Monica's Justice - Captives of Shark Island

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

(story continues from Monica's Justice - Captives of Shark Island)

Chapter Six  - Bound by the Past - Mary's story

     The more I saw of Bradley, the less I liked him, but then, maybe that was just me. But it was something more than that – something I could not define, yet something that had an element of familiarity about it, like a particularly evocative smell. Perhaps that was an appropriate description for the man.

The dinner was over and we had got rid of the subs who had gone upstairs to the pool level. Jax was telling us more about what she had planned for the morning.

“I thought the idea of Secret Subbie would be fun,” she was saying. “We dress up all the subs alike, number them one to four, and you get a random pick. I gather, Monica, you’ve brought along some pieces of hardware to play with?”

“Steven is quite skilled at the work,” Monica said. “There’s a nice yoke, and some sets of special manacles…”

“Excellent. We’ll number those as well. One number determines the subbie you get, the other defines the restraint. What you’ll need to do is put your subs into the elevator by ten o’clock tomorrow morning. That’ll allow you sleep in time and/or play time,” she said slyly.

“How do we not distinguish between four subbies, two of which are male and two female?” Bradley asked, the expression in his voice suggesting he was obviously unimpressed. Jax appeared not to notice the tone.

“Very easy. Rubber hoods and rubber bags.”

“Rubber bags?”

“Sure. The army use them – they’re called dry bags.”

Jax went on to describe them, but I was only half listening. Out of the corner of my eye I couldn’t help but cast surreptitious glances at Bradley. One time he caught my eye and made me feel decidedly uncomfortable. I still couldn’t work out where he fitted in all of this. Jax was after him for his business, it seemed, but there was the B&D angle as well. I wondered what I was missing here. I decided I would dearly like to know a little more about this guy. What was it that made him seem… familiar?

When our little group dissolved, Jax and Bradley elected to have a nightcap, while Monica went in search of Steven. I trailed her upstairs to find Leila alone, as Monica and Steven headed off to their cabin.

“Leila,” I called.

Leila turned from where she was watching the wake of the ship in the darkness. She hastened around the pool to me, looking quite delicious in a long red gown. Red suits her blonde locks, and she knows how to dress well. If I was a male I would have been very attracted to her, though as it was I would still enjoy her company in bed. It’s nothing sexual in the sense that I don’t class myself as “bi”, simply broad-minded and experienced enough to enjoy the company of an experienced subbie in bed. Oh, I’m definitely a man person, except that in so many cases they can be simply inept, and having another woman who knows the tricks of the trade can be so much more fulfilling sometimes. In this respect Leila was certainly no beginner.

“Come, Leila,” I said, putting my hand on the back of her neck. She smelled of perfume and soap with just a touch of wine on top.

I led the way down the starboard stairs, past where Jax and Bradley still talked at the table, and down to the deck where our cabin was located.

“This is our cabin, Mary,” said Leila, stopping outside our door, which I had passed and turned into the transverse corridor. I turned and motioned her to follow me, stopping outside the door to Bradley’s cabin, near the elevator amidships. I put my finger to my lips.

“What’re you doing?” Leila whispered.

“I want to know more about our Mr Bradley – if indeed he is a Mr Bradley.” I put my hand on the brass door handle.

“You’re going into his cabin?” Leila was aghast.

“Yes, and you’re going to keep watch. Knock on the door if you hear anyone coming.”

“And then what?” She had a point.

“And then I’ll have time to hide and sneak out when he’s asleep.”

Leila’s eyes widened. “You’re crazy! Mary, this is dumb!”

“Look, he’ll be with Jax a few minutes longer. She and Seb the stud sleep upstairs, as do Helen and Kim. I only want a few minutes to look through his stuff.”

“Oh Mary - ” Leila looked anxious and just a tad scared.

“Shush, girl. I’ll be really quick.”

I didn’t give her a chance to argue. Mind you, the whole exercise could have come unstuck at that point, but I counted on the cabin being unlocked. Why would you lock a cabin on a voyage like this? That same logic suggested to me that you wouldn’t take your wallet out to dinner with you, either, and I wanted to get a look inside it. Something about our Mr Bradley jangled my nerves. Call it woman’s intuition, call it anything you like. Sometimes I just have a nose for these things.

I shut the door behind me. The light was already on and I gazed around the huge cabin. To the left and right sides were pairs of separate rooms – a kind of his and hers bathroom and walk-in wardrobes. I quickly established that the left hand side rooms were untouched, while the walk-in closet opposite had hanging clothes, and bathroom stuff laid out next door.

