by Ernest Greene

Originally published in Bound To Please Vol.  5, No.  4

Scanned by EKrayon; Transcribed by guardian46w

Story Codes: F/f, M/f, bdsm, n/cons, dungeon, whipping, sex, X

Part IV

A quick sit-rep: Since Victor, on a secret mission for military intelligence, reluctantly agreed to take command of a Foreign-Legion controlled slave bordello on the eve of the Algerian revolution, he has found himself in a swirling desert sandstorm of intrigue.  His superior officers are plotting a coup, in between slaking their brutal and perverse lusts with the bordello's hapless inmates.  Meanwhile, other betrayals are proliferating closer to his own quarters.  Irina, the exquisite blond concubine with whom Victor's treacherous ex-wife Claudine (who manages the brothel) has sought to bribe and distract him, is carrying on an illicit affair with a handsome but naive young enlisted man, who is also Claudine's lover.  Victor hopes to use the enlisted man, Private Beaulieu, in setting up his spy network, but first he must secure the cooperation of the brothel's cynical visiting physician, the beautiful and world-weary Angelique, who has witnessed Victor catching Irina and Beaulieu in the act.  Allez, vite!

Victor had spent a lot of time in places like this.  Too much time in his opinion.  This particular subterranean vault was domed, with limestone block walls and a slate floor.  Bare incandescent bulbs had replaced the torches that had darkened the rounded ceiling, but the rusty ring bolts in the walls and the other old iron gadgetry, now supplemented by some of its more modern counterparts, clearly identified the chamber's intended purpose.  The geography changed, but certain things were always the same: the shouting, the screams, the dripping of water; above all the smell.  Made up of sweat and other bodily secretions, the stale smoke of cheap cigarettes, burning insulation, alcohol and raw fear, its rankness lingered in the nostrils and in the memory.

He was not surprised that Claudine had equipped this ancient dungeon beneath what had once been the Dey of Algiers' summer palace as her personal playroom.  Unlike the more luxurious facilities upstairs in the old seraglio, the atmosphere down here was deliberately dark, dank and cave-like.  Claudine had been working in similar circumstances as an interrogator for the Special Services Section when they met back in Indochina.  This was truly her natural habitat, and Victor had to confess to a certain grudging admiration for how well she was adapted to it.

Most of the routine disciplinary chores of the establishment were handled by Claudine's assistant Zoraya, the fiercely beautiful Bedouin harem-keeper.  But for this particular task, Claudine trusted no one's talents but her own.  Dressed, or more properly stripped, for work in her riding britches and boots, the tawny flesh of her bare breasts gleamed in the yellow light cast by the bulbs and by the nearby brazier with its ominous assortment of glowing-ended tongs and irons.  Half-French and half-Vietnamese, she had the pale eyes and statuesque physique of a European, with the shiny black hair and delicate features of East Asia.  Victor still found her quite stunning, especially in the flushed and fevered state in which she circled her current prey.  Claudine had known the pleasures of many boudoirs, but none so aroused her as what she was doing right now.  Victor found himself musing once more on how lucky he had been to survive his marriage to her, even if only just barely.

The object of her attentions at the moment was a rather spectacular Algerian girl in her mid-twenties who, like Claudine herself, was clearly a product of France's long colonial adventure.  Her body, which was quite naked, had the Levantine voluptuousness of the Arab girls, but her elegant, magazine-cover face was obviously the legacy of some French officer who probably didn't even know her mother's name.  Her own, Victor knew, was Juliette Duvall.  She had been transferred over from the political section because none other than General Leclerc himself had fancied her, and Claudine had been charged with breaking her to be the general's mount.  So far, Victor understood, this was proving difficult.

Juliette's splendid charms were amply displayed by her situation, which was not enviable.  Standing spread-eagled in the center of a welded steel frame, her wrists and ankles held in place by leather cuffs attached to short chains, her limbs were pulled so taut she could barely twitch.  Her body, though fundamentally undamaged, bore a vivid assortment of superficial bruises, welts, stripes, abrasions and other souvenirs of her association with Claudine.  The dark circles around her puffy eyes and the slight visibility of her ribcage suggested that she hadn't had much in the way of sleep or food recently.

