Pantsing and Stripping Forums

Chapter One

The sore, remorselessly chastised and weary servant girl raised herself wearily up to peer longingly, and for the thousandth time, out of the window of her tiny room. She needed to stand right up on the very most extreme tips of those cold, bare, roughened, work-hardened toes, to be able see out of that narrow, high up aperture. The much belaboured Girl gazed longingly and wistfully down once again at the quintessentially English countryside, spread entrancingly out in the darkness below the grim old castle in which she had worked so hard and where she had endured beatings and insults every long miserable day for such an unbearably long time now. ‘How long had it been,’ she asked herself. As if this splendid girl needed to ask herself such a silly question, on this day, of all days!

‘Somewhat too long,’ thought the Girl. That was for certain, for certain bloody sure! As the suffering Girl gazed out of her window, she knew, with a burning and feverish excitement, that she had by this time endured exactly a year’s slavery in this grim old fortress! She was a Slave and addressed as such by the Mistress and the other servants. And to think that this was well into the second half of the Twentieth Century! Things like this, the wanton abuse of the innocent, were surely a thing of the past!

It was surely impossible that a modern world could allow slavery! But even in the modern world, dark forces were at work.

She knew, of course, that there was a noble purpose in all her suffering and this purpose was all that had kept her going during all this horror. The Girl had spent almost a year as a drudge: an ever-naked slave. For all this time she’d been forced to endure the lusting, contemptuous and cruelly mocking stares of so many unkind people as she worked every day until she was ready to drop from exhaustion, never getting a word of thanks, only curses and beatings. Her last and most terrible beating had had marked her young body in the most ghastly fashion, possibly for the rest of her life.

After surveying the scene below, with the twinkling lights of many a humble, happy dwelling shining up at her to remind her of a normal world where sweet young girls did not endure cruel and constant abuse, she left the window and lay face down on her hard bed and tried to get some sleep. She would have to be up and about all too soon. Ahead of her was her last day of drudgery in this place.

And finally there was tomorrow at the stroke of midnight -- the vital moment of the vital day. The great hour that all her misery had been leading up to. She must be ready for that. She WOULD be ready. When had she ever failed in anything she set her heart on? Never, and certainly not in this. She smiled and felt the inner peace of one who has run a hard race and fought a worthy fight. Tomorrow could not come a second too soon and she was good and ready for it!

It was Mrs. Bottomley who’d started the whole thing. She, on one of her tiresome impulses, had set the ball rolling, so to speak. Without Mrs. Bottomley it is entirely possible this story would never have been written; certainly it would not have been written in its present form. How an ordinary middle-aged woman, albeit a rather nagging and tiresome middle-aged woman with a very much fuller figure and a lot more wrinkles than she had possessed twenty years previously, could have set in train the remarkable series of events I am about to outline is something you will be able to see for yourselves.

One Spring day, several years ago, Mrs. Bottomley was being driven by her husband through the pleasant county of Hereford. The chauffeur had been given a few days off and Mr. Fred Bottomley, a plain and homely man, was happily reliving the simple joys of motoring that had been taken away from him by his status-conscious wife. Mrs. B had insisted that her husband employ a uniformed driver, a Chauffeur, now that her husband’s business was doing so marvelously well. As the worthy Frederick J Bottomley guided the Rolls along the winding lanes, the afternoon peace was shattered by a sudden shriek from his stout and over indulged lady.

"Fred! Just look at that divine castle up there. How utterly romantic! Have you ever seen such a magnificent place in all your life? And what a fantastic view they must have from such a dizzy height! That’s why it was built there, I suppose, to control the countryside below. The defenders would be able to see an attacking army from miles and miles away. Let’s try to get up there and have a look! Oh how I would LOVE to live in a fabulous location like that! I wonder if it’s for sale? You could easily afford a place like that, Fred my love, now that you have done so well!"

Mr. Bottomley drove into the side of the road and stopped the car. He was used to his wife’s sudden effusions by now. Together, the pair gazed up at the afore-mentioned fastness, perched dizzily on top of an escarpment and overlooking the wooded valleys and gently rolling plains below. It most certainly did occupy a most dramatic position. In whatever far-gone time that this fortress had first been constructed, it must have been an impregnable bastion, dominating the surrounding area for miles around, as his dear wife had said.

A more imaginative man than the wealthy, hard-headed nouveau riche, self made multi-millionaire Fred Bottomley might have speculated a little concerning the all encompassing aura of fear that must once have emanated from that place, dominating the humble peasantry of an earlier age and reminding them constantly of their irrevocably inferior status, owing eternal fealty to their dread liege lord. All Fred Bottomley could say, though, was, "Make a good site for one of those Vampire pictures! You know, the kind Hammer used to make a few years back. I can just imagine Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing and Co. up there!"

Knowing that Dorothy would not rest until she had seen the place at close quarters, he drove up the steep series of roads and lanes until they were finally at the castle gates. They looked through the massive wrought iron gates, old and uncared for, with peeling paint and rusted ironwork. The drive leading up to the building was unweeded and overgrown. Trees shielded the main building from view and Mrs. B’s face sank with disappointment. Fred shivered, despite the fact that it was a warm day.

Something about the place did not appeal to him, coarse and insensitive fellow though he usually was. He knew little and cared less about "atmosphere" but this time he felt a "presence". The place was full of something that he knew to be menacing and hostile to him and even more so to his darling wife.

Dorothy, though, was more enraptured by the whole concept of living in such a home than ever. Having satisfied themselves that it was impossible to get inside the grounds to inspect the building, they made for the nearest town and called in at the local estate agents.

The sole member of staff on duty that day was very helpful. It had not been a busy day and the chance of a sale and its attendant commission perked him up as soon as the couple entered. He was a slim and vibrant young man with a toothbrush moustache, receding chin and a very sharp suit.

"Fortescue Castle? Yes, it’s been empty for a couple of years, now. The last tenants went back to America. They were only over here for a short while. Used it for a weekend retreat. I know for a fact that the owner has no wish to live there himself. I don’t doubt he’d be happy to sell if the price were right. I’ll contact him and get back to you if you would like."

Dorothy would very much like and it was agreed that the owner would be contacted. The couple went back to London and to their large house in Bishop’s Avenue. Fred was a little disturbed that his wife’s impulsiveness had got them this far, but was still very hopeful that the sale would fall through. The idea of spending any time at all in that forbidding pile was becoming more displeasing to him by the minute. He forgot all about it as he returned to work. Managing that still growing chain of supermarkets that had originated only thirty years ago as a dingy shop in Shoreditch was a full time job. Alas, a fateful series of events was already well in train, unknown to him and his wife.

It was two weeks after their little trip in the country that the phone rang. It was a Mr. Walter B Hanspacker, who, it seemed, was the present owner of Fortescue Castle. An appointment was arranged for later in the week at the Savoy Grill.

Over an unaccustomedly generous lunch (Mrs. Bottomley did by far the better part of the eating in this marriage), Mr. Hanspacker, who, judging from his accent hailed from somewhere in the American Southwest, explained his feelings about the castle.

"I won’t fool around, Fred. I can’t stand the place. Never could. Gives me the screaming willies. I rented it to some business associates for a couple of years and they loved it, simply loved it, and you can check with them if you like. But as for me I won’t go within miles of it! Worst investment I ever made!"

Fred indicated that he personally had no more inclination to live there than the present owner. He hastened to explain why he was nevertheless still interested.

"The thing is, the wife was really taken with the place. I won’t get a minute’s peace unless I take her to see it. I hope very much she won’t want to buy it, but if she does..."
Mr. Hanspacker sighed and raised his eyes emotionally to the ceiling.

"I know the situation, my friend! My own late darling lady wife, God rest her soul, would always have her way. I would work eighteen hours a day seven days a week every single god dam day of the year and every last cent of the money I made she would spend on all manner of mad stupid nonsense. I miss the dear lady very much even now after five years, but I am beginning to realize that freedom does have its compensations! And she was a terrible cook, too!"

"Why did you leave the States to come here?" asked the interested and sympathetic Fred.

"Got sweet Damn all to do with the delights of your God awful country!" he replied with alarming candor. "Problems with the IRS. Very unpleasant attitude to wealth creation, those parasitic bastards."

"Same with our Board of Inland Revenue," sighed a regretful Mr. Bottomley. "I employ an army of accountants and still those bloodsucking Jacks-in-Office can’t be kept at bay! And to think that it‘s people like us that create the money that pays their salaries! There’s no justice; none at all! And what little of my hard won income Her Majesty‘s Inspector of Taxes allows me to keep, my bloody wife wants me to shell out on purchasing some awful heap of a crumbling and most likely haunted castle in the back of bloody beyond! Let‘s have another brandy. I need it, even if you don‘t."

And so it came to pass that the three of them, Mr. Hanspacker and the two Bottomleys drove down to the ancient and picturesque rural borough of Great Spalding by the Stour and met up with that sleekest of sleek estate agents Mr. Ivor C. Richards. Soon, they all found themselves inspecting the castle.

Alas, for the poor long-suffering Fred, a closer inspection of this venerable pile only served to increase Mrs. Bottomley’s infatuation with it. Every new room and each new vista from the battlements over the surrounding countryside only served to inflame her passion and increase her determination to spend as much as need be of her long-suffering husband’s money in order to acquire Fortescue Castle. Poor old Fred knew with an ever-sinking heart that the battle was lost and that he would know no peace until his wife’s latest fad was appeased!

Chapter Two

Greed was in the heart of one, relief in that of another, and a nameless foreboding in that of poor Mr. Bottomley and joy unconfined in that of the infatuated Dorothy as the purchase was agreed.

We’d like to complete the transaction as soon as possible, said that long-suffering tycoon, Mr. Fred Bottomley, as his wife scurried off on her continuing tour of inspection, uttering frenzied whoops of amazed delight at all-too frequent intervals. "As you can see, the little woman’s really taken with the place!"

"Not such a little woman!" Mr. Hanspacker thought somewhat wryly, although he was far too much of a gentleman to give voice to such an uncharitable opinion, no matter how emphatically it might be justified!

Well, I wish the pair of you joy in the old place! He paused and then continued. I don’t want to find myself told at some future point that I have sold you a pig in a poke. I must issue a bit of a caveat."

A few seconds passed. Mr. Hanspacker seemed to be choosing his words carefully, as of one whom that most unwelcome of imports from the USA, the ambulance chasing Compensation Culture, had already burnt severely.

"There are people in the town who say, very sincerely and fearfully, that this place is haunted by the shade of the Eleventh Earl, whose financial ruin over one hundred years ago caused the castle to be sold not too long after his death to pay off his enormous and gambling related debts. They also say there is a curse on all who presume to lord it over his ancestral home; that he will pursue such people without mercy and with appalling fury up to and even beyond the grave. Not only that, but one day the family will return to claim their inheritance to the utter ruin of any usurper. Fat chance of that!"

"Fat chance?" asked Fred, interested at this.

Yeah. Not the ghost of a chance. "

Mr. Hanpacker laughed, his chubby rubicund face creased with smiles, "The present Earl has a cottage on the edge of the Castle grounds. It’s all that remains of his family’s once mighty landholdings, but I don’t think he’s around these parts a lot -- not since his father died and he inherited what little was left of the family fortune. I can’t say I’ve ever set eyes on him, or any one else I know. He’s some kind of intellectual, apparently. I heard he’s a writer of highly scholastic tomes, the like of which would send you and me to sleep in seconds; and spends most of his time in London hanging out with the literary and intellectual set there. I have an idea he lectures at the University from time to time on some dreary specialised subject or other. Highly respected in his field, whatever that might be! Most unlikely he’d want to come and bury himself here, even if, by some miracle, he could afford to buy the place back!"

Fred Bottomley shook his head and smiled wearily. When he finally spoke, the sad and bitter experience of many years could be seen to have infiltrated his morose tones, giving them a deadening and soul searing hopelessness.

"Ah! But what if the man had a wife, though! Maybe some social climber attracted by his title, or an incurable romantic attracted by the idea of restoring him to his own again. Now SHE, if she set her mind to it, might take it into her head that she wanted to come here and play the role of the great feudal lady. Yes! She might very easily change the poor scholarly old Earl’s mind for him and drag him back to his ancestral home. Wives are very good at getting their own way! I know, I have one of my own, bless her heart!"

Hanspacker laughed in a genial manner. As a relieved widower, he could see in the buyer’s predicament all the arguments he needed to justify keeping a firm hold on the precious freedom which he had so mercifully regained (Not that he didn’t every now again miss and perfunctorily lament the late Mrs. Hanspacker. But not so far as to wish for a replacement. No way!)

"Well, it would need to be a very rich wife that the good Earl found for himself! You know what I’m asking for the place -- it’s hardly peanuts! And even if by some miraculous intervention of one of the holy saints he did raise the necessary, your little lady’s not about to be selling no matter how handsome the offer!"

Fred agreed with a sigh. The ‘little woman’s’ infatuation with this menacing and rambling hilltop eyrie was something he would have to live with, but he wasn’t going to enjoy it, not one little bit! He looked around and shivered again, despite the warmth of a typically English summer’s day. There was definitely some kind of brooding presence about the Castle. He was a down to earth materialist to his fingertips and as un-superstitious as they come, but this place really got to him.

