Chapter 26: Over the Barrel

Marie was rather proud of how easily she'd peeled the fruit. She managed to snap the stem of the banana with a minimum of effort, and pulled down a stripe of yellow rind with a single fluid twisting gesture. The only trouble was that she had underestimated how difficult it would be to get the sweet insides to her lips.

Kusako laughed from the other side of the table, kneeling in an identical steel scold's fiddle to Marie's. The devices were simple steel yokes that hinged shut around the throat, fitting neatly to a slave's collar. As the two ends met, the front arms closed with two smaller holes around the wearer's wrists, keeping the hands up at chin level, facing palm to palm one in front of the other.

Marie now realized that while her hands could perform a number of complicated tasks, they were too far from her lips to be much use for eating. She blushed a little and rested her elbows against her ribs in defeat.

"So, um ... What am I supposed to do then?" She whispered, although Kusako's Master was obviously still in the shower. He'd released the girls from the cage that morning, locked them in the fiddles and then set out the fruit and milk before running upstairs to the bathroom.

Kusako batted her eyelashes at Marie and began to recite, "In Hell, everyone is chained to benches a meter away from a lush banquet table, and are given nothing but meter-long chopsticks to eat with. The people there are in a state of perpetual starvation and are teased by the bounty before them. In Heaven, it is exactly the same chains and chopsticks, but the people are happy and well-fed. Do you know why?"

Marie vaguely remembered this one from a book of puzzles she'd had as a little girl, but she took too long thinking of the solution. Kusako slinked over beside her and wrapped her lips around the peeled banana, tipping her head back and swallowing it whole in a single astonishing gulp.

"In Heaven," she purred into Marie's ear, "the people feed each other."

When Kusako's Master came down, wet hair slicked back and wearing a terrycloth robe, he found Marie covered with sticky fruit and laughing into a large plum that Kusako had managed to shove between her teeth. Kusako was sitting on the poor girl and tickling her mercilessly, suddenly snapping to attention and kneeling in a submissive bow when she saw Him approach.

"Get her mopped down and over the barrel, pet. She's got work today, and I'm not letting her out of here without knowing her better." He ordered, reaching down and removing the padlock from the pin that held her fiddle shut. The girl touched her forehead to His feet before scrambling to clean Marie off.

Satisfied that Marie was presentable and had actually swallowed enough food to satisfy her hunger, Kusako dragged her to a set of padded stocks and pushed her to her knees before them. A secondary clasp was removed from Marie's yoke, and it snapped out to hold her hands up at either side of her shoulders. Finally Kusako pushed Marie down so she bent over the padded supports and brought down top bars and straps.

Marie squirmed, looking into Kusako's eyes as she waited for the Master of the house to return.

"Is he going to punish me for something?" Marie whispered, realizing as she said it that she was kind of looking forward to that.

"I doubt it," Kusako murmured, "he most likely just wants to fuck you."

Marie remembered the last time she had had sex with a man, back at the Halloween party. She remembered the punishing pain that seemed to come from her piercings when she was about to orgasm, and nervously described it to Kusako.

"Don't worry. I'll mention it to him." was all she got in reply.

Eventually Kusako was called out of the room, and Marie had nothing to do but test her bonds, which she did as a matter of course. The bench permitted very little squirming, but the whole assembly seemed to swing forward and backward as she pushed against the stocks that were locked around her ankles. She sighed and started swinging, counting the sways until the numbers lost their meaning and her eyes went glassy.

The creaking of the swaying mechanism grew sharper and sharper in her hearing, the clang-clang-clang of a hammer against hot metal on an anvil somewhere behind her. Marie squinted up against the sunlight, across acres of green to a castle ruin high atop a hill. In the unfathomable logic of dreaming, Marie saw or knew that the structure was being repaired by hundreds of slaves.

Marie craned her neck, trying to understand the scene of devastation around her. Foundations of buildings bordered smoking piles of ash, and the village looked to have been sacked by an invading army. Only the blacksmith's stood intact, perhaps because it was made of brick and stone to house the furnace.

Marie rocked back, rolling the giant ale keg she was chained to until her bare feet touched the dust. The morning sun blasted at her eyes, but in silhouette she saw Kusako once more. The girl was buckling a complicated set of straps about her body, and when she stepped away from the sun Marie continued to be dazzled by its reflection off the polished steel elements of Kusako's harness device.

The world swam in ripples of light, and Kusako floated toward Marie on a sunbeam. Marie felt a hand on her rear, and a thumb gently massaged a greasy substance into her anus. She tensed at the sudden attention, but then relaxed as Kusako cooed into her ear and stroked her hair.

"Now let's see if you learned anything in class." Kusako murmured. The barrel rolled forward, and Marie found herself staring at a polished steel dildo that disappeared into the collection of straps and rings at the girl's crotch. Without hesitation she took the tip of the phallus into her mouth and began bobbing her head, working her way slowly toward throating it.