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The Referendum – Chapter Five


Alex Morgan knelt on the mat that had been provided for him beside the dark wood escritoire that Arianne Voric used to do her office work as she returned home. He heard the distinctive throb of her car engine in the drive followed by that of her key in the door. Then the tap tap of her footsteps on the parquet floor of the hallway as she approached the study. His blue sports bag packed with the luggage that was only meant for a weekend was ready by the door for his trip to the airport.

She entered the room with it’s row of bookshelves along one end and windows looking out across the garden. “You had better put that in the car,” she said “Your flight home is at eight.” She detected an atmosphere in the quiet stillness of the room, an as yet unasked question hung in the air, waiting to be put. This was where her training in psychology came to the fore, delivering a crucial advantage for her to exploit.

She looked down upon him. She was dressed in her black spandex leggings as the unseasonably warm spring weather persisted. They displayed her finely muscled petite figure to perfection. Her small, neat breasts were contained within a black leather bodice, drawn tight by a row of silver buckles down the front. “You don’t really want to go though do you?” Without waiting for his answer she had already taken the pale cream vellum scroll from her briefcase, unfurling it and placing it on the desk, securing the top and bottom with two paperweights. She briefly outlined to Alex the key points of the Contract of Indentation.

“This contract is for one year and once signed it comes into force immediately, you may take a minute or two to read it, it has been drawn up in accordance with all current Ausitanian protocols. But I must warn you that once accepted it cannot be rescinded. So be completely clear exactly what it means.”

Alex skimmed the document, his pulse now quickening as the reality of this situation hit home. It appeared to give him very few rights beyond guaranteeing his basic health and safety. The contract effectively made him a slave to Arianne with everything that such an arrangement entailed. Now he felt that distinct stirring between his legs as he contemplated such a situation with all the inherent eroticism that it represented. Arianne had, before leaving for work, unlocked and removed the stainless steel device that had held his penis in a state of limbo for the past fortnight. It did nothing to dampen his desires, just prevented him from doing anything to relieve them.

He had scrupulously observed her one rule that he was not to attempt to gain any relief until such time as he was no longer under her control, he had observed it to the letter, despite the strong temptation to masturbate. His testicles felt strained as if full to bursting. He craved an orgasm as he had never done before in his life. Her mere presence, her lithe, slim body displayed before him in a variety of skin tight outfits tormented him constantly.

Nowhere else in the modern world was such an arrangement as laid out in this contract still legal. The narrow referendum victory for the female led New Ausitania Democrats had surprised everyone and it’s interpretation had brought such contracts into the legislature. By agreeing to it he would effectively be stepping back in time to the days where one human being having ownership over another was still a commonplace and accepted arrangement. Where for a relatively small sum of money the slave would have his whole life transferred to another person with all that it involved. It had been a lottery then as to whether a slave ended up with a benevolent owner or a sadist. He knew that by agreeing to this he was placing himself at her mercy, a quality that at times she seemed to possess very little of.

He thought for a moment. This sophisticated petite redhead was indeed the woman of His dreams. Only in the previous two weeks however had he come to fully realise exactly what the real driving force really was. Previously he had come to look upon such women as merely sexually attractive objects of desire. Over the past fortnight however he had begun to accept the obvious conclusion that the attraction for him was indeed largely about power. The very ability Arianne would possess to take his life in her hands and decide exactly what she wished to do with it exerted an irresistible pull on him. He knew that he wanted nothing more than to submit totally to this woman. When she treated him with the cruelty that she clearly enjoyed then the attraction became stronger still. He had become no more than a fly attracted fatally to the spider’s web. He no longer possessed the ability or the desire to resist her power over him.

Arianne had melted some bright red sealing wax into a saucer. She tipped a small amount onto the vellum scroll and, taking his right hand, held his thumb over the pool of warm liquid. “I don’t require your signature, your fingerprints and a sample of your DNA have been registered at Judicial HQ. you will be my property for the next year.” He looked at her delicate wrist holding his, in many ways she was like a fine porcelain doll but her grip on him was so firm, hinting at her inner steel. He nodded his acceptance of his fate and watched in total compliance as she now pressed his thumb firmly into the wax, the merest hint of a smile playing on her lips as the imprint hardened as it cooled.

