THE GLADIATOR (8 page)

Chapter 8

The trip home in the horrible crates was even worse this time for Tara. She was in an inner turmoil, suddenly her life had become hateful to her. Now she knew the full truth, she was torn between self-disgust at how easily she had taken to complete submission, fury with Conor and the desire for revenge. As she suffered in the cramped hog tie, she contemplated escape but the thought of being mistress of her own fate again appalled her, leading to another bout of self-loathing at how slavish she had become.

But despite all her self doubts and rebellious fury, Tara was glad to be back in her own stall when the journey at last ended and as sleep took her, she decided that she would take the next few days as they came and wait until she was quite sure she could live without slavery before she did anything drastic.

As events unfolded however, she was denied that luxury. The slaves were allowed two whole days to recover. Tara’s groom worked tirelessly at anointing and treating her cuts and bruises. They were even allowed to sit out and enjoy the sun with the only exercise coming in the form of being taken by the guards whenever it took their fancy. The unaccustomed idleness lulled Tara somewhat but still she debated endlessly about what she should do.

In the small hours of the third night after their return she was shaken awake by someone. A figure loomed over her and she caught the scent of perfume, she sat up quickly and the figure crouched down beside her.

“Ssh! Don’t wake anyone, I’ve come to help you.” The Scots accent identified the strange copper-haired woman who had so often regarded her with open hostility.

“I saw how you looked at Conor back at that other arena. You’re right to hate him, he’s dangerous,” the woman went on in a whisper. “It’s too late for me, but you can escape before they make you so completely submissive you don’t know who you used to be.”

To Tara’s amazement the woman leaned still closer and unpadlocked the chain from her collar. “I’ve got you some clothes and I’ll tell you which direction to run in,” she went on.

Tara’s thoughts whirled. This was going too fast, she didn’t know what she wanted any more. But surely it would be insane not to escape from this outrageous way of life if the chance presented itself. The woman settled the issue as if reading Tara’s thoughts. She knelt back and unbuttoned the shirt she wore, turning slightly towards the small amount of light that came through the open stable door. Tara could make out the traces of a truly savage breast beating. The woman’s big soft globes were striated with fans of dark lines which Tara knew would be livid in the daylight. The nipples showed signs of where they had been clamped and probably pierced as well, Tara guessed.

“It was Conor,” she said. “My master gave me to him after the show. I hate the man but I came like a bitch on heat while he beat me. You know how it is. Go, while you can.”

Tara knew perfectly well now how it would go. Conor would send for her one night, mistreat her terribly and she would glory in the treatment even as she hated him. She had to go; the woman was right.

There was a simple, short denim skirt and a plain blouse. Both garments felt oddly harsh and constricting, even though they were much softer than the leather she wore in the arena. The skirt was tight across her long thighs, it barely came half way down them. The blouse strained over her breasts, but at least it would give her some cover for wherever she was going. Then, in silence the woman helped her unbuckle her collar and restraints, smiling sympathetically as she saw Tara’s involuntary reluctance to leave behind the symbols of her slavery, then she beckoned her out into the night.

Tara felt almost light headed with the elation of freedom as she tiptoed after her new friend. They rounded the stable block and crossed the deserted training ground, passed between the barracks and went out into the open ground which swept up to the pass between the mountains that Tara had noted on her very first day.

“Make for that pass,” the woman whispered once more. “Once you’re over it, you’ll see a small village about five miles away. Go round that - they know what goes on here and most are involved. Follow the road, by night if you can, for another twenty miles and you’ll find a town where you should be able to get help.”

Tara tried to speak, to thank this mysterious benefactor who she was leaving behind. But the long-ingrained habit of silence prevented her. The woman smiled again sympathetically and touched Tara’s shoulder, gently guiding her towards freedom.

She ran.

Patti Campbell stood for a moment and watched the slave’s white blouse and her long legs fade into the night. She would wait a few minutes before raising the alarm, she didn’t want the silly cow caught too quickly.