It didn’t take much to find his wallet in the suitcase. I pulled out his drivers licence. It gave a Sydney address in the name of Horatio Bradley, and that was when the penny dropped. Master Horatio! It was a name you didn’t forget. This was the guy from Dark Castle in Sydney, eighteen years ago, who had nearly strangled one of the subbies before being barred! This was the guy who used the cruciform rope bindings! Shit! No wonder nerves had been tingling. It was the unusual name that had triggered my memory. The guy must have spent the intervening time overseas and picked up a bit of a Yank accent…

Voices came from outside. There was a bump that might have been a knock on the door. I dropped the wallet as adrenalin surged into my system and I raced for the vacant walk-in closet across the room, slipping inside and pulling the door closed behind me. It was dark and quiet, though I would have sworn my pounding heart was audible to anyone outside.

I could just hear the sounds of movement in the main room – drawers opening and occasionally the odd thump that might have been a cupboard or door closing. It was dark in the closet, with only a chink of light coming from under the door. I couldn’t read my watch, but I began to get more fidgety as the minutes passed and the sounds of movement seemed not to be lessening outside. Then it did go quiet. I sat on a small chest of drawers, with my knees drawn up, waiting for the damned light to go off, or for some sign that might indicate Bradley was preparing to go to bed.

It went quiet for a bit, then there came muted voices that I took to be the television. The inevitable ship noises – vibrations, engine, air conditioning and the obvious solidity of the door all served to make the noises indistinct. I wondered how long Mr Bradley was going to be watching TV, for I was desperate to get out and tell Monica what I had discovered. So intent was I on this aspect that what happened next took me totally by surprise.

My dark little world in the walk-in closet was shattered with the sudden opening of the door. I barely had a chance to react as Bradley stepped up to me and seized me by the hair, pulling me forward off the low chest of drawers and sending me sprawling on to my knees. The floor was of marble tiles and I acted in self-preservation putting my arms out and ending up in a heap. I had no opportunity to recover from this ambush, for he landed astride me, pushing me face down on to the floor and momentarily winding me.

I’m no heavyweight, as the girls will testify, but they will also say that I know a few tricks in self-defence. In this instance, however, the attack was so sudden and brutal that my best efforts were almost negligible against the weight now on top of me. I scrabbled about with my legs, but my long dress - which everyone had said accented my figure – only saw me get more tangled up. My arms had initially gone out to protect my face and body from the floor, and my left arm was now pinned beneath my breasts. With Bradley seated in the small of my back my right arm could not get at him, but he could certainly get at it, and I felt the cold steel of a handcuff encircle my wrist and ratchet closed with sharp clicks. I gasped as he yanked my arm behind me and shifted his weight just enough so that he could grab my left elbow and prise my other arm free from beneath me. I clenched my fist and strained to resist the pressure, but the angles were all wrong and his strength was just too great. At the same time he was dragging my manacled right wrist further behind me and the pain from the steel digging into my flesh was distracting. Moments later the clicking sounded again as my left wrist was secured in the other ring of steel.

Nothing had been said until that point. The attack had been sudden and the fight had been fierce and quick. My focus had been one of self-preservation – futile, as it turned out. Now I felt him pull a length of cord from his pocket and slip it around my neck with the clinical efficiency of one who knows exactly what he is doing and has done it many times before. The fact that I now knew who this guy was and what lay in his past made things really scary.

I got off a few brief curses as he pulled the ends of the cord around the links of the handcuffs and began to haul my wrists up behind my back. In a matter of seconds the rope had tightened on my throat and my wrists were uncomfortably wedged against my shoulder blades. My initial vocal threats died in the face of the pressure against my throat and the greater need to focus on my breathing. Only at this point did Bradley get off me and stand up, while I lay there, trying to come to terms with the awful change of circumstances and my own immediate difficulties.

Bradley was breathing heavily himself, though this was small comfort to me. If I had managed to damage him in some way I might have taken some satisfaction in my present plight, but I had not even managed this.

After a small pause, he grasped me by the shoulders and hauled me to my feet. I tottered awkwardly on my high heels, inwardly cursing myself for not removing them in preparation for a quick getaway. Standing erect now brought gravity into play in putting extra pressure on my arms and thus on the rope at my throat. Bradley spun me round and I glared at him, conscious of the rasping of my own breath.

“Well, well,” he said finally, still holding me by the shoulders. He was slightly taller than me and considerably heavier. “I thought the Secret Santa didn’t start until tomorrow.” His voice was harsh and his grey eyes seemed to bore right through me. I thought I could now detect an underlying Australian accent beneath the American twang.

