Chapter 10

"What a funny little creature! That girl must surely be a special order - she is not even as pretty as the house slaves."

"Special? Very - very special indeed, monsignor ... or should I now say 'your eminence'?"

"Ahh, Stephen, not yet - I am just a humble member of the Curia until the formal proclamation." The portly, bespectacled man smiled as they both looked through the two-way mirror at the naked, cowering girl desperately trying to adopt position after position as quickly as possible in the training suite. "I will soon have to remember which ring to wear - it will be most confusing!"

Stephen grinned but did not take his eyes away from the intense interplay between his son and Alexa. Her total attention was on Marek's fingers. They had swiftly moved beyond verbal instructions and simple numbered commands to hand signals. It made him proud to see how his personal slave was learning so damn fast! Marek snapped his fingers then closed his hand into a fist before straightening his index finger and making a sharp, sideways movement at the wrist. Alexa immediately knelt with her right cheek firmly pressed to the floor, ankles crossed, thighs properly spaced one foot apart and wrists crossed behind the small of her back. Marek slowly walked around the girl, critically examining her posture. He suddenly lashed out and pressed the metal contacts of a shock-prod against the base of her spine.

Even through the double-glazed mirror, Alexa's shrieks of pain and distress were loud and long. "Ohh, that was harsh, Stephen - the girl did not delay and displayed her cunt well, surely."

"Her head," Stephen murmured. "She moved her head slightly." Perhaps it did seem severe to an outsider but it was necessary. Alexa would only learn perfect submission if the slightest failure was corrected. Marek had been drilling her in the routine forms of slave posture for several hours now. Perhaps she was becoming too tired ... but that was a matter for his son to judge and he knew better than to intervene and confuse Alexa by undermining her personal trainer's authority.

The monsignor cleared his throat. "I did not come down to the gymnasium merely to watch a new girl being trained - I needed to speak with you in confidence, Stephen."

That bought Stephen's attention. Why would the Organization's closest master to Saint Peter's throne seek him out? "Do you think I am in need of a priest, monsignor? I am not looking for absolution..."

"Have you ever heard of something called 'Ordo de Terminus Crucis'?"

The fact that he was whispering although they were alone in the observation lounge intrigued Stephen even more. "No, I don't recall the term - it sounds like an obscure cult. Is it another of those fanciful pseudo-Templar societies who claim to have found the lost treasure of Solomon or some other mystical artifact?" If this were all the monsignor wanted to talk about, Stephen would far rather watch Alexa being trained.

"If the 'Order of the Final Crusade' was merely an apostate cult, I would not bother you. No ... the 'old man' is very worried, Stephen - in fact I have never seen him so agitated since MOSSAD tried to lure Cardinal M________ outside his Vatican sanctuary with that pretty blonde agent." The monsignor chuckled. "She was certainly the most delicious bait I have ever seen! Such a pity the Swiss Guard became involved - I was really quite looking forward to another secret heresy trial and slow execution ... but the Guard did have a lot of sport with her first, under my direction of course."

"Of course." Stephen kept his voice as neutral as possible and observed his companion while her peered through the two-way mirror. The man's expression had changed as his fanatical obsession with reviving the full force of the Holy Inquisition was revealed in his unblinking stare and the unconscious way he kept licking his lips. Stephen had heard the stories about a disused monastery in the Dolomites taken over by the monsignor and his fellow priests - and about the way these 'men of God' had extracted confessions of witch-craft from young orphan girls specially purchased in Bulgaria before consigning them to the spiritually cleansing flames. Yes, the cardinal-elect was quite mad but useful to the Organization if his inquisitorial perversions were carefully fed ... and controlled. "Hmm - Karol is a wily old bird. His holiness would not normally let himself be alarmed by a handful of fanatical dreamers." Perhaps this was more interesting than he had initially assumed. "And what about your Opus Dei, monsignor - can't they or even the Knights of Malta deal with the troublemakers?"

"They have both been infiltrated by this Order, Stephen - even R________ does not know who to trust anymore."

Stephen gave out a snort of derision. "Cardinal R________ has never trusted anyone in his life! Why is this secret order so problematic to the church - you have dealt with cults before."

The cardinal-elect paused then chose his words carefully. "That MOSSAD girl told us many things before she died, things even I find unspeakable. The Order has been secretly approaching arms dealers in Russia and they are planning something very terrible, Stephen - something that will bring down the fury of the West to crush Islam once and for all. We do not know what but it will be worse than anything previously seen - and it involves nuclear material from the old Soviet Navy. This is all we know without showing our hand."

Stephen realized the man was frightened; in fact he was terrified - why? The 'retired' Albanian brothers had been trying to buy decommissioned Russian nuclear submarine reactors for a mysterious third party. He would ask their cousin, Envar, who they had been dealing with.