Once she judged the time to be right, she made her way to the guards’ barracks and woke them, making up a story about having been sent to fetch Blondie by the boss and finding her gone. It didn’t matter what she told them, she herself would be long gone before Mark or Conor found out the truth.

She skirted round the house, climbed into one of the jeeps and made for the airfield, where a bribed pilot, who she had put on stand-by earlier that night, was waiting to fly her out by helicopter. The three copters stood in a row at the far end of the field and in the second one along she saw the silhouette of a man. Her heart leaped; she was really going to do it! It had been so easy in the end, now all she had to do was set herself up somewhere far away and find a new master. Mark could play with Blondie all he liked from now on; once he had caught her.

She climbed into the cabin eagerly, turned to slam the door and when she settled back, a forearm as hard as steel pinned her to her place.

“’Evening Patti,” Ali said, leaning across from the pilot’s seat. “You’re wondering where Bob is I expect. Well let’s say I topped your bribe and now it’s me who’s going to fly you out of here. But where to? That’s the question isn’t it?” He chuckled. “I think you’re going to like it Patti....eventually. And I’m going to like the price you’re fetching.”

She twisted her head and looked at him in dismay. “No, please Ali. Don’t sell me.....I’ll do anything!”

“I know. And you do it very well. In fact if I wasn’t in a hurry, I’d have you on your knees right now and your pretty mouth round.........”

“Yes, I’ll do it Ali. Let me suck you and then let me go!” she pleaded.

“No chance. It’s too late anyhow. You want to face your master and Conor after letting Blondie escape? And don’t worry, you’ll be thanking me for this in a few months’ time.”

With his other hand he produced a pair of handcuffs. Patti struggled as best she could but he was wiry and very strong. Soon her hands were cuffed together in front of her and a leather strap bound round her waist and tied at the back, kept her pinned in the seat. Binding her must have reminded Ali of some of the sessions he had had with her in the past, because before he went into the pre-flight checks, he opened her shirt and stroked her freshly whipped breasts until she couldn’t help giving a despairing groan of pleasure.

With only one brief halt where they changed to a light aircraft at a small airfield where Ali was obviously known as no one made any comment about his carrying a bound female passenger, they flew for hour after hour. And eventually, in broad daylight they were flying low over what had to be English countryside and eventually landed in a field by a huge Victorian house and two large men came to greet them.

“Welcome to your new home Patti,” Ali announced. “You are now the property of one of Europe’s top SM palaces.” He favoured her with his grin again. “The boss would’ve been so mad with you that he’d have sold what was left of you to a Marseilles stew. This way, you’ll get all the slavery you can handle and fetch the kind of price a woman like you
should
fetch.”

A few minutes later, Patti Campbell discovered she was now a Housegirl at The Lodge, the most discreet and expensive gentleman’s club in England. She stood in an opulently furnished office before a man called Mr Carpenter. Beside him stood Ali and an odd man in an absurdly brocaded waistcoat who was called only Dandy. In front and to the left of the huge leather desk, in a regency chair, sat a tall Russian woman who she had been told to call simply Madame. Patti’s arms were being held by the two immensely strong and silent men who had escorted them to this room - and she was naked.

A cheque passed from Carpenter to Ali who nodded amiably at her and then left, saying to the other men that he would make his peace with his current bosses by pointing out that in spiriting Patti away he had at least realised some useful money for her. If they had had their way she would have been worthless. “Of course, I won’t go into the full details of how much I got for her,” he told them, his teeth gleaming whitely as he smiled. “And just in case I do have to leave in a hurry, keep the money coming and I’ll tell you where the sales are.”

Treachery piled on deceit, Patti thought and realised that she was completely out of her depth with men like these. She raised her head with what pride she could muster and prepared for whatever her future now held.

