The Slave of Lidir Read online

  The Taskmistress arose; her outstretched hands continued moving up the girl's back and at last, reached her shoulders and massaged them very gently, or so it appeared to Anya. The whimpering gradually subsided. Ildren bent and kissed the bond-girl long and fully on the neck, below her ear, and Anya felt her own face flushing at the thought of that, for she was imagining what the girl must be feeling at this moment, fastened as she was, tight against the wall, her breasts and belly pressed up to the roughness of the cold stonework, while Ildren's moist lips burned relentlessly into the tender skin below her ear, and Ildren's velvet dress stroked against her thighs and bottom, making her want to spread her cheeks to let the folds of velvet in to brush pleasurably to and fro across that tiny pulsing mouth within.

  The Taskmistress's fingers were tickling underneath the bond-girl's raised left arm, while the kissing still continued; now Ildren was kissing the girl's ear - her lips were sucking gently at the lobe - and Ildren was whispering to the girl. Saying what, Anya wondered? Not tender words of love or endearment? Anya was sure that Ildren was quite incapable of that, and yet the girl did not seem frightened now; Ildren's words and caresses seemed in some measure to have calmed her. But she must be very foolish indeed if this calmness were to extend to trust of the woman standing now behind her. Then Anya realised that the slave-girl's left foot, the one which had remained free, was moving very slowly up the wall. The girl's knee was bending and her weight was taken by her other leg; the foot moved as if it were levering itself upwards on the stonework until her leg, though bent, was flat against the wall and her foot was level with her waist, which left her very much exposed.

  Ildren's hand had moved out to meet the foot, which twitched briefly as contact was made and Ildren's fingers ran tickling underneath it, then kept moving along, past the ankle, tracing the curvature of the bond-girl's calf and in behind her knee, then hesitated before moving down towards the joining of her thighs. Ildren kept kissing the girl's neck as she touched her in between the legs, and Anya felt herself turn almost inside out, for she knew exactly what the bond-girl must be feeling. The Taskmistress would certainly be opening her with her fingers, slipping them inside, and penetrating her bottom with her thumb, no doubt, and all the time that kiss was sucking upon her neck, filling her with desire. The girl's leg very slowly lowered, yet Ildren's hand remained in place. The girl's foot reached the floor; her thighs wrapped tight about the Taskmistress in her penetration. Then at last the Taskmistress edged away from her and, squatting once again, watched the bond-girl's bottom moving, cheek by rounded cheek, alternately, as her weight was shifted first to one leg, then the other as, by small readjustments, her body gradually accommodated and took to itself Ildren's ever reaching fingers.

  "Dance, my sweet, in your desire," Ildren whispered. "Mould your body to me while I search your inner softness and your warmth."

  Now Anya was beside herself to think that the slave was doing this willingly, and taking pleasure from the way the Taskmistress was choosing to degrade her. Would Anya be made to do this next, or would the Taskmistress have planned something even worse for her?

  The Taskmistress had finally withdrawn her hand from the girl and now was licking her fingers one by one; then she slowly sucked her thumb whilst looking directly at Anya, making her feel hot and at the same time, shivery. The girl had been left in that position, facing the wall; the Taskmistress had stopped before the girl had reached her pleasure, and seemed to have lost interest in her for the present. Had this display then been for Anya's benefit, she wondered? Had it been done to stir up her desire by having her witness the bond-girl's pleasuring by a woman otherwise so cruel? Was the Taskmistress trying to break Anya's will by keeping her in doubt about what to expect next - cruelty or pleasure?

  And now the Taskmistress would deal with Anya. This was quite clear from the way in which she looked at her, as if she were waiting, like a she-wolf about to pounce upon her prey and devour it. Then Anya realised that she had been doing the forbidden - staring fully at the Taskmistress - and she was filled with fear at this transgression. And yet she was frozen, like a stricken doe, unable to move even the muscle of an eyelid against the fierce intensity of this woman's gaze. The Taskmistress made a very low noise, a deep-throated laugh or growl at Anya's discomfiture. Those deep brown eyes widened to imprison her and to take delight in her apprehension.

