F Campbell - Margo

The response was instant. A moment later, Mildred was upon the floor, assuming the desired, most shameful posture. She did not speak.

She was evidently resigned to nymphet authority. It is possible that her desire for freedom was so great that Emaline could have extracted an even higher price. The two nudities within the cage exchanged the bars with an intense personal interest. When she saw there was a taste of something to come, she herself would undergo. An unemotionally as she could contrive, she stated, "Don't worry, Emaline. I'll keep my part of the bargain."

The little whip was different from the cane. It is doubtful if Mildred could have contrived to bear the infliction of the wicked yellow cane within the confines of her crotch. But the whip whistled in and out and up and down each exposed thigh with an almost sweet facility. The awful pose the headmistress was forced to maintain swayed and jerked and weaved back and forth as it fought the bitter venom of thongs splatting upon damp female skin. At the end of the tenth stroke, the woman's eyes sought those of her young tormentor and received the nod allowing her to become once more a normal person.

Mildred stood erect, clutching those portions of her body most bitterly cut and striped, but in her heart there sang the song of freedom.

While Norma stood back against the far wall of the cage, Margo blithely stepped outside the bars and stood expectantly while Emaline used the little key again to give her freedom. With the same willingness to immolate her flesh, Margo asked quietly, "How do you want me?"

"Would you mind if I pulled one of your feet way up in the air?"

"No, I don't mind."

Margo lay upon the floor and raised a leg to watch its ankle become tethered to the rope and behold it rise to where she was strained up with her hip only barely touching the floor. She did not need to ask where and how she would be whipped. It was all too obvious. She bore one after another of the stinging impacts from her raised knee, down to her crotch, and then up her still free thigh in a procession of measured strokes delivered with all the force of Emaline's young arm and the bitterness of the little whip so well designed for the punishment of girls.

When it was over and she was standing erect and free, Emaline said, "You're not going to do anything to me, are you? You'll keep your word?"

They assured her they would keep their word. All they required now as for Norma to be freed. Eznaline went into the cage and the little key did its work, unlocking the third set of cuffs.

"Well, I might as well be running along," Emaline tentatively said.

Three naked woman nodded in unison, sending the nymphet on her way. They had had quite enough of Emaline and were glad to see her go.

Mildred took charge. She directed her gaze upon Norma and said with her old forcefulness, "Margo and I can overpower you easily, Miss Boulter, are you willing to go along with our intention of escape?"

"Good God, yes! If you know a way out of here."

The three freed women obtained clothes in Mildred's room. Mildred herself took from a drawer a small but wicked revolver. She checked its load and thrust it into a recess of her recovered clothing.

Quietly, she said, "We still have work to do. I'm going to take Margo from this place and possess her for my own. But first Henry Ross has got a bill to pay. I want you to follow me downstairs."

In the forest of iron bars, the cells were side by side. Mildred and Norma fought a battle of eyes before Norma shrugged and entered the one indicated. The door clanged shut behind her back and Mildred turned the key.

"I don't need you handcuffed or chained or anything else. All I need is you as a captive." Mildred's voice was even and determined. "I can leave you here to the tender mercies of Henry Ross, or I can set you free. If I set you free, will you finance Margo and myself in a new life? I am thinking in terms of a great deal of money."

"You silly idiot, you don't need to put me in this cell or wave that gun at me," Norma said irritably. "Of course I'll loch after your escape and your fresh new life. May I visit you sometime? I'd love to."

Margo found herself a spectator. No one asked her wishes. They were taken for granted. Her body belonged to the strongest. It was that simple. She found herself glad the strongest was Mildred, but spared thought for the man they were waiting for. Henry Ross would give her wealth and the sanctity of marriage. She considered the prospect briefly but the vision dissolved before the reality of the vibrant woman now in charge of three destinies.

Mildred said, "I forgot your handcuffs, Margo. Go and get them, please." There was not a thought in her mind but to comply. When she returned with both pairs, her own and those from Norma's wrists, she turned her back and offered her hands without question. Having locked her tight, Mildred turned her attention the woman in the cell.

She held up the second pair of handcuffs and asked, "Do you want these on?"

"I don't really care." Norma's voice was listless. "If you'll set me free and coffee to my office tomorrow, I'll give you a check to set you and your slave girl up for life." Her eyes probed, almost hungrily at those of the erstwhile headmistress. "But if you prefer me to buck up to the bars and allow you to put those things on my wrists, I'll do that too. I don't see any sense in doing that, but I'll do it if you wish." Action was suspended by a sound.

"For some reason, he's back, and he's looking for us," Mildred said hurriedly. "Margo, this way. Just around the corner. We'll wait."

Heart thudding, her wrists once more captive, Margo allowed herself to be dragged out of sight. She listened with baited breath as male foot steps proclaimed themselves upon the concrete. By the time Henry Ross had beheld the captive woman in the cell and made a sharp exclamation, he was lost. Mildred stepped forward with her gun.

Stupefied, the master of Rossland gazed into the menacing muzzle. As though dazed and uncomprehending, he obeyed its motions and stepped slowly back into the open door of the cell beside the woman he had sought to conquer. Safe behind the bars, his same startled gaze comprehended the slamming of the door by Mildred's forceful hands. He looked from one to the other of the three females who now looked at him through his own bars of his own cell in his own building. He was still non-plussed.

"What the hell goes?"

"Henry, you are my prisoner." Mildred pointed the tiny gun towards the man. "I am wondering if you would care to contribute to the future welfare of Margo and myself. Let us call it a pension."

"Like hell! Let me out of here, woman. I must have been insane to have walked through the door in the first place."

"No, you weren't, Henry. You were quite rational. If you had refused to do so, I would have shot you first in one arm and then the other. Then I would have got you in the legs. But, of course, by that time you would have seen the light. Wouldn't you?"

"I don't get it. What's going on!" Henry Ross' eyes moved from the woman to the slave girl who now stood in complete docility, and then to the president of Boulter Inc. in the next cell.

"I'm not giving anybody a cent. If you value your skins, you'll let me out of here and return to normal."

Mildred was in her element. She handed a pair of handcuffs and the key through the bars to the startled Norma Boulter, who was still unsure of her own situation. Mildred then unlocked the door to the cell.

"I suspect you're a bit of a bitch, Norma Boulter, but just the same, you're not as much of a bitch as Henry Ross is a bastard. He's all yours."

Margo stood, quivering. She was still handcuffed, but that was to be expected. She had rode beside the woman who possessed her, and in the woman's own car, to the woman's cottage in the country. They stood now within its walls gazing at each other in a fresh beginning. Rossland clung about them in an almost visible aura which might take days or weeks to disperse. But in the meantime, they were free. Mildred said, almost in wonder, "This is gong to take some getting used to. I've had this place quite awhile. I always figured the day would come when I'd need it." She gazed at Margo searchingly. "Sweetheart, are you expecting to be set free? Do you think I'll let you loose?"