Irene tried harder but her head was foggy. She felt faint.

"Lick my c.u.n.t, b.i.t.c.h! Get your G.o.dd.a.m.n tongue into me!" Now Nickel was shouting. "Work it, b.i.t.c.h! Work it!" Her voice was cracking as she shouted as loudly as she could. The small cell rang.

The cell door banged open.

Both slaves looked up to see Lord Snow standing in the doorway. "What in h.e.l.l is going on in here?"

"Nickel brought me her c.u.n.t to eat," Irene said. She wasn't trying to be funny. She simply wasn't able to think clearly and was repeating what Nickel had told her a few minutes earlier.

"Well, I hope you like it because that's all that either one of you is going to eat for the next three days. You can both break your fast on Sat.u.r.day morning."

He slammed the door shut and the cell went dark, leaving Irene kneeling on the floor with her head between Nickel's widespread thighs.

Irene began to sob quietly. Three more days! She had already been fasting for three days. Her last meal had been on Sat.u.r.day night and she wouldn't eat her next meal until the following Sat.u.r.day morning.

She wouldn't survive.

Wrong. She would survive. Six days without food would be pure h.e.l.l, but she would survive. She would lose weight, come out rail thin, but she would survive.

Unless Nickel decided to turn cannibal. To strangle Irene in her sleep and snack on her flesh.

What about Nickel? Both of them were locked in the same cell now, and there was only a single cot that was barely large enough for one. There was no way that Nickel would share. Irene was going to have to sleep on the concrete floor.

Unless she wanted to fight Nickel for the cot. But that wouldn't turn out well. Even if she won the cot, she would suffer some even more terrible punishment for fighting. Maybe an additional three days of fasting. Nine days? Endless days until she starved to death. That really would kill her.

She rose to her feet in the dark and dried her eyes. The fog was lifting from her head and she felt like she was thinking clearly again.

"What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?" Nickel asked. "You get back down there and finish me off. In fact, you can stay down there and keep licking me for the next three days. You're going to keep your face in my c.u.n.t, even when you're asleep. You're going to keep me entertained until I get out of here."

"I don't think so," Irene said. "A few minutes ago, you were whiphand and spoke with the authority of Lord Snow. It was right that I obey you. But now you're under punishment. Your authority over me is suspended for the duration."

"My authority over you comes from my strap and I've still got it right here. You get down and get licking or I'm going to start swinging and I won't stop until every inch of you is bruised black from head to toe."

"You can try it if you like. But you're going to have to explain to Lord Snow how you were enforcing your discipline on me when I was already being disciplined exactly as he wished. Listening to you try to explain that might well be worth the price of admission. a.s.suming that I don't get the strap away from you and give you a taste of it myself. If you want to get into it with me, then you might be surprised what I can do when I'm not obligated to obey your orders."

There was a long silence from Nickel. She was seriously thinking about the pros and cons of getting into a full-scale brawl in this tiny cell with someone who might turn out to be a lot tougher than she expected.

Irene felt her way around the cell and sat down on the cot next to her. "You know that it's your fault that I'm in here in the first place. If you'd been enthusiastic about giving the marquette the pleasure that was his due, he wouldn't have voted to punish me. And if you hadn't come in here to force yourself on me just now, Lord Snow wouldn't have doubled my punishment."

"Don't blame me for your failures," Nickel countered. "I was doing just fine hiding in my corner during the entertainment. If you'd left me alone, the marquette would have been serviced to his satisfaction by the other slaves and you would have had him on your side. And if you'd been as enthusiastic about servicing me today as you usually are, I wouldn't have been so noisy trying to get your attention and Lord Snow wouldn't have come in here and found us."

"My G.o.d, you are a piece of work, aren't you? In your mind, everyone but you is to blame for your shortcomings."

"You think that everyone but you is to blame for your bad judgment. You think you're still a fancy lady with high hair who can do no wrong. And Lord Snow goes along with it, treating you like you're some kind of special person instead of just another piece of property. You think that I don't know that you send the kennelmen on shopping trips to buy things for you. You order new clothes for yourself. You tell the lord how his billiard room is going to be decorated. You think you're still more lady than slave. Lord Snow better d.a.m.n well put you in your place or he's going to end up married to a slave. A man who marries his slave is no gentleman, let me tell you. He's no better than a slave himself."