The dear wife came running back to them as they spoke and the ever-obedient Fred leant his well-belaboured ear to be near her moustachioed mouth as it spoke out its latest enthusiasm.

"Oh! Fred!!! There’s this adorable great hall with a parquet floor! Just think about the grand balls that must have been held there in times past! I just want to see that floor shining so that I can see my face in it! At present it’s a rather sorry sight, but a bit of elbow grease will have it sparkling like new in no time! I won’t rest until that day! You WILL agree to buy this heavenly place, won‘t you, my little treasure?"

Both men wilted under the impact of the good lady’s frenetic enthusiasm. There was no way that the poor henpecked Fred, a Captain of Industry and Commerce at work, but a cowering slave at home, could resist his wife. The deal was done, there and then.

Lawyers were instructed and conveyances signed. Money (a lot of money) changed hands. A couple of weeks later, Mrs. Bottomley was able to set about installing herself into her new home, queening it over her new domain. Fed followed meekly in her wake on the initial tour of inspection. He prayed his humble thanks to the Almighty and Omnipotent God that important work would force him to stay in London for most of the time, thus keeping him away from this sinister and menacing white elephant of a home.

It was an absolute categorical imperative that he not come down to this place permanently if he were to continue to run his business properly and pay for his dear wife‘s ever more expensive tastes. To his relief, the lady readily agreed with him on this. She was privately longing to take possession and order the place to her own satisfaction. The weekends would be quite enough for her as far as her husband’s company was concerned!

It was soon apparent that the place was too vast for Mrs. B to be able to maintain by herself; fine, strong and well-built lady though she was. The couple immediately set about hiring a staff of servants to assist in the running of the Castle. It rapidly became clear that no local person was in any way interested in serving under the quasi-obese nouveau rich lady and her inoffensive, browbeaten and somewhat common husband.

Fitch, the former gardener was persuaded to resume his duties after a few years quietly sinking into semi-alcoholic idleness. This worthy gentleman’s reluctance to serve the interloping and portly upstart was finally overcome by the size of the salary he was offered.

"Aaarggh! ‘E don’t turn down pay loike that, me love! And Oi‘ll be working outside away from the old bitch; won‘t see too much of the f*cking cow," were his words to his wife later on in the day after his hiring had been agreed.

All this did not satisfy the good lady’s desire to have menials to order around. As she more and more came to terms with the lordliness of her new home it did not seem right to her that a grand lady should not be surrounded by a large retinue of obsequious lackeys. A cook and a butler were recruited from the nearest city, but it began to become painfully obvious to the good chatelaine that neither of these professionals would be amenable to being pushed around and dominated in the way she increasingly wished for. What she wanted was a poor young servant girl, àla Cinderella, on whom to practice and develop her skills as a harsh taskmistress and tyrannical lady of the manor. It was no longer sufficient for her to dominate Fred.

She wondered how Mr. Jenkins the butler, and Mrs. Huskisson the cook, would react to the presence of a terrorized and eternally overworked young girl in the house. Something about both these worthies told her that she had no need to worry about them. She sensed a cruel streak in both of them.

Weeks passed and no sign of a solution to her problem turned up. She began to take out her frustrations on her husband, who, truth to tell, was well used to this kind of thing by now!

And then it happened. ‘It’ being the meeting that was to transform her life and the lives of several others in all sorts of ways. The good lady was walking back to her car from a tour of the local shops when her ears were assailed by a plaintive "Spare some change please?"

Usually Mrs. Bottomley would ignore such wheedling and unwelcome pleas from the indigent poor, sweeping past with her nose in the air. This time was different. She gazed haughtily at the slight and ill-clad figure squatting on the pavement. "Get yourself a job, you dirty parasite," were her amiable words to the unfortunate destitute on the pavement below her.

"A chance would be a fine thing," replied the young woman beggar in a voice which could have issued forth from the lips of a duchess. "You don’t think I enjoy this life, do you?"

Mrs. Bottomley moved a little closer and immediately regretted it! To say that this young woman was in need of a good wash would be one of the most masterly understatements of all time. She stank in a way the good lady had never known anyone to stink before. Dorothy Bottomley staggered back and applied a scented handkerchief to her nose. As soon as she had managed, with some difficulty, to fight down the nausea, she walked quickly away. When she was far enough along the main street to be mercifully beyond the ambit of the girl’s ultra strong stench, she turned around and shouted, "You should be ashamed, utterly ashamed! A person who sounds well bred and educated as well; how can you live like that? Disgusting!"

She returned home, still feeling somewhat queasy. The foul stink still lingered loathsomely in her nostrils, causing her to feel like gagging each time the memory of it returned.

The filthy young beggar girl watched until Mrs. B was out of sight. Then she rose to her dirty and smelly bare feet. It had most likely been their appalling odor that had upset Mrs. Bottomley, she reflected maliciously. Of all the loathsome smells that she was transmitting to a horrified world, her feet gave out the worst by a very long way!

"She didn’t like it too much when she got a whiff of me that’s for sure! Can‘t say I much blame her!" she chuckled to herself as she proceeded to make off out of the town and over a couple of fields to the disused and tumbledown shed that she had been using as a shelter. She clutched to her firm and shapely young bosom the few items of food and drink that a kindly passer-by had pushed into her hands (hurriedly) before hastening speedily and precipitately onwards, out of range of that horrible pong.

She huddled into a corner, ate the food and drank the bottle of water gratefully. It had been a hard few days for the young woman and she guessed there would be even harder times to come. Before she went to sleep she stuck her disheveled head with its unlovely covering of lice infested hair out of the door and looked out at the old town with its antiquated half timbered houses huddled under the brooding presence of the ancient Castle. She thought of the multitudinous attempts (all unsuccessful) made to storm that fastness in the old days, until the last of its long line of lords died a bankrupt. Only then had the place been lost to the proud and noble family who had occupied it for so long. The girl shivered as she looked up at those towers and battlements, even though it was the middle of July and the evening was as warm as any that of long hot summer. She shivered again and went back inside the hut and slept. As she slept, a fox stole softly into the shed, sniffed the rancid air and left hurriedly, its nose wrinkling in horror.

Chapter Three

"Well, thank Heaven, that filthy creature is no longer begging in the High Street," said Mrs. Bottomley to the grocer’s assistant some two weeks after her meeting with the evil-smelling mendicant.

"’Er be still about these parts. Folk say she be too much afeard to go nowhere’s else. A dark secret lies behind those bright blue eyes of her’n," replied the assistant mysteriously.

Dorothy tried to pursue the subject further but the young man seemed reluctant to say anything else about the young lady. He did, though, offer the further intelligence that the townsfolk were weary of her presence, although afraid for some reason to take any steps to rid themselves of the nuisance.

She left the shop having left her order and went back to the car. On the way up to the castle they overtook the Girl, filthy as ever, striding briskly towards the Castle entrance. Mrs. Bottomley looked out of the window at this revolting apparition and felt sick again, as badly as before. A malodorous whiff of the Girl drifted into the car through the open window as they passed. ‘Horrible,’ thought Mrs. Bottomley.

Something favorable about the young woman did strike her, though. She was obviously very young and very fit. Those supple limbs and very unclean bare feet were positively eating up the distance that separated her from the Castle entrance, despite the flint-strewn roughness of the unmade up road. The Girl, filthy though she was, seemed to radiate energy and was clearly tough as nails.

Once installed in her favorite room overlooking the extensive gardens, now in the early stages of being transformed by the excellent Fitch into the kind of paradise she had dreamed of, the good Mrs. B was about to doze off when she was jolted back into full alertness by the sight of a ragged person appearing on top of the Castle’s outer wall, an impressive structure some fifteen feet high, and leaping nimbly to the ground. How the intruder had not broken a limb was beyond the good Dorothy’s comprehension. She soon recognized the interloper as being none other than the Beggar Girl.

At the same time as she was gripped by a towering rage at this intrusion, something was telling Dorothy that the answer to a problem might just have presented itself to her, albeit in a very unprepossessing form! She dashed out of the castle and ran across to within a few feet of the insolent Girl. She was careful not to get too close, for reasons hitherto explained.

"Just what do you think you are doing, intruding into my home. Get out at once, you stinking piece of filth!"

The Girl said nothing. She merely hung her head, as though full of shame. Actually she was trying to control her laughter and decided this was the best way of hiding her amusement from the keen eye of the nouveau riche chatelaine.

As soon as she felt able to control herself she said, "I have nowhere else to go. The townsfolk hate me and I have enemies in the city. Mine has been a terrible life, although it is partly my fault. I have been young and foolish, falling into the clutches of evil men who will stop at nothing to destroy me. Please give me shelter, Madam, for Mercy’s sake!"

"How do you feel about hard work, my good young woman?" snarled Mrs. Bottomley. "Very hard work! A great deal of backbreaking hard work, sending you to bed dog-tired at the end of every single day? You can stay if you agree to be my slave and work from dawn till dusk with a miserable attic to sleep in for a few hours at night and never a word of thanks, but only blows and curses all the day long. Well! If you don’t agree, then it’s back to the town and the vengeance of these mysterious terrible enemies of yours!"

The poor Girl nodded dumb acquiescence, her head still bowed in seeming humility.

"Good!" snapped Dorothy. "Now get out of those filthy clothes and take them over to that pile of rubbish. We’ll burn them before they infect us all. FITCH!!!"

The old gardener appeared, hurrying despite his advancing years. "Yes, Marm?"

"When this Thing has stripped and taken all its clothes over to the rubbish tip, kindly set fire to them. Then get a hosepipe and hose the dirty object down. Don’t stop until you have removed every last speck of grime from her body. I’ll be back in a little while. Keep the hose on her until I return. Make good and sure every inch of this creature from head to foot is well and truly drenched. Dirty little tramp!"

She stalked back into the house and watched from the window as all the layers of grime were hosed off the young woman. She nodded approvingly as the dutiful gardener directed the young waif to raise each of her feet in turn in order that they might be thoroughly cleansed, the soles as well as the rest of them. She was made to splay all her toes until every interstice had been rendered sweet and wholesome once again. Her hair was plastered to her body and her mouth was opening and closing frantically as she gasped in the brutal deluge.

Dorothy watched fascinated as the powerful jet of water played up and down the body of the new servant. Now that the Girl was no longer covered in filth it was obvious that the young woman was quite amazingly beautiful, with a slim but firm full-breasted body and abundant golden hair. Dorothy remembered the Fairy tale "Rapunzel" as she looked at the, by now, shivering Girl.

Dorothy finally tired at watching her brutal cleansing and wandered out back into the garden. This time she came considerably closer than before. Close enough, in fact to inspect the Girl minutely and handle her as one might a piece of livestock at market. She examined her sodden but lovely long hair and her pubic and underarm hair as well.

"It would be a shame to shave all that off, (My Slave should be decorative as well as useful) but it still looks pretty infested to me. You must stay outside until I make up my mind how to deal with it. Until I let you in the house you can help Fitch with the garden. Lots of digging and tree felling should make you sweat like the pig you are! Get her to work, Fitch and reward any laziness with a few blows from that nice leather belt!"

"What do I get to wear, now that my clothes are burnt, Madam?" asked the Girl nervously. She looked at the gardener’s broad leather belt with its sharp metal studs and felt her stomach churn with a spasm of fear. She knew how he was rumored to treat Mrs. Fitch when in a bad mood or under the influence of the powerful local beer and his favored whisky chasers.

Dorothy Bottomley paused to consider this not unreasonable question. The now naked Girl would need something to protect her body from the night air. Furthermore, the sight of so much uncovered beauty was clearly not good for the elderly Fitch who was already showing that age had yet to affect his physical reactions to the proximity of a nubile sexual goddess. Visitors to the Castle might also look askance at all this well-stacked loveliness, especially some of her husband’s business friends!

Years later she would remember her reply as if the whole scene had taken place only seconds ago. As the rest of her long life went by, she became more and more convinced that she had said what she did at the direction of some higher and stronger Influence. Under this Influence a great drama was being played out.

"You will stay just as you are as long as you are my slave! There will be no more clothes for you; not ever again, neither by day or by night! And now get to work and don‘t even think about stopping until Fitch goes home for his supper!"

She went inside and watched her favorite TV soap, soon losing herself in the banal intricacies of the tacky saga with its oh so predictable plot-lines; coarse and un-lettered woman that she was.

Meanwhile, the Girl took a large heavy spade and began moving huge quantities of soil to a location on the far side of the gardens, out of sight of her new Mistress. Fitch could scarcely believe his good fortune as he watched her working away, firm young breasts wiggling pneumatically up and down, never once losing their perfect firmness and heart-breaking symmetry. The exertion made her body glow with a pink and moist sweetness that set his pulses racing. He compared this female paragon to his wife, whose figure had long ago ceased its efforts to resist the force of gravity, her withered dugs hanging down like two monstrous razor strops and her wrinkled, flabby, obese bottom sagging horribly under its fatty weight.

