The Gift of Shame (30 page)

Three more, the most intense yet, seared into her convulsing flesh.

‘His hot sperm would shoot on my belly, on my breasts and into my mouth …’

Wildly out of control Helen could feel only the heat of the blows which now rained down in quick succession. As each landed she heard herself greeting it exultantly and demanding more – and harder.

‘And you …?’ asked Jeffrey. ‘Did you come?’

‘Yes! Gloriously! Wonderfully!’

‘Like this?’ he demanded as his probing fingers first spread
her
and then plunged deeply into her, all but lifting her off her feet.

‘Yes!’ she screamed in defiance.

Jeffrey’s probing became more violent, more vicious and for one distracted moment she thought he might be about to plunge his entire bunched fist into her.

Instead, as she writhed on the fleshy spike he had made of his fingers, he reached with one finger of his other hand and expertly sought out her risen fleshy clitoris. His touch was like that of a trigger to a detonator. Totally out of control, uncaring who heard, she proclaimed her orgasm in a scream that went forth like sheet lightning into the calm blackness of the night.

Her knees buckling to come into painful contact with the lower rung of the deck rail, she recovered in time to realise that Jeffrey was moving away and leaving her there. ‘No!’ she called out desperately. ‘Don’t leave me here! Not like this!’ Twisting herself awkwardly against the rail she could see him stepping from the deck into the saloon. ‘There’s more!’ she called vainly into the night.

By turning herself to stand, still firmly pinioned by the wrists, the other way, she found she could follow Jeffrey’s progress as he made his way through to the library where she saw Carla rising from a couch to greet him. She could hear nothing of what was said through the thick armoured glass of the deck windows and could only guess that they were discussing her. Seeing Carla’s laugh and quick embrace of Jeffrey only increased her feeling of isolation and vulnerability. His chastisement had excited her beyond measure and the fire of it, though dampened by his absence, still worried away at her hungry loins. When she saw Carla, magnificent still in her fetishistic leathers, move to leave the library, she knew immediately where she would next appear.

She was not to be disappointed. Carla stepped out onto the deck and came towards the quailing Helen, smiling and making deliberate display of the riding crop laid across one open palm. ‘Well now …’ mused Carla ‘… it seems this is my turn.’

Biting back an urge to plead, Helen stared fixedly into Carla’s dancing eyes. ‘Face front!’ Carla suddenly snapped, adding as Helen turned to obey by staring out into the moonlit sea, ‘Spread your legs!’

Immediately, helplessly, liquid, Helen did as she was ordered and mentally braced herself for a sterner test than any Jeffrey had inflicted.

‘Four days, was it?’ Carla asked so quietly that she might almost have been speaking only to herself. ‘Four days and three nights? Is that the sum of the time you spent alone with my husband?’

Helen, unable to do more, nodded then flinched as she felt the first of Carla’s contacts. Expecting a cut from the whip it took her a moment to realise that what she felt was merely Carla’s hand reaching out to caress her inflamed flesh.

‘And, in that time, how many times did you screw him?’

‘None! We never did anything on the island.’

‘Too busy with your fisherman, then?’ asked Carla.

‘Yes! He exhausted me.’

‘And you never gave a thought to what Qito might be feeling?’

‘I did. Yes, I did, but he was too intent on his work. He’s a serious man. He took me there to paint and that’s all he did.’

Ignoring the last of her answer, Carla insisted she concentrate on what, to her, was the most important business at hand. ‘So he never thought about you as a woman – what
about
you? Did you not want him between your greedy legs?’

For a moment Helen, remembering the one moment when she had invited Qito to respond to her, hesitated. To answer truthfully she knew would invite pain against which she had no defence. When Carla, impatient for an answer, cut a stinging blow aimed with expert evenness across both buttocks, she cried out. ‘Yes, I wanted him. I wanted him to fuck me!’

Carla’s voice sounded almost affectionate. ‘The truth at last!’ she murmured triumphantly. ‘Tell me, could you love him?’

‘I admire him. I could worship him. I don’t know if I could love him.’

‘And me?’ asked Carla.

The inference of the question escaped Helen for one startled moment and even more when Carla reached out and, cupping her face in one strong hand, turned her head to face directly into her own. ‘Could you love me?’ she breathed so close that Helen felt the sting of her breath against her opened mouth.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, astonished at her own realisation.