The worst part of Juliette's predicament was the long, narrow center stake that rose from the middle of the frame's base, terminating a few inches up inside her rear entrance in a well-greased, unpleasantly thick knob-like protuberance made of hard rubber.  A similar post stuck down from the top of the frame, its knob thrust into Juliette's mouth, forcing her full lips so far open that saliva trickled down from the corners of her mouth, mixing with the oily sweat that drenched her from head to foot.  Her voluminous tresses had been meticulously plaited into a single long braid to keep them out of Claudine's way.  A few, stray black hairs that had not been bound were glued down to her forehead with perspiration.  The way the gag forced her head back gave her the appearance of being completely impaled through and through, though as Claudine had explained, the apparatus was merely meant to create that sensation without the actual result.

The strain of the position was more than obvious from Juliette's trembling, which rattled her chains, and the way her eyes were squeezed shut to fight back the bitter tears.  Her breath, sucked in through her nose since her mouth was packed full, came in short, ragged gasps.

Claudine stopped directly in front of her, standing so close their nipples practically touched.  She reached up and stroked Juliette's distended cheek with the short, coiled whip she carried in her right hand.

"Why so stubborn, Cheri?" Claudine asked in her silkiest and most soothing tone.  "You make things so difficult for yourself, when they could be so pleasant."

Leaning in even closer to rub her body against Juliette's, Claudine's free hand wandered down over the tense musculature of her captive, lingering at the hard, dark points of the nipples, long nails dragging down the crease of the belly into the small nest of black curls between Juliette's thighs.  A strangled moan emerged from behind the gag as Claudine ever so skillfully found her way in to stroke and tweak Juliette's clit.  Victor watched from his casual perch on a nearby rack while first one then another of Claudine's long, delicate fingers disappeared up inside Juliette, who shook all over with the futile effort of straining to close her legs against the frame's implacable embrace.

"My, my," Claudine purred, "it certainly does feel full in here.  Wouldn't it be nice to get that big, nasty plug out of your backside, darling?  I understand Leclerc is much more modestly endowed."

For one instant, Juliette's eyes popped open.  They were like black coals burning with hatred, containing not a trace of submission or pleading.  She actually managed something resembling a snort of defiant contempt through her flaring nostrils.  Instantly, Claudine's fingers slid out of Juliette's insides and shot up to pinch her nose shut.  Her eyes widened involuntarily.  Her chest heaved in the struggle for breath through the rubber filling her mouth.

"You're a foolish little bitch," Claudine said angrily.  "You're just wasting my time and making yourself suffer for nothing.  In the end, you'll be just like the others."

Claudine released her grip, letting Juliette breathe again just as she was about to pass out.  Not wanting that to happen, Claudine dipped a ladle full of water from a bucket on the floor, swung it up and splashed it down onto Juliette's face, producing further gasping and choking.  Satisfied that her subject was still paying attention, Claudine stepped back, took hold of the steel frame and slowly rotated it.  Constructed with the fiendish inventiveness that was Claudine's signature, it allowed her to turn the body that was on it in a full circle while the gag and plug remained stationary, spitted inside her victim.  From the stifled noises that made it out of Juliette's well-stretched throat, Victor surmised that the sensation was less than pleasant.

It was a mere discomfort, however, compared with what was to follow.  Once Claudine had Juliette's back fully turned to her, the braid tossed over the girl's shoulder to the front, she slowly retreated, unlimbering her whipping arm, taking her distance.  Even though she couldn't turn her head to look back, Juliette could easily guess what was to come.  Victor could see her back muscles tightening, her high, firm buttocks clenching around the intruding post.  He knew that it would do her no good to brace herself.  Claudine would wait, practicing her aim with the kerbash, until Juliette had ceased to anticipate before laying on the first stroke.

