Prologue

 

Many of you will remember the tragic loss at sea of Tanya Taylor the Trans-Atlantic yachtswoman. The document you are about to read was delivered to me in my capacity as a journalist rather than an author and I cannot speak for its provenance. It is my understanding that it was originally found in the walls of a cellar by a builder who was undertaking some renovation work on a house in the home counties. The whole thing was written in the margins and spaces of a copy of The Times newspaper. The writing is tiny and painfully formed in an ink of nondescript colour which has faded badly in parts. I give here as faithful a reproduction of the text as I am able but, inevitably, there are whole words and sometimes groups of words that have had to be extrapolated. There are no natural breaks in the text and so I have taken the liberty of editing it into 'chapters'. The original document is now in the hands of the appropriate authorities.

 

Chapter 1

 

He came for me again this morning and I cowered in my cell as I heard his familiar footfalls on the stairs. As the door opened I tried to conceal my nakedness. It seems silly to do so after all I have been through but I am clutching on to my final vestiges of dignity. He did not say a word. He simply motioned with his head and I knew that I had to follow. The passageway is appreciably cooler than the cell itself and I felt my nipples begin to harden.

He led the way up the wooden staircase and out through the door into the open hallway. It was a bright day and I had to squint as sunlight blazed through the stained glass copula. Inevitably, I cast a look towards the front door but its heavy mortice lock looked as daunting as ever.

"Have you showered?"

I nodded in the affirmative, being only too well aware of the penalty for not being clean and ready at all times.

"Good. In here."

From the back he could be taken for a young man. He is tall, certainly over six feet and his broad shoulders and tapered waist bear testament to a strict exercise regime. His backside is trim and, under other circumstances, I would have given it a second look. It is only when you see his face that you appreciate his true age. The deep-set blue eyes with their clearly defined laughter lines hint at a wealth of experience and a life well lived. His only affectation is his thick mane of hair. It is now more salt than pepper but he continues to wear it fashionably long and has a habit of brushing it from his forehead with his hand.

I followed him into the room and my heart fell. All of the equipment was there ready and gave a sinister inkling of what was to come.

"Come here."

He speaks quietly and I can see how some people might be reassured by the resonant tone but knowing him now, as I do, it simply serves to frighten me. The last thing in the world that I want to do is to prostrate myself over the kid leather surface of horse but the price of disobeying is too great to contemplate.

The room is warm, the mid-morning sun streams in through the French windows to naturally illuminate the dais, but I feel myself shiver and there are goosebumps on my arms.

He taps the horse to stress his impatience and I step forward on the wickedly high heels. It has taken hours of practice to get used to them but his threat to have them bound to my feet for twenty-four hours a day is enough to ensure that I learn quickly. They no longer hurt my feet as they did at first but my hamstrings feel permanently tight and the emphasis that they give my buttocks makes me conscious of them the whole time. I step up onto the dais and try to steel myself but, no matter how many times I am made to submit, it becomes no easier. I lay over the horse and stretch my arms along the front legs. You will say that I surrender too easily, that in my position you would put up a fight, but what purpose would it serve? The house is totally secured and the dogs roam the grounds day and night.

He kneels to buckle the leather cuffs around my wrists. He does it slowly and carefully as though it were part of a ritual. The brass buckles are polished to a high shine but the leather itself has become softened with exposure to agonized sweat. He tightens each cuff and then makes sure that there is room to insert a finger. It seems odd, knowing what is to come, that he should be concerned about my circulation. Satisfied with his work he moves around behind me and I sense that he has paused to admire my vulnerable posterior before he binds my ankles to the rear legs,

Now that I am totally restrained there is an odd sense of security. There is no longer any possibility of escape and, with the decision process taken out of my hands, all I have to do is endure.

I hear him pick up the telephone.

"Gentlemen, whenever you are ready."

This is the part I hate most. Once a session has started I can look forward to its conclusion. I know that they will take me to my limits but at least there is a sense of getting it over with. It is the mindless waiting beforehand that grinds me down and he is well aware of it. Twice now he has put me in restraints only to release me hours later without any punishment at all and, in some ways, this is as cruel as any whip or cane he might choose to use.

