Mara had been convinced that the world could hold no worse a person than Brenn Machin, who had taken her prisoner, deflowered her and beaten her, but now she was revising her opinion and was prepared to admit that his wife might be even worse. Since he had gone to wherever he was and left her in the woman's hands, she had seemed to make it her sole purpose to turn Mara's life into a living hell. And it all centred around sex.

In Brythia, sex between women was sternly forbidden and punishable by hanging, that was what all girls of Mara's age were told and she had grown up seeing the grisly results of this policy at various crossroads around the province. But Seanne seemed hell-bent on getting her into bed.

The first night after her husband's departure, she had had Mara scrubbed and brought to her in her bedchamber. The household slave handlers had dressed her in a black dress which left one shoulder bare and which was split right up to the hip on one leg. It had needed several applications of their goads to get her into it, Brythian women tended to wear utilitarian clothes. But teetering on high heels and with her red hair brushed and shining - the only thing she hadn't struggled against - she had been led by her cuffed hands in front of her to Seanne's room.

Seanne herself was lounging on the huge bed and told the handler who had brought her to wait in the corner. Mara was still very new and unbroken and definitely not Treated, so it was worth being cautious.

"Wow," she said when she had examined the prisoner. "You are something special aren't you? I mean you looked pretty hot last night but tonight...!"

Mara had tossed her head proudly. "You had me caned and whipped last night!"

Seanne had laughed and climbed off the bed. Mara was deeply shocked to see that she was wearing an almost see-through negligee that pressed against her body as she moved, leaving little to the imagination, Mara could even see the dark cushion of pubic hair at her groin. She swallowed nervously, this woman was undoubtedly beautiful but she had never been in a similar situation with any woman before.

"Yes, we did, didn't we, darling?" she said huskily. "And you were so beautiful!"

"And I was raped," Mara reminded her.

"Oh now!" Seanne pouted, coming close to Mara. "That's a bit harsh, the slave handlers are entitled to a bit of pleasure too!"

Mara's nostrils flared as Seanne came very close and her scent washed over her, heady and exotic.

Seanne reached out and very carefully, with her middle finger, gently traced a fading welt diagonally down from her bare shoulder towards where the dress just covered the breast. Mara shivered in confusion but had learned enough to know that if she shied away the least she could expect was an agonising belt from the handler's goad.

Seanne laughed softly and huskily then came even closer so that her breasts, although not built on the same lines as Mara's nevertheless just touched the prisoner's.

"But how many beatings you get is entirely up to you," she purred. "I don't mind if the girl I snuggle up to isn't marked at all."

Her finger left the welt it was stroking and instead she reached down to Mara's bare thigh where two or three lashes had intersected and left a criss-cross pattern on the pale skin. Seanne's face was almost cheek to cheek with Mara now but when she felt Seanne's finger touch her upper thigh she winced and stepped back.

The goad hit her in the buttocks and she was catapulted forwards, almost into Seanne and then fell to her knees, shaking.

"Tch!" Seanne knelt down face to face with her. "This is all so unnecessary! With those nasty, cruel men all far away and dong fighting with each other, we girls should be enjoying ourselves!"

She reached out again and stroked a bare shoulder. Mara shook her head in confusion, the woman's scent was bewitching, the pain from the goad and all the whips, so bad. What would sex with her be like? She wondered. How did women do it anyway? Seanne was at least being gentle and everyone else recently had been brutally cruel to her. Maybe a kiss wouldn't hurt...

Seanne's glossy, red lips came closer and Mara braced herself, then they touched and suddenly the gentleness was gone. They pressed urgently and arrogantly against Mara's and she recoiled as she felt the woman's tongue try to invade her mouth.

Seanne was instantly furious and slapped her hard. Mara's head was rocked and she instantly raised her hand to retaliate but it was grasped by the handler and held fast.

"How dare you reject me, you worm! I am mistress of this house and I will have whoever I choose to - I expect obedience and especially from a low-born, mountain peasant girl who isn't worthy to kiss my shoes!"

She had regained her feet and Mara looked up at her in amazement, spittle flew from her perfectly made up lips as she raged.

"Take the whore away and keep her in a cell till tomorrow night, then bring her up here again. We'll give those welts a few more hours to fade and then she'll have more, a lot more!"

Mara was dragged away and spent the next twenty-four hours in a cold cell with the barest minimum of food and water.

And now here she was again. She had been brought back naked this time and in chains. Seanne was seated comfortably just beyond the ceiling winch.

"Put up a spreader bar and hang the bitch by her ankles for a hundred lashes," she announced quite calmly.

Mara bit down on the exclamation of disbelief she felt like making. A hundred lashes? She couldn't survive that, could she? Did the woman mean for her to be dead by the time Machin returned?

As she kept her silence but blinked back tears, a spreader bar was hung from the bottom of the chain and her ankles were buckled into fleece lined cuffs which were attached to the ends of the bar. She briefly thought about trying to fight, but to what purpose? She was in bad enough trouble as it was. Then with the buzzing of an electric motor and the slither of chains across the floor, Mara's feet were relentlessly drawn into the air until she hung helplessly upside down, her arms dangling uselessly, her hands clear of the floor. And worst of all, her legs were spread well apart.

Seanne approached her and Mara found that her head was on a level with the woman's crotch - and that meant that Seanne's was on a level with hers. She came so close that Mara could even feel her breath on her vulnerable sexflesh.

"That is a lovely one! My husband does have good taste, you know. As you'll find out when you learn to submit and I let you pleasure me in my bed." She squatted down so that they were face to face. "If it's any comfort, not many girls have the figure to look good hanging upside down, but you do! I'm really going to enjoy watching you being whipped."

She reached out and ran her fingers through Mara's cascading flame-red hair as it swung beneath her head. "Yes. You'll be worth all the trouble I'm going to take over you," she said and stood up, turned and walked away. "Begin," she said quietly over her shoulder.

 

Seanne settled down in a comfortable chair as the heavy braided lash began to wrap itself around the gracefully extended form of the Brythian girl. The buttocks and hips were the flagellator's first target and Seanne had to clench her thighs together against the surge of excitement she felt when the perfectly curved mounds of her rump, rippled and swayed in the aftermath of the first lashes.

She beckoned a male slave over and then a slavegirl. She lifted her skirts so that the girl could get under them and had the male stand beside her where she could get at his cock. Then she put her head back and moaned in pleasure as Mara began to scream when the count hadn't even got past twenty.