Bound and Initiated (5 page)

A pause ensued, in which the only sound for a moment was what could only be the continued tapping of the strap on Claudia’s palm and Sarah’s own harsh breathing.

“Take the skirt off, Alex,” Claudia said then, in a commanding tone. “You can leave that pretty bra on, and her panties, too. I’ll take those down myself.”

“Wait!” Sarah cried. “Wait! I’ll…” But the black-haired man had stepped around to her front, and taken the waistband of the black wool skirt in his hands.

Sarah struggled for a moment, not even sure what she hoped to accomplish, but Alex said, “I don’t want to rip your nice skirt, girl,” in a voice that conveyed much more in its tone than its actual words. Sarah stilled her body, feeling that she would soon hyperventilate, since she couldn’t control her breathing to the slightest degree.

His enormous hands reached inside the waistband, and she felt meaty fingers brush against her panties, very near her clitoris, so that she whimpered with a terrible, involuntary arousal at being wedged between these two enormous men. With apparent ease, he unhooked the skirt and drew the zipper down.

Before he let the garment fall to the floor, Alex said confidentially, “I’m not allowed to touch your cunt right now, but I’m looking forward to it, sweetheart. Just remember, here in New York, Kevin and I stand at the second degree.”

“What?” Sarah gasped. The skirt fell to the floor.
The second degree
.
Here in New York.
What did it mean? She searched her mind desperately for any memories of how Mithraism worked. Had it had grades of initiation, or something like that? Like the freemasons?

“Alex,” said Claudia, still behind her, though perhaps now moving to Sarah’s right side, where sat the end of the couch suitable for laying a young woman over, since the other adjoined an end table, “that’s enough. Sarah, dear, Alex refers to a part of your training. When you sign your contract, you’ll learn all about that. Now, if you’re a good girl and lay yourself over the arm of the couch, with a promise to hold still for your punishment, I’ll send Alex and Kevin away, so we can have a nice, intimate discipline session, and then continue with our interview. Do you think you can do that?”

Kevin, behind her, held her arm twisted behind her back almost cordially, touching her otherwise not at all, Alex, in front, took a small, respectful step back. Claudia stood now next to the couch, tapping its arm with the stiff strap as if to tell Sarah that the time had come to stop being a silly girl and learn to accept the chastisement she had earned by failing to remove her clothing herself. Her expression seemed sympathetic, but as she saw that Sarah had fixed her attention on her interviewer, she once again tapped the couch arm with the strap, now apparently making it clear to Sarah that if her offer should find acceptance with the disobedient young woman, that young woman shouldn’t have any illusions about escaping her whipping just because the two big men had gone.

“Yes,” Sarah whispered.

Kevin let go of her wrist, and Sarah’s arm dropped to her side. Suddenly much more conscious of the near nakedness of her breasts and pussy and backside in the lacy black bra and thong panties that left so little to the imagination, and that imagination inflamed by the ornamental effect of delicate lace mesh, she rubbed her sore shoulder. Kevin certainly hadn’t gripped her hard enough or twisted far enough to cause real pain, but he had held her firmly.

Something about the memory of that firmness seemed to resonate with the bareness of her fair skin to make her blush yet again.
What happens when a strong man finds a girl in her underwear?
came the less-than-rational thought. Less than rational, but also somehow perfectly in line with how things seemed to work here at the Ostia Agency—and apparently how they worked in whatever strange organization constituted the League of Mithras. When a strong man ran across a girl in her underwear, he asserted his rights. In particular, if the girl should happen to be a virgin, he made sure she didn’t depart with her maidenhead intact.

Sarah felt her nipples stiffen into the lace of the bra. As she began to walk slowly toward the couch—only five or six steps, but also a kind of yawning abyss—the treacherous wetness between her legs became impossible to ignore.
It’s okay,
she told herself.
It’s your cover. The author of
Forever Girl
would get wet, and that’s why you’re wet.

She knew it didn’t make sense, but at least it seemed to help her keep her sanity. She looked only at the arm of the couch; Claudia had pulled the wicked-looking strap away so that Sarah could lay herself down there, and had taken a step back to give her room. Just about to turn to face the place where she must assume the humiliating posture, face down and bottom up, she glanced at Claudia, imploring with her eyes.

