Chapter 1

Connor stood watching her for a long time. She was striking in the way only an Asian woman can be beautiful. Her long, thick, jet-black hair; her perfect golden skin; her luscious figure were all made in heaven by an inspired God. Then there were her deep-green, almond-shaped eyes that seemed to draw one inside with hypnotic effect.

A Frenchman fucked one of her ancestors, he thought idly, producing a delicious hint of Gallic pulchritude. He could confirm it if he could study her mouth, the shape of her lips, but they were covered by a wide piece of duct tape. It was a sacrilege to deface such perfection, but he could not risk her fear ruining this moment with poorly chosen words.

There was a right way to do these things, he reasoned, if you wanted optimal results. Everything had to be in balance--her terror, my lust, her pain, my impulse for sadism, the light, the sounds, the smell, the bondage--everything needed to fit together. No one could possible write the recipe down, but someone like him knew when it was right.

Someone like him...

He quietly lifted the wooden chair and positioned it between her slender, shapely legs. He had never seen such tempting legs--they were long and strong, just right for wrapping around a man's flanks. He sat down slowly, her terrified eyes following his every move.

He would remove the tape soon enough, he had plans for those full lips, that exquisitely long tongue. Smiling at the thought, he brought the crop down hard on the inside of her thigh. The popper at the tip just missed her protruding mound. There was the loud clap of leather on bare, wet skin--a sound only the taut flesh of a young woman could reproduce. He had designed the crop and the popper himself. It had not been easy especially the tip. He had finally settled on an extra-wide, dog-eared shape, but only after testing it for hours on a multitude of female thigh. He was an extremely thorough and exacting young man in all things--two of the better traits he'd acquired from his Irish father.

The girl writhed miserably in her bondage. The five square inches of fast-moving leather had turned a patch of her delicate skin bright red. He lifted his eyes to her face and watched her process the pain--flaring her nostrils flared to suck in sufficient air, widening her incredible eyes. There was agony in them but not surprise. She had known this night was coming for a long time.

Her parents were highland peasants; they had sold her, their most-prized possession, to the regional warlord to save the rest of their starving family. It was a terrible thing to do, but such terrible choices were common in the third world where most people still lived. He watched her eyes closely; there was anger and terror and fear there, but no resentment. She saw herself as a possession, he realized with renewed insight. She feared the crop, but didn't challenge his right to use it on her. Connor smiled at the thought and brought the crop down on the same spot, redoubling her pain.

She was rare and precious, he thought, a pearl, carefully cultivated for years.

The warlord, the Lord Vanich, had cared for her, educated her, taught her how to please a man, how to respond sensually to his every act. He did it to increase her value and his profit. It was the same reason he refined his drugs to an absurd level of purity and fattened his pigs to delicious succulence. Lord Vanna was totally amoral, the ultimate capitalist--he would buy and sell anything for a profit.

Connor watched the girl struggle with the pain and felt a hint of guilt comingled with his lust. There was no other way to ready her. She needed to be desperate; she needed to be frantic for a way to stop the pain. He didn't want her intellectual response; he wanted her most primitive, most extreme survival instinct at the front of her mind. Every natural stimulant in her body needs to be pumping at maximum capacity.

Lord Vanna described it as "the point of ultimate indifference, the moment when the slave truly does not care how relief happens only that it does. This is the moment when orgasm and death are equal."

He brought the crop down again on the girl's opposite thigh then sat back and watched her golden limbs strain against the leather straps. Exquisitely dark muscle shadows appeared in her thighs and calves. He looked farther down her leg. She had pointed her feet and bent her arches in excruciating agony. She had curled her long almost prehensile toes into tiny claws. For a moment, he saw her bursting out of her bondage and ravaging him like a vengeful tigress.

But that was impossible...the truckers who had delivered her from the Central Highlands were experts in bondage and the bamboo duck cage they used was strong enough to hold a wild pig. The highland warlords and slavers called it a "krng pĕd;" they had used it for three millennia to hold their women. Vanich, a traditionalist, always included a krng pĕd cage and a complementary binding with each sale. It was a trademark of his business.