Each time the Girl straightened up and cast another spade full of soil onto the site of the new rockery he tried to control his superannuated lustfulness as he watched her firmly rounded buttocks shimmer, the dying sun gleaming on the twin sweaty, glowing heavenly protuberances. He decided that he was going to enjoy his job a lot in the weeks and months ahead!

‘I don’t think it’s going to all that nice, being a slave,’ thought the Girl to herself as she felt her shoulders and arms ache with all the shoveling. The sweat was pouring off her by this time and she knew that there were at least four more hours of this before she could relax. Her pert and shapely little bottom tingled in fearful anticipation as she thought what that horrible studded belt would do to it if she showed any signs of slacking and , despite the increasing pain as her muscles cried out in their suffering, she redoubled her efforts. Mr. Fitch looked on with increasing satisfaction.

The time came for him to stop working for the day and he began to adjust himself to the idea of exchanging the presence of this exquisite beauty of a slave for the familiar company of his wife. Never mind! He would stop off for a few drinks on the way and get himself drunk enough to give the old cow a good walloping once he had eaten the excellent meal she always had ready for him. Marriage is by no means entirely bad from a man’s point of view and not all good from a woman’s!

He removed his belt and swung it around a few times, listening to the satisfying swishing it made and laughing to himself at the instinctive wincing of the Girl’s taut young body as the sound reached her ears. He forbore to use it on her for a while and then frowned slightly. Maybe the Girl was beginning to slow up a little. Better be safe than sorry! He brought the heavy belt down on her perfect rear leaving a row of angry scarlet marks where the studs had sunk themselves into the tender flesh. The stinging reminder of her new serfdom was enough to spur the tiring Girl to greater efforts and she was soon plying the spade as fast and vigorously as she when she had started four weary hours before.

"That’s the spirit, my love! Don’t let up now. The Mistress won’t like it if I don’t mark that pretty rump of your’n a few times. I’m only obeying orders like you and the rest of the staff. No hard feelings, EH?" With these kindly words he left a few more marks on the Girl and bade her farewell until the morrow.

There was a good deal more soil to be moved before the task was complete for the day and the Girl carried on working after Fitch had left. By the time dusk made it impossible to continue, she had finished it and sank onto the grass in total exhaustion.

She rubbed her bottom gingerly, feeling the slight indentations left by the elderly but strong Fitch. The old gardener had had plenty of practice over the years, honing his skills on the person of Mrs. Fitch. The Girl’s skin stung at the gentle touch of her fingers and she almost cried out. She lay on her side, so as not to cause her delicate and injured rear more discomfort and was on the point of drifting off to sleep when a kick in her ribs caused her eyes to open.

"On those lazy smelly feet you idle bitch," hissed the voice of her new Mistress. The Girl obeyed quickly. She now had another bruise to add to the ones Fitch had kindly given her.

"Come nearer the house where I can look at you." continued Mrs. Bottomley. She had been a not unkindly woman until meeting the Girl in her filth and dishevelment. A trace of this kindness remained awhile. (It was soon to vanish permanently.)

"I see you were idle and needed a reminder from Mr. Fitch," remarked Dorothy as she looked at the Girl’s sore behind. "You must work hard and never be idle, not even for a second, if you don’t want more of that! We decent hard-working folk are without mercy towards lazy dirty beggar Girls. One day you will thank us and see that it is all for your own good."

Dorothy considered what duties the Girl could be given that would keep her out of the house. An idea came to her.

"In the garage you will find three cars. Clean them all until they are sparkling. I will be there to inspect your work in two hours time. A frightful beating awaits you if I see a speck of dust anywhere!"

The Girl followed her Mistress to the garage and immediately set to work polishing the sleek limousines. Mrs. Bottomley watched for a few minutes as the Girl forced her aching limbs to perform yet more prodigies of effort. She then left her to it.

"I bet you do get another blistering before the night‘s out," the Girl muttered in the general direction of her still throbbing backside. "I’ll do my best to keep you out of trouble, but something tells me it doesn’t much matter how hard I work. You’re in for a lot more of this before you’re through. Poor old bottom! Just like being back at school again!"

Chapter Four

"I think I have the answer," said an excited Mrs. Bottomley to the Girl and Mr. Fitch early next day. The Girl, still totally naked as she was to be for so many long months, stood massaging her sore, scarlet rear. Her pessimistic guess as to the unlikelihood of her work satisfying the Mistress last night had been very much correct, about twenty times and very stingingly correct!

"We will go to your garden shed, Fitch and inspect the contents. I know what this lice-ridden creature needs!"

They all proceeded as directed and Dorothy examined the various containers of pesticides. Finally she uttered a cry of delight.

"Malathion! That’s the stuff! Go and get that tub hanging outside the kitchen, Slave! Bring it over here and RUN. Do you think I’ve all day to be seeing to you, you idle creature?"

As soon as the zinc bath had been brought over to the shed, the panting Girl was directed to fill it with cold water from the free-standing outdoor tap. Dorothy then emptied the contents of the pesticide container into the water and, with a suddenness that took the Girl by surprise, picked her up and dropped that startled armful of naked loveliness into the freezing cold bath. Before the astonished Girl had time to so much as gasp, Mrs. Bottomley’s strong arm had pushed her below the surface, head, hair and all. Only when on the point of expiry did she find herself being allowed up for a deep breath of air and then back under she went!

This horrible procedure was repeated time and again until the poor Girl lost count of the times she was almost drowned. At last, the ruthless Mistress was satisfied.

"That should have done it! But you must now have another hosing down to wash away the chemical before it does you any harm. FITCH!! More hosing! I’ve got some friends round for coffee in a little while, so take her where she can’t be seen. Give her a good few hours solid treatment; let her have it full force again! We don’t want her to come to any harm do we?"

Mrs. Bottomley went inside the Castle and prepared to greet a bevy of ladies from the more well-to-do houses in the vicinity. She was so happy to be getting into the good books of local Society! As she went, she adjusted herself into proper genteel mode, and the flush of exertion after her cleansing and delousing of the Girl faded, to be replaced by a seemly and ladylike pallor.

The Girl, meanwhile, was marched around to the other side of the Castle and told to stand facing the delighted Fitch. He attached the hose to the standpipe and turned it full on, directing the jet straight at her middle, aiming straight for that sweet little navel. The Girl gasped as the jet hit her full in the stomach. She folded up in agony. It was like being kicked in the gut by a mule. She heard the gardener laugh and tell her to straighten up smartish if she knew what was good for her and that sweet little bottom of hers.

Since she kept staggering, no matter how hard she tried not to, under the impact of the powerful jet, the gardener reluctantly reduced the pressure somewhat. She relaxed a little and felt the water in her face and the stinging in her eyes from the powerful chemical began to go away. Although she had kept them tightly closed when under the water, the horrible stuff had still got into them and given her agonies.

She knew that it was useless to protest or ask for the man to stop. He had his orders and was clearly enjoying obeying them to the letter. She concentrated on trying to control her convulsive shivering as the dousing went remorselessly on and on and on, the jet moving steadily up and down her body. She was directed to turn around from time to time so that her back might get its share and Mr. Fitch have a sight of her bruised, battered, but still firm and shapely rump. The gardener began to feel his hand itch as it lusted to fold itself around those succulent mounds!

"How are you coping with the servant problem, Dorothy" asked Mrs. Merridew, the Rector’s wife as she munched greedily on one of Dorothy’s Garibaldi biscuits .

"Quaite setisfactorily, thenks," Dorothy replied, trying without too much success to ape the diction of her betters.

"I have an excellent cook and a splendid butler and the garden is looking more lovely by the day under the hand of good old Fitch. Also, I have decided to give work to that filthy beggar girl. One has one’s duty to the less fortunate, does one not, to give them a helping hand?"

There was a murmur of approval from the assembled ladies.

"I hope you have got her out of those stinking rags and given her a good clean down," offered Miss Parradine, the Chief Librarian and County Archivist.

"Oh, yes! Those revolting stinking clothes have been burnt and I got Fitch to hose her down. She spent the night sleeping on the lawn. I completed her cleansing with a severe and thorough de-lousing earlier on today and Fitch is giving her the final touches; a splendid old fellow, that!"

"Can we see this amazing transformation, Mrs. Bottomley?" asked Miss Hardiman, a Magistrate and a very Great Lady indeed, in every sense of the word!

Dorothy hesitated. She gulped nervously and shuffled her feet uneasily. Finally she found her voice.

"Er, well. I haven’t actually got any clothes for her, as yet and I won‘t as long as she works for me. She is as naked as the day she was born. I can’t explain why, but I feel it is just punishment for allowing her clothes to become so foul. She must learn to keep her body clean and suffer the indignity of its being open to the gaze of others, no matter how great her shame. She must be made to ponder, at great length, the error of her ways before she wears clothes again."

The shocked silence among the good ladies was palpable. Then Miss Berriman, a retired headmistress nodded her gray head sagely, a gleam on her hatchet-like features that any of her former pupils would have recognized with renewed fear, even many years after leaving school!

"Good for you, Dorothy! Cleanliness is next to godliness. You have to be cruel to be kind."

At this, the rest of the ladies indicated their concurrence. Like their hostess, they were to spend many years wondering how they ever were so possessed as to come to go along with such appalling mistreatment of a poor young woman, but they also were being moved by forces beyond their control and the fate of the Girl was sealed. There was to be nobody who would lift a finger to help her or interfere in Mrs. Bottomley’s increasingly cruel tyranny in the months ahead.

"We should finish our coffee first, ladies" said Dorothy. "Let Fitch give her a good solid clean down first. I put her in a strong chemical bath and she must have every trace washed off her or she will suffer in years to come."

She knew this to be nonsense as did her friends. They chatted away , sipped their coffee and nibbled their biscuits. Each knew as they conversed in genteel amiability, that a naked girl was being hosed down with icy cold water by an elderly and rather unpleasant man for no better reason than to humiliate her.

"I’m so glad that awful person will no longer be hanging about the town," said Mrs. Grimes-Fortescue, a lady of independent means who had kept silent thus far. "It was giving the place a terrible name. We get a fair amount of tourists passing through and patronizing the town hostelries during the summer months, but there was a real dropping off of trade while she was there squatting in the High Street outside the Old Market House. You really are a wonder, reforming her and keeping her away from the town. There was something so threatening about her, somehow."

The rest of the company murmured in agreement. No one had had the nerve to have the Girl moved on. There had been something about her, not just the off-putting smell, that had caused all to give her a wide berth, even giving her sufficient to eat and drink from time to time and allowing her to occupy old Mrs. Miniver’s shed.

Finally, Mrs. Bottomley suggested that they make their way to inspect Mr. Fitch’s handiwork and an eager gaggle of ladies were soon gathered round to see the continuing cleansing of the by now shivering and blue with cold Girl.

"How long has Fitch been giving the finishing touches, Dorothy?" asked Mrs. Merridew.

"Oh, about three hours, I suppose," replied Dorothy. "I think she should be just about done by now. She‘s beginning to look terrible."

"There can be no lasting good without pain, and plenty of it," asserted the former headmistress, her eyes gleaming as she watched the freezing water coursing down the Girl’s trembling, shuddering, but still lovely body. "Turn around, Girl! Let’s see the rest of you!"

Mrs. Bottomley nodded and the Girl obediently complied, feeling a dozen pairs of cold and curious eyes sizing up her nakedness and boring right into her. Despite the cold, she felt her face grow hot with shame as she was closely inspected by a group of middle aged to elderly ladies, none of whom had ever possessed a fraction her beauty and had long ago well and truly lost what little charm they once had.

"What have I let myself in for?" she thought despairingly, her courage almost deserting her. Then she pulled herself together again.

"Have you inspected her orifices, Dorothy?" asked the Magistrate. "I think you should, you know. I could assist you. I know what to look for. We MUST make sure she is free from infection if she is to enter this grand old Castle."

Unknown to the ladies, the efficient Fitch had already made the poor Girl spread her legs and anal cheeks in order to direct the water into those afore-mentioned secret places, but he was not about to admit to this and the Girl was too scared to say. She could guess what he would do to her if she did!

"Let her have another couple of hours and we can come back and finish checking on her," said Dorothy. "It is unpleasant for her, but she must be thoroughly decontaminated. I would never forgive myself if any harm came to her as a result of my negligence."

"You are being SO good to her -- I only hope she is grateful and aware that such kindness is more than she deserves," said one of the other ladies. The rest agreed enthusiastically. This morning really had been a great success for Dorothy!

The Girl sighed with relief as the ladies departed for a while. She returned to her futile efforts to stop shivering. Hot tears joined the cold water and flowed down her cheeks. This was surely the worst it had gotten since her arrival and agreement to become a slave. She wondered, once again, if she would have the strength to continue.

When Mrs Bottomley and the sadistic Magistrate finally did come back, the hose was switched off and her morning’s soaking was over at last. Their disgusting probing examination was soon over but the Girl’s skin crawled with disgust for hours afterwards.

