A Different Christmas

By Ross Martin

 

The office party was in full swing by the time Lucy arrived. It was on the top floor and all the other floors were empty at this time. Through the speaker system she could hear the strains of someone playing Silent Night on violin. Perhaps it was a recording of the boss’ niece, Rachael, who was a violinist with the New York Philharmonic orchestra or had been sometime ago. She could hear Petra laughing away merrily with Peter and Toni criticizing Dough’s taste in paperback fiction.

 

It was about time she made her entrance. If she put it off any longer someone else would take her place and she simply wouldn’t get the chance she felt she deserved. Even so there was no point arriving too early. She was not up to partaking in mindless small talk or pretending to listen contentedly to old fashioned music when the evening promised so much more.

 

Pam and Bill had already gotten so drunk together they had to be shipped home in a cab. This was okay because neither Pam nor Bill really understood what the sting in the tail of the party was about. What’s more, they were never likely to know. They didn’t for example understand why everyone else took it real slow with alcohol or didn’t touch it at all. There were those who thought the boss slipped them a ‘mickey’ every year. Lucy thought there might be some truth in that but didn’t like to ask. She was nervous enough without buying into that. She was just glad they were gone. This was no place for innocents, no matter how old they might be.

 

Lucy had only just turned 19 but wanted so much to be Santa’s little helper no one except Petra had the heart to try to turn her away. She was the first under thirty who actually wanted the very short lived position. This did not surprise her. It was a tough gig and not for everyone.

 

For the occasion she had on a Santa hat and a skimpy little red outfit with white fake fur and black fishnet stockings. With her big blue eyes, sweet little mouth painted cherry red and square no nonsense nose she looked cute. Or at least that’s what the mirror had told her. Her breasts were really just coming of age but that was okay. Her long blond hair was all nice and shiny with the fragrance of that new apple scented shampoo and her finger and toe nails were a striped Christmas rosy red and emerald green.

 

“Are you sure about this?” asked Petra, meeting her at the door. The hook nosed, dark haired Lebanese woman in her mid-forties was looking at her sternly with those big hazel brown eyes of hers. “I can still cover for you. All you need do is get out of that outfit and into other clothes. No one will say anything. I’ll just be Santa’s helper like I was last year and the year before that.”

 

“So you want me to bow out?”

 

“If you are unsure then it would be best, yes.”

 

“And if I am sure?”

“Stay as you are, by all means but be very, very sure.”

 

“I am.”

 

“Just so long as you have been warned.”

 

“I have. I know what I’m doing.”

 

Lucy nodded happily at the approaching Santa who was really Ted, the boss, with a fake beard and a Santa cap on. “You girls fine?” he asked tentatively.

 

“We’re fine,” smiled Petra. “She’s going through with it. I wash my hands.”

 

“Good then,” murmured Ted. “The center chair is all yours, Lucy. I’ll take off the classical stuff and put on some Billy Holiday.”

 

Ted was as good as his word and so was Lucy. She sat down in the special chair, which was only special by its placement, and allowed Petra to rope her into position. Her arms were pulled back behind her and her legs were spread as wide as an ordinary office computer seat would allow before being secured. Petra made sure everything was good and tight.

 

“Comfy?” asked Petra.

 

“Yes, very,” beamed Lucy somewhat artificially as her heart got to racing. She remembered the boss getting her to do this very thing to Petra last time.

 

With a gleam in her dark eyes, Petra stuck her hand down Lucy’s costume and copped a feel of breast.

 

“Hey!” cried Lucy, feeling like a ripening plum in a greengrocer’s shop.

 

“Small,” stated Petra, taking her hand away. “But I suppose they’ll do.”

 

Lucy’s face went beet red.

 

“I didn’t think you wanted to play with her,” said Ted.

 

“Oh, I do, believe me,” stated Petra with a generous smile. “It’s just that she’s so young and we needed to be sure. No point getting someone that won’t last the distance.”

 

“Oh, I’ll last!” said Lucy. “Just you wait and see!”

 

“Now it’s too late. The little bitch has really committed herself.”

 

“Is it time for presents?” asked a short, dark complexioned 40-something Maltese woman in a frilly black blouse and black mini-skirt.

 

“Yes, Toni,” said Ted. “I’d better get to it, being Santa and all.”

 

Toni’s eyes were somewhat sooty looking and hollow. In this respect she reminded Lucy of a toy Panda she once had as a kid. Her breasts were not large but larger than Lucy’s. She was Santa’s helper only one year running. Once had been enough.