“And what brings you and your friend snooping, little lady?”

“Fuck you,” I told him. Anybody who called me ‘little lady’ was going to make precious little headway with me. Patronising bastard. His answer to that was a hard slap across the cheek which made my head rock. He dragged me into the main cabin and I was shocked to see Leila bound hand and foot on the bed. She was naked, her red gown a crumpled heap on the floor. Several turns of duct tape were wrapped around her head over her mouth, trapping her blonde hair. Her big brown eyes looked up at me with a mixture of apology and pleading and I saw what looked like the beginnings of a nasty bruise on the edge of her jaw, just below the tape. The opinion I was forming of this guy did nothing to boost my confidence, and I was starting to realise we were in serious trouble.

He thrust me into a high-backed antique armchair. It was one of those over-stuffed ones with side wings at head height and carved wooden arms. All in all somewhat of a monstrosity and probably worth a ridiculous amount because of it. A small roll of duct tape emerged from his pocket and it took only a couple of seconds for him to tape my left ankle to the chair leg. I toyed with the idea of trying to kick him, but he was leaning against my right leg, trapping it within the grey satin sheath that was my dress. When he turned his attention to the right ankle, the same dress prevented my legs being parted wide enough for my right ankle to reach the chair leg. Bradley’s answer to this was to rip the front of the dress upwards to my navel with a brute force that I found frightening. For a man of his age he had surprising strength and knew how to use it. Moments later my other ankle was immovably taped to the chair and he was sitting on a low antique coffee table looking at me with a hard, demanding stare.

“You want to tell me what this is all about?”

“No,” I said.

“We can make this hard or easy,” he stated flatly. “Let me tell you that whatever happens it will make no difference to you. I know what’s ahead of you, and the fact that you’ve screwed up and ended up prisoners a little early is of no consequence to me.” He paused, as if to let his words sink in. I did not understand what he meant, but the tone chilled me. Leila gave a little sniff as she fought back tears on the bed.

“Go screw yourself,” I told him, trying to keep my voice calm. It was probably not a diplomatic choice of words to a man obviously capable of violence just on the events of the last ten minutes, never mind any previous record.

Bradley did not react to my injudicious remark, though I thought Leila cringed. I know I’m not the most tactful of people sometimes, and realistically this was not a good time to let my feelings overrule common sense. Bradley stood up and walked to the drawer at the base of the bed, opening it and extracting several metres of sashcord. Deliberately he sat on the bed beside Leila and fashioned one end of the rope into an expert hangman’s noose. The efficiency and casualness with which he did this was not lost on us, nor was the significance of the noose itself, especially when he slipped it around Leila’s neck.

“Don’t you dare!” I warned him with a boldness I certainly did not feel. Bradley ignored me as he bent Leila’s legs back and slipped the rope between her ankle bonds. He rolled her on to her stomach and pulled her feet back, tightening the connection between neck and ankles, before slipping the loose end of the rope through her bound wrists. He expertly tied the rope with a sliding tension knot to the section coming from her ankles, such that any pulling on her wrists, or attempt to straighten her legs tightened the noose at her throat. I knew the tension knot could be slid further towards her ankles to shorten the link and provide a further tightening of the noose.

“Now,” he said evenly, turning to me. “I’m not going to mess about here. You two have no future as far as I am concerned. If you happen to fall overboard early I shan’t be worried. From what I hear, you may come to look on it as a blessing.” It was a further allusion to what lay ahead and it made my stomach knot with fear. “Simply tell me what you’re doing here and you’ll save this pretty young lady a lot of pain.”

Already I could see Leila was fighting to keep her body arched to lessen the tension on the connecting rope, and I knew I was on to a loser.

“I thought you looked familiar,” I said, at length. “I wanted to see who you really were.”

“But your little lookout here was a bit slow, and you had to rush for cover midway through poking through my wallet. And what did you find out?”

“That you live in Sydney. That your name is Horatio.”

“And?”

“That’s all. I thought you looked familiar. I was mistaken.”

Bradley leaned across to where Leila lay in her deadly hogtie. He pulled her feet further towards her waist, sliding the tension knot further down to pick up the slack, then releasing the strain on to the rope. The noose tightened around Leila’s neck and she began to show signs of distress. Her face was flushed and she was panting hard for breath through her nose, unable to overcome the duct tape sealing her mouth.

“I don’t believe you.” He peered at me closely. “In fact, now that you raise the matter, I think you look rather familiar as well.” He stared at me for perhaps a full minute, as though trying to put his finger on a vague memory from the past, while Leila’s ragged breathing seemed to fill the room.

