A gentle but persistent shaking of my shoulder woke me. I looked up, blinking in bright sunlight, to see Mistress Cristina - already dressed in a stunning dark leather ensemble of tight halter top and hip-hugging knee-length skirt - smiling down at me. "You were sleeping so soundly, I decided to let you sleep in a little," she said. "But my impatience has finally got the better of me; after all, what's the good of having a slave-girl of my very own and not getting any use out of her? Up you get, girl," - her tone suddenly crisper but not lacking warmth - "into the guest bathroom and shower, then into the kitchen and find yourself some breakfast. In exactly 45 minutes I want you kneeling in your proper slave pose outside the door to the basement; we need to finish our little tour, don't we?"

She had freed me from the bed, but had shackled my ankles with locked steel cuffs joined by a short hobble chain; I had to take quick short steps in my haste to follow her orders. Unsure how quickly time was passing and not knowing where to look for clocks to tell me, I ate just some cereal and fruit juice before hurrying to the basement door, where I knelt with my thighs spread as wide as I could, my back straight, my chest up and forward, and my hands clasped behind my neck. I must have hurried more than necessary, because I waited at least ten minutes, I guessed, before Mistress Cristina appeared.

"Good," she said approvingly, "I like my slave to be on time... and so quiet, too." The twinkle in her eye told me she'd been listening to my movements and she knew I'd been waiting there some time. She clipped a chain leash to my collar, gave it a small sharp tug to get me to my feet, then cuffed my wrists behind me. Opening the door to the stairway to the basement, she led me down the stairs and stopped in front of a massive wooden door reinforced with heavy iron straps... just the thing for a dungeon! The lock seemed almost out of place - a modern keypad-operated combination affair - but the clunk when the bolt drew back was as loud as any medieval lock with a key as big as a fist. The door swung open quite soundlessly into a well of almost total blackness.

"Welcome to your new home, slave," said Mistress Cristina, standing to one side to let me look in. "Now, Jenny, I want you to walk in there of your own free will; you can't see a thing and you may never come out again, at least until I give you the next choice I promised, sometime in the next ten years; but I need to know how much you believe me and trust me when I promise - and I always keep my promises - that being my slave will be as much fun - well, almost - for you as for me... now that you've had a real taste of real slavery, and shown such a remarkable talent for it. Can you do that for me... please?"

What could I do? What would SHE do, if I refused? I risked a quick look at her eyes - something my training had taught was a no-no - and saw there... not anger or sternness, but affection, even love, encouragement, trustworthiness and... and... yes, a hint of pleading! I turned back to look into the inky dark and, my heart doing flip-flops and my breath coming in pants, walked slowly and carefully into it. Behind me I heard a whispered, "Thank you, my dear," then a louder but controlled, "Just three more steps... now stop there, but don't turn round." I felt, more than heard, her slip into the room... and suddenly there was no light at all, and the door closed with the same solid and final-sounding clunk of the bolt going home.

A moment later there was light... only a dim glow, but enough to see that I was in a small space surrounded by black drapes. Mistress Cristina came up behind me, put her arms around me and hugged me tight, then turned me to face her and, with a hand on each side of my face, gave me a brief but thorough kiss on the lips. No words were spoken - or were needed - as she took hold of my leash again, parted the drapes with her other hand, and led me into the dungeon. The light was brighter here, so I had no difficulty seeing everything she showed me: the various items of equipment designed for bondage and "torture", the chains and whips and ropes and cuffs displayed on the walls, the pulleys hanging from the ceiling, the iron hooks and rings everywhere - floor, walls and ceiling - and, of course, the cage-like bars of the cell taking up half of one whole wall. Mistress Cristina opened the door to the adjoining gym, but we didn't go in - "Plenty of time for that later," she said - and the whole "tour" was over in less than five minutes; it almost seemed she was in a hurry....