"All clear, Dorothy!" said the perverted Magistrate after poking and gazing for as long as she felt she could get away with. "And I see your slave is still a virgin! Hardly surprising considering! It would have been a brave man who got anywhere near her, the way she was!"

The Girl smiled secretly as she heard this. If only the old fool knew how many horrible men she had needed to fight off to preserve her precious honour! A desperate man has a strong stomach!

"Well, ladies! I suggest we leave the Girl to her duties. Hard labour is to be her lot and Fitch will supervise her."

"Oh! Can’t we watch her work for a while?" asked the former headmistress. "We need to ensure that Fitch is sufficiently firm. He needs watching as well! You can‘t have her being allowed to become soft! She must be worked hard and given strict correction, hard and often, for the sake of her moral fibre!"

Dorothy agreed. She was beginning to have a healthy regard for this excellent lady. And so the Girl toiled away. At first it was a great relief to feel the warmth return to her body. She had been on the point of succumbing to hypothermia. Her pleasure soon evaporated. Every now and again the loathsome woman would shriek to Dorothy. "See that, my dear? The Girl is slacking, lazy bitch! Belt, Fitch, BELT!"

When the other ladies finally persuaded the ex headmistress to accompany them back to the Castle, the Girl’s bottom, which the hosing had cooled down, was on fire again.

"Don’t ye fret, my dear," muttered Fitch as the ladies disappeared. He had come to pity the Girl by this time and had no more stomach for chastising her. "I won’t ever hit you again! Not unless the old cow tells me to! But I can‘t afford to lose this job; not with the debts my cow of a wife has run up!"

"Thank you, Mr. Fitch," replied the grateful Girl.

The Castle
by Harry

Chapter Five
Mr. Fred Bottomley looked at the Girl and his jaw dropped! He had just returned to the Castle for the weekend. It had been a few weeks since he had last seen his wife. She had told him she had now a full complement of servants, having recently employed a maid of all work.

"What are you doing like that, my dear?" he asked the Girl, who had rounded the corner of the castle walls just as the owner got out of his car.

"I am the Mistress’s naked Slave, Sir," replied the Girl. "I have been sinful and unclean and this is my punishment: to be naked and open to the gaze and ridicule of all who come to this place. Can I help with the luggage, Sir? I am stronger than I look and am used to hard work after a month here!"

Too amazed to say anything, he nodded and the Girl was soon proving the truth of her boast as she lifted two heavy suitcases as if they weighed only a few ounces, carrying them into the Castle, across the drawbridge and into the Great Hall.

"Take them up to the main bedroom, Slave," ordered Mrs. Bottomley as she came out into the hall.

To her husband she said, "I suppose you need to unpack, my love. Keep your hands off the Girl. I know all about Men!"

Fred followed the Girl up the stairs to the main bedchamber, which he shared with his wife whenever he visited the place. He marveled at the succulent motion of her sweet young buttocks and the swaying of her lithe and wiry trunk as she effortlessly sped up the stairs with her heavy burdens. The golden hair still hung down almost to her bottom, delicately brushing the small of her back and those adorable little dimples above the sweetness of her firm and rounded cheeks.

Like the appreciative Fitch a month ago, he felt his hands itch with a burning desire to caress that swelling loveliness. He followed her into the bedchamber and watched as she unpacked his things and hung up all his clothes with a deft expertness that made her seem lovelier to him than ever.

What did you do before you came to work here, my dear?"

The Girl blushed deeply and bent her head in shame before the Mistress’s husband.

"I was a beggar-girl fleeing from bad people who meant me ill. This is a refuge for me and I willingly accept the loss of my clothes and my never-ending routine of hard and back breaking work."

Bottomley blinked at this. This was like no conversation he had ever had in his life. He had never liked this pile of ancient stones and the feeling of menace was getting worse, not better.

"What should I call you, my dear?" he asked in a kindly voice, his hands aching to touch her firm young breasts and equally firm buttocks.

"Oh. I am just ‘Girl’," she answered, "or else ‘Slave’. I prefer ‘Girl’, although I have no right to express any preferences. I should be beaten for that, I suppose. I am beaten most days, you know. I am very unsatisfactory to the Mistress and the other staff."

"Well, you aren’t unsatisfactory to me, my dear Girl." said the infatuated Fred Bottomley. "I would like to help you. I hate to think of you being so dominated by my wife. Please let me help you!"

He had just put his hand affectionately on the Girl’s naked shoulder when his wife’s fury burst upon the pair like a hurricane.

"Take your hand off her this instant, you weakling! And as for you, Slave... as for you!!"

Dorothy quivered with rage, her mouth dribbled saliva down her chin and her eyes were hard and cold as ice. As soon as she had recovered, she spoke to poor Fred, who just did not recognise this fearsome harridan as his own dear wife.

"She tried to seduce you. She is wicked beyond belief, the ungrateful slut. Take that belt you see lying on the bed and beat her soundly to teach her not to repeat her infamy. Go on -- beat her and beat her hard. Don’t stop until I return!"

Mr. Bottomley, with the look of an automaton, did as he was told and raised the belt over the Girl, bringing it down upon her sweet bottom. She felt must be the thousandth time that this horrible object had tormented her. Dorothy went out of the room without a backward glance and stood in the corridor for a while listening to the regular sound of her obedient husband chastising a poor creature he had only minutes before offered to help.

Realising that the Girl still had plenty of work to do before the day was out, and must not have all the strength drained out of her just yet, Dorothy somewhat reluctantly came back before too many blows had landed and ordered Fred to stop.

The Girl slunk out of the room and rubbed her bottom trying thereby to massage some of the pain out of it. Even after all she had endured, the continuing shame was getting no easier to bear and she felt the tears of forming once again and running down her poor lovely face. The doorbell rang and she opened the door to see the grocer’s boy standing there. A whispered conversation took place and the Girl took the heavy parcel of groceries down to the kitchen, where the ugly and ill-favoured couple took it from her and set her to work cleaning up. She worked hard and avoided any more blows that day.

Fred was relieved when, after a telephone call from his office, he was obliged to return to London to deal with a sudden crisis. As he turned around and saw the castle disappear into the distance he felt a surge of relief. The more he saw of that place, the less he liked it. It seemed to have some horrible power over those who lived in it. His wife had always been a tiresome, nagging woman, but the appalling cruelty she was showing to that sweet young thing was something entirely new. He should have put his foot down but instead he had meekly obeyed Dorothy and beaten the Girl himself; hating what he was doing but powerless to disobey.

He tried to put the incident out of his mind. Soon he would be back in a world where he himself was in charge, something he never had been when Dorothy was around. But she had never before had this kind of power over him before -- not to the extent of ordering him to hurt an innocent person.

But was she so innocent? This thought came as a bit of consolation. The Girl could simply walk out of the Castle any time. She would have a thousand chances to do so, and yet she chose to stay and accept the regime that Dorothy was subjecting her to; on her own head be it, then! She was obviously of age and not a simpleton!

He sank back into the comfortable leather seat. Leather! This word dragged his mind back to the belt he had applied with such force to the poor Girl’s behind and his mental discomfort and guilty shame returned. He rubbed his shoulder, which was still sore from the unaccustomed exercise. When he finally did reach his office, he was in an unusually irascible state for one so normally equable.

As he walked from the lift, through light and airy corridors to his light and airy office, the comparative modernity of his company’s HQ acted as a gently therapeutic corrective to his depression and guilt-ridden mental turmoil.

He sat behind his desk and buzzed his Secretary. He was shocked when instead of the middle-aged and comfortable Miss Prosser, a demure although slightly overweight young red head slid mellifluously into the room and smiled radiantly at him. "Sorry, Sir, but Miss Prosser was taken suddenly ill and I have been hired by Mr. Wilkinson to be her temporary stand-in. I have been working here since Thursday and think I can cope."

She handed him the papers relating to the sudden crisis and he waved her away and started to read them. They were all about the Manager of a Store in Manchester who had been dipping his hand pretty liberally in the till for some time now. How such a thing could have been allowed to go on for so long was a bit of a mystery. Obviously people were getting slack. Heads would have to roll! The rest of his day was spent blowing several senior figures out of the water. He might be a spineless husband, but he was a ruthless businessman, and in a couple of days he was satisfied that nothing like this would happen again.

Through all this, Miss Protheroe, the new secretary, was a veritable tower of strength. She was at his side during the entire crisis -- literally so. Fred became accustomed to her firm young breast occasionally brushing against his arm as she leant over his shoulder to go through his correspondence with him. He became very impressed with both her physical charms and her shrewdness and quick-witted intelligence.

After a week, when the crisis was past, he asked her to accompany him to lunch. Amy Protheroe was delighted to accept his offer and they found themselves in the Savoy Grill seated at the same table that he had shared with Mr. Hanspacker all those long weeks ago when the fateful purchase of the Castle had been discussed.

He told her all about the grim pile that his wife had caused him to buy for her enjoyment. Amy’s eyes grew wide with wonder.

"Golly, Sir! It sounds a creepy sort of place. I wonder if there is a castle ghost haunting it?"

"I don’t believe in ghosts," replied Fred, "but if there were such beings, that Castle would be one of the first places you would go to in order to find them! I shan‘t be going down there again for a few weeks. I can‘t really explain, but there are things going on there that I don‘t like."

Amy smiled inwardly. "Well, if you don’t like the place, don’t go there again. Your wife can come up here to see you if she likes. After all, there is that lovely house in Bishop’s Avenue. She might like to spend a little time there for a change and catch up on her London life once in a while."

"In time, Amy. No doubt the novelty of living in a castle will wear off a bit one day."

Amy smiled reassuringly and leant over the table towards him. He had a deliciously tantalizing glimpse of her succulent breasts as they strained to escape from the fragile and diaphanous restraint that she used for a bra. How unlike his own dear Dorothy’s sensible underwear!

"I think you need a bit of light relief after all you’ve been through. Know what I mean, Sir?" She winked at him and grinned. Her fresh and minty breath wafted over the table towards him. What a change from his chronically halitosic wife!

Fred felt his heart beating so fast and hard he wondered if his last hour had come. He gasped and mumbled something about having to get back to work.

As the pair emerged into the Strand, she slipped her arm through his and drew him to her. "I know a lovely family hotel near Victoria, Sir. Very discreet and anonymity guaranteed! Don’t tell me I’m not a lot more desirable than Mrs. B!"

He looked down at her and was unable to disagree. She hailed the taxi and gave directions to the driver. Within minutes they were in a pleasantly appointed room standing next to a luxurious double bed and Amy was slipping out of her clothes with breathtaking speed and efficiency.

As the naked Amy put her arms around his neck and drew him gently towards her, he recollected the words of an old friend many years ago. "Redheads smell a bit, you know, Fred. But you don’t really mind at the time!"

"Come on, Sir! Slip out of those clothes. I can see you keep pretty fit! I’m sure there’s nothing there to be ashamed of! Let me help you, darling!"

Fred did as he was bid and the pair stood regarding each other’s nakedness for the first of what were to be very many times in the coming weeks and months. He compared her to the Girl (the last naked woman he had seen) and sighed to himself. It was as if Amy could read his mind!

"I know, Freddy old bean! I don’t have quite such a firm figure as some; the Girl at the Castle, for instance. But I bet my bum and tits are a sight more fresh and juicy than poor old Dorothy’s!"

"Everything about you is fresh and juicy!" gasped Fred weakly." But how do you know about the Girl?"

Amy reddened slightly.

"Oh, it isn’t easy to keep secrets in a small town, Sir! A friend of mine was visiting relatives near there lately. The Girl is pretty well known in those parts -- as is the way your wife treats her. Don‘t worry! Everyone agrees the wicked, dirty, lazy Girl deserves it, at least the people who count locally; your wife is very popular, Sir!"

The Castle
by Harry

Chapter Six
Several weeks had passed since Fred had made his last visit, when he’d found himself reluctantly but energetically strapping the suffering Girl with the wicked leather belt. He still blushed with the deepest shame at the memory.

Autumn was beginning to set in by now and the Girl was being kept busy by sweeping fallen leaves from the gravel paths and the perfectly manicured lawns. Fitch was constantly behind her to ensure that she did not slack. His sturdy leather belt was always at the ready and the eagle eye of the Mistress was ever on the pair to make sure that the Slave was working and the overseer was being suitably strict in punishing her failures, which were legion in the Mistress’s eyes.

The sharp crack of leather on flesh was a familiar sound by this time about the ancient home. The Girl had become used to the shame and loneliness of it all by now and the tears no longer coursed down her sweet face after a particularly brutal punishment, witnessed by one or more of the Mistress‘s harridan friends. She had always been hard enough on the outside -- she was famous for it! Now her inner self had adjusted as well.

"I hear the Girl is getting it again!" said Mr. Jenkins to Mrs. Huskisson as the sounds came in through the open pantry window to where the two of them were enjoying a welcome glass of sherry.

"She never learns that one. Idle as they come. Make sure she gets some from you, Mrs. Huskisson when she comes to clean out the kitchens later! We mustn’t be soft on that wicked bitch. Remember how she stank out the town when she was begging there? Shocking!"

