THE GLADIATOR (11 page)

John was of the opinion that the greens would win, the slaves would be driven mercilessly by their harness and those whips. But Madame was not so sure and wagered on the blues. They shook hands on the bet and John let her borrow Caroline, who ducked under Madame’s customary, full-cut, knee length skirt and got to work.

The blues’ chief trainer fired a starting pistol and the two teams leaned forwards and began to strain against their loads while their guards plied the whips over their exposed and sweat-shiny backs. Most of the spectators were on their feet, cheering on their fancied team as the slaves’ feet struggled for purchase and then slowly began to drag the logs forwards. With agonising slowness and under constant whipping the teams began to edge along the arena and then pick up pace as the inertia of the logs was overcome. For the first few yards the teams were level but then the blues’ guards switched the whips from their slaves’ backs to their straining thighs, the blades snapping between them at the soft skin on the insides. Immediately the slaves seemed to get a second wind and opened up a lead which saw them take the first race.

While the second logs were being added and the chains wrapped round them as well, John observed that again the guards adopted different strategies in dealing with their charges. The green team watered theirs, made them kneel and allowed them to fellate them. On the screens the cameras captured the eagerness with which the whip-stimulated and butt plug-tormented slaves worked on their masters’ shafts. But they weren’t allowed to drink down the men’s sperm. Instead the guards pulled their heads back and showered their faces. On the other hand the blues’ guards pulled out their slaves’ dildos and gave them a good shafting as they bent over under their pole. And from the close-ups on the screens, it was plain that they were allowed to come and the men allowed themselves to ejaculate fully inside their bodies.

“That’s why my money’s safe,” Madame said as Caroline extricated herself from her skirt and resumed her position in front of her master. “A slave is still female. She exists to please her master or masters but if she is allowed some pleasure herself, she will give everything out of gratitude. The greens will try hard and hope to get fucked but the blues
know
they will. Also the blues’ whips are better for getting at the female parts while not doing too much damage before the other events. Their trainer knows his business well.”

John resigned himself to losing his money. Madame was never wrong when it came to slaves. He should never have bet against her and decided that Caroline would pay the price later.

Nevertheless he was on his feet and cheering the greens on as the two teams sweated and fought their loads for another length of the arena. The cracking of the whips on the naked females, now pouring sweat and showing delightful networks of weals as they struggled on was almost drowned out by the crowd. It was a close call but John felt slightly more cheerful; the greens won by a few inches, Madame just smiled and reminded him that there was a show to be put on and if the blues had won there wouldn’t have been a third race. During the second rest, while the third and smallest log was added, the greens’ slaves were once more teased while the blues were allowed to fellate and swallow. When the starting pistol sounded for the third time, the slaves had to plant their feet wide apart to try and get their loads moving and here the difference in the whips really told. The blues’ guards delivered volleys of lashes right between the spread thighs as they strained - every sinew standing out in clear relief. Immediately the slaves redoubled their efforts and slowly began to drag their logs towards the finishing line. The greens’ guards couldn’t use the stock whips with such accuracy and their slaves took yet more punishment to their backs and buttocks, they were clearly weakened rather than stimulated and the blues began to forge ahead.

Every person in the crowd jumped to their feet, even Madame, John noticed, and the noise became thunderous as the two teams made their slow and painful way along the arena. But once the blue team was moving, the guards shifted their targets again, now they moved to stand in front of the sweating and straining slaves and walking backwards, flicked their whips across the swinging breasts, stinging and stimulating the already erect nipples. The cameras missed nothing; on two screens were giant images of the green slaves’ backs getting more and more striped and cut, while on the other two were close-ups of two pairs of breasts being skilfully worked on by real experts who were tormenting and exciting their slaves, holding out the promise of satisfaction in return for one supreme effort. And they got it. The blues made it over the line a clear six feet in front of the greens.

The announcer told everyone that lunch was being served once the losers’ tally had been set at twenty lashes and the blue team’s slaves were still getting their well-earned shafting from their guards.

To the sound of yet more whip play, cries and groans, the crowd made its way out of the arena. John Carpenter was certain of one thing as he followed Madame out; he had to become part of this. It was the best morning’s entertainment he had ever had and there was still a day and a half to go.