“We have met before,” he finally concluded. “I can’t recall where, but I’m willing to bet that you do. Want to tell me?” His hand strayed to Leila’s noose rope. This time he merely pushed downwards, causing her head to tilt back further and her body to arch as she strained desperately for air. She was making little gurgling snorts as she struggled to breath against the constricting noose.

I knew when I was beaten.

“All right – all right! Let her go! It was at the Dark Castle, in Sydney! You nearly stangled a subbie there. I met you a couple of times when I was just starting out.”

His brow furrowed slightly and he looked at me in a way as though trying to picture me somehow differently.

“Did you ever wear a Gestapo uniform?” I nodded, and his expression cleared. “God, what a small world.” He removed his hand from Leila’s rope, but it didn’t make much difference now, since the noose had tightened. “Yes, that was an unfortunate occurrence. I’m much more careful now – more skilled, shall we say.” He smiled at me, but the expression held no warmth. “But my dear Mary, you’re only telling me half the story. I don’t like being lied to. You don’t go rummaging around somebody’s cabin on the chance of their being an old acquaintance. No, you were doing it for another reason. Tell me!” His last sentence was harsh and demanding, as he yanked on Leila’s noose. She grunted and I saw her eyelids begin to flicker.

“You used a particular form of cruciform ropework which I remember,” I blurted. “The same one you’ve used on those girls you’ve murdered in Brisbane!” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I knew it was probably a fatal admission, but anything to stop a further death that might happen on the bed any second. “Stop it! Take the noose off, please!” I implored, feeling tears welling in my eyes.

Bradley appeared to consider both the implications of my confession and also my plea, lost in his thoughts for several seconds.

“Who else knows about this little revelation of yours?”

“Nobody, I swear! It only came to me when I saw your name on your licence!”

There was a further reflection while Leila jerked a couple of times and started to go limp.

“Stop it!” I cried, though the rope around my own throat limited my own volume.

After another few seconds, Bradley lifted his hand and pulled the tension knot undone. Leila’s feet slipped back and her head fell limply forward. Bradley loosened the noose and rolled her on to her back. I saw that her breasts were rising and falling, though her eyes remained closed. Bradley was now lost in thought and paced the length of the room a couple of times.

“I think we can make this work,” he said finally, as though to himself. “I get to have some fun, you get to have an accident, and it all happens within the framework of the little plan that Jax and Kim have prepared for you.

Jax and Kim! This was another bombshell that I hadn’t seen coming. Mistress and former subbie! I didn’t know what they were up to, and what possible grudge they might hold against Monica. I also didn’t like the way he delivered this pronouncement nor the effort which had been expended to lure us into what was now obviously an elaborate trap. But with Leila and I prisoners, we were unable to warn the others. God, this whole mess was getting worse by the minute!

As I tried to take in the rapid turn of events, Bradley was delving in to the bondage drawer again, emerging with a sponge ball and some more duct tape. I saw what was coming and knew this was my last chance as he approached me with obvious intent.

“Help! Somebod- Nrf! Urggh!” Then his fingers were expertly working the ball into my mouth and the tape was wrapped around my head so that I matched the gagged Leila still lying unmoving on the bed.

“Not a good move,” Bradley chided, undoing the halterneck button at the back of my neck and letting the top of my dress fall down. “Now we have time for some final fun, before you move from this trap into the next.”

* * *

Bradley was a meticulous man. He did things deliberately and with purpose. In this instance, the flogging that he gave Leila and myself had both deliberation and purpose, the latter being the purpose of providing Bradley’s pleasure.

Bradley was nothing if not thorough and was taking no chances. He hauled me to my feet from where I sat in the high-backed chair, leaving me tottering uncertainly while he used bathroom scissors to cut the tape on my ankles to free them from the chair. The old adage that resistance was futile popped into my brain as he pulled my head downwards and dragged me across to the walk-in closet I had hidden in previously. His action in moving my head down tightened the rope at my throat as the strain came on my wrists locked in the steel cuffs behind my shoulders. This guy knew how to control a prisoner.

The closet was the size of a small bedroom, with hanging rails running the length of each side just above head height, and further rails for shoe storage along the base. At the far end of the room there was a full height mirror, and – as I found when the door swung closed behind us with the gentle motion of the ship, there was an identical mirror covering the full area of the back of the door. It was in this that I watched my ankles now being spread apart and each one secured by a length of rope to the left and right shoe rails. Now that I was going nowhere, Bradley could turn his attention to my wrists, which he did very carefully, as though dealing with a wild animal.