"I certainly do remember, Mr. Jenkins," replied Matilda Huskisson. "The poor dear Mistress was terribly distressed that day when she was accosted and importuned by the shameless idle wretch. It took me all afternoon to comfort her. Well the Girl’s learning now the hard way that she can’t get away with being a dirty parasite. Never fear, Mr. Jenkins! I know my duty and I am not afraid to do it!"

"God bless you, my dear lady!"

They treated themselves to another glass apiece of their employer’s sherry and went about their separate tasks. Mrs. Huskisson went to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner for the Mistress and a large gathering of guests. She examined the potatoes that the Girl had spent the early hours in peeling. At first, she was afraid there were no traces of peel left on any of them, but the disappointment faded when she discovered the merest trace of peel remaining on one of them. The rest of the vegetables had been prepared perfectly, however and even the vicious Matilda felt, with some regret, that she had no valid excuse to add to the Girl’s sufferings on this occasion. There was always the next day, though. Hope springs eternal. Never give up hope!

Meanwhile, the Girl’s tough as leather backside was smarting after yet another of Fitch’s reluctantly applied beltings. She knew that Mrs. Fitch had to put up with much worse and also that the gardener’s heart was not in it by this time. There were even times that the Girl was inclined to like him. Compared to the others, he was gentleness personified!

The leaves were falling all the time in late September and she had no sooner swept and cleared the paths and lawns when her efforts were rendered useless by another gust of wind leaving her with yet more leaves to be cleared. There were weeks and weeks of this wearisome task still to come! Her heart sank at the thought!

Much of the garden was on a slope, and a pretty steep one at that. Mrs. Bottomley, her Mistress, had decided on the construction of an elaborate series of terraces and the back breaking task of digging them out and moving vast quantities of earth and stones had fallen to the Girl -- who else? She had lost count of the times she had wheeled soil and rocks up that precipitous incline to the accompaniment of curses from the Mistress and blows from Fitch applying spade and shovel, forcing them into the ground with her hardened bare feet.

Privately, the gardener had told her how well she had done and the Girl and Fitch were both of them very pleased, both at their progress and the beauty of what they were achieving together. She wished it all gave her bum less pain, though!

The Girl was inclined to love her outdoor work and every morning when her other duties were over, she was delighted to be in the clean fresh air. Rain or shine, it was all the same to her. To be out of the Castle and away from the awful Mistress and contemptible Jenkins/Huskisson was sheer bliss. The prospect of Winter and the end, for some months, of these happy times filled her with dread.

The worst part of the day was when she was finally allowed to go up to her little room, with its bare stone walls, high narrow window and wooden boards for a bed. No mattress and no blankets had been provided for the poor Girl and she was already finding the nights uncomfortable, sleep eluding her in the chill, despite her utter weariness after a long and grueling day.

To think she that had once, long ago, known comfort! Of course, she had also known similar discomfort as well as the frequent and muscular application of the strap and cane to her bare bottom. Her parents had sent her to a VERY good school, where her behaviour had not always been the best! But, at school she had always had companions in disgrace and misfortune. There was none of this awful loneliness.

At night in the dorm, after some punishment or other, the girls would compare their various bruises and vie with one another as to whose bottom had acquired the most colourful marks! She had invariably been the winner in these unofficial contests, being a wild girl with scant respect for Authority. The memory made her smile as the forced the spade into the ground and dug out more of the terracing.

Late afternoon brought Fitch’s departure.

"See you in the morning, Girl! We’re making progress, you and I!"

"See you, Sir," replied the Girl, blinking back the tears as she saw his familiar figure shuffle away. She resisted the temptation to say, "Give my regards to Mrs. Fitch." That would most likely NOT be a healthy thing to say.

She put all the garden things away in the shed and said farewell to them until the morrow. Then she made her way to the kitchen and Matilda Huskisson. She felt sick with dread.

"Oh! There you are, you lazy cow! It’s not that far from the gardens to the kitchen. Smarten yourself up and get a move on with the cleaning. I want the floors scrubbed. If I see a speck of dust when you’ve finished, you’ll be for it. You know what that means, don’t you?"

"Yes, Madam -- I get beaten again."

"Right! So make a good job of it bitch!"

"Yes, Madam."

With this she got onto her knees and started scrubbing for all she was worth. She never knew what was worse, the scrubbing or the final drying. The Girl knew by now that it made no difference how careful and thorough she was, she would always be judged to have left a spot undone. Occasionally the strict Matilda would be too busy to make a thorough check and she would be safe, but as often as not the end of this task would be followed by more painful contact with leather.

This time she was lucky. There was a banquet this evening and Matilda was rushed off her feet. As soon as the floor was clean, the Girl was drafted to assist with the cooking. She liked this a lot, considering herself a much better cook than Matilda, but not daring to say as much!

She wondered how the canapés would be received by the guests. Sadly, it was unlikely she would ever know how her handiwork had gone down. A naked Girl was not thought to be a fit servant to wait on some very important men. There had been a steady stream of women visitors, anxious to gloat over her misfortunes and add to them after that first day when they had witnessed her dousing with water.

As the time to serve the feast drew near, Jenkins came bustling into the kitchen. He looked critically at the Girl’s shapely arse and saw approvingly that it was red. He gave it a cheery slap.

"I see Mrs. Huskisson has chastised you, as you deserve. Well done Matilda!" he said approvingly.

Matilda was about to say that she had been too busy, alas. Then she though better of it and held her peace. She did not want to be told off. Just as well that Fitch’s earlier valiant efforts had not yet faded!

Jenkins spoke again to the Girl. "This is your big day, Girl! You are to wait at the table. Make no mistakes, or that lazy backside will know all about it! Follow my instructions to the letter!"

"I understand we are to be waited on by the ex beggar girl." said Colonel Blunderston, as he was shown to his place in the dining hall.

"Yes, Colonel." We have been trying to make her see the error of her ways for a while now but all our best endeavours seem to be for nothing," replied Dorothy.

The other guests settled themselves around the fine old banqueting table and waited for the first course to be served. First of all the dignified figure of Mr. Jenkins walked through the doors to the kitchen, followed at a respectful distance by a naked young woman. Several of the male guests gasped in amazement and delight.

This Girl was wheeling a large container from which she proceeded to serve soup. Considering that she had never before done this, having no more idea of what to do than she had learnt from being waited on herself in happier days, she did a pretty good job, and not even the watchful Jenkins could see any just cause to administer chastisement. "Damn!" he thought, his hand itching in its frustration.

Of course it was too good to last! Disaster struck during the fish course, in the form of one of the guests succumbing to temptation and pinching the Girl on her left bottom cheek just as she was in the act of serving vegetables to the Colonel’s wife. This unfortunate lady heard a not successfully suppressed shriek from the ruby lips of the naked servant and immediately afterwards felt a searing pain in her breast as something very hot slipped down her cleavage.

The poor Girl apologized profusely but knew it would be useless to point out to the Colonel’s wife that all would have been well if only her husband had kept his hands to himself. She was wise enough by now to know that when in a hole, the last thing to do is dig oneself more deeply in.

She did her best to help the unfortunate woman, who was not inclined to make a fuss. Truth to tell, she had a pretty good idea what had happened and she smiled her thanks at the embarrassed girl’s attempts to help. Dorothy was a different matter, though!

"You wicked, vicious, ungrateful slut! I give you shelter and food. I try to reform you and lead you back to decency and self respect by giving you work and THIS is how you repay me! Get out of our sights this instant."

The Girl fled weeping and red-faced from the room.

"She may be a clumsy Girl," said the County Archivist, "but she is very decorative, as I am sure the gentlemen would agree. Perhaps she could adorn our feast without spilling more food upon us! I seem to recall, from my researches in the County Records that one mediaeval Lord of this place had a cage that hung from the ceiling of this very room. He was wont to confine recalcitrant maidens therein who had the temerity to resist his advances until they saw the error of their ways! Does the Cage still exist? I feel sure it must. Put her in there and we can admire her loveliness as we feast and eat."

Dorothy, delighted at this suggestion, assured the gathering that the Cage did indeed still exist and in very good condition, along with its chain. Within ten minutes, the contraption was rigged up and the Girl found herself swinging gently to and fro stooping in the confined space and with fifty pairs of eyes from time to time amusedly looking at her.

The cramp and discomfort as she endured the insolent scrutiny of so many people was bad enough. The public shame and humiliation were far harder to bear. But all this, the Girl knew, was as nothing to what would happen to her once the gathering had dispersed and gone home.

Once she was lowered to the ground and released and then directed to complete clearing and washing up after the banquet, a vigilant Jenkins making very sure that none of the leftovers passed down her throat, she was led into the presence of the Mistress. The Mistress was in a foul mood and the poor Girl saw only doom and a great deal of imminent pain written on that podgy face.

When she lay down on her hard, bare bed many wicked and stinging blows later, she almost shrieked as her body touched the boards. For the first night since arriving here she had no sleep at all and contemplated flight.

"I can’t take any more. It’s no use. I’ll have to get out of here," she sobbed to herself as the night wore on and the morning came.

But when she found herself once more in the garden and started to help with the landscaping, her spirits lifted.

"It will all look so lovely from the parlour window, when it is finished and from the summer house I have built almost single-handed. It’s worth it. It really is. I’ll stay and let them do their worst!

Fitch looked at her back and at her bottom, all covered in horrible red welts. Even he looked shocked.

"I don’t know what you did, but it must have been pretty bad. I’ll not touch you today. You‘ve had enough for many days to come. She can sack me if she likes! "

"The Colonel pinched my bum as I was serving his lady wife and I tipped something hot down her front. I though the beating would never stop, Mr. Fitch. And before that they hung me in the old cage and I was stared at by them all for hours as they all jeered at me. It was the worst day yet! "

Fitch nodded. He had heard something as he had come through the Great Hall to get to the garden. Matilda and Jenkins had been chuckling together and talking to the grocer’s boy, who had gone white when he heard what had happened.

The Castle
by Harry

Chapter Seven
Miss Parradine was in one of the vaults of the County Record Office, where many of the papers of the Earls of Fortescue had been kept since the family had donated them in an uncharacteristic (for them) act of benevolence, some hundred and fifty years ago. It was deep underground and smelt chiefly and displeasingly of mildew and rust. The air conditioning was mediaeval in its antiquity, along with many of the documents. Normally she would have material she wanted to examine brought up to her nice well-lit and ventilated office by a porter. This time, though, it was different. She had a bit of very personal and clandestine research in mind. She took down a box full of papers from one of the highest and dustiest shelves. Even her fear of spiders had been suppressed for the moment; such was her determination and fixity of purpose.

Her time at the magnificent banquet, when the poor Girl had been confined to the ancient cage, to the delight of all present, had renewed her interest in the history of Fortescue castle and its long-time former owners. She chuckled malevolently as she re-lived the occasion of the Girl’s fresh humiliation and recollected anew the look of shame on that lovely tear-stained face. She had seen the Colonel pinch that naked and tempting backside (still tempting despite its angry redness, the result of yet another chastisement) and knew full well that the poor young creature was totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

"She must be half-witted not to have told us all what really happened and maybe saved herself a lot of grief," muttered the Parradine woman as she drew down an ancient box from one of the dustier shelves. "Only herself to blame for the caging and the mega beating they must have given her later. Stupid Girl! Pity I couldn‘t have seen the beating, though. That would have been a nice way to round off the evening’s entertainment!"

And so she callously dismissed from her mind the events of that night, which had culminated in three people taking turns to deliver the worst thrashing that the long suffering Girl had yet received. Each of the three had been panting and exhausted when they had finished and the Girl’s fierce spirit had almost been broken.

The box contained papers relating to the Tenth Earl who was reputed to have been poisoned by his cousin who succeeded him to the title and estates. Miss Parradine had often wondered about this episode in the family’s long and sometimes scandalous history. Today she found nothing in these dry as dust records to help her discover anything new. There was one last register in the box, records of rents received for the year 1837 and inside this was a loose page on which a great deal had been very closely written on both sides. Sadly, though, it was obviously in some kind of code. She puzzled over it for some minutes but could not make sense of it.

Some instinct, some intuition, told her that this was an important find, though, and she decided to take the paper home with her and see if she could make any progress there. It was getting late and she realized she must call it a day. The door to the vault was very stiff, more so, she thought than when she had come in, and it resisted her attempts to open it for some seconds before finally it gave way and she was out in the stairwell. Making a mental note to have the door’s hinges oiled, she went home.

After her supper, she looked again at the encrypted paper. She had little experience with codes and the breaking thereof, but was for some reason reluctant to seek help. If there were any kudos to be gained from some great historical discovery, then she wanted it to be hers and hers alone.

Try as she might, though, she could make no progress and began to despair. Then an idea occurred to her. She would see if there were any books on the subject! This must be an old code and maybe others had used it and the key might be found in some book! She would get onto it the very next day!

"I love you, Amy, " said Fred one day a couple of months after the events just described. He had his face buried in his favourite place -- between his secretary’s warm, ample and enveloping breasts. She patted his head indulgently and bent down to kiss the bald patch on the crown.