Meanwhile, Marek had stopped punishing Alexa and his slave was curled into a ball on the floor. He clicked his fingers and repeated the hand signal for the 'display and fetter' position. Alexa took a little longer to adopt the correct posture but this time she kept perfectly still, even when Marek slid the crop handle inside her vagina and left it sticking out to detect any slight movement of her body. Stephen counted the remaining seconds off in his head while his son watched the tip of the crop like a hawk - would Alexa last the full five minutes?... 296... 297... 298... 299 ... YES! She had made it!

Marek nodded almost imperceptively towards the mirror, knowing full well they were being observed. He crouched down, ruffled her hair and placed a tiny candy into her mouth. Alexa sneezed violently and blinked as tears stung her eyes. "Don't you like my candy, little slave?"

"Uhh ... m-mint, I mean please sir, mint makes me sneeze, sir."

Marek smiled and patted her head then removed the crop from between her cunt lips. "Then lick the handle clean as your reward, slave - that last effort was much better." He watched Alexa use her tongue to lap her juices from the glistening leather. She had not even pulled a face but had immediately put the handle to her mouth without question. Alexa was displaying such obedience and yet he had barely started her basic slave training - what would this girl be capable of? Marek frowned. There was something not quite right about this girl. She was too compliant, too ready and eager to please. He preferred a girl who resisted, who fought back, whose spirit had to be overcome. Alexa appeared to have given up already and SEEMED not to require breaking. Perhaps she WAS genuine ... but perhaps she still had a deeply buried independent streak that was hidden by her abusive upbringing - perhaps her breaking would be far more difficult than his father realized. The girl innocently looked up as she licked and sucked on the leather. Was she merely pretending to obey? There was only one sure way to find out but he decided the time was not right for such an extreme method - better to let her think she had successfully deceived him! "So, Alexa - we will go through the eleven basic positions again until you have them perfectly ingrained. Put down the crop and assume 'attend' position in readiness."

Alexa immediately knelt with her thighs apart and ankles crossed. She straightened her back, wishing she had more voluptuous breasts, and placed her palms on her buttocks. She must not look directly up at him, she had painfully learned after he backhanded her, but she had to watch through the corner of her eye. He was making a curved sign with his fingers - the 'slave arch'! Could she get her head back enough to touch the floor with the top of her brow and avoid the shocking pain of the crop on her pussy? She grasped her ankles and threw back her head as far as possible.

"Come back to my apartment for a coffee, monsignor - we can talk in private about your secret society." He looked back in time to see the crop land between his slave's thighs - she cried out in pain but arched even further to avoid a second strike. Marek wasn't sparing Alexa in any way. His son had clearly taken the Organization's maxim to heart - 'spare the whip and spoil the slave'!

She was so exhausted she thought she wouldn't even make it back as far as her master's apartment - she would have to crawl if Marek kept pulling her along by her collar chain. Alexa wasn't just extremely tired - she was very sore as well. Her body ached all over, especially inside down below. But she was secretly pleased with herself having finally managed a faultless performance of the randomly chosen positions and movements that a slave was required to learn.

For some reason, Marek had frowned as he praised her - it was as though he wanted her to displease him! And she desperately wanted to impress him so what was she doing wrong? There was another girl in the corridor coming towards them. She was carrying a tray of empty dishes. As she neared them, the girl dropped to her knees and lowered her head so a curtain of thick, auburn hair covered her face. Marek walked past the kneeling slave without a second glance but as Alexa stumbled behind him, helplessly gagged and fettered, the slave looked up at her. Alexa was so shocked she stopped, even though it might anger Marek even more.

He felt the sudden resistance of the leash chain and turned to order Alexa on. She looked back at him and he sensed something was wrong. "Well, what is it slave? If you are wasting my time, we will go back to lesson one."

"Plsssss ... Mkkkkk ... ooookkkkk!" Alexa kept turning her head, trying to point at the cowering slave who was pressing herself against the corridor wall.

"She is just a house slave - there's nothing..." Then he noticed the food stains on the house slave's hair and body. "Look at me, girl, look at me NOW." She turned and lifted her gaze, revealing how her right eye was almost completely swollen shut, how her lower lip had been split, and how her nose was bloodied and might even be broken. His voice became gentle as he examined the tag through her ear. "Who did this ... petite Véronique - who has hurt your face?" Marek kept his voice steady, determined not to show either girl how angry he felt. This girl was a HOUSE slave, not a punch bag!

"Monsieur ... he say n-not to tell, h-he say he kill..." She was shaking so badly, Alexa wanted to comfort her but what could she do with her hands cuffed behind her back? She struggled to kneel and shuffled closer until her thigh touched the poor girl's side and was grateful that Marek did not order her away. But he had changed from looking so annoyed all the time and was showing such concern for the injured girl - for Véronique - that Alexa felt confused.