Alleyn, Fredrica (16 page)

Chapter Seven

W
hile she dressed for dinner, Cassandra watched the film of Nicola's afternoon tuition, trying to absorb every reaction, every flicker of the girl's eyelashes in order to understand her better. Know your enemy was a maxim Cassandra believed in; and although she liked the fair-haired girl well enough, she knew that as far as the game went she was the enemy and had to be defeated. Because she was so absorbed in what she was watching, Cassandra lost track of time and found herself frantically piling her hair on the top of her head with only five minutes to go before the eight-thirty dinner gong.

Her flame coloured linen dress fastened down the front with gold buttons, the short sleeves were edged in a pattern of minute gold leaves and the calf-length skirt clung provocatively round her hips and hugged her legs so that her walk was forced to be slow and sensuous, as the baron liked.

One final glance in her mirror showed Cassandra that the neckline of the dress needed jewellery, and she grabbed a strand of graduated pearls with delicate gold fittings that had been a present from her lover after a particularly successful party earlier that year.

She reached the door of the small dining room perhaps half a minute after the gong had sounded, and was so relieved that without thinking she hurried straight into the room. The baron, who had been handing Nicola a drink, looked up at his mistress in astonishment. 'Did you knock?' he demanded curtly.

She felt her stomach sink and knew that there was no point in lying. 'No, I'm very sorry, Dieter, I forgot.'

His eyes widened in surprise. 'How unfortunate. Were you hurrying? You have a strand of hair loose.' He moved to stand in front of her and with unusual gentleness lifted the offending hair off the nape of her neck and tucked it into the less than perfect knot high on her head. 'I'm afraid you'll have to be punished,
liebling.
We can't have Nicola thinking that such behaviour is acceptable.'

'Of course not,' agreed Cassandra, aware that Nicola was listening with interest. She was wearing a bright multi-coloured two-piece with a cowl neck top, elbow length sleeves and a pleated skirt that reached to the middle of her knees. It was easily the most attractive outfit she'd put on since her arrival, and made her look more alive and glowing than Cassandra had imagined possible.

'I was complimenting Nicola on her choice of evening wear,' continued the baron smoothly, handing Cassandra a glass of champagne.

'It's lovely,' she agreed. 'And such an unusual mixture of colours.'

'I thought if there was something of everything I couldn't go wrong!' laughed Nicola. The baron laughed with her, but Cassandra didn't feel in the least amused. She knew that she must now go right through the entire meal while the baron decided exactly what kind of punishment to administer for her transgression.

The first course was a thick homemade vegetable soup, almost a meal in itself for Cassandra whose appetite had vanished. This was followed by a beautifully poached salmon, caught that very morning, and served with tiny potatoes and a green salad. Individual meringues topped with fresh raspberries, peaches and cream were the dessert, and as usual there was a different wine with every course.

Nicola, who was starving after her afternoon's experiences, even went on to consume some of the biscuits and cheese that were brought to the table but Cassandra simply fiddled with her wine glass and tried to catch the baron's eye. He however ignored her and spent most of the time engaged in lively conversation with Nicola, talking to her about her father's library and the effect she thought Lara would have on her life.

'I don't see that I can ever live with the pair of them,' confessed Nicola. 'Lara doesn't like me, I'm too close to her in age, and I think Daddy finds me an embarrassment too.'

'Then we must find somewhere else for you to live,' said the baron, and this time he did look across at Cassandra who stared back at him without expression.

Pushing back his chair, the baron waved away Sophie, who had just brought in the coffee pot. 'We'll have coffee later,' he said curtly. 'Ladies, come with me please. And Sophie, you'll be needed in the ballet room.' He then took a small notebook from his inside pocket and scribbled on it. 'Bring these things with you when you come.'

Sophie examined the note, nodded her head and departed at speed, grateful that she wasn't the one who had to endure one of his punishment sessions in what had once been the main hall of the chateau but had been converted by the baron into a practice room for his children's ballet lessons and much else besides.

'I believe you know the rule about knocking before entering a room, Nicola,' said the baron, leading the way along the twisting corridors.

'Yes, Cassandra told me.'

'Regrettably she forgot tonight. In fact, it was of no matter, but I could have been engaged in some private conversation or act of intimacy that she was not intended to see, would you not agree?'

'I . . . Yes, of course,' murmured Nicola, flattered to be consulted.

'Which is why she must now be punished. She understands this, don't you, my dear?'

'Yes,' murmured Cassandra, wishing that her stomach would stop churning.

At last they reached the far side of the chateau, and the baron pushed on the baize covered doors and led them into a huge room with a high arched ceiling. The floor was polished wood, except for a square in the centre where a Persian carpet added an unexpected splash of colour. Along one side of the room there was a bar where ballet movements could be practised, and that entire wall was mirrored, Nicola assumed, to enable the dancers to study their movements.

High in the ceiling a large skylight allowed the sun into the room during the day, which meant that even now, when the sun had moved on, the room was warm. This surprised Nicola, who thought that air conditioning would be more useful in a room where physical exercise was clearly the order of the day.

It wasn't just ballet that took place here. The side of the hall opposite the bar and mirrors had two sets of wall bars on it, the kind that Nicola had been forced to climb many times in the gym of her old school. There were also vaulting horses, horses with pommels and extending wall bars that were lowered from the ceiling. Nicola remembered similar ones being used by the more athletic girls at the convent. At the far end of the hall, other equipment was stacked but it was impossible to make out exactly what it was and since Nicola had always hated gym she had no real desire to know.

Cassandra stood silently next to the baron and waited to hear what punishment he'd chosen for her. He strolled down the floor, whistling softly to himself as he went, inspecting each piece of equipment with a connoisseur's eye and all the time he knew that Cassandra's tension was mounting.