  The Taskmistress approached, but never took her eyes from Anya; those eyes only got larger and more liquid until they filled Anya's vision. Invisible hands now lifted Anya's hands, hung very limply by her sides; long cool fingers intertwined with hers and raised those hands until her arms were stretched out horizontally; Anya could feel the coolness in her armpits as her moistness and her warmth took flight and filled the air around her. The Taskmistress inhaled very deeply and deliberately, opening her mouth, then said in a very clear whisper:

  "Delicious heat ... let me taste you, let me drink you in your burning ..."

  The woman closed her eyes and Anya burned with shame. Slowly, the Taskmistress lifted up her heavy eyelids; those eyes were black desire. "We must ... encourage you in your muskiness ... distil and concentrate your essence. No - do not avert your eyes, my child. Your musk is my delight; I shall have you drip your desire upon my tongue, and I shall drink my fill ... Yes, do not shake your head, however slightly, to your Taskmistress ... I shall assuage my thirst upon your salted nectar while you drip into my mouth. But first, your Taskmistress shall ask your permission, which you shall freely give without refusal." The Taskmistress raised her voice. "Is that not so?" The woman's fingers tightened very cruelly about Anya's, and kept squeezing very hard. Anya was so afraid and so very ashamed. Her throat was tight and dry. She opened her mouth to speak, and yet no sound came out. The Taskmistress merely raised her eyebrows, and she waited, her fingers tight about Anya's, squeezing to the bone.

  "It - it is so, ma'am," Anya croaked at last; she felt her heart beat very fast, and her belly tighten. Ildren's fingers then relaxed, and Ildren lifted Anya's hands above her head and had her link them, back to back, leaving her breasts uplifted and her underarms exposed. Ildren's lips and tongue grazed under each of Anya's arms, licking the salt-misted fronds in careful upward stroking tickles; next, Ildren's tongue transferred to Anya's black-tipped breasts, licking upwards underneath her acorns, and then to Anya's lips, in the same slow upward strokes - a cat's tongue lifting her upper lip and probing underneath, tracing round the tender inner skin in front her teeth, depositing Anya's scent on Anya's lips and into Anya's mouth.

  The Taskmistress took hold of Anya's hair and, after twisting it, curled it up onto her head, then had Anya rest her hands upon it. She led her to the corner of the table and, making her lift on tiptoes, edged her forwards, so the rounded corner of the table pushed between her legs and opened out her thighs, so that when at last the Taskmistress instructed her to lower, her weight was taken in that place at the joining of her thighs. Ildren now forced her to lift her legs and reach underneath to wrap them round the table leg as tightly as she could. Anya found it very difficult to keep her balance, with her hands upon her head, for Ildren insisted that she should not bend forwards, but should keep very straight throughout. Anya almost felt that she was falling over backwards, which perhaps was Ildren's intention - to keep her feeling very insecure. Then Anya stiffened, as the Taskmistress's hand was slipped around in front and down between her legs. Very gently, Ildren's fingertips eased Anya's fleshy leaves apart, allowing Anya's weight to spread them fully across the surface of the table. "Your blackness must remain open," Ildren said, quite calmly and detachedly, and then she pushed Anya's hips more firmly forwards, which forced her thighs to open even wider than before.

  Anya jumped - a tightly coiled rope of very thin leather had been thrown onto the table. Her heart was beating wildly; the Taskmistress spread her hands on Anya's back and slowly moved them downwards, then did likewise down her front; the outspread hands swept firstly down across her breasts,
which sprang back again, the nipples tightened by the squeezing pressure, then swept up again, across the hardened nipples; the hands moved upwards to her neck. The woman's lips were moistening Anya's shoulders, moving step by step across, planting warm soft kisses upon her skin, which cooled to gooseflesh as the lips moved on. "So brown, so smooth and soft," she heard the Taskmistress whisper. Ildren released her grip, then picked up the coil. Anya's heart stopped. What would the Taskmistress do?