Today, mercifully, I have not had to wait long. I hear voices from the hall and then the door opens. I have been blindfolded so often now that it seems that my olfactory senses have become more acute. I immediately catch the smell of an expensive Monte Christo and the scent of tea roses. It is the German who favours the acrid cigars and the Arab who wears the almost feminine eau de cologne. I feel my heart sink. The German is not so bad, he has, on occasion, been almost kind but the Arab seems to act without any compunction and I live in permanent fear of one day finding myself alone in a room with him.

"Gentlemen, would you like her gagged?"

The German answers first.

"I think not. It is such a pretty little mouth and there are so many uses it can be put to but please, my friend, do not let me answer for you."

The Arab speaks almost perfect English and I suspect that he was schooled here, but that only serves to make him seem more sinister.

"That's fine. All the better to hear her scream."

The other two laugh and he joins in but I am sure it was said in all seriousness. The German is the first to recover.

"And you Martin, will you warm her up for us?"

"It will be my pleasure."

I am glad to hear him say it. I have found that the pain is easier to bear if it increases by degrees and, from his standpoint, the marks heal more quickly. I could crane my neck to see which implement he has chosen but I would rather not know. For a few blissful seconds I look through the French windows and allow my imagination to take flight over the grassy slopes of the South Downs but then I yelp as the first sharp slap lands on my right buttock. I am taken completely by surprise. As a rule, he takes his time to contemplate the various options open to him but today, for the first time, he has used his bare hand. The second slap comes quickly and falls to the left and my quiet scream is almost indignant. After that he sets a regular rhythm and I sense the pattern as he works to cover every inch of my cheeks.

Even by the bizarre standards I have gotten used to the sensation is odd. I suppose that it might simply be that his hand is itself hot or perhaps it is the fact that it adjusts to my own contours. Whatever the reason the pain has a curious intimacy about it. It hurts, maybe not as badly as the strop but certainly as much as the paddle and I find myself wondering whether or not it is painful for him too. The slapping sounds echo from the walls setting up an eerie counterpoint. I could keep count but there would be little purpose. He will carry on until the job is done to his satisfaction. The strop tenderizes my flesh very quickly and he rarely lays on more than a dozen or so but, with the paddle, it might be thirty or more.

He starts to work his way back over the areas he has already covered and the pain goes deeper. A tear starts to my eye, but I know it will elicit no pity and then, as suddenly as it started, the slapping stops. For a few seconds the pain continues to build and then it settles down, like barbecue coals, to become a glowing heat.

"So, gentlemen. Which of you will go first?"

He has asked the question out of politeness but it is rhetorical. The German is impatient and takes his pleasures in a hurry. The Arab is always content to wait knowing that, when his turn comes, I will already have been brought close to my breaking point.

"If it is all right, my friend?"

I do not hear the Arab's reply but I assume that he has acquiesced. I hear the German crossing the room to the carved oak cupboard where most of the implements are kept. I give an involuntary shudder as I picture the contents in my mind's eye. The whips, flails, strops and paddles are all neatly mounted and the insides of the doors are hung with additional restraints. At the bottom of the cupboard is a locked trunk in which he keeps the special implements for a "punishment" session. I have endured just one such session and hope never to repeat it. It was in the early days when I was still wilful. I had the dumb courage to bite one of his guests and he ensured that I would never do it again.

I can hear the German rummaging in the cupboard and I am sure that this must upset his host whose obsession with neatness almost borders on paranoia. He tries a whip and I wince as I hear it cutting through the air, but then I hear the sound of it being clipped back into place and I let out an almost inaudible sigh of relief. The German is a big man who holds himself with a military bearing. Whichever implement he finally chooses, there will be no finesse and painful experience has taught me that I will be better off if he opts for one of the many paddles. He can wield them viciously but there is less margin for accidental damage.

There is a sharp snap and I cringe again at the sound of a flail being shaken out but he dismisses it almost immediately and replaces it noisily into its rack. I believe that he genuinely has no conception of the anguish his indecision causes me. The Arab, for his part, understands all too well. He takes as much pleasure from the psychological torment as he does from the physical and is a master of both.