“Now that is out of the way I will show you to your quarters.” Alex looked surprised. For the previous two weeks his accommodation had been in the comfortable top floor bedroom with it’s views out across the forest. “Follow me slave!” Arianne pointed a crimson tipped finger imperiously towards the floor, indicating that Alex should remain on his knees. He crawled behind her, his eyes fixed on the heels of her highly polished black leather boots as she headed out from the study back into the hallway.

The door on the left had never before attracted his attention. He may have vaguely noticed it on his way along the hall but he had assumed that it was just another cupboard. Arianne turned the key in the lock and the door swung open to reveal a flight of stone steps leading down into a cellar. Following her down, carefully watching the curve of her slim stiletto heels as they descended the nature of the room gradually revealed itself to Alex.

The cellar oozed silence. At the bottom of the steps a short, narrow passage led into the main body of the subterranean room. To the left a steel barred door led into a small prison type cell, a bare board hinged out from the wall formed a very basic bed. She unlocked the door and motioned for Alex to go inside before locking it behind him again. Her heels disappeared back up towards the house, leaving Alex to make himself as comfortable as was possible with the single pillow and the rough grey blanket that was all that the cell contained by way of comforts.

As his eyes became accustomed to the lower level of light Alex surveyed his surroundings. What little illumination there was seeped in from a panel of glass bricks high up at the far end of the dungeon. For this is what it was, a place for the confinement and punishment of prisoners. From his cell Arianne’s prisoner took in all the aspects of the chamber. The dark, uneven pamments that formed the floor gave it a look of great antiquity, even though the house above the cell was modern. The forbidding grey stone walls were set with iron tether rings of the type used for horses, although Alex was in no doubt that these particular ones were intended for Arianne’s prisoners, of which he was the latest.

He sat for a while, letting the silence surround him as he took in his fate. Somewhere up above him he knew that his owner was relaxing, quite probably with a glass of white wine as she unwound from her day. He pulled the rough blanket over him and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

When he awoke all was still silent and the weak light that radiated in from the end wall had now faded completely. Alex lay there contemplating what he had done by his agreement to the contract. It now seemed a very different matter to serve Arianne for two weeks with the comforts of his own room within the house and the solitude of this dark, silent prison cell. Gradually the glass brick panel at the end of the dungeon turned from black to grey and eventually cast it’s light on the interior.

Now Alex could make out a wooden rack mounted on the wall. It displayed an array of whips and canes, any or all of which he realised that his captor was more than capable of using on him. From the centre of the room a steel chain hung down from the ceiling, it lent the place a macabre atmosphere. For the first time he felt a tinge of doubt over the agreement that he had made. And yet the feeling between his legs drove him on, a strange drive for Arianne to slake her sadistic desires at his expense, to feel the sting of those whips as this beautiful woman used his bound and helpless body to satisfy any whim that she felt.

A sound on the stairs drew his attention. The door was being unlocked. The distinctive sound of her boot heels told him that his owner was approaching. Arianne appeared carrying a tray. Alex watched her approach his cell. Unlocking the cell she placed the tray inside. He looked down at the grey, cloying mass of porridge that was his breakfast as the reality now hit home. Life as a slave was going to be very different.

” After you have eaten I have work for you to do outside”, she stated. The porridge was stodgy and tasteless compared to his usual breakfast of fresh fruit, cereal and eggs. He forced it down. Arianne returned carrying a pair of black leather work boots which she watched him lace on. She clipped a leash to his leather collar and led him upstairs and outside into the rear garden of the house.

She pointed to an area of rough grass close to the rear wall. ” I thought that this would make an ideal area for a patio, I can look forward to sitting out here in the summer. Your job today is to clear and prepare the ground”.

Alex surveyed the uneven patch of ground. As a journalist he was completely unused to manual work. He glanced up at Arianne. She stood on a piece of grass on slightly higher ground, an inscrutable expression on her face as she held a riding crop in her right hand, idly slapping it against the gloved palm of her left. She wore a tight fitting outfit of black leather, comprising close fitting jeans and a corsetted top that displayed her slim figure to perfection. The late spring morning sunshine was warm now and made her auburn bob shine in it’s strong rays. Alex was naked apart from the boots and the leather collar. He began to work levelling the ground. Very soon the sweat was running down his face. Life as a slave was proving to be considerably tougher than he had imagined.