  The rope was carefully uncoiled in front of Anya's eyes. She wanted to cry out, to plead with this woman not to do it, and yet, terrified as she was of what might be done to her, still she did not dare speak out, not even to abase herself by begging of the Taskmistress. She bit her lip and felt like crying. The rope was lowered over her right shoulder and down her front; the leather strip felt cool. Eventually the end came to rest between her legs and, as the Taskmistress paid it out, it tickled against her thighs. Ildren then lifted the tip and fed it, from above, underneath the chain about Anya's waist, then drew out the rope across the table to a point about two feet in front of Anya. The leather now ran along the table, up between her legs, below the chain, between her breasts, then over Anya's shoulder. Anya was still very frightened, though less so than she'd been before the rope had touched her. And now the rope was passed around the back of her neck and down in front again, but on the left side; this time, after passing between her breasts, it was looped back below her left breast, tight against the underjoin, then wrapped once around and back up again behind her neck. The leather rope was pulled; she felt it press into her flesh; her breast was lifted up and outwards to the left. Ildren very gently touched it with her fingertips, as if to test its resilience. The process was repeated, with the leather now passing over her right shoulder, again between her breasts but underneath the right one, then once around and up again and pulled; the right breast pointed up away from Anya's body and outwards to the right. Ildren must have known exactly what the tension in the rope would do; she was trying to emphasize Anya's breasts, to keep them well apart, to make her more aware of them, to tenderise them and make them prominent.

  Then Ildren worked methodically, looping the rope completely around each breast in turn, hard against the last loop, and up around the back of Anya's neck, at all times keeping the leather as taut as she possibly could, so Anya would feel each individual turn, each firmly gripping circle around her flesh, as the substance of her breast was squeezed ever forwards, towards the teat, until at last the rope ran out, whereupon Ildren secured the end behind Anya's neck, to maintain the rope in tension.

  Anya felt her breasts were bursting, as if powerful hands were wrapped around them, squeezing very tight and never letting go. Each breast stood stiffly up and outwards; the ends looked hard and swollen, their black nipples engorged and surrounded by a very deep purple halo. Anya was sure that this woman meant to bruise her with this treatment.

  The Taskmistress had Anya turn around and face towards her while she admired her for what seemed a very long time. Ildren's eyebrows slowly furrowed in displeasure; it seemed that something was amiss.

  "Your hands must be restrained," she decided; she took a second, smaller rope and fastened Anya's hands high up behind her back, securing her wrists as closely as possible to the twine which passed around the back of Anya's neck. Anya bent forwards to try to ease the tension in her arms. "No. Sit up. Your breasts are beautiful; they must be displayed, for my attentions ..." Anya now felt very exposed; her arms, although they did not hurt as yet, still felt very uncomfortable. "There, that is much better," Ildren said. "And now your feet." She used the end of the rope which dangled down between Anya's thighs, though this was barely long enough for her purpose. In the end, Anya's feet had to be secured to the table leg very near its top, in such a way that her knees were bent quite tightly, which spread her thighs very wide indeed and left her unable to move, and consequently totally defenceless.

  "My sweet and ink-splashed beauty," Ildren murmured in a very deep voice. "Now I have you where I want you." Ildren was almost shaking. "Your training to the ways of tempered fleshliness and controlled delight is now begun, my precious. Your Taskmistress shall steer you ever onwards, to the very brink of pleasure." Her voice was now unsteady. "This night shall see your body burning with desire - for you shall, with my assistance, stave off your pleasure many times before the dawn is nigh ..."

  7

  The Tautening Bowstring

  Anya felt herself a prisoner of those deep brown eyes more surely than she was a prisoner of her bonds; those black and liquid centres expanded now to drown her. The Taskmistress touched her, high up on her inner thigh. Those fingertips brushed her there and tickled very gently across the downy hairs of Anya's tender skin, making her catch her breath and want to close her legs against that touch, although, fastened as she was in this widely spread position, she knew this to be quite impossible. Ildren smiled. Her lips looked very full and soft, not cruel at all. This woman was deceptive, Anya knew, for it seemed that Ildren walked the knife edge between loving desire and cruelty. Which way would she fall? Anya had no way of telling. Her own desires and needs were tempered constantly with anxiety in this woman's presence.