He tied a length of cord around my right wrist before releasing it from the cuffs, while the other stayed in place, still tugging on the rope at my throat. My ‘free’ wrist was now linked to the right hand hanging rail, which was still half a metre beyond my fingers with my arm outstretched. A minute later my left wrist was similarly anchored to the opposite side rail, with Bradley revisiting my bonds to ensure my arms were stretched as tightly as possible, by him hauling hard on the ropes to remove any slack before retying them. He stood back to admire his handiwork. The top of my very expensive dress hung at my waist since he had undone it at the neck, while the bottom half had ridden up my spread legs thanks to the tear he had made up the front of it, the bastard!

Evidently the presence of the dress didn’t appeal to him, and I was obliged to watch, seething, as he used the scissors to cut the remainder away from my body. Six hundred bucks down the drain. I would make him pay for this, and I wasn’t talking about dollars. Even at such a dire time it seemed my mind just couldn’t let go of a mundane injustice such as this.

Predictably my thong was next to fall under the scissors, and I was left, naked, spreadeagled and gagged to feel the cold caresses of his hands as they roved over my body like a buyer examining a racehorse at an auction. I figured he wouldn’t be examining my teeth, however, given the layers of duct tape around my mouth. He moved behind me and I felt his body close against me, his breath in my ear. He said nothing, and that in itself was disconcerting. His hands reached around and cupped my breasts, massaging them and making the nipples betray me by becoming flinty and erect under his ministrations. He gripped each one between thumb and forefinger and slowly began to squeeze. I closed my eyes and screwed up my face as the pain began to make itself felt. I was determined not to show weakness to him, though no doubt my rapid breathing and the faint whimper I couldn’t suppress may have given me away.

Finally he stopped and moved back in front of me. I opened my eyes.

“I do think we’re going to have some fun, Mistress Mary,” he said quietly but with a tone that sent a shiver up my spine, as I pictured what he had done to Tara and Catherine before strangling them. Here was a man into God knows what in the way of breath-play and infliction of pain, and I was now a helpless toy for just that.

He returned to the bedroom, where I glimpsed movement on the bed that indicated that Leila had regained consciousness. It took him only five minutes to haul her into the wardrobe and tie her in an identical position facing me. Leila’s lovely face was pale and tear-stained above the tape that still sealed her mouth and pulled her blonde hair tightly against her head. She stood, legs tied apart and arms tautly stretched, looking vainly for some sign from me that this was all some sort of elaborate stunt and that we would shortly be set free. I could do nothing to comfort her as she suffered from the same roving hands that caressed and fondled her breasts and squeezed her nipples until she uttered a gagged moan.

Bradley’s fingers then slid down her flanks to bury themselves in her pussy, which elicited a further moan. He withdrew them and I saw they were wet with Lelia’s juices, which he wiped across the tape beneath her nose. We all knew that Leila suffered from an inability to control her inclinations no matter what the circumstances, and this had just been proven. Up to a point, ropes and pain had an effect on her that she could not control, and I suspect this was something that Bradley had just realised, judging from the thoughtful look on his face as he stepped away and favoured her with a long, appraising inspection.

He paid another visit to the bedroom and returned with more ropes and some toys. I groaned inwardly, taking in the two butt plugs whose destination was obvious. Now Bradley appeared to be in a world of his own, working swiftly and expertly. The rope and the handcuffs that had hung loosely around my neck were removed and a new rope was looped behind my neck, its twin lengths reaching to the floor down my front. He tied a knot just above my breasts and one at the level of my pussy, then pulled the twin tails between my spread legs and cheeks, working them deep between my labia before pulling them tight up my back and encircling my neck in a further loop. It was not tight enough to affect my breathing, but I knew it would get worse.

Next came the butt plug, lubricated with juices from Leila’s pussy before being worked between the ropes into my back passage. It was no small plug, and again I found myself shutting my eyes and breathing in short snorts as I tried to relax my sphincter muscles and let the big object enter me. It finally slid home with a sharp pain that caused a groan I could not suppress. I saw Bradley grinning in the mirror, and he waggled the protruding end to see if he could get a further reaction from me, but without success.

Then there was the vibrator – a large, black plastic ribbed affair – which he worked in slowly as it hummed and sent shivers through my loins. When he pulled back the ropes to position them over the protruding end, everything became tighter at once – the artificial cock burying deeper inside me, the plug, and the ropes around my neck.