Carla’s lips opened to reveal strong white teeth set into a beatific smile. ‘And what more do you have to tell me about you and Qito?’

Trembling in the face of Carla’s relentless pressure Helen reached for the truth as if it were a lifeline. ‘I sucked his cock,’ she murmured quietly. ‘I had to. Jeffrey was there and told me to.’

Still close, Carla’s smile became even more serpentine. ‘What a good little girl you are,’ she hissed. ‘So young and beautiful – and
so
obedient!’

Breaking from the intimate closeness, Carla stepped back
a
pace and Helen, bracing herself, faced forward once more to look on the placid swelling of the passing sea.

‘What do you suppose happens to good little girls who indulge themselves at another woman’s expense?’ Carla asked.

‘I don’t know,’ breathed Helen.

‘Yes you do,’ Carla insisted. ‘They get punished, don’t they?’

Eyes closed, Helen waited, unable to bring herself to beg for what she knew was inevitable. ‘Answer me,’ snapped Carla.

‘Yes!’ screamed Helen.

Carla’s tone was immediately conciliatory. ‘Of course they do,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘Now you will have to help me …’ She paused as Helen urged her outraged brain to ignore the searing heat at her buttocks and prepare to make answer to Carla. ‘I was always so terrible at arithmetic,’ Carla was saying. ‘Let me see … you did say it was
four
days to which must be added three nights – which, of course, count double. How many does that make? Four, three and three?’

‘Ten,’ managed Helen through gritted teeth.

‘Ten?’ asked Carla as if savouring the number on her palate. ‘Plus an allowance of, shall we say,
five
for your unfortunate lapse into enforced fellatio? Would you think that fair?’

With a flare of spirited defiance Helen snapped back, ‘You’re going to do it anyway so why don’t you just get on with it?’

Delighted, and after a carefully judged intimidatory pause, Carla asked, ‘How many does that make in total?’

The tension on Helen’s expectant body caused a shuddering rebellion to sweep through her and, setting her teeth, she gave no reply. ‘Well,’ Carla sighed. ‘If you’re not prepared to help me with the calculations I shall just have to guess when to stop.’
Pausing
again as if waiting for an answer which, defiantly, never came, Carla went on. ‘I intend that you shall have your punishment in groups of five. After each group there will be a pause during which you may recover and then, after thanking me for my indulgence, ask me to proceed. Do you understand?’

With Carla’s hand lovingly caressing her buttocks and her entire body visibly shaking, Helen could not force any reply from between her tight-set teeth.

‘I’m waiting,’ murmured Carla.

With flaring anger at this torment, Helen spat out, ‘For what?’

‘Your permission to begin, of course!’

Her voice wild, Helen snarled: ‘Bitch!’ only to hear the cry becoming a wailing scream as, without pause or pity, the lash descended. The first five strokes were so swiftly given that they overwhelmed her, taking away Helen’s power to voice her indignation. As the heat spread across her buttocks, Carla’s cooling hand, placed caressingly on her, felt like a benevolence.

Head bent, each sobbing breath drawn noisily through flaring nostrils, Helen fought for control as her brain raced to rationalise what was being done to her. Yes, she had behaved foolishly towards Jeffrey and welcomed his punishment as a purging of sin. But what of Carla? What hurt had she inflicted on her? So why then should she submit to this punishment? The only possible answer was in Carla’s pleasure. For some reason this sent Helen’s daunted spirits flying. She had wanted Qito’s pleasure for his fame and to make a memory. She was astonished to find she wanted Carla’s pain for the same reason.

‘Well?’ insisted Carla.

Raising her fallen head from her chest Helen took a deep
breath
and knew the response expected of her. ‘I thank you for your indulgence and am ready to receive more.’

‘Well said!’ called a delighted Carla and, into the grim and painful interval that followed, she allowed only Helen’s anguished voice to be heard.

Once more bowed into recovery Helen was startled to hear Carla speak. ‘Ah! I see we have attracted an audience.’

Helen turned to see that Jeffrey, surrounded by the ludicrous ‘Carmen Miranda’ figure and Martinez, had, drinks in hand, come to see the show. Only Qito was absent.

Deluged with humiliation, Helen sought out Jeffrey’s eyes. Smiling, he came forward and, taking her chin delicately in his hand, placed a light kiss on her lips. ‘Be brave, my darling,’ he told her before turning away from the plea in her eyes.