"Don't you worry yourself on that account. Lord Snow isn't going to marry me because I'm already married. I was married before I sold myself and, as near as I can figure out, my husband has never bothered divorcing me."

Nickel hooted. "Wouldn't that be a fine how-de-do. A gentleman married to a slave by default. You think that's possible? Don't be an idiot. You're property. Marriage is between two people. The minute you were sold, you stopped being a person, so you stopped being a wife. Your ex-husband can no more be married to you than he could be married to a rubber doll. And Lord Snow can't marry you, either, for exactly the same reason. There's not a court in the land that would authorize such a contract. And why the h.e.l.l should he try? He can get anything he wants from you already. Cooking. Cleaning. s.e.x. Babies. What in h.e.l.l can a wife give him that a slave can't?"

"Status," Irene said. "Don't ever underestimate the importance of social status."

"Status. f.u.c.k status. You can't eat status."

"You're wrong. The aristocracy feasts on it. It's all they have. They don't work the fields or labor in the factories. They don't produce a d.a.m.n thing yet they own it all. And the only reason that the commoners don't take it all back is because the aristocracy has status and they don't. Within the ranks of the aristocracy, every step up in status gives them more power to lord it over more people.

"You wouldn't believe how much of a gentleman's status comes from his choice of wife. She organizes the social calendar, manages their friendships, enforces the cultural rules."

Irene sighed. "You know what I was doing just before I sold myself into slavery? I was destroying the happiness of the oldest daughter of a dear friend. Her daughter was infatuated with a young man whose father was a knight. He was a lovely boy and would have someday managed and eventually inherited his father's fishing fleet and other commercial concerns. Technically, the knight's t.i.tle is not inherited, but as the heir to his father's interests, he would have been elevated to knighthood almost automatically when his father died.

"All that sounds good, but it's not good enough for the daughter of a lord. She would have stepped down two full ranks on the social ladder. Instead, I was arranging for her to step up. She was beautiful enough to have attracted the attention of an earl. True, the earl was fifty-two and she was only eighteen. True, he was one of the dullest, most pedantic men that I've ever met. True, she would most likely be over forty when he finally kicked the bucket and widowed her. But he was an earl. Her family would have been invited to a much higher cla.s.s of social events. They would have been rubbing elbows with other earls and marquettes. They would have been the envy of all their friends.

"I was in a position to arrange that marriage. I was the go-between who was ensuring that the daughter and the earl attended the same dinners and sat in adjacent seats. I was there to prop up the earl's conversation and make him look like he was urbane and witty. At the same time, I was always quick to disparage the knight's son. Not stage a direct a.s.sault that would have raised the daughter's hackles but drop sly comments about other men who smelled of fish, who struggled to marry above their rank, who were so good-looking that they had to have male lovers. And then there were the frank talks with the daughter about the honor that a good marriage would bestow on her parents. I knew how to pile the guilt on in great heaps.

"I knew that I was condemning the poor girl to a long and loveless marriage. But you know why I was doing it? Because it enhanced the status of my own family. I was putting both my friend and the earl into my debt. I was ensuring that my husband and I would be frequent guests in both their houses.

"You have no idea what a huge favor I did for that unfortunate girl by selling myself into slavery before my plan was complete. If she's smart, she'll have married the young knight immediately, not waited until her mother found some other lady to do her dirty work for her."

"So you sold yourself into slavery out of remorse," Nickel said. "You let yourself be beaten and humiliated by me and others to relieve your guilt."

Irene laughed lightly. "No. You don't get it at all. I didn't feel the least bit guilty about arranging an unhappy marriage for that girl. That's what ladies do. They scheme and manipulate and oppress each other mercilessly. At the same time that I was plotting to climb over the wreckage of that poor girl's happiness, a dozen of my friends were plotting against me in various other ways.

"No. I sold myself into slavery because all that plotting was so easy. I'd been doing it since I was a little girl. I was good at it. I was the daughter of a knight and I rose two ranks when I married a lord. That's how good I was. For me, those kinds of campaigns required barely more thought than breathing.