The Russian woman rose and walked around her, Patti felt cool, strong fingers stroke over the weals on her back and buttocks. Then she came and stood in front of her, hefting and weighing her breasts, letting her thumbs slide over the nipples which hardened and revealed the traces of the needle play Conor had gone in for. The woman’s lips tightened as she saw them.

“Yuri, Ivan. Take her to the desk and lay her out on it. Legs splayed,” she ordered.

Once Patti was positioned, spreading her own legs without being forced, she was examined with almost medical thoroughness. The Russian woman bent down over her sex and pulled her labia apart. And Patti knew she would see where she had been pierced and weighted until she had been unable to stand, despite Conor’s whip playing ceaselessly over her body. She felt fingers open her and work their way inside.

“Grip me,” the woman told her and she clenched her interior muscles as hard as she could. The woman nodded and withdrew her fingers. “Hold her legs up,” she told the two men who currently held her shoulders.

Patti knew what was coming and sure enough as soon as her knees had been forced back to her breasts, she felt those same calmly assessing hands spreading her buttocks as wide as possible and then one, two and finally three fingers worked themselves into her anus.

“Grip and relax,” she was told and obeyed as the fingers pushed into her and then pulled back a little. Patti concentrated on relaxing as the fingers pushed in and then gripping as they retreated. She knew what men liked when they used that passage. A slave’s rectum should be as welcoming as her mouth and vagina.

“Good,” the woman pulled out and straightened up. “There is not much she hasn’t experienced, but she is tough and has good muscle tone. She’ll do, and she’s certainly pretty enough.” Unexpectedly the woman smiled down at her and Patti couldn’t help but smile back. There was a magnetism about the woman, she was as domineering as any man but instinct told Patti that she was infinitely more knowledgeable - and cruel.

“I suggest you fuck her a few times, gentlemen, to signify her arrival here. Then have her put in a holding cell for a week while I tend to her cuts. Then I’ll start training her.” She swept out with no further comment.

Patti’s legs were put down and she was pulled along until they hung off the end and the edge of the desk cut into her buttocks.

“You first Dandy,” the man called Carpenter said. “Then me, and after that Yuri and Ivan can take turns till she can’t screw any more.”

Patti felt the welcome warmth of arousal spiral down from her nipples and earth itself deep in her stomach. The casual crudeness with which her body was being disposed of was comfortingly familiar. This was what she wanted, the attentions of dominant, harsh men. And as the man called Dandy freed an impressive erection from his trousers and took his place between her legs, Patti abandoned herself back into a life of submission. It was where she belonged after all. The first shove from Dandy found her moist and open and she groaned as he pushed into her to the hilt, then she wrapped her legs around him; determined to show she was worth her cost.

Chapter 9

Tara sat, her knees drawn up so that her breasts were squeezed against her thighs, her arms folded across her kneecaps. She had been betrayed again. She was at the summit of the pass and in the moonlight could survey the land ahead. The copper-haired woman had lied; there was no village, no road to a town. Ahead of her the land fell away in a series of gently undulating hills until it met the sea. She was on an island. She had turned in a full circle when she first reached the summit and everywhere she looked the sea surrounded her.

For the first few minutes after she had made this discovery, dismay, shock, bewilderment and rage had sent her thoughts into a hopeless whirl. But now she was beginning to think clearly again. There was no point in harbouring thoughts of revenge on the woman, she just had to deal with the reality of her present plight. And what it all boiled down to was that she loved being
wha
t she was; but as long as Conor Brien was her real owner, she didn’t want to be
where
she was.

Time passed and the pre-dawn breeze began to play in her hair, teasing strands across her face and making her irritably flick them back. But slowly she began to see a way forwards. It would be a hard and painful road but it would solve her problem. Inevitably it would involve letting Carlo and her owners do their worst with her, she would be tested like never before. But there was no way round it and hadn’t she always enjoyed being tested, always sought out thrills, taken risks? And once she had been brought here she had discovered that it had all been a sublimation of her deepest desire; to be mastered, taken to the farthest limits of pain and pleasure and thrust willy-nilly into ever harder tests and challenges.