His next party piece was the tying of torso ropes above and below my breasts – three turns at each level, cinching between my breasts and on each side and looping through the twin ropes linking my neck and crotch. The ropes encircling me made it harder to breath, as they compressed my rib cage like a bondage corset. I caught Leila’s eye as she watched what was being done to me, realising that such was also likely to be her fate. Bradley gave me an appraising look and tugged at various ropes, checking their tension. Apparently satisfied, he turned his attention to Leila.

Leila had her eyes closed during much of the identical process that now befell her. Watching her lithe young body being stringently bound was a sight that couldn’t fail to arouse me, much to my chagrin, and the vibrations coming from my crotch were an unwanted pleasure that distracted my thoughts from the fearful situation into which we were sinking. I watched the ropes being bound around Leila’s torso, with the cinches making her breasts swell and protrude, their pink tips rigid and aroused, rising and falling as her breath became more laboured under the influence of the stimuli.

When Bradley had finished, Leila’s body was spreadeagled and now displayed the cruciform ropework that had fatally decorated Tara and Catherine. I knew what the next stage of our torture was going to be.

He began on me, with the flogger. It had half a dozen heavy thongs about half a metre long, and his familiarity with such a weapon was obvious. He did not expend energy to be dissipated through the whole length of the thongs making contact – rather, he controlled the action so that only the tips caught my flesh, intensifying and localising the pain. He started behind me, working his way from my lower calves up my thighs, then concentrating on my buttocks for several minutes, the sting of the lash extending around on each side.

Soon my cheeks were on fire, and I found myself making small exhalations with each blow. He moved up my back, the thongs curling round to the base of my breasts. I realised his backhand was as good as his forehand, for the blows hurt equally badly coming in a rapid succession from the left and right hand sides. In glimpses in the mirrors in front and behind me I could see my flesh turning a bright crimson as the pain continued up my back and on to my shoulders, armpits and biceps..

I was struggling to contain myself now. When he stood in front of me and looked me in the eye, I tried to stare him down, but my attention was continually drawn to the flogger in his hand and the burning that now seemed to radiate from the whole of my back. I knew there was worse, much worse to come, for he had touched neither my breasts nor pussy – yet. I knew also that I had to set an example to young Leila, but I was beginning to wonder how long my reserves of stoicism could hold out.

I know the girls call me Proud Mary behind my back. I rather like the title, and I am still of the belief that one has to maintain standards. This is part of the problem with the next generation – a lack of respect for those more experienced in life and a lapse in standards everywhere you look as a result. This is not always the case in Bilboes, where I do receive respect – at least from the team, if not always from the clients, until they see the error of their ways. With respect comes obligation, however, and I knew Leila was looking to me for guidance and support. I closed my eyes as the first blow came, a stinging, agonising slash across my left breast, bound immovably prominent by the cinched ropes.

I gasped, but kept my eyes screwed closed as a further impact came on my right breast – the start of a staccato series of blows that found me grinding my teeth and trying to lose myself in some other mental place. It was the one disadvantage I suffered from, compared to some of the submissives, for I was unable to transport myself into subspace the way they could. Instead I could only focus my thoughts into resisting this bastard and determining that somehow I would get through this and make him pay dearly for all that he had done.

My breasts were on fire from the flogging, the nipples feeling as though a match had been held to each. When he switched to my stomach it was almost a momentary relief, until the first blow came upwards between my spread legs. My body stiffened as all my muscles – already taut from the bondage position and the flogging itself – seemed to tighten a further notch in expectation of the new assault. Sweat was running down my body despite the air conditioning, and the moisture was soaking into the thongs making them heavier and the consequent impact more painful.

I tried desperately to distract myself from the agony that was coming from my crotch, though I supposed it would have been far worse without the twin strands of rope buried between my labia and holding the still buzzing vibrator in place. I attempted to focus on these good vibrations, but with little success. I was now making muffled “Ugh! - Ugh! - Ugh!” sounds, coinciding with the landing of each new blow. I was aware of the last of the flogging down each leg, but hardly conscious of its cessation until suddenly a biting pain ripped through each nipple.

“Uurrrrgnnn!” I cried into the gag, opening my eyes to see two nipple clips positioned jauntily right on the tips of each breast. The clips were connected by a short chain from which – moments later – a walnut-sized lead weight was hanging. On top of the beating and the breast bondage, the pain was awful, and I ground my teeth to stifle further cries. After perhaps half a minute – time in which Bradley simply watched me and revelled in my agony – the pain subsided slightly and I could hear my hoarse breathing over the pounding of the blood in my ears.