"I sold myself into slavery because I was bored beyond belief. My husband cared more for his slaves than for me. My friends cared more for their social schemes than for their happiness. My life as a lady offered nothing interesting any more."

"So now you get down on your knees and eat my c.u.n.t every day and you like that better." Nickel sounded sardonic.

"No. I detest that. And I detest you. But that is more emotion than I ever felt when I was a lady. As a lady, I detested my husband's slaves and his entertainments, but that was from a distance. It wasn't up close and personal. There's nothing quite as personal as having your tongue jammed into another woman's c.u.n.t as far as you can reach."

"You're making me h.o.r.n.y with all this s.e.x talk."

"Tough. You're not getting any relief from me until your punishment is over."

Nickel sighed. "So you jumped from the frying pan into the fire. You couldn't do anything about your husband's slaves so you became a slave, yourself, and now you can't do anything about anything."

"You're premise is wrong. I could have stopped my husband's slaving any time I wanted. You think a lady doesn't have enough power over her own husband to stop him from owning slaves or partic.i.p.ating in gentlemen's entertainments? You don't have a clue about how powerful ladies are. Not a clue."

"Then why didn't you make your husband get rid of his slaves?"

"Status. What status would my husband have if he didn't own slaves and couldn't entertain other gentlemen? And if he had no status, then I would have no status. I didn't spend my life climbing up to a valued place in the aristocracy to throw it away because I was jealous of my husband's property."

"Well, you sure threw your status away when you became property."

"I though that there would be compensations. There are. Not as many as I hoped, but enough to make it worthwhile." Irene's stomach growled. "I only wish that you hadn't f.u.c.ked up my last entertainment."

"I didn't"

Nickel was interrupted by the light. Both slaves shut their eyes against the sudden glare.

They only heard the door slam open again and Lord Snow say, "Nickel, grab that bucket and get into your own cell. Irene, lock her door and then get cleaned up. I'll see you in the pleasure room in ten minutes."

When Irene could open her eyes, Lord Snow was long gone.

She looked at Nickel and said, "He didn't say to empty the bucket so I guess your cell is going to stink of my pee. You'll have something to remember me by. Now grab that thing and get going. You don't want to make me have to tell Lord Snow why I was late getting to the pleasure room. He could give you an extra three days of fasting for that."

Nickel grabbed the bucket.

Irene turned Nickel's lock closed on her way to the shower. And she didn't forget to turn out the lights in her cell.

Irene was on her knees, waiting, when Lord Snow entered the pleasure room. "How can I serve you, sir?"

"Give me another entertainment that was as good as the last one. One week from Friday. That's in nine days. Can you do that?"

"I can."

There was a long pause while Irene and Lord Snow stared at each other, each wondering what the other was thinking.

Lord Snow broke the silence. "For G.o.d's sake, get off you knees and sit in the d.a.m.n chair."

"Yes, sir." Irene scrambled to obey.

After another silence, Irene said, "You said that you want an entertainment that was as good as the last one. I don't understand. The last one failed. Four men voted against me. You were one of them. I'm still fasting because of my failure." She was out of her cell, but Lord Snow's last order still stood. She didn't dare eat until breakfast on Sat.u.r.day. Irene feared that it would be much harder to starve herself when everyone around her was eating. She couldn't help but obsess about the food that would be served for dinner in a couple of hours. The smell alone might be enough to drive her mad. She would be better off in her cell.

"Don't pretend to be ignorant. You know d.a.m.n well that you weren't being punished for giving a bad entertainment. It was marvelous. Striking for its erotic sensuality. Best s.e.x those gentlemen had ever had. If not for that d.a.m.ned Marquette Kelly, everyone would be raving about it. He's only in his early fifties but he's as crotchety as an old woman. I think that he was angry because he can't get it up as easily now as he could when he was thirty. He takes it out on slaves every chance he gets. And those other two, Beau Mira and Manuel Swales, the only reason that they went along was because they were trying to suck up to the marquette."

"And you?"

"You know d.a.m.n well why I punished you. If you ever deceive me like that again, I'll have you caned b.l.o.o.d.y. You're not a lady any more. You're my property and you better d.a.m.n well act like it."

