Chapter Twentyone
PUB SCENE 1.
He didn't wait while I dressed, but went out into the courtyard, leaving the door open. I yanked on my jeans and ran behind him to my car, still struggling into my T shirt. (No wonder he insisted always on minimal clothing!) He went round to the passenger side so I got into the driving seat, only to notice that he was still standing by the car. Realizing my mistake, I quickly got out, ran round and held the door open for him, saying "Sorry sir". He said nothing. There was no need.
But I felt that if I were stupid enough to make the same mistake again, it would not be allowed to pass uncorrected . . . I got back into the driving seat, feeling like a chauffeur in my own car, and asked him if it was OK to leave the scullery door un-locked. He nodded towards the lit window over the stable archway and said that the corporal would see things OK. So, that's where the Corporal lived! I wondered if he would put in an appearance on this visit as it would be interesting to see the man who had flogged my thighs so savagely on my first one.
In the glare of my headlights I noticed the stable clock showing ten to ten. At the end of the driveway he told me to turn left. Could we be going to the pub I'd been to earlier? And if so, might that cause him any embarrassment? Obviously he would be well known in the district, not only as the owner of "The Big House" but as such an unmistakably imposing figure who would stand out in any crowd.
We drove past the pub in the village and up over the dark moors for about 15 miles. He told me to stop at the pub ahead, and there it was, all lit like a ship at sea in the darkness. It felt very remote but the car park was nearly full. I got out, ran round and opened the door for him. As we headed for the pub, he handed me a fiver saying to get him a pint and to buy a drink for myself. Worried lest he might have forgotten, I gestured towards my slave collar and asked was it all right to go in wearing it. I thought he might not wish to be seen associating with an obvious pervert, but he said "Why? You ashamed of being my fuck-boy?" I assured him of the contrary, for indeed, it gave me a real buzz to be seen in public with the symbol of my shame clearly displayed above the low neck of my T shirt.
Inside, the place was packed. I fought my way to the bar, noticing that he had managed to find a table. No one seemed to take the slightest notice of my spiked collar. I got the drinks and set them on the table with his change. He nodded at the stool opposite him. I grinned and said it was more comfortable to stand, if he didn't mind. He snapped "Sit!" in what seemed a loud command. I glanced round nervously and sat quickly. He tossed a coin onto the table and told me to get a packet of peanuts. By the time I got to the bar, eventually got served and struggled back through the throng, he was draining his glass. He held it out to me, wordlessly, with more money, (though only enough for one pint this time!) so it was back to the bar yet again. How skillfully he could humiliate, without even saying a word!
At last I got back to my stool and was able to take a first swig of beer. God, but it was good. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and said "I needed that". I had half drained the pint at one go and was about to take a second gulp when he told me to keep it. No reason given of course and naturally I didn't ask.
Eventually he finished his drink and put his glass down. "I'm going for a piss" he said, "you come too - and bring your drink".
I followed him into the gents. He took my glass from me as we entered. I thought "The dirty sod's going to piss in my beer!" There was another chap at the stalls. We stood alongside him and the Brig put my glass on the tiled shelf above the urinal while he pretended to piss. As soon as the other bloke left, the Brig poured my beer into the urinal gutter and pissed in the glass, more than half filling it. He passed it back to me without a word. I assumed I was supposed to drink it, but before I could do anything, he zipped up and was off again, saying "Come". So I trotted behind him, back to the bar, clutching his piss in my glass. I could feel the warmth of it. Oh God!
Our table was occupied so we squeezed through to the bar. He ordered another. Just one. When it came, I expected him to raise his glass in a mock toast, forcing me to join him. But he didn't. He ignored me completely and started drinking as if he were on his own. If he had said "Drink up" I would have done so. Or even with a raised glass and a silent "Cheers" I would have done so. Just a look and a nod to say 'do it' would have been enough. But nothing. It was if I didn't even exist.
Did he really expect me to drink his warm piss, here, in public, just off my own bat? Without being ordered to do it? Without being made to do it? Without being helped to do it? I mean, come on! To be forced to drink his piss in this crowded, public place would be an appalling humiliation. But to have to get on and drink it voluntarily was asking too much. That would be - what? Well, even more humiliating! Ah yes. Exactly. After all, he was The Humiliator. I gave a mental shrug of acceptance, raised the glass and drank.
I would like to report that I downed it in one. I wanted to. But it was too much even for me to take, in cold blood. But I did drain it, right to the last drop on the second swig and slammed the glass down on the bar. Ostentatiously so, though he gave no sign of having noticed. Instead he turned to me and said, in the most casual, conversational tone "When we get back I want you to go straight up to the punishment room for your beating." I glanced around in alarm. Surely the blokes standing virtually shoulder to shoulder with us must have heard? But they seemed engrossed in their own conversations in the noisy hubbub. My next thought was 'Why?' It seemed so bloody unfair. I had just performed an act of searing self-abasement and instead of approval, all he was concerned about was punishing me. I heard myself wailing "But you've already beaten me!" and I despised myself for the whine in my voice.
