F Campbell - Margo

"Yes."

"Oh, Margo! What are we going to do?"

It was a confrontation they had glimpsed. It had just fallen upon them sooner than they had supposed. They could only guess at the master's intent.

"There's no use going off the deep end," Mildred mused cautiously.

"We'd best wait and see what he's got up his sleeve. But I'll be damned if I'm going to hang you up by your wrists all night. Look, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll bind your wrists all night. Look, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll bind your wrists all ready for the morning. I'll use bandages – he won't object to that. When we wake up, we can go right to the room. Damn it, it's a poor choice, but the best we can manage."

They went to bed, but it was a long time before they slept. They should have guessed. Mildred cursed herself for underrating the master's shrewdness. It was 1:00 a.m. when the door to their bedroom was quietly opened and Henry Ross walked in. Once more, they were caught and confronted in guilt. Margo, naked, her wrists tightly bound with the elastic bandages in readiness for her early morning suspension, sat up in a daze and looked into the face of doom. Mildred, equally naked, was no better prepared. The scene might have held some elements of humor for someone uninvolved.

"I'd have thought you would have more sense," Henry Ross said with disgust. "I set a trap and you walked right into it. Damn it, you're allowing those palpitating little slits between your legs to dictate your lives." He glanced in amusement at Margo's bound hands. "Well, well, all ready for an early start in the morning, Eli! Everything is just the way I expected it would be. Really, you're like a couple of kids."

It would have taken Margo a considerable time to free her hands by means of her teeth. She did not bother. In the grip of a compulsion she could not name, she left the bed and went to the glowering man. She held up her fastened hands.

"All right, you've caught us. Now what are you going to do? Whatever it is, do it to me, but not to Mildred. You need Mildred. Rossland needs Mildred. It doesn't need me." Margo made a play with bandaged wrists before his eyes. "Look, Mildred has me all ready for you. Take me wherever you wish and hang me up as long as you want, if that's what pleases you." Contemptuously, she added, "I suppose you've got a male thing about seeing me suspended, and that's the only way you're going to get rid of it."

Henry Ross paid little heed. With a single arm, he guided her to one side and went to the waiting headmistress of the Academy. His voice was abrupt.

"Turn around."

It was sudden and abrupt. It was Henry Ross. Margo looked askance at the lovely figure of her naked mistress who now stood in shocked surprise, her hands cuffed behind her back. Neither woman had thought to protest, to argue, or to struggle. There was an inevitability about the whole thing which they could not deny Mildred was doubly angry.

"Henry, you son of a bitch! You always win!" She lowered her tone. "Henry, please?"

When Norma Boulter entered the bedroom, it was almost anticlimactic. The naked delinquents stared in dismay. Norma viewed them with interest. The president of Boulter Enterprises viewed the blushing nudities with intense pleasure.

Casually, she said, "Hello, Margo. I knew you'd be here. We'll have a lot to talk about."

She turned her attention to the older woman who was so much a facsimile of herself and said sweetly, "Miss Mildred Harridance, I believe. I've been waiting to meet you. It will give me immense pleasure to give you the thrashing of your life."

Mildred was outraged. She turned her furious regard upon the smiling man. "Henry, you can't do this! Get this woman out of here. I don't want her looking at me naked, and if she thinks she's going to thrash me, you'd better tell her she's got another thing coming. Henry, unlock my hands and let me dress."

"You are suitably attired now, my dear." Henry Ross was unperturbed. "It is quite possible you will never be clothed again."

He turned to Norma Boulter and asked, "Do you find her attractive? Would you wish to acquire possession?"

It was not Norma Boulter who answered his question. Mildred, white with fury said, "Henry, you bastard! You're not giving me or selling me to this woman – you absolutely are not!" Mildred tore angrily at the steel bands upon her wrists. It was not an act in expectation of freeing herself, but simply motions of exasperation. Breasts heaving, she lowered her tone. "Henry, please…? Let Margo and me put something on, and then the four of us can talk about whatever it is you've got on your mind. There's no need to exhibit me in front of this woman who I have never met."

"Miss Boulter is considering purchasing you, dear. Please stop tugging at those handcuffs. You'll chafe your wrists. You should know better than anybody you can't possibly get free of them."

He turned to this clothed companion and enquired affably, "Which one of them would you like to purchase?"

"Why not both of them? The subsidiary you're trying to talk me out of should be a pretty big price for a couple of pretty little pussies," Norma Boulter laughed, feeling herself in charge of the situation. "You can well spare theta. The way I hear it, this whole building is full of palpitating little twats, all awaiting your attention. Damn it, man, you could well spare these two. A pair like these will be well suited to that new place I built."

Henry Ross slowly admitted, "In the meantime, let us go to more room. I wish to demonstrate the qualities of what I'm selling. Come along."

Margo felt herself swept along in a tide controlled by others. It would be silly to try to free her hands. She didn't bother. Mildred disgustedly did as she was told. The four of them made their way in a curious procession to a destination Margo suspected boded two of them no good. She was right. Within a couple of minutes, she was standing naked with her bandaged wrists held high above her head, but not suspended. She had a sense of being put on hold.

Next, Mildred Harridance was collared and tethered to the wall to compel her to stand in frustration for whatever might befall her. There was now about Henry Ross an air of fulfillment, of purpose achieved. He turned his full attention to the amused and interested president of Boulter Inc. But at that moment, Norma Boulter was more interested in the two members of her own sex so interestingly displayed, presumably for her approval.

"I'd like to whip them one at a time, Henry," she quietly suggested quietly. "Their behavior under punishment may aid me in deciding which one to take." She bestowed an austere smile upon all present. "My, my, I'm getting so rusty in this matter of punishment since I passed Margo along to you. I should never have done it. I should have kept her. She is a jewel."

Henry Ross had divested himself of his coat and tie. He now stood before the watching females in slacks and an open-necked white silk shirt. About him was a tremendous air of purpose. Quietly, but with tremendous relish, he purred.

"There's a little matter between you and me. We are not going to whip or cane either of those delicious creatures you are enjoying. We are first of all going to cane your bottom and then whip your back. In short, I am going to give you a sound thrashing."

Norma Boulter regarded her host as though he had lost his senses. His statement had failed to register simply because it was not within her scope of possibilities that the president of Ross Enterprises and sundry other lesser institutions should aspire to cane the bottom of the president of Boulter Inc. This was fantasy – beyond comprehension. She laughed it away, but her laugh held a trace of nervousness. "You men! You must have your little jokes! I think I prefer the thin yellow cane and I will start with your Miss Harridance. I have already caned dear little Margo many times, so she takes second place today."