Suddenly he turned on his heel and pointed up at the extending bars, suspended high on the ceiling. 'These, I think, will serve our purpose. Nicola, perhaps you would be good enough to lower them. You simply turn the wheel against the wall there and they will descend. Cassandra, remove that delightful dress and anything that you may have on beneath it. For this exercise clothes are superfluous. You may keep the pearls on.'

She stared at him, and for a second he saw a look of humiliated disbelief in them before they went totally blank again. They both knew that of all the punishments he could have chosen for her to endure beneath Nicola's watchful gaze, this was the one she found the hardest to accept.

Nicola quickly turned the wheel the baron had indicated and the two four inch wide beams, set one above the other, were lowered on pulleys from the ceiling. When the bottom beam was only two inches off the floor the baron indicated to Nicola to stop lowering them and then pressed a button to lock the bottom one in place. The higher beam had still to be adjusted to his satisfaction.

By now Cassandra was naked. Her small waist, flat stomach and thick dark pubic hair still had the power to arouse mixed feelings in him. He loved the times when he could drive her out of her mind, make her totally lose control of her much prized self-possession and yet he also needed her calmness, that quiet self-contained air of aloofness that contrasted so sharply with his excesses.

At the moment that confidence was not in evidence. Her breasts were small, the nipples almost flat and for a moment she even nibbled nervously on one of her fingernails before she realised that he was watching her.

Behind the three of them the doors opened and Sophie entered. She had a tray with bowls and linen on, and behind her was Peter, clearly summoned unexpectedly since he was still fastening his leather belt.

The baron took a thick towel from the tray and spread it over the shiny top wooden beam. 'Stand on the lower bar and bend over the higher one from the waist,' he said to Cassandra. She obeyed, and Peter quickly moved a stool from the side of the room for the baron to sit on. He lowered himself onto it and after studying Cassandra's rounded buttocks carefully, decided to lower the top bar a fraction more so that she was doubled over at a sharper angle. When that was done to his satisfaction he locked the second beam in place.

'Now spread your ankles about a foot apart,' he said softly, letting his fingers tickle the crease where the buttocks and the base of the spine met.

He was now in the perfect position to carry out the punishment that he had decided on during the course of dinner, and signalled for Peter to part the cheeks of Cassandra's bottom.

Feeling this, the weight in Cassandra's stomach seemed to grow even heavier. She was already full from the meal they'd eaten, and the pressure of the beam, despite the protective towel on top to soften the impact, was uncomfortable against her belly. The backs of her thighs were stretched and aching since the baron had adjusted the height of the second beam, and even when she spread her arms out on either side of her it didn't help very much because her arms were shaking so much. In the end she let her arms dangle down in front of the beams.

Next the baron reached across to the tray that Sophie was holding, and to Nicola's astonishment he picked up what looked like a large icing bag with a long nozzle on the end. He then filled the bag with a thick white mixture from the bowl.

'Bear down, Cassandra,' he said softly. 'You seem hot; I think this should help to cool you down.'

Her body was well trained and she knew that in order to facilitate whatever it was that he intended to introduce into her back passage it was necessary for her to push down, but it was hard to make herself do that when her bowels were already churning so treacherously she was terrified of losing control of them.

He let his fingers tickle around the tightly puckered opening, and heard Nicola's intake of breath as he positioned the nozzle of the icing bag against the tiny hole. Struggling to compose herself, Cassandra did as she was told and as the hole opened a fraction he slid the nozzle inside her, moving it from side to side in minute movements that were all the more wicked for being so slight since the highly sensitive nerve endings inside her back passage reacted instantly to the stimulation and her stomach swelled and cramped against the beam.

'Breathe slowly, and draw it in now,' the baron told her, his voice low and caressing, as though this was a treat and not a punishment. She found it desperately hard to obey and had to choke back a whimper of fear as her spasming muscles threatened to betray her and the nozzle was nearly ejected.

'Caress her breasts, quickly,' said the baron to Peter who was standing ready on the opposite side of the bars. He obeyed, drawing the shrinking nipples out from the breasts and then licked them with slow, heavy strokes that soon had them swelling and as this delicate pleasure made itself felt she managed to keep the nozzle inside her tight back passage.

'Excellent!' remarked the baron, glancing at the wide-eyed Nicola. 'You see how well she obeys me. This is a difficult lesson to learn, but one which you too will come to master. Now Cassandra, let us see if this does indeed cool you.'.

As the baron squeezed steadily on the icing bag the whipped cream, which had been kept in the coldest part of the fridge until the last possible moment, oozed out of the pointed nozzle and into Cassandra's back passage. It was so cold that her whole body contracted with shock, and Peter's tongue lost contact with her nipples as she drew away from him with an involuntary jerk.

The baron had never flooded her with anything as cold as this before and she didn't think she could bear it. It felt as though he was filling her up, as though the cream would soon overflow back out past the nozzle and down the backs of her legs and since her rectum couldn't expand more than a fraction, the pressure against her inner walls made itself felt through her front passage as well. Her whole swollen stomach felt invaded by a cold, leaden chill.

'Please, stop!' she whispered.

He eased the pressure on the icing bag, reached beneath her and tapped two fingers against the delicate skin that stretched between her front and rear passages. This only seemed to make the sensation worse, although it meant that new, more pleasurable feelings also shot through her, and she felt herself growing hot between her thighs.

'You've taken very little yet,' he said flatly. 'I do not expect complaints. Unless of course you wish to stop the punishment already?'

She didn't, because that would mean that she had failed. This punishment was not only for her transgression but also a demonstration to Nicola of what lay ahead for her. She must not fail in setting the perfect example of the standards expected by her lover.