Connor studied the enclosure. The cage was half-round with a flat bottom like an inverted "U"; like an oil drum cut down the middle and placed on its side. It was made of interwoven bamboo perhaps four feet long and three feet high. The bamboo weaving left rough squares maybe four inches wide on every side. Thick bamboo corner pieces reinforced the ends allowing a door on one side from which the slave crawled in and out.

The cage's reinforced ends also served as anchor points for punishment. When ordered, the slave stood upright at one end while her master strapped her ankles to the base. He would then lay her back over the cage top facing up and tie her wrists to the opposite end. Once secured, he would strap her knees and thighs, her elbows and biceps to the wood, removing all ability to move.

"The purpose of the krng pĕd binding is pain-pleasure oblivion not stimulation," Lord Vanich would say. "If you want stimulation, you must leave the slave some ability to move."

The only part of a Lord Vanich cage that moved was the headrest. He intended it to be positioned up or down depending on the stage of her punishment; for example, fully up so she could watch her body being savaged, or down to allow a man's cock direct access to her throat.

Connor pushed the memory out of his mind and swiped the short crop horizontally, striking her calf with the dog-eared popper. She tried to scream, but all he heard was a guttural sound from her throat as she struggled with the burning in her legs. He sat back allowing her time to recover. He needed to reach the point of ultimate indifference reasonably soon, but also with dignity. This was no random beating following by a quick fuck. This was a ritual, a tradition. This was, in effect, their wedding night; the culmination of her 13 years of training and anticipation. Rushing it would be an insult to her, to Lord Vanich, like gulping down a precious wine. They both needed to savor each moment of pain and pleasure.

Prija, her Thai name, was his thirteenth S̄h̄āy, his thirteenth and probably his last Thai companion. His father had bought him his first S̄h̄āy when he had turned 18 then once a year for the next five years...until his death. After that, he had traveled to the Highlands himself and picked out his own girl. The Lord Vanich had been happy to continue to do business with Liam Vaughan's son, whom he called Spenceson. Even though the son, Connor, was not carrying on the father's drug smuggling, he honored his memory by dealing with him for an annual S̄h̄āy.

His father...; he ravaged the girl's inner thing. His father had been an Irish adventurer turned drug dealer. Connor was the product of his liaison with a Eurasian, a Russian, in Hong Kong. He left Connor with an excellent education, street smarts, an appreciation of the power of money, and a love of male-on-female bondage, discipline, and sex. It wasn't a bad legacy.

Technically, Connor didn't view the girls he bought from Lord Vanich as slaves since he freed them after one year of service. He considered it a fair bargain--one year of submission to him in return for their freedom and a stake from his father's bank account. Most of them used the money to start a local business; one even became a Bangkok distributor for "Lord Vanich Girls." They appreciated their emancipation and he still communicated with them. They were not friends exactly--no one who whipped you to the edge of madness then fucked you into oblivion could ever be your friend. He was more like an estranged brother to them--a sibling to whom they were simultaneously repelled and attracted.

He stood up and gently removed the duct tape from her mouth astonished once again at the fullness of her lips, the sensual invitation of her half-open, rapacious mouth. It took his breath away for a moment. She stared at him breathing heavily; she knew what was coming. He could see both fear and longing in her eyes. She desperately wanted to end the pain, but what that entailed frightened her. Lord Vanich's only offered girls who were skin virgins--no man's cock had ever penetrated their holes only dildo's as necessary to prepare for their new Master.

Connor grabbed the handle and lowered the headrest until the girl's head pointed back and down at a thirty-degree angle. He freed her hair allowing the ends to brush on the ground. She looked up at him her eyes locked on his then she opened her luscious mouth.

Connor brought the crop down on the side of her pointed breasts in an unnecessary warning then inserted his cock. She instantly moved her tongue out of the way allowing him to glide past her uvula into her throat. In her last year with Lord Vanich, she had slept with an increasingly longer, thicker dildo in her throat. She had long ago mastered her gag reflex.