The kerbash whistled through the turbid air of the chamber to strike precisely at the center of Juliette's right ass cheek with a report like that of a small pistol.  The whole frame shook as the impact rippled through Juliette's body.  A new welt, small but quite vivid in color, rose at the spot.

Satisfied with her aim, Claudine got down to work in a serious way.  Victor never failed to be impressed at how well a woman seemingly so slight could handle even the longest and heaviest of whips.  Bringing it up over her head and doing a quick turn in the air each time, she laid it out with unfailing accuracy, just making contact with the very end of the tail.  The stripes it left were never more than a few inches long, none quite hard enough to tear Juliette's valuable skin.  But they were stunningly painful, as was evident from Juliette's muffled screeching and from the creaking and groaning of the restraining frame.

Claudine was as thorough and methodical as Victor remembered her, working her way up from the bottom to lay the stripes in a neatly cross-hatched pattern, the strokes hardly a finger's width apart.  Every so often, just for variety, she would take a wild shot, snapping the whip up in between Juliette's splayed thighs or wrapping it around to tickle a nipple.

From where he sat, Victor could see the grinding of Juliette's jaws against the gag, but the sobs she was trying to hold back eventually erupted anyway, convulsing her rigidly pinioned body in long, wracking waves.  The tears streamed down out of the corners of her eyes to join the dripping water and sweat pooling at the base of the frame.  Claudine paused for a moment of quiet satisfaction at this mean little victory, then went on, raising new networks of crimson ridges and weal’s until Juliette's back looked like a highway map from the Guide Michelin.  By the time she was done, Claudine had also broken a sweat.  Her chignon was still intact, but her eyes were almost as wild as Juliette's.

Having watched Claudine work so many times before, Victor could anticipate her next move.  Going over to inspect her handiwork, she lightly traced the heaviest and deepest of the welts with a fingertip, producing a few anxious twitches from Juliette, who rightly feared further cruelties.  She didn't have long to wait.  Mentioning something about the need to prevent infection, Claudine put her whip on a nearby stone slab studded with ring bolts, from which she took a copper bowl filled with amber liquid in which floated a round sea sponge.  She squeezed the sponge, loading it thoroughly, then held it up in front of Juliette's face so she could smell the vinegar.

Juliette tried desperately to shake her head, but it wouldn't have done any good even if she'd been able.  Claudine always finished what she started.  In a slow, leisurely fashion, she sponged down Juliette's bright red, freshly-flogged back with the vinegar solution.  Juliette went rigid, a new flood of squeals and sobs leaking out of her well-stuffed face.  Victor supposed the needles would be next, and he really wasn't up to watching that today.  He was pretty sure he'd waited long enough to allay Claudine's always active suspicions.

Sliding off the rack, he sauntered over to the revolving frame with an ever-so-casual stretch and yawn.  Stepping up in front of Juliette, he looked down into her face.  It was ashen, contorted with suffering.  But then, Victor had seen a lot of suffering in twenty years of nearly continuous combat experience.  Difficult as it would have been for Juliette to imagine at that moment, she was actually extremely fortunate to be where she was instead of where she might have been had the General not happened to notice her.

"You know," Victor observed coolly, "I think you may be reaching the point of diminishing returns with this approach.  She'll be insensible soon."

Claudine seemed faintly miffed.

"What would you suggest," Claudine asked in an irritable and sarcastic tone, "that we try bribing her with nylons and cigarettes?  Juliette isn't some barracks bride.  This one's got principles.  She wants to suffer for the revolution.  Isn't that right, Juliette?"

Claudine grabbed Juliette's braided hair and gave it a yank, made all the more painful by the way the rigid gag held her head immobile.

"Perhaps.  But if she sees the end result is the same regardless, perhaps her intelligence will prevail over her ideology.  If, let us say, you were to give her to me for a few hours, it might help her to begin to accept the inevitable."