"Darling Freddikins," she said in a cooing voice, at the same time suppressing a yawn. She was fond of the old boy, in a way, but was more used to the attentions of younger and more virile men. After her affair with Fred had lasted a few weeks she had almost forgotten what it was like to sweat till the sheets were wringing wet and feel totally exhausted after being shagged almost senseless.

"Can’t I come to your house in Bishop’s Avenue some time, Freddy, darling?" she wheedled.

"Not a chance, dear Amy. The servants would be bound to say something to Dorothy. She keeps in touch, you know. And this is a delightful hotel, our special love-nest!"

Amy sighed resignedly and dropped the topic of visiting Fred’s home for the time being. She was determined that she would see it one day and from the inside!

"Are you going down to the castle soon, sweetie pie?" she asked, changing the subject.

"It has been a while. I suppose I can’t put it off for much longer. I had a very nasty experience last time I was there. I really can’t talk about it."

‘I bet you can’t!’ thought Amy to herself. ‘Spineless prat!’

"It must be bad if you can’t even tell ME, you poor dear," was what she actually said.

It was late by now and Amy went home after the couple left the by now familiar hotel once again and bid a polite farewell to the discreet manager. Fred had to go back to the office to make several calls. Amy parted from him, kissing him with a passion and hunger that she was far from feeling. She said that she wanted to walk home, declining his offer of a shared taxi ride.

There was a letter waiting for her when she got back to her flat. As soon as she saw whom it was from she eagerly tore it open. After reading the contents, she sighed sadly and her face crumpled into a mask of grief. She shook her head miserably and a tear trickled down her face. Then she seemed, with an effort, to dismiss whatever had upset her from her mind. She turned on the TV and sat back and watched Eastenders.

Fred needed to make a call to a Professor James Granville, concerning a grant his firm was to make to an important research project in the Midlands, which the Professor was masterminding. Anglo Saxon remains had been discovered and a museum to house them had been proposed, as well as the financing of a large archaeological dig. The Professor was still at his place of work and the two arranged to meet later that evening for dinner.

Reaching the restaurant, he saw the Professor, tall and darkly handsome, waiting for him. ‘Looks rather young to be a Professor,’ thought Fred, who had expected to meet a gray-bearded , stooping and myopic gentleman. The two shook hands, with appreciably less warmth on the academic’s side than Fred’s and started making their way inside. The Head Waiter was scurrying across to greet them, when a familiar voice sounded in Fred’s ears.

"Hi, there Mr. Bottomley! How are you settling in to the Castle? And HELLO Professor! How’s that pretty lady of yours?"

The two men looked around and saw the genial figure of the rubicund Mr. Hanspacker the former owner of Fortescue Castle.

"I don’t visit the place that often," replied Fred. "I see you two are acquainted, then?"

It appeared that Hanspacker had also been approached by the University as a likely source of funds -- only for some other project, and had seen a way of using the gift to write off a few tax liabilities. He and the Professor were old friends by now according to the congenial Hanspacker, although, truth to tell, they had only met a couple of times and the friendship was entirely in Hanspacker‘s imagination. The Professor was a man who chose his friends very carefully indeed.

In answer to the question about his wife, Granville pulled a face. "Off on some assignment for her employers, I am afraid, Hanspacker. Married to me for a couple of days and then ‘Farewell’ for Heaven knows how long. That’s the modern career woman for you!"

He glanced at Fred and again there was, to Mr. Bottomley’s senses, something cold, even hostile, in his glance and manner. The three agreed to share a table and the details of the support Fred could offer were worked out. At the end of the meal, the Professor shook hands and bid both of the others a polite but distant goodbye.

"You’d think he would be more grateful, since I’ve just agreed to subsidize one of his pet projects," complained Fred to the American as they made for Hanspacker’s favourite bar for a few drinks together.

"Oh, I don’t think it is Granville’s project as such," said Hanspacker, "He’s just providing the administrative oversight. His own field’s not archaeology at all. More like dead Slavonic Languages I think. Hell! Who cares, as long as we can buy ourselves a little glory now and again as champions of culture. Sad about that wife of his not being around, though. She’s a doll, a gem, a honey. They don’t come into the world that lovely any too often."

"She obviously made quite an impression on you," said Fred laughing. He thought of Amy and wondered if the good Professor’s wife was as lovely as she. Somehow, he doubted it! He was a lucky man in finding her; that was for sure!

"Why don’t you come down next weekend and see how Mrs. Bottomley is transforming the castle?" asked Fred as the two finally started to make tracks. "I have to pop down to see the wife -- she expects it, you know."

Hanspacker looked doubtful and then realized that Fred wanted someone to go with him as a kind of moral support. The poor guy hated the darned place, that was obvious. He had got to like old Bottomley by this time, pitying him for the way his wife had him so firmly under her thumb. And so he agreed to come along. He did not much relish visiting the glowering Gothic pile, but, now that he no longer owned it, the feeling of dread that he had always had of it was a tad less powerful.

"Have you seen the Fifteenth Earl at all since you have been installed?" asked Hanspacker.

"No. Neither has Dorothy, although I’m sure she’d like to invite him up and rub his poor old nose in the fact that she is charge of his family’s former home. She has become fond of a good gloat in the last weeks. His cottage has been shuttered and closed ever since we moved in. I’d like to meet him, though, if only out of curiosity. Have you never done so?"

"Never," replied Hanspacker. "He is one elusive guy. Mind you, we’ve most likely passed him in the street in London a thousand times and been none the wiser! That‘s one thing I love about a big city; the blessed anonymity AND no neighbours with flapping ears and long noses to know all your goddam business!"

Meanwhile, the Professor had returned to his North London house and was going through his mail. As with the delightful Amy, one item in particular caused him great anger and distress as soon as he read it. As with Amy earlier, he shrugged his shoulders. Unlike Amy, though he did not switch on the television, but took down a book from the shelf and was soon immersed in it, to the exclusion of all other matters.

Finally Professor Granville went up to bed. Before going to sleep he patted the empty pillow next to him, leant over and tenderly kissed the spot where his wife had last laid her head before going off on her mission.

The Castle
by Harry

Chapter Eight
The call from her husband to say that Hanspacker was coming down for the weekend took the good lady back to the day when she had first been shown around her new home, now so prized and beloved. That had been the day she had vowed to have the floor in the ballroom polished until she could see her face in it. And still the room was shut and unused with that lovely floor unpolished and sorry looking as on the day she had arrived. A determined Dorothy resolved that this oversight must be immediately rectified.

The Girl was working in the garden when this happy thought came to her Mistress. The gardens were looking marvelous by now, although she was still being distracted from the truly creative side of things by the need to keep the falling leaves clear of the lawns and paths. Mrs. Bottomley’s eagle eye never failed to miss any leaves that were allowed to lie for more than a few minutes (with the usual painful consequences for her by now toughened arse). Suddenly the Mistress, under the influence of some kind of brainstorm, flew out of the building and dashed over to the Girl, seizing her by the ear and dragging her squealing indoors and up a flight of stairs into a room she had never been allowed into before.

Releasing the Girl from the painful grip, she pointed at the floor.

"I want that floor to SPARKLE before the day is out. If I can’t see my face in any and every part of it, then woe betide you, Slave!"

"What do I use to polish it with, Mistress" quavered the astounded Girl, surveying the huge expanse of floor. "Is there an electric polisher?"

"There is, but not for you! You get on your knees and polish it all by hand. Sweep it first and then POLISH it! Afraid of a bit of hard work, even after all I have tried to teach you? Have you still no self-respect? Do you still expect to drift idly through life without making any effort at all?"

"No, Mistress. I will do as you say and it will be as you wish before the day is done."

Miss Huskisson bustled in with cloths, polish and a broom. The Girl was left to her Herculean labour, being told, to the vigorous accompaniment of a parting punch in the stomach from Husskisson, that she would not eat or drink until it was done.

It was not until nine that evening that the floor was finished. The Girl was faint from hunger and almost dying of thirst. Her arms ached as they had never ached before. The job would have taken hours with an electric polisher, but by hand it had been a task more exhausting than any she had been given yet. Even so, the place had definitely been transformed and she felt a certain satisfaction as she looked at her face, sweating and framed by damp golden hair, and her bare arms and breasts looking back at her from the polished surface that was her own doing!

All should have been well, and the Mistress ought to have been forced to concede that her original dream had been brought to glorious fruition by the Girl’s sterling efforts. Unfortunately, the Girl in her tiredness, had neglected to gather up all the cloths and one was left just inside the door.

This door burst open and Dorothy Bottomley strode in, her face lighting up with a beam of joy. She was about to congratulate the Girl and give her some reward. The Girl saw the danger to her Mistress, but too late. Her warning sang out just as one of Dorothy’s feet laded plumb on the duster! The startled Mistress slid yards along the floor on one leg before her ample bum hit the ground with what the Girl’s sensitive ears recognized to be a classic example of the "Sickening Thud."

Still under the sway of inertia, the Mistress continued to slide rapidly along the slippery surface of the newly polished floor until she was brought short by the wall at the other end of the room. In the minutes it took the shaken Mistress to recover the Girl managed to cut short a peal of laughter, but not before the Bottomley had heard it. The Girl hastened to go to the Mistress’s assistance and helped the good stout lady to her feet. Her solicitousness did her no good, however. That screech of laughter had gone neither unnoticed nor un-forgiven!

"Go to the Kitchen and ask Miss Huskisson to beat you. Then go to the pantry and ask Jenkins to beat you and then go to the garden and ask Fitch to beat you. He’s working late tonight. Then come back here and get another beating from me! Off with you slut! A joke, was it? Let’s hear you laughing after we’ve all of us done with you!"

"It isn’t fair! I worked really hard all day and I almost killed myself to make that floor so nice. Beat me if you like, but I’ll not go around asking for it to be done. That is wrong of you! I‘m sorry I laughed, though. You could have been hurt and I was careless."

Dorothy went white with anger. How dare the Girl talk back to her like that! She seized her ear again and dragged out into the garden.

"Fitch! This is a disobedient Girl. I want her to be punished. I believe you have a horsewhip in your shed. Get it and use it on her. I want to see the blood run down her back."

"Go to Hell, you old devil. I’ll not be party to that," replied Fitch to both Dorothy’s and the Girl’s amazement "You’ve gone too far. You’ll pay a heavy price if you mark that Girl for life. You may as well know that! I‘ll kill you with these bare hands if a whip ever touches her sweet lovely skin, no matter who uses it on her. So help me I will."

For the first time since taking charge of the Castle, Dorothy weakened. She began to see that she had maybe slightly overstepped the mark this time.

"Very well, Fitch. Just use the belt as usual. Oh, and don’t bother turning up for work again. You’re fired! See to the Girl with that belt, or you do not get your last wages. The Girl can do the garden from now on. She has been doing most of the work, in any case, ever since she got here."

With this she returned inside to nurse her bruised bottom and even more bruised ego.

"So it’s goodbye dear old Fitch," said the Girl putting her soft and rounded arms around his neck and kissing him.

"You’d better use your belt properly, or you won’t get paid. I’ll make sure you get your reward one day for being better to me than any of the others. I mean that. I can‘t explain how, although I think you may be able to work it out if you think really hard!"

"I won’t ever lay hands on you again, my dear. Or on the wife. I only hit her when I’m drunk anyways and I won’t be able to afford to drink any longer! Goodbye, for now. Why don’t you leave? I can’t make you out, putting up with the way they treat you. Whatever you were fleeing from can’t be as bad as this! If you ever did decide to walk out, we’d give you clothes and shelter until you got yourself sorted out. You know that."

The Girl laughed and bent over, presenting her much-abused rump ready for Fitch’s final chastisement.

"Don’t be so silly, Fitch. You need the money and so does your wife. I don’t mind a bit -- not from you! She‘s watching so don‘t hold anything back or you won‘t get a penny out of the old bitch!"

A calmer Dorothy watched as Fitch removed his trusty leather belt for the last time and did as the Mistress and the Girl had both told him. She watched his arm rise and fall until the old fellow looked fit to collapse from exhaustion. He was an old man, after all. She went over to her bureau and took out some money and went out into the gardens, up to the pair of them, the Girl and the old man, the one bent submissively over and the other still doing his by now unwelcome duty.

"That should do Fitch. Here are your wages and thank you for all you have done. Be off the premises in five minutes. YOU (addressing the Girl) can spend the night on the lawn as you did when you first arrived. Come inside for now and eat and drink. Goodbye once again, Fitch!"

The Girl was taken to the kitchen where food and drink were placed on the floor for her to eat and drink as if she were a dog. This particular humiliating and degrading refinement of the regime had been in force for only three days by now, but she had already adjusted to this further debasement. She ate and drank gratefully, before being cast out into the gardens to spend a very cold night under the twinkling and unseeing stars.