The buffet lunch was served on the lawns between the guest wings of the house and again John was amazed at the sheer scale of the operation, the catering alone must have cost a fortune. Virtually every woman was dishevelled and flushed and their men were sharing them around companionably as they discussed the morning’s events and what the afternoon held in store. John himself gave Caroline to an elderly gentleman and watched distractedly as he backed her up against a wall and began feeling her up, lifting her skirt up her long, slender thighs and helping himself to the moist softness between them. She was well trained and gave him as good a ride as she could but John’s thoughts kept turning to how - if he couldn’t beat the arenas, he could join them. It wasn’t just that he wanted to be part of them, he realised that shows like this one would exhaust slaves pretty quickly, they would be sold on and more new ones would be purchased, making life increasingly difficult for The Lodge. But if he could somehow get onto the inside of one of the operations he could perhaps safeguard a supply of slaves. There was no way he could buy his way into a stable; he was rich enough but these owners were in a different league of wealth and power. The word ‘stable’ kept going round and round in his mind.

It wasn’t until he was making his way down to the pens for the next round of combats that it finally clicked. Racehorse stables often trained horses for independent owners didn’t they? So, if he could find a really prize specimen and loan her to a stable it would give him a lever to take a few slaves for his own purposes. But where could he get hold of a slave? A slave who would need to be something really special. For some reason he found his thoughts turning to the magnificent blonde who was still awaiting two hundred further lashes.

Carlo came for Tara in mid afternoon. The crowd was settling back into the arena after the fights in the pens and her next tranche of punishment would provide a good hors d’oeuvre for the rest of the day’s fun.

Tara was not surprised to see that under the whipping post’s arm a trestle had been set up. She mounted the steps, hearing the applause that greeted her but making no reaction. She knew her job. Without being ordered, she bent over it and let Carlo tether her wrists and ankles to the four legs. It was pretty much what she had expected but a frisson of real fear ran through her when she saw that he had taken up a cane and was flexing it for the crowd to see. Surely they couldn’t expect her to take a hundred with a cane? Her backside would be laid open! One of the cameramen came to stand just below the platform and trained his camera on her face and glancing back between her spread legs she saw another one with his camera trained on her bottom and displayed sex. They would get both parts of her reaction, her grimaces and screams and at the same time her sex would engorge and open with excitement as she suffered. When she climaxed, the whole crowd would see how enthusiastically she exuded her fluids and this humiliation comforted her.

In the event she took fifty from the cane across her backside and down her thighs. She came several times and the crowd cheered her each time, and in between those they cheered each time Tara felt a thin trickle run down across her flesh. A glance up at the screens told her that Carlo had judged it time for the blood to flow. But in amongst the furnaces that roared through her whole pelvic area, it was of no consequence. Her eyes were blinded by tears, it was the most intense pain she had ever taken, the bitter, narrow lines of agony piled on in such quantity had swept her away in screaming, ecstatic semi-oblivion. And when she was hauled groggily to her feet, not knowing if she had taken her full ration she tottered and nearly fell. But Carlo grabbed her by the hair and pushed her to her knees in front of him. He freed his rampant cock from his shorts and to her delight presented it to her mouth. She sucked hungrily, grateful for the opportunity to gain some pleasure which didn’t come from the whip and when he spurted himself into her it helped ease the soreness in her throat caused by her screaming.

She took the next fifty on the soles of her feet. They simply laid her down on her face with her wrists lifted and clipped to the ring at the back of her collar while her feet were lifted and tied to the crossbar of the trestle. It took a long while until the cane could sear its way through the thick skin of her soles but when it did, she knew she was putting on a good show, jumping and arching at each Thwack! and then humping and grinding at the wood beneath her as she climaxed over and over again.

Tara was only vaguely aware of crawling from the arena that time. And once she was chained in the tunnel again she collapsed full-length on the sand and slept for the rest of the afternoon.