For once in her life, Claudine looked genuinely shocked.  She stared at him, hands on her hips, as if seeing him for the first time.

"Why Victor, I thought you only took them willing."

Victor shrugged.

"It's all in the line of duty."

Claudine's look of surprise turned to one of scorn.

"You have changed, haven't you?  Now you're no different from Randon and Mannheim and the rest."

"Including you.  It's worth a try.  If I don't get anywhere with her, you can always go on with what you're doing later."

Claudine pondered.

"She'll probably hate it worse than what I had planned for her, no offense."

"None taken."

"I suppose we could chance it, but she'll have to be fully restrained the whole time.  If she gets loose, she'll do her best to kill you."

"She won't be the first, will she?"

Victor leaned over and kissed Claudine on the cheek.

"I doubt that our poor Juliette will have any better luck than you did.  Have her cleaned up and brought to my quarters.  I have to go and play soldier for a while."

Impulsively, he took Claudine in his arms and kissed her hard, feeling her bare breasts through the thin cotton of his desert uniform blouse.  Her heart was beating fast, her mouth hot and open under his.  He had to admit, they did have one or two tastes in common.  She held on a moment longer than he did.  Their eyes met for just an instant, a spark of what had once been passing between them before he turned to go.

A few minutes later, Victor was back in his incongruously gilded, marble floored office, to which he'd begun to refer as the headquarters of the Whoremaster General, where Private Beaulieu stood quaking before his immense desk.  Victor lounged back in his massive chair and flipped through Beaulieu's service file in silence for a long time.

The private's prospects seemed bleak indeed.  He'd been caught in bed with his commanding officer's personal property.  Perhaps worse, in the panic of the moment he had babbled out the truth about the little divertissements he and Irina had acted out for the benefit of the CO's ex-wife.  Visions of long marches through the Sahara filled his head.

"Beaulieu, I've decided to promote you," Victor pronounced at last.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Says here you were originally detailed to the signal corps."

"Yes, sir.  I was installing the telephones here when Claudine… I mean Madame, noticed me.  She had me transferred to the household garrison."

Victor tossed the file onto his desk and stood up.

"Just so.  I'm promoting you to sergeant and putting you in charge of communications here."

Beaulieu's response, inappropriate as it was, came from pure surprise.

"But why?"

"So, you can keep a complete log of all incoming and outgoing telephone traffic for me.  I want to know who calls, who makes appointments, who asks questions, who leaves messages and what those messages are.  I want to know everything, and you'll tell me.  And not a word of this to anyone, especially not Claudine or Irina.  If you prove useful, you might get to keep your stripes and the girl.  If not, well… there's always the Sudan."

"Understood, sir.  Thank you for giving me another chance."

"You can thank me later, if we're all still alive.  Dismissed, Sergeant Beaulieu."

Victor couldn't help smiling at the sound of Beaulieu's triumphant shout on the other side of the heavy door.  He could hear the young man singing all the way down the hall.  Victor tried to remember what it was like to be twenty.  It was no use.  He'd already seen the scorched hillsides of Catalonia by then.  War had a way of turning young boys into old men very quickly.

Now it was time for the next phase of the operation.  He hoped it would go as smoothly.  As ordered, Juliette was waiting in his quarters, strapped down to the enormous, silk sheeted bed where the Dey had once disported himself with his assorted wives and slaves.  She had been bathed, shaved clean after the local custom, made up and perfumed.  Her neck was circled by the locked collar that would instantly identify any girl who tried to escape.  She also wore the locked-on high heels that made walking a challenge and running quite impossible.

Not that Juliette was in any position to walk or run.  The straps anchored to the bedposts were padlocked to her wrists and ankles.  Her arms were stretched out tight as a bowstring, but there was a little slack in the leg straps.  Claudine was ever mindful of such details.  A girl with her legs pinned down completely wasn't much of a ride.  Juliette was still naked, the reminders of her earlier sessions with Claudine evident here and there on her otherwise quite flawless body.  She certainly did clean up nicely, but the expression on her face was one of hateful aloofness.  She didn't even look over at Victor when he sat down on the bed next to her.