There is a moment of silence during which I can hear the call of a meadowlark and this sudden reminder of a more normal world suddenly makes my heart feel heavy. I am overcome by the unfairness of my captivity and for the first time in some while I find a defiant voice.

"You can't do this to me!"

There is a shocked pause before the Arab speaks.

"So, she does have a fighting spirit."

The German laughs.

"So much the better."

I wait for some response from him but he says nothing. His guests have not been put out by my outburst and so he chooses not to intervene. There is more activity behind me and then I hear the sound of water. It is a slow dripping and I know what it presages. The German has taken one of the long canes from the upright container and is allowing the brine in which it is stored to slowly drip away. The brine keeps the tapered lengths of bamboo so supple that it is almost as bad as being struck with the whip. He has never used a cane on me before and perhaps this is what motivates him.

He whoops it through the air and I jerk as speckles of cold water fall on my back from across the room.

"I'm so sorry, have you something I can dry it with?"

"There's no harm done. Use this."

I hate them all, but, more than anything, I hate their detachment; this idea that it is the most natural thing in the world to make a woman helpless and then to do with her as they please. The German makes a second experimental cut with the cane and then I sense him moving up behind me. This is the moment when I want to be strong. I want to prove to them that I have an inner keep that they cannot assail but their laughter mocks me. My body is shaking and there is nothing I can do about it. I am frightened and it is almost more than I can do to stop myself from begging.

The German snorts a heavy breath through his nose and then the cane whoops for a third time. In reality it probably takes less than half a second before the bamboo bites into my flesh but for me it seems to happen in slow motion. The whooping sound seems elongated, like listening to a bomb fall, and the impact seems no less catastrophic. I cry out as it lashes across both buttocks.

True to his nature he raises the cane and, almost immediately, he delivers a second cutting stroke. This one is lower, but no less painful, and I cry out again.

"Nicely done, my friend."

"Let's see you put one right down the middle."

Even through my pain and tears I understand that I have been reduced to little more than a sport. The third stroke whips down and for all I know he may have achieved his aim but my buttocks are now a boiling cauldron of pain and I can no longer distinguish individual lines of pain.

"Excellent, she marks up so well. You are to be commended."

He grunts with effort as he delivers the fourth stroke which falls so hard that I feel the front of my body being chafed against the surface of the horse. I scream but I feel that familiar tingle towards the back of my throat that warns that my vocal cords will soon fail me.

As he delivers the fifth stroke he tries too hard. It glances over the top of my buttocks and the passage of air wafts my hair forward to fall over my face. For a second or two the curtain of thick brown hair offers a private refuge and I recall childhood memories of hiding my head under my pillow to escape from imagined sorcerers.

The sixth stroke falls with the weight of his frustration behind it and the fleeting moment is gone. It is a vicious uppercut, guaranteed not to miss and catches me in the crease between buttock and thigh. It is like having a knife plunged deep and my body stiffens in protest.

"Oh, well done! She felt that one all right."

I see spots in front of my eyes and I realize, with a sense of relief, that my body is going to surrender and that I am on the point of passing out.

"Just one moment."

His voice seems to come from far away but then my nose stings violently and my scalp prickles. I try to jerk away from the smelling salts that he has placed beneath my face but he leaves them there a second or two longer. He wants me totally aware of all that is going to happen to me.

My eyes fill with tears, a combination of the salts and my feelings of frustration, but I know they will show no mercy. The German gives another grunt and the rod sears into my buttocks once again. A scream is ripped from me but, even before it has ended, he has struck me again. I have always been so proud of my pert posterior and have often used it to my advantage but I would give anything now to have a protective layer of fat. He strikes me twice more and I have no more voice to scream with. I lay, sobbing silently, praying for my ordeal to end.

"Enough, I think."

I hear the cane being put back in its container but I know what is coming next. There is absolutely nothing I can do about it but there is a tiny crumb of comfort to be taken from the German's predictability. He moves around to the front of the horse but I keep my eyes downcast taking in the details of his heavy tweed trousers and immaculately polished brogues.

"Are you ready for me, my little one?"