If anyone had been awake in the early hours of the following morning they might have seen someone climb over the wall and drop lightly to the ground as had the Girl when she first appeared at the Castle. The figure made its way to the huddled figure on the lawn, palely lit and ghostly white in the moonlight. Whoever it was squatted down beside her. After a few minutes, the visitor departed as he or she had come: over the wall, climbing swiftly up and over the other side. The Girl drew up her knees to her chin and gazed at the spot from where her mysterious visitor had appeared. Finally she settled down again and tried to sleep, despite the severe night chill. She was still totally uncovered and every nerve ending was let her know about it!

When it was light, she made her way to the garden shed and surveyed all the implements in what was now her domain. She saw that the horsewhip was not there any longer and hoped that Fitch would burn it and not use it on his long-suffering wife. (He did burn it.)

The Girl/gardener did not have long to work outside before being told to come in. The remainder of the day was spent in the household drudgery that she hated more and more all the time. A guest was expected and also Mr. Bottomley. She was told to stay out of sight when the special visitor was around. He was not a local person and would not take kindly to the sight of a naked shameless slut (Dorothy’s words, not mine).

"Must have been cold for you, last night," said Miss Huskisson as she watched the Girl on her hands and knees, vigorously scrubbing the kitchen floor. "Shouldn’t cause you any problems, though. Stupid Girls like you don’t feel pain like intelligent people such as me and Mr. Jenkins do."

"Mr. Jenkins and I," muttered the Girl under her breath. Unfortunately, she did not mutter quite quietly enough and got few painful flicks from Mrs. Jenkins’ switch.

"Get on with your work and watch your mouth, slut," said that amiable lady before getting on with lunch.

Dorothy came in after the Girl had been cleaning for a couple of hours and looked at her in horror.

"You get the dirt off the floor only to get it all over you -- you mucky little tramp -- reverting to your old ways, I see! And Fitch is not here to hose you down any longer. You’d better use the shower in future. Make sure you DON’T turn on the hot water. Heating costs money."

‘Well, a shower was a shower,’ thought the Girl. One step back to civilized living, albeit a small one! She pondered the Mistress’ words about heating and the expense thereof. Her little room was getting to be quite unbearable at night. The experience on the lawn last night had been scarcely more horrible. She would have to ask for blankets, but doubted she would get any.

Coming out of the shower and still dripping from head to toe, she met the Mistress.

"Can I have a bed covering, please Mistress, now that the nights are getting colder?"

"No. How dare you whine to me!"

With these words she began to sweep away down the corridor, then she saw reason and came back to the still damp and shivering Girl.

"I will let you have a heater, but it is to be turned on not a second before midnight and OFF at five in the morning when you get up. I can’t afford to throw too much money at a useless bitch like you. Now get on with your work!"

‘I wonder how many little victories that is in two days?’ she thought to herself as she busied herself with sweeping the main parlour.

‘Three, I suppose. No multiple beating or horse whipping -- just a farewell pasting from dear old Fitch. A shower every day, even if it is a bloody cold one! A heater in my room. Things ARE looking up! I‘m really being spoiled!’

"Who the devil was that?" said a startled Hanspacker.

"Who the devil was what?" replied Fred,

The pair had settled in to their rooms a minute or two back and were now promenading around the castle perimeter, admiring the wonderfully transformed gardens in the late Autumn air.

"A naked woman. She saw us and ran around the Castle out of sight. Incredible!"

"Must be some one from the town, playing some silly kind of prank. What a time to choose for a stunt like that. Getting a bit fresh and chilly for that sort of thing! Still some of these young folk are up to all sorts of tricks!" Mr. Bottomley hoped this would suffice to satisfy his guest’s curiosity.

Hanspacker said nothing. But thoughts were whirring inside that shrewd tax evader’s head of his. He’d seen an intruder, obviously and doubtless well on the way home after being spotted. But a familiar intruder, he suddenly realized! He’d seen her before -- not a lady you forgot that easily. YES!! Holy Shit! What was SHE doing here, bare-arse naked like on the day she was born? What was Mrs. Granville, the Professor’s lovely young career woman wife, doing around these parts, when she was supposed to be overseas on some high-flying assignment? Curiouser and curiouser!

He was about to tell Fred who he thought the young woman was, but decided against this - at least for now. After all, he could be wrong. It had been the briefest of glimpses so maybe he’d best say no more. He was 99% sure, though!

"Golly! That a bit was too close for comfort!" said the Girl to herself. "I bet he recognized me, too as he’s nobody‘s fool, that one! I only hope he keeps his trap shut, or things could start getting awkward. Why, oh why did droopy, drippy Fred have to invite HIM down here?"

The next couple of days were a very anxious time for the Girl. The two guests went away late on Sunday night and her normal routine resumed. She was glad of this, as the garden shed was even less pleasant a place to sleep than her bare garret high up in the castle. Happily for her, Fred did not tell his wife that the Girl had been spotted by the guest, or she would have felt it hard and strong on that much belaboured bum of hers!

One advantage of being out of sight and out of mind was that her arse had had a chance to recover from its latest onslaught, delivered by the Mistress the day before the guests came and before Fitch’s parting gift had entirely faded. She squirmed round to examine it as best she could, using the small mirror that Fitch had used to adjust his shabby clothes before leaving for home, and saw that it had nearly resumed its proper firmly rounded shape and normal pinkish colour. She felt it with her small sweet, if toil-hardened hand and it seemed smooth and soft, without any irregularities. There were times when she feared her looks would never recover from her experiences in this hellish household. And she was a forgivably vain person, justly proud of her beauty!

The Castle
by Harry

Chapter Nine
Miss Parradine settled her old mother back in to bed, after helping her to the toilet. How she hated this -- wiping an old woman‘s bottom -- she a professional woman! But it was all for the best, of course. The old lady was very wealthy and the greedy Archivist had no wish to be cut out of the Will for being an undutiful daughter!

Angela Parradine, Miss Parradine’s sister usually tended to the severely disabled (OK then "differently abled") old lady, lovingly and caringly not because of any thought of future gain, but because she adored her mother and would not desire to be other than at her side to soothe her way and comfort her during her final years. It made Angela very happy to repay, with interest, the love she had been shown during childhood. But Angela had been taken very ill and would not be able to resume her duties for some months after a serious operation and lengthy convalescence. So Miss Parradine had been obliged to apply for indefinite Compassionate Leave and come up here to the Western Isles where it seemed to rain and blow a gale all day. What with the wind howling and moaning about the ancient house’s windows and the old lady’s constant need for attention, she was having a very unpleasant time indeed!

All thoughts of trying to decode the writing on the paper had to be put on the back burner for the time being. She had got hold of a few books on the subject of ciphers and their decrypting but, as yet, had barely begun to make sense of it all. When the bombshell of her sister’s sudden illness had exploded she’d been forced almost immediately to come all the way up here to the edge of the civilized world to look after this old fool of a mother, whom she had never much liked, anyway.

Come to think of it, Amelia Parradine had never much liked any of her family. From as far back as she could remember, they had all of them, without exception, jeered at her for her bookishness. Her sister had played tennis and swum for her country, her brothers had excelled at cricket and played for Middlesex and England and her mother had swum the Channel before she was twenty. Amelia, though, had never been athletic. At school and at home she had suffered torment after torment for her failure to conform to the lofty ideal of " Mens sanis in copore sano."

It had been with immense relief that she had escaped from a world of cold showers, fresh air and hearty breakfasts to bury herself in the dusty reassurances of the documentary past. Now she was being forced back to the bosom of her family. Was there no justice in this cruel world? It did not occur to the selfish woman that her willing, if minor, part in the miseries being routinely and increasingly inflicted on the Girl might have brought this misfortune upon her, and that these misfortunes were as nothing compared to the daily agony of the Girl‘s existence.

She had brought a copy of the document with her, but saw that she would have precious few chances to study it before Angela returned in the late spring of next year; if she was lucky. She turned on the television, to experience some feeling of not being irrevocably detached from the civilized world, and saw that her own part of the country had just endured the first snowfall of the Winter in a freak cold snap that had, as usual, brought the entire South of England to a grinding halt!

The Girl came downstairs early one morning and saw that the gardens were covered in snow, which was still falling, though not heavily. How amazing to have snow before Christmas, she thought. It was certainly a mercy that the Mistress had relented in the matter of the heater in her room. Without it she would surely have perished by this time. The previous ten days had been terribly cold.

The Mistress was very anxious to impress upon the Girl that her instructions as to the limited time the heater could be turned on, were not to be disregarded without impunity. One such demonstration of the Mistress’ parsimony had caused her much grief. A week ago Dorothy had burst into the Girl’s tiny room at one minute past Five and the heater was still on! No matter that the dutiful and obedient Girl was kneeling beside it in the very act of switching it off, the Mistress’ rage had been horrible to behold.

"Wicked Girl! You have willfully disobeyed me and will be punished."

"I am sorry, Mistress. I WAS just switching it off, though!"

The Mistress hit the Girl a stinging blow on the face, causing her mouth to bleed. She took up the heater.

"For that insolence I am removing this for two days. We shall see how you like that! Maybe when I return it to you, you will be more attentive to my instructions."

The Girl certainly had been more careful once those two torturous unheated nights were over. She had been pinched and blue with cold all night long, shivering convulsively and thinking that the sound of her chattering teeth must be audible down in the town below. The consequent lack of night-time sleep had caused her to doze off a couple of times when doing her kitchen chores, in the blessed heat of that room, thereby earning herself the usual reward for such dereliction of duty. When the heater had been finally brought back, she had been giving a vicious and lengthy strapping by the ruthless Huskisson to remind her not to be so careless again.

As she went to sleep on her first reasonably warm night for three days, her backside on fire, she thought wistfully of all the ways she would like to be revenged on her three tormentors! Then she counted off the time she had been here already -- just over four months -- it seemed more like a thousand years!

The Girl had not been into the garden for more than a few minutes at a time, for a couple of weeks, now and it had been so cold that she had been gasping for breath when she had got back inside, to the obvious amusement of Jenkins and Huskisson, who on one occasion had further entertained themselves by locking the door against her and making her wait outside for a few more ghastly minutes, hopping up and down and flailing her arms to keep from freezing. Luckily, there was little do be done, now until the spring; and the leaves were few and far between by this time. Today the Girl would obviously not be going outside at all, or so she thought.

No sooner had she lit all the fires and made a start on the breakfast preparations than the loathsome Huskisson, accompanied by the Mistress, came into the kitchen. Both were muffled from head to toe in furs. She thought they reminded her of two particularly unprepossessing gorillas she had seen in Africa, where her parents had once taken her for a never-to-be-forgotten holiday as a little girl.

With a sense of something unpleasant in store for her, she saw that Huskisson was carrying a heavy shovel and the spitefully grinning Mistress a broom.

"You, even stupid you, will have doubtless seen that we have had a bit of snow overnight, Girl! I want the path cleared all the way down to the main gate. When you have shoveled it off the path, I want ALL the remainder swept clear and salt applied. If I or anyone else slip as a result of your famous lack of attention to detail, you will be soundly whipped. I know Fitch stole the one in the garden shed, but I found a real beauty for you the other day, down in the cellars. Now get out there and get to work. We will come and see how you are getting on!"

"B-but. Mistress. I can’t possibly go out there like this. Please."

The words died in her throat and her pleading and horrified expression changed to one of resigned acceptance. " OK, Mistress! Of course I’ll do as I am ordered."

‘Now why has she given in so easily?’ pondered Dorothy Bottomley as she saw the Girl meekly take the shovel from the Huskisson and the broom from her.

"I know where plenty of salt is, Mistress. In the garden shed."

With these words she went out into the Arctic weather and began shoveling the snow from off the wide pathway down to the main gate.

The two heavily clad women went out as well and watched the Girl for a few minutes before beating a hasty retreat back inside, where Huskisson made for the kitchen and a swift and substantial tot of rum and the Mistress to her favourite parlour and the comfort of the recently lit and cheerfully roaring fire. Mrs. Bottomley stood by the window and watched as the girl rapidly cleared away the snow, casting great heaps of the white stuff first to one side and then the other and moving with quite astonishing speed away from the castle and towards the gate along the curving pathway.

The Girl’s lithe body was bright red with the combined effects of cold and exertion. She never paused in her efforts, the snow flying from her rapidly moving shovel as she attacked her hideous task in a seeming frenzy. The Mistress was impressed, despite herself. That was one tough little Girl and no mistake.

‘I wonder how it feels to be out there like she is? Pretty painful by this time, I should think.’ She chuckled malevolently, remembering being in an unheated schoolroom many years before and feeling her toes cry out in increasing agony as the math lesson went its boring way. And she had been well shod with thick woolly socks on, and well muffled up after a good hot breakfast. That Girl was hardly human the way she was coping! As Huskisson had often observed to her, where there is no sense there is no feeling!

While the other three were going about their business in the warmth of the castle, whose fires she had lit for them before coming out here to this white hell, the Girl strove to keep the cold from invading and overwhelming her body, naked as ever and open to the bitter wind and sub-zero chill. She quickly realized that attack was the only form of defense and went at the task as if demented, performing prodigies of work as she cast the snow across the garden and away from the path. She kept her feet stamping up and down at the same time in order to force the blood to keep flowing and stop frostbite from causing her sweet little toes to drop off, as she had long ago read happening to Polar explorers.

