Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 96271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Reflexively, I tried to kick out.
“No,” she told me, and at the same time I yelped as I felt the huge man behind me bend my arm just a little bit in a direction it wasn’t meant to go. It seemed almost polite, as violent warnings go. I stilled my legs.
“Better,” said Giovanna. She drew my jeans down to just above my knees. Her hands rose again, and her fingers took hold of the waistband of my panties.
“No, please,” I whispered. I felt my forehead crease hard at her touch there, on the soft skin underneath.
Giovanna ignored me. She pulled my panties, standard-issue gray cotton, down to rest atop my jeans. The air, moving freely down there while I stood in the grip of a big man in a dark suit, with a beautiful woman in a collar crouching in front of me, looking at my virgin pussy, made me feel faint with mortification.
“We’ll wax you here later today,” Giovanna told me. “That will help you understand.”
“Oh, God,” I gasped. “Understand what?”
I knew exactly what she would say before she opened her mouth.
“Questions are useless.” I had started to get used to that response, as alarming as it seemed. Much more frighteningly, though, Giovanna rose and looked behind me, obviously making eye contact with the man who held me immobilized with my jeans and panties down.
“Over the chair, please,” she said simply, and immediately I was propelled toward the chair, and the man bent me over its low back until my face made contact with the leather-covered seat cushion. I felt my grandmother’s pendant swing free, bouncing between the fabric of my shirt and my breastbone. I had an obscure wish to hold it, to press it against my skin. I felt sure it would seem warm to me, though I didn’t know why—neither why it would feel warm, nor why I would suppose it might.
I heard Giovanna moving around. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her opening something—a panel in the wall, maybe—and taking something out.
“There is only one question you may ask now. In a moment I will tell you what it is.”
At first I couldn’t see what she had in her hands as she moved back toward me and the enormous, silent man who held me down over the chair. Then Giovanna moved in front of me, and held the thing out.
To my horror, I recognized it. It was a mastix.
The Roman disciplinary implement… the thing that had been used to correct slaves and servants and anyone else who required correction in the frequently brutal ancient world. Made of braided leather, about thirty centimeters long. Giovanna held it with an ease that spoke, dismayingly, of long practice.
I recognized it academically, as she displayed it to me. My mind refused to recognize it in any other way.
“I’ll hold her down, nymphobus,” Giovanna said, stepping around me, out of my view, and at the same time putting her left hand atop my back, between my shoulder blades.
Nymphobus. It rang a distant bell, somewhere in the wilderness of my jumbled memories of nearly forgotten college courses. Ritual, I thought: definitely some kind of ritual title.
The nymphobus let go of my arms and I could sense him stepping back toward the door. Not leaving, I realized with dismay; staying there to make sure Giovanna could handle me as she did whatever she intended to do.
Instinctively I moved my now free hands to my backside, covering my bottom cheeks, defending them.
“Elbows on the chair seat,” Giovanna commanded, her soft voice taking on the slightest edge of authority—a subtle change in tone that nevertheless made my heart jump.
I turned my head and craned my neck until I could just make out her beautiful, dispassionate face.
“No,” she said. “You will face forward when you are disciplined.”
Oh, no. The word… that word.
“But,” I said, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. “But… I didn’t…”
“I can have my nymphobus place you as I want, Ilsa, but if I have to do that you will regret it.”
She raised her right arm. She had started to bring it down before I understood what she was doing.
The stroke landed across the back of my thighs, under my defensive, out-turned palms. Fire blossomed there. I cried out and jerked forward against the back of the chair.
“Please,” I gasped. “Please, I need to understand what’s happening. Who sent you? Is this about the cavern? Is this about—”
“Questions are useless,” Giovanna said, her voice still soft despite the growing note of command. “I’ve told you that already.”
Another stroke. I made a sound I had never made before in my life, something between a sob and a gasp, and my knees bent involuntarily.
“Please,” I said again. “Please just tell me—”
Giovanna sighed. “Elbows on the seat, Ilsa. Face forward. I won’t tell you again.”