 

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” cried out Ted, handing a box wrapped in red cellophane to Peter, the broom jockey, who quickly tore it open, showing everyone the contents. Petra, who was in a charming blue silk blouse, couldn’t help but touch her own breasts in sympathy and wince a little in Lucy’s direction.

 

“Shall I see if they work?” asked Peter of Ted, having a fair idea what the answer was going to be.

 

“I think you should. If they’re faulty we need to get them replaced.”

 

Peter went over to Lucy and pulled aside the red cloth and white trimming hiding her dainty little tits. “Sweet,” he crooned as he got to work on them.

 

“Don’t forget,” said Petra, “put them on the very tips and secure as tight as you can. That way they’ll hurt more.”

 

“That’s the spirit,” interjected Ted. “Just ‘cause its not you doesn’t mean we can’t all have fun.”

 

“Done,” said Peter, pleased with himself. The clamps were on and the somewhat petite chain joining the two together looked decorative. Lucy breathed in sharp. Thanks to Petra’s advice they really were pinching her. Peter saw her grimace and so gave the chain a little tug.

 

“Don’t!” Lucy cried, forgetting herself in the moment. She looked somewhat embarrassed. Petra glared at her warningly. Toni smiled knowingly.

 

“Doug, your present next I believe,” said Ted, handing a package wrapped in a Christmas tree scene to a tall, balding man in a gray suit. He swiftly opened it and showed the others what he had been given.

 

“May I?” said Doug with a wave of his hand in the appropriate direction.

 

“Certainly,” said Ted.

 

Lucy found her mouth suddenly invaded by a black, rubbery thing with straps for the back of her head. It wouldn’t have been so bad except for the bit of attached tube which dangled down to a hand pump. Surely, she thought to herself, they’d think it was tight enough already and not bother.

 

Dough squeezed a few times and Lucy’s mouth began to really fill up. He quit though after a dozen which, even so, left her eyes bugging out.

 

“We can do better,” said Petra, taking over. She added a dozen more, forcing a tear out of Lucy’s left eye, a shake of the head and a piggish little snort.

 

Meanwhile Toni had opened her gift and was showing it around. Lucy, who was now struggling with the gag as well as the clamps, could see that it was a small tin containing something but what she couldn’t see. Toni, however, was kind enough to show her by bringing one of the insidious objects closer to her vision. Lucy blinked, backed away from it as far as anyone could who was tied the way she was which, when you think of it, wasn’t very far at all. Ted with his new digital camera was lucky to get a good snap of the terror on her face. He was very pleased.

 

“They’re lovely,” said Toni, fingering one and tweaking one of he own nipples.

 

“They’re proper surgical pins, sharp and two inches long,” stated Ted. “I sprayed them with antiseptic so there’d be no worries.”

 

“Good,” said Petra. “So there’s nothing stopping Toni from giving them a good tryout here.”

 

Lucy looked at Ted with a face that said ‘how can you do this to me?’ Ted simply grinned.

 

“But what to do with them,” speculated Toni, rubbing her chin. If it had been Petra’s large floppies she would have known but not so much Lucy’s miniatures.

 

“Give me half and I’ll show you,” beamed Petra. Lucy had a sneaking feeling she’d been secretly thinking about this for a long time.

 

Toni looked skeptically at the big breasted woman but nodded anyway. A mole hill is a mole hill she was thinking.

 

Meanwhile, Peter had just pulled hard on the chain and the clamps had come away. The result was the stamping of Lucy’s left foot and a prolonged gurgle that spoke volumes.

 

“Shall I put them back?” asked Peter.

 

“No,” replied Ted. “Let Toni and Petra have a clear field.”

 

Peter put them in his pocket.

 

Petra had grabbed half a dozen pins and was eyeing Lucy the way an artist eyes a fresh canvas.

 

“They’re tiny,” she reflected, “but you can pinch and stretch her skin to really get them to where you want them.”

 

In entering, the sharpness of the needle was almost matched by the sharpness of Petra’s long nails, which also left their mark. Lucy struggled at first but Petra’s unsympathetic gaze had her giving in to the inevitable.

 

 “See the pattern I’m making? One pin can go in twice along the side.”

 

Lucy squealed and Ted took a happy snap.

 

“Oh, it smarts, doesn’t it, pet? ... Never mind.”

 

Petra twisted one of Lucy’s nipples between forefinger and thumb until it did its best to stand to attention. Everyone watched fascinated by what was happening.

 

“See this diminutive teat? Put one through it like so….then follow through with another like….So!”

 

Lucy howled. One going in was bad enough but two was horrendous. She found herself on Petra’s shoulder howling.

 

“There, there,” cooed Petra, enjoying the great sobs that had replaced the greater noise coming out of the poor girl. “Here, I’ll dry your eyes with my hanky and we’ll let Toni play, too, shall we?”