He stood still as if praying, allowing her to become accustomed to him in her mouth--to feel him, to smell him, to savor his sweat and the first drops of his pre-ejaculate. She would not taste his semen until she had experienced many more hours of pain. This was just a first introduction. They would alternate between love and pain for most of the night. He would introduce his cock to all three of her tight holes.

He brought the crop down lightly on her nipple then on her Venus mound and felt her lips tighten; her tongue was already scraping the bottom of his cock and reaching out for his dangling balls. The crop strokes would get harder as her passion increased. The increased force would be necessary for the pain to reach her brain. At the end, no matter how hard he struck her with the crop, she would not be able to distinguish between pain and pleasure. All of her feelings would ultimately mix in one long desperate plea, one single-minded quest for orgasm.

He brought the crop down again on her mound with slightly more force. She was beginning to grunt; in a few minutes, the sound would not be human.

He felt another tinge of guilt. Prija's bondage with him would not last a year, it would only last a month. The American banks, his employers in the foreign exchange business his father had left him, suspected he was in league with the Chinese. He still made them huge amounts of money trading their currencies, but they still suspected manipulation. Their ultimatum had come a week ago--relocate to the U.S. or we will terminate our relationship.

He had bridled at the threat and seriously considered approaching the men in Beijing then he meditated on the decision. It was time to move on, he concluded. He had spent his entire life in Asia; he had increased his father's drug-smuggling wealth a hundred fold with his currency trading. There was no reason for him to remain in Asia any longer other than...the S̄h̄āy.

Lord Vanich's girls were a pleasure he was going to need to forgo. Perhaps... In their last conversation, Lord Vanich had told him he had mentioned his name to an organization called Dominus. He wouldn't say anything about it, only that they would contact him if they were interested in offering him membership. They would answer all his questions at that time. Connor trusted his judgment and didn't press it any further.

He pulled his cock out of her mouth allowing her a moment to breathe. Yes, it was time he left Asia and experienced the rest of the world. He pushed his cock back inside and felt the mind-numbing tightness of her lips, the impassioned rubbing of her tongue, the softness of her mouth.

Did America have this kind of women? He wondered. Asian woman were comfortable being submissive, it was part of the culture. What kind of women would he find in the West?

 

***

 

Dana pulled frantically at the leather wrist bindings. They held her on her toes, suspended inside a cylinder of yellow light. Floor cleats and straps kept her legs a yard apart and a thick wooden pole strapped at her knees exposed her most intimate body parts. She could feel the air moving over her wet cunt and asshole.

Her body shuddered like a wet dog causing the muscles in her shoulders to scream in agony. The pain of hanging by her arms was terrible; she shook her head piteously mumbling pleas for relief. Her long auburn hair whipped at her face.

She was already beautiful, but her suffering made her...desirable, irresistibly desirable. For a moment the self-image of her bondage, her suffering stirred her, excited her.

WHY...why her...why was she being tortured? Her mind screamed out the question forcing her body to torque into even more painful positions. After a time, she calmed and stared down at herself. She felt the pain of course the excruciating intolerable pain, but she felt something else amidst the suffering, a dark and forbidden madness. She felt desire.

How was that possible? She stared down at her tits. Her pebble-size nipples were black, engorged with blood, and throbbing. She could feel her clit poking through her wet labia like a periscope, searching. Her sexual parts were active, signally that she wanted to be touched. She twisted her body again defying the evidence. She screamed out in protest but there was no sound only silence inside the cone.

Silence... It was as if she was in outer space, inside a vacuum. She pulled on her bondage in frustration. The inability to communicate was inexplicable, exasperating; it doubled the helplessness she felt.

Her strong swimmer's legs pulled wildly with desperate strength on the ankle straps. It was no use the leather was stronger. How did she get here? Who had done this to her? She tried to remember, but her mind gave no clue. There was nothing to explain it, nothing in her past nothing in her future. It was as if some devil had compressed her entire life into this one terrible moment. She felt a sharp spike of fear in her stomach. What was his purpose? Why would...?