Which she was; she said so herself a few minutes later. She stood me in the middle of the dungeon, fixed my wrists into strong, thickly padded cuffs, attached them to chains from pulleys which drew my arms up and wide apart, and finally used similar cuffs on my ankles to pull them apart to rings in the floor; then she removed the collar from my neck, saying with a smile, "Now that I have you helpless, I hardly need this to keep you under control, do I?- When she had my naked body stretched into the tautest possible spreadeagle, with only my toes bearing any weight at all, she turned on two spotlights - one in front and one behind - that made me (as I could see in a big mirror I was facing) the feature of the room, then spoke in a voice simply oozing with satisfaction: "I've been dying to do this from the moment I showed you that ad for the Bondage Ball; I saw the look in your eyes and I knew you were born to be a slave. You wouldn't believe the willpower it's taken to resist my urge until the right time... the time when you're really and truly my slave, trained and ready and willing to serve me. Now is the time... for me to finally and completely take possession of you - body and soul, mind and heart and spirit - and for you to acknowledge that you belong to me, totally and utterly and unreservedly."

And, for the next hour or so, that's exactly what she did: take possession of me! There was not a single inch of my naked, wide-open body that she didn't touch, always saying, quietly but firmly, something like, "This belongs to ME," - except the four small rings of skin covered by the cuffs, and she made QUITE clear that they, too, belonged to her for the simple reason that it was HER cuffs and chains that held me there so helplessly. I played my own part in her little "ritual", too: not once did I protest against the claims she was making; instead I often echoed her statements of possession with a murmured, "Oh yes, Mistress," and sometimes, if she touched some part of me and raised her eyebrows in a questioning way, I found myself actually OFFERING that small part of my naked flesh into her possession before she claimed it herself. Only a few short weeks ago - how few, I could hardly believe - I would have told myself, and any other woman in a similar position, that something like this was meaningless, that I should cling fiercely to my pride as a person, that nothing - even being stripped naked and helplessly bound and handled in such an intimate and demeaning way - could rob me of my real freedom and dignity if I refused to allow it.... And I would have been right: I knew as well as Mistress Cristina did that I WAS allowing this to happen, that I had made a lot of free choices that led directly to where I was now, that I was merely fulfilling something deep in my own nature.

But Mistress Cristina's final gesture of possession went deeper yet. She had placed her hands, almost impersonally, on every part of my body (including my sex), claiming it as hers and getting my acknowledgement of her claim - and thereby staking her claim much deeper, right into my mind and soul. Now her touch suddenly changed, and she began to arouse me sexually... which was not too difficult at all, because even the "impersonal" touches had been enough to spark the heat between my thighs. In a matter of a minute or two her knowing fingers were bringing me ever closer to an orgasm, when she whispered in my ear, "Do you want to beg now, slave-girl, like you did in the car after that party?" Without the slightest conscious thought, I heard myself saying, "Oh yes, Mistress, yes... please, oh please...." 

Instantly, her fingers stopped their incredibly exciting movements and she said quite calmly, "That was merely a question, slave, not an invitation. You must learn that THIS is my ultimate possession of you as my slave: you have NO say in when and how you have sexual release; you will have it ONLY if and when and how I choose to allow you to. If I want you to beg, because it might amuse me, I will tell you so, quite clearly; and then, of course, it might amuse me even more to deny you. So let me ask again: would you like to beg now, slave-girl?" Some part of my pleasure-fogged brain understood what she'd said and managed to persuade my panting mouth to reply, "Yes, Mistress, part of me very much wants to beg."

"And the other part?"

"The other part, Mistress, knows that you have the right to give your slave a climax, or not, as it pleases you; and so I should not beg, but simply accept whatever pleasure - or none at all - that you choose to give me."

"Good girl," she smiled. "You are learning fast... as I knew you would." (I can hardly exaggerate the glow this small compliment gave me!) "Now that's settled, I can continue...." And she did... for a very long time indeed: first she built my arousal up to the very knife-edge of release, and held me there - without letting me come - for what seemed like hours (I had to practically bite my lips to keep from begging, and I knew I would scream with frustration if she now denied me my orgasm); then, when I least expected it, she changed the movements of her clever fingers in a way I couldn't describe, and took me over that edge into the most explosive climax I'd ever had (I did scream then, but for another reason!); and before it had eased only a little, she started building me up again, more quickly this time but even higher, until an even more incredible wave of pleasure burst over me... and then another... and another... and each of these rolling orgasms seemed to take me to new heights of ecstasy, of sheer pleasure that I would never have dreamed possible.