Tara stood up. All the self-doubt, shame and fury of the previous days had evaporated, she had a plan now. In the dark she grinned fiercely, Carlo would be leading the search for her by now, and island or no island, she would give him a run for his money. He would expect no less. She set off, running downhill towards the dawn of a new day.

In the grey light of early morning, she avoided two patrols of mounted guards by hiding behind the low scrub which was all the harsh landscape offered in the way of cover. But the ground was hard and she knew she was leaving little in the way of footprints. By the time the sun was fully up, she had reached the sea. It was as far as she could go, so she sat on some rocks and waited to be found. After an hour or so, she saw a horse trot round a headland away to her right and come towards her along the beach. She held her breath and hoped the rider wasn’t Conor or the man she had thought, until so recently, was her owner. She was in no doubt that she would have to face them sooner or later, but she would rather it was later. Her plan would need all her courage and resolution; maybe if it was Carlo who found her, his initial, inevitable punishment would prepare her for the worse ones which would surely come. Between gladiator and trainer there was a bond. A cruel one, but a very real one.

Tara breathed out in relief as the figure on the horse came into focus; it was Carlo’s squat, muscular physique. She stood up and climbed down from where she had been sitting as he approached. He dismounted and they faced each other.

“Knew you’d make it this far, Blondie,” he said. “But I put the others to covering inland just in case.” He shook his head in puzzlement. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you let that bitch set you up? She got clean away and left you to take her punishment. You know as well as I do you love everything I do with you. And now you make me look bad. People will say, ‘That Carlo, he’s too soft on his slaves’ and I’m going to have to prove I’m not. That means I’m going to have to prove it on you, Blondie.”

Tara nodded. She knew full well. And she couldn’t tell him the real reason why she had been so easy to set up.

“Still, you’re one tough girl. That’s the good news. The bad news is you’re going to need to be!” He took a whip from the belt of his shorts and threw it to her. Even caught unawares, her reflexes were fast enough for her to catch it. Almost dispassionately she looked at it. The lashes were thin, plaited leather and were knotted at intervals along each lash. This was going to hurt.

“Go and wash it in the sea. It’ll hurt more and when I lead you back, I want everyone to see that Carlo doesn’t go soft on slaves.”

She paddled out a little way and then squatted to carefully soak each lash in the warm seawater. When she returned to where he and the horse stood and returned the whip to him, she noticed he had hammered four stakes with clips attached, into the sand, and lying between them were her collar and restraints.

“Strip, put those on and then face down, Blondie, arms and legs spread out.”

It was a relief to shed the clothes, and unalloyed pleasure to feel hard leather at her wrists, ankles and neck again. When she was naked and prepared she knelt in front of him. Tara knew well enough that the prohibition on speaking didn’t prevent a slave from being perfectly eloquent with her mouth. She could see the straining bulge in Carlo’s shorts, a thorough flogging with a wetted and salted whip was something to look forward to, and she reached out, slid down the zip and freed his magnificent cock. Then in a combined gesture of repentance and acceptance of her coming punishment she leaned forward and kissed the gleaming dome of the helm. He even allowed her to take him fully into her mouth for a moment or two before he pushed her away.

“We got work to do,” he said simply.

She pressed herself down onto the warm sand, shifting her torso a little to dig a slight depression for her breasts then spread her arms and legs out towards the four stakes. She squinted up at Carlo as he bent to clip each limb to a stake. He had stripped himself and Tara’s already hammering heart accelerated a little more. When the flogging was over, surely he wouldn’t be able to resist taking her.

“This is going to be a long one, Blondie,” he said as he stood over her, and on the sand, Tara saw the shadow of the whip. “I’m going to take it to the blood.”

She bit her lip and tried to ready herself, but screamed at the first lash. The wet leathers smacked down onto her with stunning force. A raging blaze of stinging pain instantly scorched across her shoulders. Another one followed, on precisely the same place. She hadn’t finished her first scream and the second lash drove the remaining breath from her. She lay panting, waiting in terror for the next one. But Carlo gave her a cruel respite. He wanted her good and ready to appreciate every iota of agony.

