Delia had been on the couch for about a quarter of an hour when
another incident occurred. The double doors at the far end of the
Punishment Room were flung open and the blonde, Germanic-looking
Ilse came striding back in again. She had a naked and weeping
slave girl on a collar and chain. This was obviously the
customary form of restraint on such occasions, Paul realised.
Like cattle, he thought. We are rated no higher.

The girl was tall and strong-looking with rich red hair and her
pleas could be heard loud above her sobs. "I . . . I'll do w-what
he w-wants, Miss . . . w-what m-my master w-wants, Miss . . . . I
swear it . . . I will . . . I will . . . please . . . Miss . . .
oohh . . . please . . . n-not the whip . . . Miss . . . ."

Paul saw Delia prop herself up on one elbow and survey the scene
with amused interest, while the raven-haired slave girl continued
her gentle but insistent ministrations.

"Too late, my girl," came Ilse's rasping reply. "You should have
thought of that . . . and done that . . . earlier . . ."

Just before Paul turned once more at the end of the long room, he
saw the girl being led towards the whipping post. She was almost
on her knees and Ilse was virtually dragging her. "Merc . . . eee
.. . . . merc . . . eee . . . ." cried the girl piteously.

"Susan been playing up again?" called Delia from the couch.
"Quite a spitfire that young madam, isn't she!"

"Quite!" replied Ilse. "But I'll tame her . . . never you fear!"

"I've no doubt of it," laughed Delia.

The girl Susan's cries and pleas grew louder and more piteous and
when Paul turned once more he saw that her arms had been
stretched above her head and her wrists fastened to manacles set
at the top of the whipping post. He was so gripped by the
spectacle that, temporarily at least, his own torments took
second place. She had a superb body, he saw, with broad, straight
back and very fulsome hind quarters. The latter were
criss-crossed with thin cane weals but the former, creamy-white,
was unmarked. What, Paul wondered, was the girl's offence? It
seemed, from what he had heard, that in some way Susan had
displeased a man - no doubt a guest of Mrs. Dupont's - to whom
she had been allocated.

"Disobedience is the most serious crime in the calendar," Ilse
was saying. "Especially to your master!"

"I . . . ooohh . . . . I d-didn't m-mean it!" cried the girl.
"I'll do it now . . . I s-swear I w-will!"

But Ilse was already taking down from the wall a vicious-looking
whip. Four snaking feet of tightly-plaited black rawhide. Paul
shuddered inwardly for the girl. Gloria had, on occasions, used
such a whip on him; but only for what she considered the most
heinous of offenses. Which is how Paul came to accept the justice
of being under almost constant restraint.

"Merc . . . . eeeee!" shrieked the girl in final, hopeless
desperation, "Merc . . . eeeeee!" But Paul knew there would be
none . . . and suspected the wretched Susan knew it too. He felt
a sudden burst of sympathy for this lovely naked creature - a
fellow slave - and at the same time he experienced one of those
shafts of hatred for Delia. She lay on the couch, smiling and
eyes glinting with sadistic pleasure, whilst her own haunches
quivered softly from the lustful attentions she was receiving.
Here, indeed, was a dual delight for her!

The whip snaked across the floor as Ilse took up her position.
She was a powerful and fearsome sight.

"I'll tame you to the most instant and absolute obedience . . .
if it's the last thing I do," she snarled .

Then the whip swung up and, with a report like a pistol-shot,
cracked across the broadness of Susan's white back. A vivid red
weal leapt up and an animal-like howl of pain was torn from the
girl and, like a puppet on a string, she jerked and twisted
frenziedly in her bonds. That awful howl went up and up, louder
and louder, echoing from wall to wall.

Paul did not see the next five strokes that were laid on. But he
heard them cracking viciously into Susan's soft flesh at five
second intervals. He heard, too, her heart-rending screams of
torment. Was disobedience - whatever was demanded - worth this?
No . . . no . . . it could not be! One must obey. One must
submit.

When Paul turned yet again, he saw the terrible weals striping
Susan's once white back. He saw too that Ilse was now
concentrating her attention on her victim's plump bottom. With
the same methodical strokes she lacerated it cruelly . . . and
even Paul was amazed at how frenziedly that lush, soft woman
flesh writhed, the whole mass bouncing, juddering and quivering
madly. It epitomised the degree of Susan's agony . . . and it
fascinated. Yet Paul could not but admit to himself that being a
male it fascinated him for other reasons too.

"That got through to her I reckon," came the drawling voice of
Delia when the whip ceased to fall.

"I reckon so too," replied Ilse, surveying the still-juddering
female flesh she had just beribboned. Then she tossed aside the
whip and began to unshackle her moaning victim. Paul partly saw,
partly heard, the wretched Susan being more or less dragged from
the Punishment Room on the end of her collar and chain. And,
before the doors closed he heard Ilse's rasping voice again. "Now
we'll see if you'll truly obey your master!" she said.

Weak with fatigue and pain, Paul experienced a feeling of
paralysing dread. It was perhaps worse than ever before. Cruel,
agonizing and humiliating as his experiences had been as Gloria
van Meer's personal slave (was she not the goddess-woman who had
first broken him completely?), he now realised he was in the
thralls of something far more terrible. Mrs. Dupont's regime of
mass slavery was more frightening because of its 'impersonal'
nature. He was now one of scores of helpless slaves who could be
punished mercilessly for the slightest fault - real or imagined.
Indeed, one could be made to suffer simply for the amusement of
those who had you in their power. As was his present predicament.
It was a bitter and despairing realisation. Particularly so for
Paul who had imagined he had reached the nadir of subjection in
Gloria's hands. He had adjusted to and resigned himself to
permanent servitude on Gloria's terms. In some ways he had even
come to accept it as natural. Now, it could well be, there were
even deeper depths to be plumbed.