It was after I don't know which climax - the sixth? the tenth? the eighteenth? - that my orgasm-swamped mind became aware of her whispering in my ear, "If you've had enough, slave, you may now beg me to stop." Part of me wanted her to go on forever, until I might drown in this fantastic sea of sensations, but another part desperately needed a break, before the super-sensitive nerves between my thighs and in my nipples started to give me more pain than pleasure or the pleasure center in my brain blew a fuse! Between pants and moans, I managed to croak, "Yes please, Mistress... I mean... thank you, Mistress... it's wonderful... but please, Mistress... please stop...."

But she didn't stop! Instead her insistent fingers took me up and up again and over the edge of yet another climax, turning my pleas into more moans and faint screams. I tried again - when the climax eased a little - to beg for a stop as she'd told me to, but again she took no notice and relentlessly drove me into another, which left me so weak and breathless that I could feel my consciousness slipping away. Yet at the same time I suddenly saw clearly what she was doing, and I forced myself to whisper, "Forgive me, Mistress, I can't beg anymore. My body is yours, for you to treat as you please." Instantly her touch changed; no longer inflaming, exciting, arousing, it became soothing and comforting in the most exquisite afterplay I could ever have dreamed possible. A few minutes later she loosened my bonds and lowered me gently to the floor... where I did lose consciousness....

I woke up to find myself inside the cell, lying on a narrow "pallet" barely padded with a thin mattress, and Mistress Cristina looking in at me through the bars. Her smiling face was a picture of sheer satisfaction and even triumph, but with a big dose of warmth and - yes, I was sure of it - affection bordering on love! "If I haven't completely worn you out," she said, "I suggest you drag yourself into your little bathroom there and shower; I'm sure it will make you feel better." The tiny bathroom-cum-toilet behind the cell - MY cell, I realized I would soon call it! - was completely open to her view, and she watched me with interest as I showered and emptied my bladder. I had to be very careful washing my nipples and between my legs; not only was the skin there still sensitive enough to be almost painful to touch, but also in some strange way I just knew that my new owner did not want me stimulating myself.

When I was showered and dried - and, amazingly, feeling wonderful! - my Mistress had me come to the bars close to her, turn my back and present my wrists for her to cuff again. Then we had lunch! With me kneeling on the floor inside the cell and her sitting in a canvas deck-chair outside, she ate and fed to me a light snack of fruit and juice, and between mouthfuls she stroked my hair and talked.

Her words reinforced the "lessons" I had just learned from her actions: that she claimed TOTAL ownership of me and my body; that even my emotions - and my sexual reactions in particular - were under her complete control; that the pleasure I had enjoyed that morning was intended to teach me exactly this, and that I should expect to enjoy this much pleasure at one time very very rarely indeed, if ever again; that she expected me NEVER to stimulate myself sexually, unless she explicitly ordered me to do so for her own amusement, and that disobeying this instruction, if found out, would earn me the severest punishment; and, finally, that - in contrast to the kind of slavery I had learned at Mistress Claudia's - I should NOT be willing to offer my body for the use of anyone who wished to pleasure him- or herself with me.

"I'm possessive enough, you see, to want to keep you almost exclusively to myself," she said. "On the other hand, there will be times when I will allow other people - male as well as female - to use you and your beautifully trained body, and I may even give certain friends the privilege of free access to your charms whenever they want them, so long as I'm not enjoying you myself. But I promise you, you will always be aware of those times and of those lucky people. If anyone tries to use you and you are not absolutely sure that I know and approve, you have my permission - my orders, even - to refuse and resist; if you are not in a position to do either, you should try to give them as little enjoyment as you can; and afterwards you should tell me about it, so that I can confront them with what I consider to be theft... the unauthorized use of MY private property!"

I simply listened, letting her words soak uncritically into my mind, which seemed to be acting like a sponge since the previous evening. Nothing she said raised any objections in me; in fact, it all seemed only right and proper to my ever-deepening consciousness of being - really being! - a slave-girl... by nature... by training... by choice... and, today, by my Mistress' deliberate and explicit ACTS of possessing me. Kneeling there in my cell, her hands in my hair, her words in my ears spelling out the smallest details of my place as her slave, I found I was blissfully happy.

A little later I was less than blissfully happy.