He laboured for what seemed to him to be a very long time but was in fact no more than an hour or so. Arianne reappeared and threw him a water bottle. She watched him drink before saying “Your progress is quite slow, you need to work harder if you wish to avoid penalties for your laziness”. He felt his spirits fall. Despite his best efforts the hard ground defied his attempt so reshape it quickly. Beneath a thin layer of topsoil he soon hit stones, the shovel bouncing off them and making little impression. He was already developing blisters on his soft hands. Arianne had little sympathy. Her view of the male species was that they responded to one thing and one thing only, a rigidly enforced code of discipline that allowed them no movement to engage in their work dodging tricks, something they were sure to resort to if they saw an opportunity.

By mid afternoon Alex had in fact made quite reasonable progress. The ground had been dug out and levelled and was ready for the sand base to be laid. Now he had a bit of luck. Exhausted as he was it had been her intention to make him lay the base today, but the sand lorry had not turned up. He heard her on the phone to the company, berating the person on the other end. He guessed from her condescending manner that it was a man and that had he been present he would have felt the lash of her whip as well as her tongue.

“Get yourself showered and then you can prepare my evening meal.” Alex was grateful for the chance to engage in less physically demanding work. She glanced at her wristwatch. “Actually it’s too early, you can clean my bathroom first.” He found her attitude towards him quite hard to take. It was as if his agreement to serve her as a slave had removed all the personal warmth from their relationship, Arianne was now treating him as an inanimate object with no more feeling towards him than she had for a tool that she used in her work.

Arianne Voric was a complex character and, although there was a considerable degree of acting in her behaviour it was nevertheless true that her own complicated psyche was fed and nurtured by this disdainful attitude towards men. The power that she felt when in total control of often physically powerful men was a thrill unlike any other. With few words they would be sent scuttling to perform their menial tasks. Always Arianne was in complete command of them, either in her personal life where they chose to submit voluntarily or in her work where they had no other option but to submit to her authority.

She freely admitted to her sadism, it was quite simply an integral and important part of who she was, central to her personality. Although well aware that many saw this as a negative quality in a female Arianne celebrated it. The alternative would have been to have hidden it both from herself and from others. This course of action was one that she saw no need to take, circumstance had put her in a position to take advantage of the opportunities that came her way and she saw no reason whatsoever not to take advantage of her good fortune. She carried herself with a growing confidence. Every time she stood over another man and watched the fear inside him growing exponentially as she slowly and methodically prepared to torture him the feeling of power grew to a still higher level.

And her rationale was an indisputable one. All of the men who ended up quivering at her booted feet as they awaited their fate were either there because they chose to be there like Alex or they found themselves in that position due to the fact that they had been convicted of a serious offence against a female victim. She had no compunction or guilt in either case, these men were there only to slake her desires.

When Alex served dinner he could not fail to notice the whip that laid upon her table. Until now the rhino skin sjambok had been used on her prisoners alone. Alex had received firm canings from the heavy Dragon, but he had been spared the attentions of her favourite whip. Nervously he placed the pristine white plate before her, the steak was cooked exactly as she liked it. She picked up the whip and motioned to the corner. Alex obediently took his place on his knees at the spot to which she pointed. He eyed the sjambok with apprehension. It was a weapon with a fearsome reputation, capable of cutting a man’s skin with ease when wielded by a woman as experienced as Arianne. Once again he wondered if he had got himself in just too deep.

The sound of his mistress eating finished as she laid down her cutlery. “You may clear away and do the washing up now slave”. Alex got to his feet and took her plate through to the kitchen. Arianne had eaten about three quarters of her steak. The remaining piece lay at the edge of her plate. Alex had not eaten since the morning porridge and he now took the steak from the plate and ate it as he washed up. He was just drying the dishes when Arianne arrived in the kitchen. “What did you do with the piece of steak that I left?” Alex froze as the question hung in the air. He briefly considered telling a lie, taking a chance by saying it was in the bin. Something though told him that she would look, putting him in deeper trouble. “I am waiting for your answer slave.”

His head fell. “I ate it mistress,” he said eventually.

“I think you had better go back downstairs. Place yourself on your knees in the centre of the dungeon and await my presence.”