“Don’t think I’ll send the men away before you’re properly positioned with your panties down, Sarah,” Claudia said sternly. “Kevin and Alex certainly deserve at least that much reward, don’t you think?”

Sarah drew a sharp breath. The logic of the strong man’s right to the naked girl seemed to click in again in her mind, and she found that with a little nod, and a little sob to go with it, she had acceded to Claudia’s proposition, as if the author of
Forever Girl
understood exactly how clear and inarguable a right these men had to the sight of Sarah’s naked backside.
What happens when two strong men find a girl in her underwear?

Here in New York, we stand at the second degree.

She turned, and looked at the dark brown leather of the couch. She caught her upper lip in her teeth. Her breath panted in her throat. She couldn’t do it, could she? But… but she
had
to. She
had
to. For so many reasons.

Without even meaning the gesture at all, Sarah found that she had put her hands back behind her, covering her nearly naked bottom, warding off the strap as if that would help. The lacy thong had only the narrowest of back panels; even if Claudia hadn’t promised to take her panties down, this garment would have offered no protection at all, as it offered no covering to hide her eighteen-year-old bottom from the eyes of the three strangers who looked at it now.

Claudia’s voice came from behind her. “So sweet, isn’t she? Like a little girl who knows she must have her punishment but still seems to think she can keep her bottom covered while her teacher spanks her pretty derriere. Lay yourself down now, Sarah. I can promise you at least that it will get easier, the more you have to do it and the more accustomed you get to your new life. You will soon realize that being whipped upon your bare bottom is simply one of the things that happen to you now.”

Then the voice of one of the men—Kevin? for it didn’t sound like Alex, though the latter had spoken so briefly that Sarah couldn’t be sure—said, “Most columbae learn to ask nicely for their whippings, girl. I’m going to look forward to hearing you beg me to whip you.”

Columbae?
Latin, again—some part of the rituals, surely. The strange way the men spoke again seemed to drive reason away from Sarah. She wanted to ask, but knew any question would receive no answer. She wondered wildly whether Claudia were shooting him a look to warn him not to divulge secrets, or whether the casual dropping of hints of mystery were an intentional part of this process. Again she had the disturbing feeling that if she had tried to walk out the door, they wouldn’t have allowed it. How many girls had the Ostia Agency recruited around the world? The CIA Mithras working group buried away from David Chilton’s eyes apparently didn’t know, because it appeared that the league had several different sorts of conduit, of which the publicly visible Ostia Agency was only a single example.

The couch. The leather couch, in front of her. The leather strap, tapping the palm of the woman who would now whip Sarah on her offered bottom, once her tiny panties had come down.

“I’m losing patience, Sarah,” Claudia said severely. “Lay yourself down now. It’s time for your first whipping.”

She gave another little sob and began to comply at last. The leather felt cool on her bare skin, and she shivered as her elbows came to rest upon the cushion. The heat in her face seemed to crescendo.

“Further than that, Sarah,” Claudia said. “On your tiptoes. This—” she tapped Sarah’s right bottom-cheek with the strap, “—much higher. You will learn to present your rear promptly and obediently.”

“Oh, God,” Sarah whispered, struggling to comply, wishing it just to end now that she had surrendered her bottom for Claudia’s strap. She pushed up onto her tiptoes and wriggled further down the couch, feeling how it must make her bottom squirm in the sort of lewd little dance she felt sure men like Alex and Kevin enjoyed. She wondered with a terrible thrill of shame whether they would be able to see the cleft of her pussy or the golden curls between her thighs, when Claudia took her panties down. Sarah trimmed her pubic hair into a tight little vee so she could look tidy in a bathing suit, but of course a few curls might peep out, and the thought made her feel faint.

She felt fingers at the waistband of her panties. They tugged, and drew the fabric over Sarah’s hips and down her thighs to rest in a tangle just above her knees. “What a sweet bare bottom,” Claudia said. “It’s clear from her reactions that she’s never been spanked or whipped before, and of course the anus is virginal as well.” Fingers again, opening her bottom, holding the cheeks apart, displaying Sarah’s most secret place.