Swish!

This time she heard the whip coming, just before the wet lashes landed with a damp Splat! Across the shoulders again. She raised her head and howled, pulling at the stakes which tethered her.

Swish!

Again the noise of the approaching starburst of pain. And again she writhed and screamed. Dimly she realised that although Carlo had punished her many times in the past, he must never until now, have used the full strength of which he was capable. It wasn’t just that the lashes were stiffened by the water, they were being used at full force.

Swish! Again that wicked hiss before the explosion.

Tara’s whole world shrank to just one thing as the lashes fell relentlessly. She was being beaten at full strength at last. In her pain-fogged brain she could envisage the naked man standing over the vulnerable form before him and leaning his total power into each lash. In her mind she pictured the way her body was jumping and twisting at its bonds as each impact registered. It was unbearably erotic to her. And slowly, slowly; even the intense agony of each stroke of this, the most testing flogging of her life, began to spiral her towards the void. The darkness which would be ripped apart by the most brain-splintering orgasms she had ever experienced.

When the first one hit, she was vaguely aware of humping her pelvis frantically against the sand and pulling at her wrist shackles while the whip continued to scald her middle back. After that she was given a rest and when her vision cleared she craned her head up and squinted over her shoulder, then collapsed again with a groan. Carlo was crouched at the shore and soaking the leathers again.

“You ready for more?” he said, when she felt his shadow fall across her. She nodded and gripped her hands into fists around the chains which held her.

Swish!

Crack! Freshly soaked, the leathers bit in with renewed venom and Tara set off on another journey into the heart of tormented ecstasy. Burst after burst of pain flashed behind her eyelids as she writhed under her trainer’s merciless whip, until at last she climaxed again and shrieked till her throat hurt.

Again she was rested and again Carlo freshened up the whip. Then he set about her buttocks. The lashes seemed to bite right into the softer flesh there and she thought she might bleed instantly. The very thought of it sent her spiralling upwards again. But her voice failed her at the next climax and all that escaped her were hoarse croaks as the world inside her head dissolved. She was forced to two more orgasms before finally Carlo bent over her and freed her wrists.

“It’s done,” he said simply. “But you’ve got a lot more coming like that. Get used to it.”

As her head cleared, she realised that her entire back and bottom were on fire. It was as if she were still being beaten, in fact the pain was going deeper and deeper into her. The salt she realised, it was burning wherever the skin had split.

“Get up onto your knees and forearms,” Carlo ordered from above her. Groaning at the fires which increased even more when she tried to move, she slowly obeyed. She rested the top of her head on the sand, looking down the length of her body between her wide spread thighs and sighed in relief. Carlo was kneeling behind her. At the heart of the furnace which was still engulfing her was an incessant ache, a yearning emptiness in her sex.

She watched as he reversed his grip on the whip and the handle was presented to her vulva. She wriggled her hips as she watched and felt it touch her lips, encouraging it to shoulder them apart and bring relief to her flooding vagina. Carlo pushed and she groaned in delight as she felt herself filled. He thrust until she was stuffed to the very neck of her womb and then he moved it in and out until she was pushing back urgently and rotating her hips. Then he let it go and instead gripped his straining erection and shuffling closer to her began to push at her anus. Impatiently she humped her back, trying to get the best angle for him and soon he was tightly encased in her back passage and her septum was being exquisitely manipulated by the shafts inside her.

“Reach down and fuck with the whip,” he told her, his voice thick with excitement. Aware of what a picture of abject, passionate and thoroughly flogged slavery she was presenting, Tara rammed the whip into herself while Carlo shoved even deeper into her tighter passage and in a few seconds she was locked into the final convulsions which presaged a climax so complete that she passed out even as Carlo pumped himself into her with a roar of pleasure.