***

When the fruit and juice was finished, my Mistress released me from the cell and shackled me in the same spot as I was before, but this time not so stringently: my feet were solidly on the floor, although my ankles were held some way apart by chains to rings in the floor, and while my arms were again held up and apart, they were not stretched at all, the chains merely keeping my wrist cuffs a little higher than my head. Then she explained....

"I've tied you this way so that you can move a little, while I can still get at almost every centimetre of your lovely naked flesh. What we will do this afternoon, my slave, is learn about pain... the pain of discipline... the pain of paddles and crops and canes and floggers and whips: I will learn how these instruments affect your flesh - and your mind and soul, as well - and you will begin to learn about how I - as distinct from your previous trainers - use them to inflict on you the pain that is such a great source of pleasure for me... and, I feel very sure, will someday give you as much sheer pleasure as you enjoyed this morning, if not more. This has nothing to do with punishment for failures or disobedience, or a means of making you learn something, as most of the whippings you have so far suffered in your training; it has everything to do with MY power as your owner to treat what I own - your naked body, among other things - in whatever way I please and for my own enjoyment only. I've dreamed for some weeks of the enjoyment I might gain from whipping you, but now I need to learn the reality, at first hand, in the flesh; I know it won't be exactly the same as my dreams, but I have the strongest feeling it will be even better... much better!" She smiled into my eyes so brilliantly that I could do nothing but smile back... and then she kissed me, deeply and thoroughly.

"So you're tied this way," she went on, "for me to be able to see how you react to what I do: you can twist and wriggle, you can kick your legs - within limits - but you will be unable to escape the strokes I place... on any part of your nakedness; I'll be able to watch your eyes - to see what's happening deep in your mind, and see when your tears start - and I expect you to keep them open for me as much as you can; and you're not gagged, so you may moan and squeal as much as you need to, but I do NOT want to hear a single word from you; you may even scream if you need to, and you will need to, because I need to find out at exactly what level of pain your discipline - for my fun - will become punishment - from my displeasure with you. One warning: if you get too noisy I may have to gag you, and then it will be much more difficult for me to know how much I'm hurting you. You should be aware, too, that Claudia has given me a very good idea indeed, of the severity of the whippings you took during your training without much more than a whimper; so don't even think of trying to fool me with screams when you don't really hurt... that WILL be punished, I promise! Well, time to begin...."

The next two hours or so was an incredibly intense experience for me. It wasn't just the pain of the strokes that Mistress Cristina laid, as she'd said she would, on every single part of my naked body except the soles of my feet, my head, and the small rings around my wrists and ankles covered by the cuffs; yes, they hurt, all of them in some way or other, but most I found I could tolerate easily after my weeks at Mistress Claudia's; only six made me scream - screams of near agony - one a heavy cane landing with enormous force across my buttocks, two a whippy single-tail lashing my back, three a thick leather 'tawse' thudding into the soft flesh of my belly just above my pubes, four a riding-crop whistling exactly into both my still-very-sensitive nipples, five a long supple braided whip wrapping itself completely around my waist, its tip just breaking the skin over one hip, and six a light many-thonged flogger with knotted tips catching me completely by surprise by snaking up from behind, between my spread thighs, and leaving its considerable sting - and a forest of tiny red marks! - all over the tender flesh of my labia and mons.

Nor was it the WAY in which she whipped - and paddled and caned and cropped and flogged - me... with enormous care and concentration and even (I could feel it, I swear) artistry. I knew, deep down, that at this moment I was the center of her world, and that the most important part of what she was doing was testing me, learning how my flesh - and my mind as well - reacted, so that she would be able to gain the greatest possible enjoyment from having me as her slave without actually doing me any permanent physical harm. And I found myself wanting desperately to please her, and trying very hard indeed to endure just that little bit more without moaning in pain... for HER sake, so that SHE would be able to enjoy me more. Believe me, that was pretty intense, too...

... but the most intense part of the experience was my awareness that her deepest motivation for what she was doing to me was nothing less than... love! Don't ask me how I knew this - I haven't the slightest idea - but I could just FEEL that deep emotion pouring out of her and into me with each stroke on my naked flesh, along with the hope and wish she'd expressed earlier, that in time I would come to feel as much pleasure from being whipped as she would from whipping me. And strangely - or perhaps not so strange? - I began to sense that I might reach this point sooner rather than later... maybe MUCH sooner!