A disembodied hand reached out from the darkness and grabbed her nipple. She stared, down at the abomination in openmouthed horror. The wrist was thick like a man's and she could see bands of steely muscle rippling in his forearm as he pinched and fondled her.

Is this what you want, her mind screamed? Do you want to suffer, to feel helpless? She clenched her abs and desperately tried to scream, but again there was no sound. Bolts of lightning crackled in her mind sending flashed of light over the moonscape of her existence.

She didn't like being touched. This was not just the normal human aversion to contact; she had deep revulsion to it. The groping hand coming out of the darkness was her worst nightmare and she squirmed miserably under his touch. A second hand moved to her pussy to kneed her mound, to slip his fingers between her wet cunt lips, to rub her clit. She twisted again, but the bondage made it easy for him to keep hold of her body. It was traumatic, devastating for someone with her phobia.

Suddenly, a monster rose up inside and she felt the oncoming rush of an orgasm. It swept over her like a tornado, pulling, ripping at her with unimaginable violence, its immense strength. She arched her back fighting it, flinging her body forward like a bowstring. The convulsions that followed racked her for a long time, weakening her muscles, depleted her strength. Even then, she twitched in protest as electrical impulses shocked her parts. She could feel herself spurting as wetness running down her leg. A wave of guilt passed over her--what kind of person comes like this, like a dog in heat? She deserved punishment.

It was always this way--fear, pleasure, and self-loathing all followed by retribution. She could only experience orgasm in her dreams and only as a rollercoaster of conflicting emotions, a wild ride that always ended in deep depression. This had to end, she thought in a moment of lucidity.

She closed her eyes and with every ounce of strength, screamed. The sound chased his hands away. At the same instant, a whip shook her body with shocking effect. It had a dozen thin leather strips perhaps half an inch wide with pointed tips.

The whipping always started on the shelf of her high ass. The pain was indescribable. It tightened her skin until it was taut as a drumhead; it pointed her fingers and toes and corded her muscles. It was devastating almost as devastating as her orgasm. She couldn't think for a long moment and when she could, the scream that came out of her mouth was a strangled yelp, a pitiful gurgle. The second blow landed an inch below the first creating more perfectly parallel lines of fire.

The lashing continued covering her entire ass. He stopped suddenly and put his rough hands on her again. She writhed as his cool touch contacted her burning skin. Mercilessly, he pinched her clitoris and her body twisted to the limits of the bondage. Everything went black.

After a time, she opened her eyes. She could see moonlight coming through the balcony doors; she could smell the ocean. She had fallen onto the floor and her long legs had tangled themselves in the bed sheets.

She felt her wrists to confirm it was a dream; there were no marks from the leather straps. She felt between her legs; she was wet and her clit was still hard. She could still feel the electricity still tingling electricity in her body, the taut readiness. A nightmare...another nightmare; after all this time, after all the therapy and medication and treatment, she was still having horrible nightmares. Depression spread over her like a shroud.

There was no cure for what she had. She was destined to be a frigid, hardhearted rich-bitch during the day and a devil's plaything at night. She had learned to fake orgasm with her boyfriends and to dope herself up at night with sleeping pills, but sometime the defense was futile. She could not go on like this.

Slowly, she stood up and walked out onto the balcony, naked. It was a warm mid-summer night. The salty ocean breeze irritated her eyes and she wiped them with the back of her hand. Suddenly, huge tears were rolling down her face and her body was heaving with sobs.

What fucking purpose did she serve? She could not love anyone; sex with her was a desultory role-play. Her nightmares were getting worse and her inability to sleep without pills was causing her to walk through life in a trance. She wasn't living; she was just taking up space, bringing misery to herself and to everyone around her.

She knew she was nearing the end. She was a freak, an anomaly that nature would soon exorcise from the human community. There was no place for someone like her, no place and no one.