F Campbell - Golden Wrists

Naomi visits me. At first I thought she came to gloat and keep my hyped up with promises of things to come, But now I realize her lonely authority on this island makes her glad to have an adult like me to talk to. She is with me now. “I’ve decided to have you whipped tomorrow, Diane dear I’ve kept you in suspense long enough. Elizabeth has asked to be whipped at the same time and I see no reason to refuse. Okay by you?”

It is as though she speaks of walking in the woods. The ‘okay’ business is a touch of sarcasm at which I nod in mute agreement. Damn it, she doesn’t need my agreement about anything. She can do whatever she likes with Elizabeth and I, and I suppose the other girls, too. Naomi is queen on Plessious and can hand out her royal sentences as she may please. She sentenced me to be chained in this little hut with its open door. I expect she would like me to beg and plead but this I have not done even though I am scared of being whipped. The pain will do things to me I will not like. She makes me kneel while she stands and we talk. The kneeling is symbolic to emphasise my new condition. If my legal clients could see me now, I’d die.

Reflectively. Naomi says, “You’ve got the most beautiful breasts, Diane. Aren’t you scared I’ll whip them?”

“Of course I’m scared. I’m scared of everything you’ll do to me, and then, when you’ve done your worst, I’ll have Uncle Andrew to contend with. I don’t have much of a future.”

The stone floor was hard on my knees but I dared not ask permission to sit. Everything now carries a penalty. Naomi was interested in Uncle Andrew. “I don’t know what he’ll do to you, Diane. I never knew what he wanted you for in the first place. Except maybe as companion to Elizabeth. I suppose her husband’s a friend of his and they hashed the whole thing up together. You may both be very sorry girls by the time they’re through with you.” She added, “Elizabeth’s breasts are gorgeous, too. I’d almost be willing to keep the two of you prisoners permanently if Uncle Andrew would allow”

“Would you! I wish you would. Naomi, I really am frightened of being taken back to England, drugged in a box, and waking up in a dungeon. Or a rotten little cell. Please, Naomi, keep Elizabeth here if you can.”

“You prefer being chained in here like this? You’re crazy.”

“Well, at least you leave the door open so I can see the sunlight. When you’re taken downstairs at Rockley, there isn’t any sunlight and you know you’re in trouble.”

“But you’re in trouble here, darling. I’m going to have you whipped!”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Naomi, don’t harp on it. I know it’s coming and I’m trying not to plead or beg or be silly about it. But if you think I’m not frightened, you’re nuts. Being whipped is awful!”

Naomi laughed, amused by my dejection. “Have you forgotten, darling, both of us were whipped a long time ago, strung up by our wrists, if I remember correctly. I thought you handled yourself rather well.”

Naomi has a gift for making the incredible seem entirely possible. Having a practicing female lawyer whipped naked didn’t seem anything out of the way or worthy of discussion. “I think we should stop worrying about what’s going to happen to you tomorrow,” she said cheerfully. “There’s a lot of other things I’d like to do to you, if I have the time, before Uncle Andrew shows up. You mentioned being hung by your wrists. I’ll try and fit it in someplace.”

It was just that simple for Naomi, just make a list of tortures and then do them to the helpless girl. But she was as much a part of Plessious as the sunshine or Ivory and Thea. And, of course, the girl with all the blonde hair. If she actually did succeed in keeping Elizabeth and I captive on the island, she had a herd of girls, a group of beauties that would drive any man wild, to say nothing of a woman! Here I was chained in a condition no one could possibly believe. I even stayed kneeling long after she had gone. Sure it hurt my knees, but pain can also be a companion in the awful boredom of imprisonment.

I didn’t sleep well on the cold stone of the floor. In trying to avoid thinking about being whipped, my mind dwelled instead on Elizabeth. I wanted her terribly but I was pretty sure I’d never be given her again. It was ironic that at the very moment of capturing me and making me helpless as she did, we both lost our freedom, and now were thrust into a condition in which we might never love again. It was the story of me and Ivory all over again, I actually shed a few tears in this contemplation of my lot.

In the morning it was darling Ivory who brought me the breakfast I could not eat. Without words, we clung together, in remembered love and said nothing about anything except ourselves. I knew I would never get Ivory back, any more than I would ever get Elizabeth, and I wondered if Naomi had sent her just to tease me. Ivory said she had only five minutes and then must report back to the house. She carried my breakfast away and that was that! I had even forgotten to ask her the time I would be whipped.

Alone I stood and leaned against the wall. My hands were still fastened behind my back and I was shivering with fear at the sentence I had yet to serve, the punishment still to mark my skin. It was a horrible impotence with the open door and sunshine beyond mocking me, In anger at myself and everything else, I sought what relief I could find in motion, gathering my chain in handcuffed hands. I clutched it’s links and lunged back and forth in a futile hope of finding a weakness in the tether. It was quite useless, there was no liberty for Miss Diane Durrant. Panting, I finally desisted and resumed a pose of dejection to await my summons to the whip.

It is so easy to control a naked girl. Naomi unlocked my collar and she and Honey each took one of my bare arms and led me to the place of execution. I could do nothing, my hands were still handcuffed behind my back as I stumbled forward on the path I had no wish to travel. The two of them spoke brightly of the weather and the dinner menu for that evening. Our destination turned out to be the big tree with wide spread boughs most suitable for the tethering of girls. Darling Elizabeth was already standing naked with her hands roped high above her head. She greeted me cheerfully enough but I could tell she was also scared. It is easy to make fun of being whipped but another thing when the moment comes and you stand helpless and naked, knowing yourself about to be hurt, your courage leaves you. Ivory and Thea had handled Elizabeth, and in a few minutes I, too, was relieved of handcuffs, my wrists corded, and my arms drawn hard until I stood ten feet from Elizabeth to share her agony. Our eyes sought each other’s constantly, but in love and not in hope.

“Come along, girls, we’ll let them stand a while. Suspense will do them as much good as the whip,” Naomi said cheerfully as she gathered her girls and led them from the place of punishment to leave my love and I in a fearful isolation.

Our arms were spread wide as well as high, but Elizabeth and I were not really stretched. Our heels were still upon the soil. Our punishment was to be the leather thongs and not the pains of suspension. “Well, anyway, once we get this over, we can enjoy the island and the girls,” Elizabeth said bravely, “But, gosh, I never thought I’d be this scared. It’s creepy being tied like this, I seem to be all armpits and breasts.”

Poor darling Elizabeth! She was dreaming if she thought good times were ahead. Remorsefully I reminded, “Even after we’ve been whipped, we’ll still be prisoners, darling. Naomi will never give us any freedom. She will simply amuse herself with us as a pleasant change from the teenagers she owns. I’m tied tight, I can’t get loose, How about you?”