 

The hanky smelled of cinnamon and vanilla sticks and just plain (if that were truly an apt word) Petra. Lucy nodded meekly, stopped her sobbing and Toni moved in. Petra turned to Toni. 

 

 “See the cross I’ve made with her nip in the center? Lovely isn’t it? Now you try.”

 

The Maltese wasn’t as brutal as her Lebanese counterpart but she did elicit some deep sighs and a cough. And so Lucy’s left breast came to compliment the right minus the insidious but strangely wonderful nail bites.

 

Ted took a few photos. “Beautiful, just beautiful.”

 

“See?” said Petra to Toni. “They weren’t so small after all. Compact, certainly, but workable.”

 

Lucy felt her breasts were anything but small the way they were aching.

 

“Last box,” said Ted, handing it to Phil, the accountant. He was a chubby, silver haired fellow in his mid-fifties. It took him but a few seconds to rip off the blue wrapping and examine what he had been given. Inside the cardboard container there was a pair of alligator clips with savage teeth and two little silver bells per clip.

 

“I know where I can put them,” he told everyone, pulling Lucy’s red panties aside and allowing them to snap onto both of her vaginal flaps. The instant, mercilessly jagged grip made the girl snort so earnestly that snot trickled from her nose. He wiped it away for her with a tissue and then threw the tissue into a nearby bin.

 

“Filthy bitch,” he told her, grabbing her by the hair and glaring into her eyes. He felt her cunt and was not surprised it was not only damp but leaking. It had threatened to leak after Petra and Toni’s little ado but now it really was leaking. He took a sampling, tasted it and smiled. “Good vintage,” he said. “Damsel ala 2006 I believe.” She was relieved when he walked away to investigate the punch bowl and the platter of cheese twists.

 

Meanwhile Ted was examining the left hand draw of his polished oak desk. After a minute or two of foraging, his hands clasped onto a heavy black object the size of a cricket ball but with edges.

 

“I nearly forgot,” he told everyone. “Perfect for a naughty girl. It was Petra’s. It can be Lucy’s this go round.”

 

“If you can get it in,” said Peter.

 

Ted sniffed it. “Mmmm! It still smells of Petra.”

 

It went into the tormented one as a bulky hell that took some effort on Ted’s part to get to stay. Needless the say the bells on the clips were rung a few times. As Lucy screamed in protest at the awful stretching and pulling and Ted got on with the inserting, Petra soothed her by rubbing her hands all over the afflicted girl’s face. Once in, it felt like a great lead ball but was in fact a lump of coal. Once in, Ted grabbed his camera and took some more shots. He got group scenes in which various office members posed with Lucy in the middle. He even got a photo of Toni and Dough singing ‘Silver Bells’ as they tweaked the bells on the girl.

 

“What about Petra?” asked Peter speculatively. “Where’s her present?”

 

“Oh, she knows what she’s getting,” replied Ted. “It’s the same thing Lucy got last time.”

 

“You don’t mean …”

 

“I’m afraid so, yes. Care for a light ale?”

 

While tears occasionally glistened like little diamonds on Lucy’s cheeks, her breasts continued to radiate discomfort and the coal lump got seemingly heavier within her, the party went back to being mostly about food, chit-chat and music. Even Petra deserted her for an assortment of munchies and coffee. Elvis was being played at one stage and then the Pointer Sisters. The song ‘Red Jack’ by the former lead of Birthday Party was a favorite and Ted played it a score of times. Then, about two hours later, Phil left and the others quickly followed. All, that is, save for Ted and Petra.

 

“She’s yours,” said Ted to Petra as he made his way to the door. “Do be sure to untie her when you’re done and do lock up. Oh, and you can borrow my camera. Here. Do get some great shots.”

 

Petra took the camera and Ted strolled out into the corridor, closing the door behind him.

 

A great big smile came upon Petra making her nose less hawkish and her features less dark.

 

“You’re mine,” she told Lucy. “What do you think of that?”

 

Lucy gurgled a little and shook her head. Petra moved in.

 

Between cups of strong coffee, the Lebanese woman had been eating baklava, a dessert made up mostly of thin layers of pasty, nuts and lots and lots of honey syrup. Even two feet away, she smelled strongly of both. Up close, the mixture of odors, powerful and exotic, nearly bowled her over with their intensity. It was an intensity strengthened by Petra partaking of a final slice of the sticky treat and licking her fingers.

 

Deftly, the Middle Eastern  woman took hold of the pump part of the gag and said: “Shall I?” Lucy shook her head frantically to definitely indicate no.