From behind the assembled group came Tsai, eyes on Helen before turning to Carla. ‘Let me take her punishment,’ said the girl.

‘How delightful!’ cried Carla. ‘That you should, on so short an acquaintance, be willing to sacrifice yourself.’ Carla paused. ‘I leave the decision to you all,’ she said. ‘Shall Tsai be whipped in Helen’s place?’

The first to answer was Helen. ‘No!’ she screamed.

Carla’s surprised eyes rounded on her. ‘What do we have here? Can this truly be love at first sight? What more has a woman to give than that she should be whipped in another’s place? Such nobility deserves reward.’ Carla paused as if searching her mind for the one touch that would exquisitely fit the moment. Her eyes falling on the ‘French maid’, she beckoned Martinez forward. ‘You may serve our noble friend with the sweetness of your tongue. On your knees before her!’

Martinez scrambled down onto his knees and worked his way through Helen’s legs to kneel up, and like an excited
puppy
, reach with his fingers to spread Helen’s labia and wait on Carla’s orders.

‘His pleasure combining with my pain – sweet and sour!’ cried a delighted Carla, addressing herself to the anxious Tsai. ‘Fitting, don’t you think?’

Helen, once more facing forward, heard what sounded suspiciously like a sob from Tsai and, in confusion, wondered what was in the Chinese girl’s mind. There was little time for further thought as Carla’s voice rapped an order to Martinez. ‘You may begin,’ she told the kneeling man.

Helen flinched as his searching tongue probed deeply into her but, even as the pleasure began, she felt the barrage of five swift strokes scorch into her. Her knees giving way under her she, simultaneously, found a steadying grip between her legs from Martinez who still fervently delved for pleasure, while she felt hands softer than Carla’s, caress and soothe the fiery pain that marked her flesh. Realising the soothing hands must belong to Tsai she leant forward and, giving herself up to the pleasure-sparks being struck at her, decided to get the remaining five strokes done with as soon as possible.

‘Thank you, Carla, for your indulgences and I am now ready for more,’ but even as she braced herself against the coming pain she heard Jeffrey intervene.

‘How much has she had already?’ he asked.

‘Ten of fifteen.’ Carla’s voice was challenging.

Helen heard a slight shuffle of feet as people repositioned themselves. She wondered what was going on as she felt Jeffrey’s hand on her, examining the site of the thrashing. If Helen had hoped Jeffrey might be about to intervene his next words dashed all such hopes. ‘You haven’t cut her skin,’ he said as if surprised. ‘Truly an expert.’

‘I aim to give satisfaction.’ Carla’s voice was filled with amusement. ‘May I continue?’

Helen, strained for the sound of Jeffrey’s voice. Remembering she had already recited her designated chant, she braced herself and cursed the pain that was her due until her eye caught something that, in that moment of trauma, seemed magical. Far out in the silvered night she saw a bright light bobbing on the water! For a moment she fantasised her beach lover sailing to her rescue but, as she strained to make out the boat marked by the light, she saw others appear, bobbing like so many fireflies on the swelling ocean. An armada coming to her rescue? Realising her mind was racing towards the fanciful she was brought abruptly back to the present by the smarting of the riding stick. Her voice raised in vain protest she found her eyes were staying open despite the pain, and fixed on those bobbing lights which seemed to be speeding closer. So intense was her concentration that she absorbed this final beating with ease.

Feeling the heat was soothed from her by Tsai’s soft hands she became aware once more of the compensatory pleasures being fired by Martinez’s tongue as he continued to work doggedly, even frenziedly, between her thighs.

Carla’s voice jolted her back to the present. ‘Well?’ she demanded.

Ignoring her, Helen kept her eyes on the fishing boats which, for a moment, seemed to be speeding towards them side on, until she rationalised the distance between them was being closed not by their motion but the speed of the yacht. Would they pass between them, she wondered. Would fishermen have binoculars or telescopes which, even now, might be fixed on her? Memories of her adolescent Peeping Tom flooded in on her as she pulled her torso upright and prepared herself for the combination of whatever was to come next.

Jimmy’s voice screeched out in sudden surprise. ‘Hey, look!
There’s
a fishing fleet out there! We’re going right through them!’