  Ildren's fingers stroked very lightly in the groove at the top of Anya's leg, sending tickles up inside her belly, making Anya twitch with pleasure. "Keep very still, my darling. Your pleasure must be reflected only in your eyes. It must be taken gently." Ildren's words seduced Anya; a warm voluptuousness was suffusing through her veins. "Your Taskmistress shall kiss your breasts. Would you like that, Anya?" Anya's heart leapt to hear the Taskmistress use her name, and say it so tenderly.

  "If ... if it should please you, ma'am," Anya said with very wide eyes, and now perhaps, with love.

  "Mmm ..." The Taskmistress closed her eyes in obvious delectation at the thought of doing this to Anya, and Anya closed her eyes in loving anticipation.

  Ildren licked by turn those hard and swollen burning nipples, encircled by the thongs. Her tongue was drawn around, wetly in a circle, then spreading flat, was drawn across in a broad brushing upstroke which first lifted up the nipple, then let it fall again; her tongue then formed into a soft wet tube which, in dabbing repeatedly at Anya's teat, kept swallowing and releasing the nipple in a gentle sucking pull. Ildren's finger meanwhile tickled in the groove of Anya's leg, making Anya want that tickling to move across, that sucking tongue-pull to progress its dabbing down across her belly, to give succour to the hot hard pip of flesh which pulsed between her legs. The Taskmistress now ran a finger down the leather strip that descended between Anya's breasts to the chain about her waist. The finger traced over the chain, then hooked itself around the leather and kept on sliding downwards to the point at which the tension held the leather tightly into the join of Anya's thigh, before the rope, on passing down across the table edge, was secured to Anya's ankles. The Taskmistress pulled gently at the rope, as if testing it. "I want you more spread - more open to my caresses," Ildren said, and placing her hands around Anya's hips and closing them on her buttocks, she pulled her forwards, towards her, so Anya's sex now projected out above the corner and the thong bit deeply in the groove between her thigh and mound. And Anya was thereby spread very wide indeed. The leather thong imparted a pressure line of pleasure down the side of Anya's sex; her fleshy leaves were slowly pumping up with blood.

  "Your lips - so black and beautiful. They stand so proud," Ildren said. "Ask me to open them, to expose your fleshy bud." Anya's face was burning at what the Taskmistress was asking her to say out loud. The bond-girl, fastened to the wall, had moved and made a sound. Had she overheard Anya's secret? Ildren glanced briefly over her shoulder to check the girl, then turned again to Anya. "Well, my dearest? What is it that you want me to do?" And her finger barely touched the side of Anya's fleshy leaves. The feeling was delicious; Anya wanted more. She swallowed and then said as quietly as she could, for she did not want the bond-girl to overhear so shameful an expression:


  "Please, ma'am ... open them ..." The Taskmistress frowned. "My leaves," Anya added.

  "And?" said the Taskmistress very loudly. "And do what in addition?"

  "And ... and make my bud peep out." Now Anya was mortified that she had said it in a way that Ildren had not even asked of her.

  Ildren was delighted. "You sweet and lustful thing," she said. "It shall be my pleasure now to split you very gently."

  The Taskmistress had Anya open her mouth, so that whilst she carefully, and by feel alone, teased apart Anya's burning leaves, she could stroke her tongue very lightly round Anya's lips, just tickling, in a mirror of that tickling sensation down there between Anya's legs, as the leaves of flesh at first clung to each other, sealed by Anya's sticky juices, and then very slowly and deliciously split, until she felt her button pushing strongly outwards from between them. But Ildren took great care not to touch that morsel of delight; instead she ran her fingertip round the very edge of Anya's leaves at a carefully controlled rate such that the tickling resonated up inside Anya, making her want to spread her sex, so the Taskmistress might freely push her long cool fingers up inside her body and thereby feel the strength of Anya's burning heat.