"I told you" he said, "that was training, not punishment"
"Training for what?" I snapped. He turned his blue-grey eyes on me and gave me the look I came to think of as the Ice Blaze. Certainly, it froze my guts, as he replied very quietly, "Training . . . for taking punishment"
The hideous logic of that contemptuous reply left me stunned. I considered for a moment and then said, keeping my voice as level and quiet as I could, "I don't think I can take any more, sir."
He gave a thin smile that was even more chilling than the Ice Blaze. "What you think doesn't count" he murmured, and I knew there was to be no escape. He finished his beer, got up and left without a word or sign. Like an obedient dog I trotted after him, out to the car park. This time I made sure to unlock and open his door first. I was in enough trouble as it was. We drove back in silence. I was thinking of the ordeal ahead of me, and perhaps he was too, only with relish, compared to my mounting panic. I thought that if, when I dropped him at the Manor, I drove off quickly and left him, there'd be nothing he could do. Except of course that he would sit there till I opened the door for him, so I'd have to get out first. And anyway there would be something he could do: he could dismiss me and forbid me to contact him ever again. And that was a punishment I was not prepared to accept. I had no choice but to face whatever he planned for me, up in the punishment room. And I swung the car into the courtyard.
Pausing only to strip in the scullery while he went on into the house, I made my way, naked, up to the punishment room in the attic. I had been here before of course, but blindfolded. The space under the eaves was much bigger than I expected, being the full length of the house but divided into three bays by massive wooden tie beams about five feet above the floor. The only light came from two skylights through which the moon shone, one this end, the other way down at the far end, giving the big, gloomy space a sinister, ghostly glow, plus the light shining in from the bare bulb over the stairs.
There was the iron bedstead, to the bare spring mesh of which I had been so cruelly tied on my previous visit, but now covered with a thin mattress and pillow. Even in this dim light it was evident that the bare ticking cover of mattress and lumpy pillow were filthy and repulsively stained. I was also aware of trunks and packing cases, rolls of carpet and other detritus stored in corners, but what really grabbed my eye was a section of wall lit by the light over the stairs shining through the doorway. With plainly deliberate intent, a long wooden rail was screwed to the wall at shoulder height where it would be theatrically illumined in the gloom. Nails were hammered into the rail at frequent intervals and from them hung a truly awesome array of equipment. There were assorted canes and straps and cords and whips. There were manacles and chains and spiked collars and puzzlingly complex harnesses with heavy buckles and metal rivets. Leather masks and hoods, some with zippered mouths, hung alongside dildoes and tawses and fearsome studded paddles. I recognised the filthy jock strap I'd been made to wear on my first visit, and beside it hung an equally filthy singlet that looked as if it had been worn by a garage mechanic with no notion of personal hygiene. I saw that holes had been ripped in it where the nipples would be. I sniffed it. It stank of diesel and stale piss and muck sweat and I thought of some loutish mechanic, helpless and writhing in pain while unspeakable things were done to his tits. I wished I could have been there to have watched him suffer!
Here too were the pegs and clips and clamps to use on him, all paired with string and hung in a tangle from one nail. I fingered them in horrified fascination, wondering which would have been used on the singleted victim, as I tested the strength of the bite of each. And dear God, here was a pair of crocodile clips with jagged metal jaws. I tried one on my finger tip. Yeow! Surely this was for show, only? Unthinkable that such a vicious thing could be applied to a nipple, surely?
As I fingered the implements of leather, cane, rope and the cold metal of chains, a strange panic started to grow inside me, alongside the sick fascination. This grim attic was dedicated to torture and suffering. It stank of perversion and cruelty. And I was trapped here. My legs began to shake compulsively and I could not control them. My chest felt tight so that it was hard to breathe. Soon, the shaking of my legs spread to my whole body as a full-blown panic attack gripped me, such as I had never experienced in my life before. I could hear the sound of his boots on the oak staircase. He was coming! Dear God help me. I backed away into the shadows, retreating from the approaching footsteps. He reached the landing below and his boots sounded on the polished boards, going suddenly silent as he crossed one of the scattered rugs, then he started up the servants' stairs to the attic, nearer . . . nearer.
As I backed further into the shadows, the slope of the roof bent my neck, then my back, then my legs till finally I was crouched right into the angle, trying to make myself invisibly small, whimpering and shaking uncontrollably among the tea chests and cabin trunks and a broken carpet beater.
His shadow from the landing light rose up the wall, huge and sinister, encompassing the rail of torture implements. Then he was there, silhouetted in the doorway, his massive frame filling the opening, a nightmare image of power and terror as I stuffed my knuckles into my mouth to try and stifle my stupid whimpering so that he should not know where I was hiding.
Dear God, let him not find me. Please. Please . . .