"Sir?"

"What?"

"I beg you to strap me now."

"Why? Don't you think that starving since last Sat.u.r.day is punishment enough?"

"No, sir. That's the punishment that was voted on. That was the punishment for failing to please your honored guest. He was right to feel shortchanged. I was careless and set Nickel to service him. I should have known better. She has no talent for servicing men. I have been corrected and will not make that mistake again." She didn't mention that Lord Snow had ordered her to put Nickel into service. She wondered if he remembered that. "But the deception that I perpetrated on you was a separate offence and it deserves a separate discipline. You should cane me b.l.o.o.d.y but that might damage your property. I can a.s.sure you that the strap alone will be enough to make me regret with all my heart that I betrayed you."

"You've been caned before." Lord Snow c.o.c.ked his head. "The scars on your a.s.s are still vivid. It looks like you were caned by your last owner about a month before I acquired you."

"Yes, sir. I'm not trying to mitigate my punishment. If you believe that I merit a severe caning, then you should add your marks to my body as well." Irene felt lightheaded. Starvation had taken its toll and now, acute fear of an additional imminent punishment was draining her energy to the point that she could barely stay conscious. She tried to calm her treacherous body, stop from shivering in terror and slow her racing heart, but she failed. She did not have that kind of control.

"Very well," Lord Snow said. "If you think you need it, you will feel the sting of my strap. Stretch yourself out on that table."

Irene crawled up on the table. It resembled the ma.s.sage table in a spa that she sometimes frequented but, unlike that one, this one was fitted with straps for restraint.

Lord Snow buckled the straps about her waist, upper thighs, and ankles. He crossed her arms above her head and buckled her wrists in place.

He was an artist with his strap and used the table to ensure that his canvas would not shift while he was applying a uniform coat of bruises.

Irene's b.u.t.tocks twitched and quivered with involuntary tics, fueled by her fear of the pain that was coming.

And the pain did come. Lord Snow's strap cracked down on her b.u.t.tocks again and again, each vicious stroke precisely overlapping with the previous.

Lord Snow's punishments were not measured in strokes of the strap, but in square inches of skin painted deep purple. He progressed in steady rhythm across the width of each cheek from side to crack and up from the juncture of the thigh to the tip of the tailbone.

Irene wailed in agony, thrashing her head and twitching her feet. But her b.u.t.tocks couldn't retreat from the brutal strokes, only quake and ripple under the power of the blows.

His bruises penetrated her flesh almost to the bone.

Executing his masterpiece of overlapping contusions took more than five minutes, but it felt like five hours to the poor, tortured slave.

When he finally finished, his arm was aching and his face was dripping sweat, but he was satisfied that he had done the best job possible on Irene's a.s.s.

He loosened the straps and left her on the table to sob to her heart's content.

The slave could never cry enough to wash the pain away.

Somewhere in the back of Irene's mind, she was aware that she had not lost consciousness, even for a moment. She had felt the full intensity of every cruel stroke. It was the bitter victory of endurance over cowardice.

"Feel better now?"

She only sobbed.

"Feel like you've been well and properly punished?"

She nodded her head, dragging her tear-soaked hair across the wet sheet that covered the table.

"Good. If you ever deceive me again, I'll apply the same treatment from your ankles to your neck, front and back, and then go over the inside and outside of both legs. I will make you regret that you were ever born. You understand me?"

She understood that the pain from a more extensive beating than this would be dire. And she understood that Lord Snow wouldn't hesitate to administer such a beating if he thought that she deserved it.

She would never dare to deceive him again.

"You may attend dinner," he said. "You may stand while you eat if you wish."

Her fast was over.

"Thank you, so much, my lord," she said through her tears. She felt grat.i.tude for his mercy to the depth of her heart.

"One other thing," he said before he left. "Twice you've lost these bulls.h.i.t votes that you hold at the end of your entertainments. Don't do that again. I own you. I alone decide if you succeed or fail and I alone will decide on your punishment for failure. It was an entertaining bit of drama before, but I'm tired of it. No more votes."

"Gentlemen, welcome to Lord Snow's s.e.x games."