I felt a ripple of sweat slide down the side of my face, disappear from contact on to the duct tape, then seconds later drip on to my bound breasts. I was breathing heavily, and every intake of breath hurt as I strained against the ropes and against gravity tugging downwards at my weighted nipples. A tear slid from my eye. I looked past Leila to see my image in the mirror – a mass of red skin, my black hair wetly plastered on my forehead. I had had better days.

When Bradley started on Leila I saw his strategy. He was leaving me to suffer the first round of pain and to let it grow. He would be coming back for further fun – I need not think that this was the end. I had been here myself – letting the prisoner have time to consider the next stage. In the interim their hurt would seem to magnify, the burning to increase and the ache in their nipples would turn into sudden bursts of pain. They would wonder what the next stage would be, and when it arrived they would be fearful and it would seem all the worse for their imaginings. Oh yes, I had been here, and knowing the psychology did nothing to make it any more bearable.

Bradley also knew the effect of making one victim watch another. Leila had seen me suffer and knew what was in store for her. I, having suffered, now had to watch an action replay.  I wondered what Bradley’s motivation was. His case was far more than a dom going over the top in the self-gratification of inflicting pain. I could have accepted this rationale had he not had the deaths of two innocent women to his account. Given that neither appeared to have been raped by him made it likely that we would similarly be spared, albeit at the price of an equally horrible fate. I still hadn’t figured him out, and what was driving this frenzy.

My attempts at a higher plain of thought distracting me from my pain came down to earth as the first impact of the flogger caught Leila high on the inner thigh and she jerked in her bonds, her eyes momentarily squeezing closed with the shock of the blow. Then the assault began and I had to close my own eyes as her smooth pale flesh became marked with red striations, criss-crossing and gradually forming a solid pattern of target indicators.

While Bradley worked his way up Leila’s thighs, buttocks and back, I tried further to blot out my own discomfort, trying to focus on the humming in my own loins in an effort to make it overtake the dreadful hurt that seemed to wrap my body like a close-fitting garment. It was a futile exercise, for my burning skin was too intense to disregard, and the flogging being dished out to Leila was likewise too distracting.

It was when Bradley got to Leila’s front that the difference in our respective reactions began to become evident. Lelia was making gagged whimpering sounds by then, and I could see she was trying to maintain control, despite the damp tear stains on her cheeks. When the blows began to strike her breasts and pussy, however, there was a change, just as we all knew would occur. I knew it because I knew Leila’s weakness to pain in certain areas, and I knew how they magnified other stimuli, such as the vibrator buried in her crotch. I could see the tip of the black plastic vibrator protruding from her pussy, held there by the two vertical cords dividing her clit and providing further pressure through a knot strategically positioned over it.

Leila’s actions as the first blows began to rain on her pussy and its contents were subtle, but I could detect them. Leila also knew what was going to happen, and Bradley clearly suspected, as he had intimated from his digital exploration of Leila’s wet pussy earlier. The movement of her body – albeit minimal given the tightness of the ropes – changed to a barely noticeable thrusting motion, that began to be timed with the fall of the thongs. Leila’s eyes were screwed shut and her concentration was absolute to the stage that she was off somewhere in subspace, where the combination of pain and pleasure were amalgamating to send her on her way to a climax. The little pelvic motions could not be disguised, nor could the increasing loudness and raising pitch of her grunts from beneath the tape.

An orgasm was on the way. I recognised the signs and so did Bradley, for he stopped abruptly and jerked her head back by the hair. Leila’s eyes opened wide as she squealed in the unexpected attack.

“You slut!” Bradley hissed in her ear. “You think this is for your benefit? You think you can get off in your dirty games – in your dirty perverted mind? You think this is some sort of game for your benefit? You wish!” Leila came back to the real world with a gasp of terror, rolling her eyes towards Bradley’s head beside her own. “You will get off all right – when I say, and only once – permanently! Women like you make me sick!”

Oh fuck, I thought, my stomach knotting in fear. Everything fell into place with the appalling realisation that Bradley was one of those nutters that we all had nightmares about from time to time – a psycho, bent on implementing some perceived plan at whatever cost to the unfortunates who disagreed with it. Maybe Bradley was God’s instrument for cleansing the world of perverts and wicked women, of degenerates and temptresses leading innocent, normal people into an iniquitous moral decline.