As long as she felt pain in her hands and feet, excruciating and unbelievable as it was, she knew that she was safe. Numbness was what she had to dread; then the battle against the elements would have been lost.

By the time she had gone around the bend in the path and reached the gate, she was screened by a clump of trees and out of sight of the Castle and the watching eyes of Mrs. Bottomley, who could only speculate how the Girl was faring. Truth to tell, that lady was beginning to be anxious, although not from any humanitarian impulse. The Girl was a fantastically hard worker, despite the never-ending insults she directed at her, and she knew a substitute would be hard to come by. She was on the point of going out to tell the Girl to come in for a while in order to recover before going out again, when she re-appeared around the bend, seemingly none the worse, as yet, for her ordeal. Dorothy sighed in a relieved sort of way and decided to let the Girl continue with no respite. It would be instructive to see just how far her remarkable endurance would carry her.

If the shovel and the broom had possessed metal handles, the Girl knew that she would never have been able to keep her grip on them. As it was, she felt her grasp dangerously weakening by the time she had finished with the shoveling. Her fingers were starting to disobey her and she finished this first stage not a moment too soon. Before going back for the broom to start sweeping up the remainder of the snow, she went into Fitch’s former domain, the garden shed, and got out of the wind for a few minutes. There, she busied herself unpacking the rock salt from its container and putting sufficient of it into a large sieve, from which she hoped she could sprinkle it over the cleared surface when the time came.

After that, she concentrated on rubbing her blue little feet and hands and flailing her arms and slapping her body to keep her faltering circulation going. The job was not half done, after all, and she knew there would be no mercy from the cruel Mistress until she had completed her task.

All the while the Girl knew that the Mistress had been deadly serious about her threat of what she would do in the event of anyone slipping on their way along the cleared pathway. It was far too early in her time here for her to be whipped on her bare back -- once that started she knew it would never stop; Mrs. Bottomley would be like a child with a new toy once she used that whip for the first time. Unhappily, though, the Girl knew with sick dread that this horror would need to be faced at some time before her work in the Castle was done. It had been written long ago and nothing would save her from it, something she had known and accepted from the very beginning of this enterprise. She must concentrate hard on doing a thorough job despite the awful, ever increasing pain that this wicked cold was causing that tender young body of hers.

And then, the gate swung open as the grocer’s boy came through. On a bicycle! The grocer’s van must have broken down in the cold.

The Castle
by Harry

Chapter Ten
"Gosh! How long have you been out here like that, my..."

"None of your business, grocer’s boy," laughed the freezing Girl as she playfully pushed off the lad’s cap and threw it away before her could stop her, causing him to have to dive into the snow-covered garden to retrieve it. "Why the bicycle, is the van broken down?"

"Yes. Wouldn’t start this morning, so here I am getting bloody frozen just to deliver your Mistress’ weekly food. Not as cold as you, though! I don’t know how you do it; come here a minute!"

And with this, the boy stepped up to the Girl and folded her shivering nakedness in his arms, giving her a little bit of much needed warmth, as well as the human sympathy and contact she had been deprived of for much too long. After a few seconds of this welcome solace she gently pushed him away and pointed to the gate.

"Put your delivery down on the ground and I will carry it up to the Castle. Now be off with you and don’t, whatever you do, skid on the path and fall off that bike! If you do, then yours truly will get a very bloody back indeed!"

The grocer’s boy glared in fury. His eyes seemed to be bursting out of his head and his face was deathly white.

"Those wicked bastards! I’d gladly kill them all for what they do to you! Just tell me to kill them and they are all dead!"

Then he rode off back towards the town and the Girl was left, shivering and near collapse, to continue her snow clearance. It was a very cold and near moribund Girl who staggered back into the castle at the end of her task. There was fierce pride in her undaunted heart as she collapsed in front of the Mistress and the Huskisson and Jenkins. These three stared down at the blue and pinched body beneath them. Not one of them could have endured one tenth of the horrors that this wonderful Girl had survived, but they still kicked her by turn in those poor frozen ribs until she got shakily to her numbed feet.

"Just because you have cleared the path, a job any one of us could have done in half the time, don’t get ideas, Girl! There is the rest of the day’s work to be done before you go to your rest," sneered the Mistress, aiming a final devastating kick at the Girl’s trim athletic stomach. The other two laughed heartily as she bent double, her face contorted in her agony.

"Get on with your work, Slave," said the Mistress. "I want every room cleaned before that useless stomach is filled with the food we pay good money for and you guzzle like the lazy greedy pig you are!"

It was five days before the snow melted and for each of those terrible five days, fresh snow fell every night. The Girl was allowed no respite from her painful outdoor labours in the whole of that time. When at last she awoke to hear the sound of rain falling and knew that the cruel cold tormenting snow was finally being swept away by the warm rain, she wept helplessly to know that her hideous travails were over, at least for a time.

The Mistress walked down the path every day, several times a day, but did not slip once, so good was the job that the Girl had done. Jenkins and Huskisson similarly failed to slip. The three of them gazed at the mighty whip that one of the Earls had been wont to use to punish peasant women who resisted his advances. They fingered it lovingly in turn.

"Never mind, Ma‘am," said Jenkins one day after the Girl had once again failed to commit any offence, "her time will come."

"I can’t think why you need an excuse," said the sadistic Huskisson. "Just use it, Mistress. Just use it on her. Please, Ma’am -- use it anyway. It‘s been lying there all these years, lying idle when it should be used on that Girl."

But Mrs. Bottomley was adamant. The Ninth Earl’s Whip was only to be used when the Girl deserved it and the two servants had to be satisfied with this. Her crucial transgression would be punished in a suitably ceremonial way, with the Girl being taken down to the cellars and chained facing the wall.

They determined to pile ever more heavy burdens on the hated Girl and as soon as she failed in any task, their vigilant eyes would spot it and the Mistress would be immediately informed. The Mistress, too, was anxious not to miss any opportunity that the Girl might present to them.

The Girl was only too well aware of this, and strove successfully to avoid the fate which one serious misdemeanor would bring upon her head or back. She would choose, for herself, the time and circumstances of her worst ever torture. She decided on a date in late July, much nearer to the hour when her mission would be completed, and with long enough for her to recover her strength before the final great task.

She knew that once the Mistress had used the Whip on her just one time, the demon-possessed woman would pretty soon become addicted to this latest and worst cruelty.

By the time five months had passed without a good reason for using the Whip, Jenkins, Huskisson and the Mistress had virtually given up hope and the subject had begun to fade from their minds. The Girl had not forgotten, though, and the nearer the time came, the more fearful she got and the greater were her doubts. Could she really see this through to the bitter end!

But we are anticipating and running ahead of ourselves! Let’s get back to the present.

Christmas was here! The Festive Season. Peace on Earth and Good Will towards Men! The Mistress had decided to visit her mansion in Bishop’s Avenue and spend the festivities there with her beloved husband and a few close relatives.

Jenkins and Huskisson were away for a few days with their respective nearest and dearest. The said nearest and dearest were, truth to tell, far from overjoyed at having these disagreeable persons with them, but Christmas comes but once a year!

The Archivist, Miss Amelia Parradine, was spoon-feeding her elderly mother her Christmas dinner and hating every second of her monotonous and disgusting life on the edge of the world, as ever. ‘How long, Oh Lord, how long?’ was her unspoken prayer on that glorious day, when the Saviour of the World was born and fallen Mankind was given hope of eternal life.

Professor Granville was in Madeira with a group of friends. These kind people had become concerned at the good professor’s increasing irritability and obvious mental distress.

"Come and join us for a week in the sun, James darling!" had been Dr. Jessica Middleton’s cheery words. Do you good to get you out of yourself for a bit. I wish you’d tell us what the trouble is, but at least get away for a bit with us!"

To her surprise, the Professor had agreed. He had been in a strange state for a few weeks, now, ever since that freak cold weather at the beginning of the month, come to think of it.

The grocer’s boy was at home with his mother and grandmother. He kept looking up at the Castle, which was visible from his house. Each time he glanced up there, his eyes filled with tears.

"I know, dear," said his mother, kindly. "But don’t fear, she’ll be alright in the end, believe me! And then the good days will be back for us all. Just don‘t forget to say your prayers for her, as we all do."

The aged grandmother nodded in her armchair. As a little girl, she had known the last of the old good times and longed to see them return before she died.

The Girl was alone in the Castle, scrubbing busily at the kitchen floor. When this had been done, there would be every square inch of the rest of the old place to clean. When that had been done, there were the gardens to tidy. The Mistress had decided on refurnishing some of the bedrooms and the new bedroom furniture had been delivered on the day before Christmas Eve, when the household had been about to depart to its various destinations.

"Don’t take it upstairs," the Mistress had told the removal men. "My staff will do that."

The said "staff", in the shape of the Girl was going to have all this heavy furniture in place by the time the Mistress and the others returned on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Either that, or the Whip would be used to slice her back open right down to the bone to use the Mistress’ choice phrase. As the cruel three left, they were all convinced that the Girl would surely fail and their loathsome wish be granted.

So what should have been a joyful holiday, a time of fellowship and magic, was for the Slave in the Castle, several days of non-stop labour, in which the poor Girl scarcely had three hours’ sleep a night. But she finished all her allotted tasks, much to the Mistress’ surprise and fury and the enraged mystification of the other two.

Despite the fact that no one was around to see her disobey, she ate all her meals off the floor just as if the others had been present. All she had to consume on the sacred day was her usual diet of bread and water and one glass of milk every alternate day. The Mistress had decreed that there be no change of routine even for Christmas.

On Boxing Day, very early in the morning, she did her chilly round of the gardens as usual and found a parcel inside the gate. It contained ham, cheese, cold chicken, savory biscuits and seasonable fruits, along with a bottle of Sancerre, still chilled, which had been recently opened and with the cork partly pushed back in.. She smiled at this act of kindness. There was a note attached and when she read it she cried uncontrollably, as much from happiness as from sorrow.

Mr. Hanspacker was packing. He had spent three days in a British gaol having had an extradition warrant served on him by the US Government. Although his lawyer had managed to get the warrant quashed on a technicality, he realized that his days in England’s green and pleasant land were all but over. He was to skip the country the very next day in his private jet and spend a while in a country, any country, less accessible to the long arm of the American law.

As he packed he thought again of that lovely lady who seemed to have taken on a new career as an exhibitionist. For no good reason that he was ever able to figure out, he decided to look up the Professor in Who’s Who. What he saw caused him to drop the large tome onto his foot, so startled was he.

"Gee! Now there’s a thing! No time to tell old Fred, though. Probably not important in any case, but real interesting all the same!"

Amy, now that Fred was restored temporarily to the loving bosom of his capaciously overweight wife, was spending the Yuletide festival with Priscilla, an old school chum, at that young lady’s bijou residence in Chelsea.

The two had dined and wined exceeding well, in addition to their prodigious intake of intoxicants the previous day and night, prior to attending Midnight Mass at St Margaret‘s Church, Westminster. (Setting, Krönungsmesse by Mozart.) By the time that Her Majesty’s broadcast to Nation and Commonwealth was beamed to the world, both girls were as tipsy as either could remember since this time last year. They both stood unsteadily to attention as the strains of the National Anthem faded away and collapsed together on the sofa.

Priscilla nibbled tenderly at Amy’s ear.

"Heard anything of old Cynthia since she bagged that gorgeous..."

Priscilla stopped, rendered speechless by a savage blow to the solar plexus. When she had recovered, a tear trickled down her face.

"That’s not fair, Amy! I know you two were something special -- we all knew that, you lucky thing! But all the rest of us loved her too, you know. There’s nothing any of us wouldn’t do for dear old Cynthia, absolutely nothing. We’d all of us die for her if need be!"

Amy hugged her friend and drew her face near to hers so that she could kiss her on the lips.

"I know, Priscilla, I know! Cynthia’s fine, just fine, but there is a lot I can’t tell you at present. As you say, she was a popular girl all right. Golly, the things she got up to, eh!"

Priscilla recovered her poise a little although she remained a bit inclined to sniff for a while.

"I still can’t believe some of the pranks she led us into. The night they found that whisky still that she and you rigged up in the garden shed, and she took all the blame herself! Do you remember the state of her arse after that? Fantastic load of marks. The best by far any of us ever got! None of us ever came close! Ye Gods, I bet the signs are there to this very day! They told her she could either be expelled or take twenty of the best off the Boss! She took the lot without a murmur in front of the whole school. I can hear that cane swishing and landing on her bare bum even now! The Boss had a fabulous action; the way she brought that stick down was something marvelous to behold! She never tired all the way to the last whack! But good old Cynth! She could sure as hell take it! What a girl!"

‘Good training for what she’s going through now;’ thought Amy silently and sadly, ‘I just hope it’s good enough.’

What she said out loud was "Priscilla darling! Let’s get undressed and spend the rest of the day starkers. I can’t say why, but trust me! It’s sort of for darling Cynthia‘s sake."

And so the couple did as Amy asked and they soon found plenty of jolly things to do to each other!