"Feeling better?" he inquired mildly.

She turned her head to glare at him.

"French pig!  Is this the only way you can get a woman?"

"You're more French than I am.  I'm an American pig.

It's very unwise to defy Claudine.  It only eggs her on.  Sooner or later, you'll give in anyway.  They all do."

Juliette swiveled her head back to stare up at the ceiling.

"Just get on with it," she said in a tone of grim resignation.

"Who could refuse such a charming invitation?"

Victor stretched out alongside Juliette.  Gently laying a hand against her cheek, he turned her face back to look him in the eye once more.

"You're very beautiful," he observed.

She blinked at him, seeming suddenly less hostile and angry.  Surprisingly, she closed her eyes and nuzzled his palm.  He felt her full lips against his skin, noticing the tensing of her muscles just in time to pull his hand away before her teeth snapped thin air.  She would have gotten a nice, big bite if his reflexes had been any slower.  He slapped her coldly, not hard, but firmly enough to convey his point.  Going on from there, he caressed her slowly, playing with her nipples to see if he could get them interested.  He could hear Juliette's teeth grinding, but it worked.  They soon grew stiffly erect under his skilled manipulation.  The same held true further down where, he found, Claudine had thoughtfully anointed her with some lightly scented oil.  He was able to achieve similar results with her clit.  Given its obvious liveliness, she was fortunate to have kept it, unlike so many of the women in this wonderfully enlightened culture she was struggling so hard to liberate from the infidels.

Sliding over her bound leg, Victor lowered his head between her thighs, running his lips lightly over some nasty welts Claudine had put on them.  Working his way up, he was soon sucking and licking away in Juliette's most intimate territories, getting a distinct physiological reaction there that belied the motionless stiffness of the rest of her body.  She might hate him, but she certainly didn't hate sex per se.  It was a vaguely comforting thought.  Anyway, there was no point in humiliating her needlessly.  He was merely making it look good for the audience that he was certain was somewhere nearby.

Pausing to unbutton his trousers, he lowered himself carefully onto her, mindful of how sore her back must be after Claudine's vicious whipping.  Juliette didn't bother to try and struggle for the sake of honor, assuming incorrectly that Victor was probably the kind of man who would find such behavior arousing.  She merely let him slide into her without responding.  Slipping his arms under hers, he did his best to lift his weight off her.  Pressing his face against her neck, he spoke to her in a whisper.

"Listen carefully, because we haven't much time and I know we're being watched.  I've struck a bargain with your sister the doctor…"

He felt Juliette buck under him, as if trying to break free.

"Angelique?  She's alive?  You've seen her?"

Victor quickly clapped a hand over Juliette's mouth.

"Quiet!  I told you we're not alone here.  I owe Angelique a favor, and you're it.  I'm going to try and take you out of here, but you'll have to pretend to give into Claudine.  It's the only way we'll get an opening.  Otherwise, she'll keep you in her little cellar forever.  Understand?"

She nodded rapidly.  Victor took his hand away.  He felt her face brush against his.  Her hips began moving a bit under him, rocking ever so slightly.

"How do I know this isn't just a trick to make me cooperate?" she whispered harshly in his ear.

"Had any better offers lately?"

It was very quiet in that room for a moment.  Then, slowly, Victor felt Juliette begin to relax.  Her breathing grew deep and slow as she began to undulate sinuously beneath him.  The mysterious women of the desert.  He would always desire them, even as he had learned never to trust them too much.

From her vantage point in the latticework above the ceiling fan that turned over Victor's bed, Claudine could clearly see the gradual increase in their tempo.  It looked as if Victor had been right.  His methods did appear effective in this case.  She supposed she shouldn't be all that surprised, after all, the same methods had worked pretty well on her at one time.  Still, it did seem a bit too easy, and Claudine had learned not to count on anything that seemed too easy.