Bradley was himself a flawed product of human procreation. Somewhere along his life’s time line something had mis-connected in his physiology. Somewhere there had been a break in a vital synaptic link, or a neural connection had failed to grow properly. Whatever the reason, the flaw had developed and the thought processes that derived from that flaw had gone in a different direction, perhaps fuelled and influenced by some form of religious instruction or abusive upbringing. Nature or nurture, whatever the reasoning, the world as it now was did not accord with how Bradley considered it should be, and no amount of logic or reason would ever change that view point. Whatever ‘rationalisation’ that went on in his mind would screen out all that could not be explained, selectively adding only that which made sense and which gave him a divine mandate to put his plans into action. Simply put, this was a perverted misogynist who got off by inflicting pain and humiliation to the extent that the end result was death, and one less woman in the world.

Bradley reached down and inserted his fingers into Leila’s pussy, parting the ropes and slipping the vibrator out so that it clattered on the marble floor. A smear of wetness was visible on her thighs and a runnel of what might have been sweat, or more likely juices slid slowly down the reddened flesh. Leila moaned in frustration.

Bradley stepped across to me and snatched the nipple clips off my breasts. I let out a stifled scream as the twin bursts of pain shot through me. Moments later the clips were positioned on Leila’s jutting nipples, and she was again whimpering with the pain as the weight dangled at her navel, tugging down on the tips of her breasts.

I was not surprised at the sight of the thin, whippy cane when it appeared, but I could not keep the fear out of my thoughts. I knew the level of pain – bad as it had been before – was now about to step up to new heights.

The first blow came on the inside of my thigh, and the world then began to dissolve into a haze of pain. My efforts to retain some form of self-control gradually folded in the face of the searing cut of the cane over the already inflamed flesh. I could not control my sobs as the fire lift scarlet welts over the pink background and I jerked and bucked as much as I was able in my bonds. When the first blow caught me across the right breast I abandoned all pretence of control and howled into my gag. I felt the hot wetness of tears on my cheeks, mixing with sweat and dripping down my body.

Bradley made sure that almost no part of my body missed the imprint of the cane.  He held one end in his left hand and pulled back the other end with his right, letting loose a sharp flick. At times he would stop and hold it ready for release, waiting until I opened my eyes to see what was happening. My body was one big tense knot, all my muscles drawn tightly in the face of the terrible expectation of the next impact. My thighs were trembling with the effort of standing with my legs so far apart with my pussy exposed.

“Nnnnnugggh!” I cried, again and again, my incoherent noises merging into grunted efforts to snatch a breath between each new line of pain.  

When he finally stopped my head fell forward and I was snorting as I tried to recover my breath, and the floor was slippery with the sweat from my body. Now it was Leila’s turn, though not before he swapped the nipple clips from her to me, and my already tortured and bruised nipples came in for a further round of punishment. I screamed again and jerked my head, which was probably not wise but I only wanted the agony to stop.

I was less conscious of Leila’s screams now, so painful were my own wounds. My thought processes were fuzzy as I tried to blot out the sounds of cane on flesh and the accompanying gagged screams. Every so often there would be a pause and each time I opened my eyes I saw that the vibrator had gone back in as a focus of pleasure to go with the pain. Every time this happened Leila seemed to revive, to somehow refocus, and her reactions changed. But Bradley knew what he was doing, and each time the orgasm mounted, the device was cruelly withdrawn and other pain substituted to drive Leila’s frustration to new heights and further increase her susceptibility to new tortures.

I have no idea how long the whole session took. Time becomes static under such circumstances. Everything seems to go on forever. We were two naked females, bound and gagged, sweating and helpless. I came to my senses when the nipple clips were again snatched off, at which point he loosened the ropes on all four rails, just enough to put some slack in the ties to my arms and legs. I took advantage of it as best I could, savouring even the slightest release in the tension of my muscles, without bothering to wonder what he was leading up to.

I found out moments later when he prodded me with the cane from behind and began to slide the rope loops along the rails towards Leila’s. After a minute I found myself nudging Leila, bound breasts to bound breasts, pussy to pussy, only to feel the ankle and wrist ropes tighten again in this position. Bradley took further ropes and bound us together at the waist, before the moment came that I dreaded, as I felt a broom handle of some sort slid between the criss-crossing ropes below my shoulder blades. The pole began to turn.

At once the ropes encircling my breasts began to tighten still further, and a second later the vertical rope started to pull harder into the cleft of my pussy and buttocks, driving the vibrator and butt plug deeper still, while tightening at my throat. Now I knew for certain we were going to die, to suffer the same awful fate as Tara and Catherine. In this case it would be the end of Mary Ramirez, strangled by a religious lunatic on a luxury yacht. That was almost acceptable. That Leila should have her much younger life similarly cut short was unpardonable.

That was my last thought as the vice began to close of my airway and the grey haze began to descend.

* * *

17.01.06

story continues in Monica's Justice - Captives of Shark Island

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