Carlo woke her by flinging cold water over her and then giving her some to drink before hauling her upright. She groaned as her feet took her weight but she managed to stagger back into the arena, although Carlo had to hold her by one arm. Up on the platform was now a whipping frame. It was late now and shadows were lying across the sand of the arena. It was churned up and Tara could see hoof prints, so she must have slept through the pursuit running as well as other spectacles. She cursed herself, she had never seen the horses in action. But her thoughts were interrupted by the announcer who told the crowd that over the next few minutes they would see something truly extraordinary; a slave of unique toughness worked on by a true whipmaster.

First of all Carlo strung her up in the classic X configuration and Tara was aware of a strangely respectful silence from the crowd and a surge of pride shot through her as she realised they were looking at her ravaged body with admiration, wondering how on earth she could take any more. Tara gritted her teeth and prepared to show them how well she was trained and just what class of slave they were watching. The first half of this last part of her punishment consisted of Carlo simply searching out and lashing any strip of unmarked flesh he could find on her back, sides, breasts, stomach, buttocks and thighs. It was a full body whipping in all senses of the word and Tara clung onto consciousness by the skin of her teeth as the measured and accurate delivery of the whip only spiralled her upwards with agonising slowness. But at long last he let her reach her peak and dimly she heard the crowd explode into cheers as she arched into a climax once more.

Carlo waited until she had fully calmed before he went back to work and drove her to one more blinding orgasm before he took her down. By then she was completely lost; she didn’t know whether she was standing freely or whether she was tied, her hair hung in thick, sweat-matted tresses in front of her tear-blurred eyes and she only realised that she had actually been taken down when her cheek collided with the floor of the platform as she collapsed. But any hopes she might have had that at long last it was all over were dashed as she felt chains being fed through her ankle restraint loops. Of course; at the end it had to be the worst and the best of all. The most feared and the most loved.

She felt the pull of the chains and the strain come onto her legs as she was hauled up to hang by her widely spread ankles. She was raised until her hands were hanging clear of the platform and her face was on a level with Carlo’s crotch. What followed was something Tara never forgot. Her entire body was a flame, it burned with an intensity she had never experienced before, every inch of her hide seemed to be shrieking contradictory messages to her fogged brain. And in her inverted position she was incapable of any rational thought now, she sank beneath the waves of white-hot sensation and abandoned herself to being simply whip fodder hanging in front of her trainer. A body to be tested and enjoyed; a purely physical creature to whom thought was unnecessary and irrelevant.

Carlo played it out to the bitter end; he wielded the heavy flogger with precision and knowledge making her scream till her voice failed utterly. Lightning shot through her brain time and again as he scored the tender insides of her thighs and finally, finally brought the leather down on her most vulnerable spot. Capable now of only croaking, Tara’s body curled upwards and then arched backwards as the strikes landed, she felt her insides convulse and her fluid squeeze up between her labia to make the whip land in her wetness and send up sprays of her thick spend which splattered on her chest and back. He wrung the very last ounce of orgasm out of her, letting her hanging body quiver and shake and then stepping in again......and again. Tara became simply a target, her scalded labia the bullseye. And in the final storms of her punishment she sloughed off everything she had been, like a snake shedding its skin, and became what she knew she had always been destined to become. A creature of the arena, fated to live out its ecstasies and sufferings for the crowd’s entertainment. All else that had gone before disappeared, her mind was wiped clean in those final climactic moments.

Then at last, as she felt her vagina begin to spasm its way towards one final climax as the whip drove her remorselessly onwards, Carlo stopped and blearily she watched his hand fumble with his flies and free his rigid, pulsing erection which he pushed down slightly to aim it at her mouth. Eagerly she opened as wide as she could, reaching her arms round him to hold him close, knowing the cameras would catch how she jerked under the whip without letting it spoil his pleasure in the soft warmth of her grateful mouth. She took yet more lashes; seven.....eight....nine....ten, she couldn’t tell. There was a crescendo of noise from the crowd, she felt the handle of the whip slip between her puffy and slick labia and then as she sucked him to his climax he worked the whip inside her until it seemed to her as if the whole world exploded inside her head and she felt her muscles clamp round the whip handle while she erupted and Carlo’s sperm splashed into her throat. Then darkness closed over her.