Alex made his way downstairs and obediently knelt in exactly the place where she had commanded. Above his head the steel chains that formed a loop disappeared through an aperture into the ceiling, part of her suspension device. He imagined himself bound to them, his body swinging gently in mid air and vulnerable to whatever she decided to do to him. And all the time in his mind was the image of that sjambok, the whip that she treated almost as if it were a pet, knowing that it’s use could deliver her that almost celestial pleasure that she continually craved, a pleasure that could only be satiated by her use of the whip, watching the effect of it on a male body, helpless and exposed as the angry weals appeared as if by magic, red as fire, conjured up by the continual impact of it’s sturdy leather shaft on soft flesh.

These thoughts chased around his head as he waited in the subterranean gloom of Arianne’s dungeon. Each second laden with fear and anxiety at what she might choose to do to him, knowing that any attempt to moderate the punishment by calling on her for mercy would only fall upon deaf ears. Any amelioration of his punishment would by implication mean a lessening of his mistress’ pleasure. He knew full well that was not part of any deal that was struck between them, his role in this was to suffer for her gratification, nothing else.

Eventually the sound of footsteps echoed down to where he knelt, heralding the approach of his mistress, now his owner. Her bearing was haughty and severe as she approached. Appearing to tower over him now as each long leg encased in it’s carapace of gleaming black leather made it’s characteristic tap tap on the stone floor of the dungeon at her approach. She stood before him, feet slightly apart, as he regarded the light from the overhead spotlight that she had switched on, playing on the high arched tightly laced insteps of her boots.

He moved himself lower until the coolness of the stone floor permeated his face. It was as if by lowering himself as far as he could he would disappear from view and be afforded some degree of protection. In fact it had the opposite effect as Arianne now felt her power had somehow been increased by this demonstration of his total submission to his mistress. The slight tinkling of metal buckles preceded the feel of her hands as they bound his wrists. The cool leather of the strap now encircled them, drawing them together as she took up the slack, followed by a final pull as the tongue of the buckle slipped into place, removing the last chance of any kind of resistance. He was now at her mercy completely.

A second strap bound his arms at the elbows. Again unnecessarily tightly as if part of the ritual. The third and final strap to be applied to his arms ran just beneath the shoulders, pulling painfully on his muscles as Arianne used a booted knee between his shoulder blades to gain the leverage she required to tighten the heavy leather strap. Now trussed cruelly tight he was finally ready to be positioned to receive the attention of her sjambok.

The overhead chain rattled as she lowered the hook and clipped it to the silver steel D ring of his wrist strap. She hauled on the chains, causing his arms to rise behind him, automatically the curve of his buttocks projected out to offer an easy target for her whip. Before beginning however she applied a heavy leather cuff to each ankle, connecting a short length of chain from each to a heavy iron ring set into the stone floor of the dungeon. She stood back to admire her work. Her slave was securely anchored just where she wanted him.

Arianne traced the shape of his back muscles with the tip of her sjambok, a strange excitement growing inside her at the thought of what she was about to do. She positioned herself at right angles to his naked body and placed her booted feet well apart to give her the stability she needed. Giving the shaft of the whip a final check between her leather gloved hands she raised it above her head before bringing it down in a wide arc, the rhino leather cutting the air with a rising whistle as the sjambok gathered speed.

Alex barely had time for the sound of the first stroke to register before the sjambok impacted just above the crease between his thighs and buttocks. The effect was dramatic. As the first angry red weal began to appear an animalistic howl filled the dungeon. His body shook uncontrollably but the heavy leather straps and chains held him firmly in their grip as Arianne applied more strokes, bringing the whip down time and again as the thrill she felt every time she used her favourite sjambok coursed through her body. Eventually, her sadistic lust satiated, she laid the whip down and took in the spectacle of her whimpering slave. Twenty or so wild red stripes ran across his buttocks and upper thighs. Droplets of crimson oozed from the places where strokes had overlapped and split the skin sufficiently to allow the blood to pass through.

Methodically she released him from his bondage, first of all lowering the hoist to relieve the tension on his body, then the chains that held his legs apart. Slowly he sunk to the floor, his breaths coming in short staccato gasps as he regained his composure. ” You will thank mistress for your punishment,” she said.

There was a short pause as she waited for his reply. Eventually the words came to him as the pain now subsided to a level that allowed him to think clearly.

“Thank you mistress.”

Copyright: D L Media – November 2018