small of her back. She pulled her closer. Then she engulfed the right nipple with her hungry lips.

After also suckling the other, she stood back. She cupped Kristie's head with incredible tenderness and said:

"My darling sweet little slut, please forgive me. Today is a day of blood and iron. Last night must have infected me. It might have been the full moon. It might have been my poisoned soul. But I rose this morning, and the taste of blood and iron lingered in my throat. It infected my blood."

A sudden new anger seemed to grip her. She grabbed the chain and ran her tongue along the metal. From where she stood, Brigitte could see a shiver touch her skin.

Then the woman suddenly turned back to her prey. She clawed at the girl's face and held it in a strong grip.

"The taste of iron obsesses me, Kristie. And the taste of blood drives me crazy. Will you let me taste your blood?"

The hall fell silent. All breathing seemed to stop. The three bodies seemed an arrangement of stone statues.

Then Kristie screamed.

"Oooooooooh, Angique. You know I love you. Why do you do this to me?"

The last word echoed. Before it had died away, the black woman had sunk to her knees. She sobbed. She held on to the dangling legs and buried her face in them.

Even in her state of shock, this sudden change of emotions took Brigitte by surprise. Who the fuck was this woman? So cruel, so tender. So wild, so sweet. So strong one moment, so utterly vulnerable the next.