If Sarah had thought she felt shame before, she had not understood the meaning of the word until now. Little whimpers emerged from her throat, lost themselves in the leather, as she felt the eyes seem to push in where Claudia now placed the tip of her finger.

Then, “Sarah,” the woman said in a voice that seemed different from any she had used before. “This little ring of yours is a very pretty flower, set in a lovely little bottom. I’m quite certain Kevin and Alex agree. Soon enough, we will begin to train you here, and you will learn that having a pretty
rosa
—for that is what we call this place—has about it both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because many strong men will wish to enjoy it, and a curse for the same reason.” Sarah thought she could hear a hint of laughter, as if Claudia had made a very mild joke—some kind of in-joke among the members of the League of Mithras. “
Nymphobi,
you may go.”

Sarah thought her heart would burst out of her chest as she felt Claudia’s finger leave her cringing bottom-hole. Desperately, she tried to set into her memory the strange things the woman had said:
train you here
. Much as Sarah wanted to believe that ‘here’ meant
New York
or
this office,
the meaning had been unmistakable, and it called to her mind the video—the cardinal having the young woman anally in the Mithraeum in Ostia while the red-robed torch-bearers chanted.

Rosa,
a name for a girl’s anus.
Nymphobi,
a name for whatever the two big men were.

But riding roughshod over her attempts at reason came the idea of the blessing and the curse:
many strong men will wish to enjoy it. Enjoy her… there. Her pretty rosa.

The door closed behind Kevin and Alex. Claudia said in a warmer tone, “Alright, Sarah. We’ll get this over with now. Twelve lashes for disobedience. You will count them for me out loud, as you receive each one.”

Then, without any further warning, Sarah heard a whistling sound that she knew beyond any doubt must be the strap, moving through the air with terrible rapidity. In her fear, she couldn’t help herself: Sarah tried to move her bottom to get away from the blow, but as she twisted her hips to the side the strap fell with a
thwack
on her left bottom cheek, and she felt a burning line of pain there.

She gave a yelp of pain. It felt at one and the same time just as she thought it would and completely different: the reality of a woman she had just met
punishing
her in this ancient, physical way seemed to speak to a basic part of her psyche that Sarah had somehow known lay buried inside her. The pain itself, though, simply
hurt:
it was only in the knowledge that Claudia stood over Sarah’s bare backside, giving her a lesson in being a good girl, that the pain turned into something more.

“Because this is your first whipping, Sarah,” Claudia said, taking hold of Sarah’s hip and pulling her back into position with her bottom well presented, “that stroke will count, although you tried to escape it. If you try to avoid another stroke, however, it will not count, and I will re-summon Kevin and Alex to hold you down. Now please count that lash.”

For a long moment Sarah seemed to herself so lost in her attempt to analyze how it felt to be whipped, in her underwear, in an elegant New York office that she couldn’t respond.

“Very well,” Claudia said, and brought the strap down again, so quickly that Sarah didn’t even realize what was happening until the lash had landed across both her bottom-cheeks and her whole rump seemed to blaze with pain.

“Oh, God,” Sarah wailed. “One… please…” She tried to keep her legs still, to remain on tiptoe, but when the next lash came they betrayed her, and she kicked out with her right foot, perhaps trying to get away and perhaps trying to ease the terrible burning. At the same time, her left hand flew back to try to cover her bottom.

“Get that foot down and get that hand away, Sarah,” came Claudia’s cold voice. “You have a great deal to learn about taking a punishment, but you will find willing teachers here among us. Count that stroke, please.”

“Two,” Sarah sobbed. Then she said, “Please…” She had the sudden urge to call Claudia
ma’am,
but she didn’t give into it. “I’m trying…” She returned her hand to the cushion in front of her.

“You’re not trying hard enough yet, Sarah, but I’m glad to hear that.” The terrible whistling sound again, and the line of agony. “Three,” shouted Sarah as she bounced up and down with the growing pain that seemed to blossom there in her poor bottom. She did manage to stay in place, though, and a strange burst of pride went through her.