 

“Very well, I won’t. See how reasonable I can be?”

 

Petra got even closer to Lucy, putting her thick ebony colored lips up against the girls flaring nostrils. Oh, God! She thought vividly. I’m sinking into Petra, I’m drowning!

 

To make the situation even more intense, Petra took in a deep breath and exhaled directly into her target’s air way. Lucy bucked in her seat, shocked at this rather intimate attack, the rich lingering of baklava and coffee overwhelming her senses with their urgency. Petra did it again, this time pinching Lucy’s nose beforehand and letting go just before blowing so her captive got a good dose. I’m suffocating in Petra, thought Lucy. For the third time the older woman held Lucy’s head secure in her claws before breathing. The result was Lucy’s senses overloading totally on sweetness. A throaty hum came over her.    

 

“So what did you think of that?” asked Petra, removing the gag. It came out rather reluctantly and with a loud pop.

 

“I…,” began Lucy, moving her jaw a few times in order to get words out, the scent of baklava and coffee still floating about her head like a great cloud of cloying perfume . “I…”

 

Petra slapped the girl soundly across the face and tweaked the pins in each of her nipples. The pain brought Lucy back.

 

“Speak up,” said Petra.

 

“I’m…,” began Lucy, almost sobbing. “I…LOVE you!”

 

“I know but it won’t get you out of this. You were rather awful to me last Christmas.”

 

“Yes,” agreed Lucy wistfully. “But how else was I going to get your attention?”

 

“My attention?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well now you have it.”

 

Petra grabbed Lucy’s face with both hands and gave her a passionate kiss on the lips. It was very wet because of all the built up saliva in Lucy’s mouth but neither woman seemed to mind. In fact they were so occupied with this that they didn’t even hear the door open or the sound of footsteps until it was too late.

 

On went the handcuffs behind her back, imprisoning Petra. In went the gag Lucy had worn, still very wet with the previous wearer’s essence. It was cinched tight and vigorously pumped twenty four times. She was turned around and found herself staring at Peter. He had a small plastic bag in his hands.

 

“I’ve been shopping,” he told her. “Ted said it would be all right if I take you unawares just so long as I see to it you enjoy Lucy so everything’s fair. Is that all right with you?”

 

Petra nodded briskly. Lucy sighed, wondering what was going to happen next.

 

Peter sat Petra down on a table and reefed open her top. A white bra was thus revealed. He quickly cut this in two with the use of a pair a scissors allowing her gargantuan breasts to spill out into his hands.

 

“I’ve wanted to have a go at these for ages,” he told her. He began slapping them, softly at first and then very hard. He hit them at least a dozen times, marveling in the way they flip-flopped around, before photographing the reddening results. He didn’t, however, manage to get any moisture from her eye or more than a few grunts from her well packed mouth.

 

He took this as a challenge and dug into his bag, producing a candle six inches long by half an inch wide. He lit it with a cigarette lighter and placed in Lucy’s mouth. He then positioned Petra half on Lucy’s lap, half kneeling on the floor with the wax set to drip onto the newly helpless woman’s mammaries.

 

“What a picture,” he said; peeling the camera out of Petra’s grasp and snapping the scene he’d just created. “And don’t think about spitting out the candle young lady. Just let it drip on those oversized teats.”

 

The candle was scented. It gave off a lovely strawberry fragrance as it made Petra cringe. On the wax went hiding her left nipple in smoking red. It wasn’t hot enough to do real damage but certainly hot enough to make both women wonder if it would. Once he thought there was enough there, Peter then moved the position of Lucy’s head so that the other nipple also got the treatment. Lucy looked apologetically at Petra forgetting that the other woman had actually nodded yes to her torturer.

 

Peter took out a pair of tweezers and managed to remove a few long black hairs from under Petra’s arms. This elicited a few jerking motions but nothing more. He deposited them on the tip of Lucy’s nose and dug out a few more hairs from around Petra’s cunt. This meant getting his hand and the tweezers into her skirt and then into her panties. This last plucking, however, was well worth the effort. It got a truly delicious wail out of his victim but, unfortunately, nothing more.

 

By now the wax was flowing down Petra’s right breast toward her belly button. Peter took the candle out of the girl’s mouth before the wax trail was half way there and got Lucy to extinguish it with her breath. Putting it away, he went back to beating Petra’s breasts with his hands until all the wax had gone, leaving the breasts very red and very sore in places.

 

“Why?” asked Lucy, not knowing whether she should speak or not. “Why are you doing this to her?”

 

“I like Petra, too,” said Peter, slapping the woman he was talking about hard across both cheek bones, making that long nose crinkle up delightfully.

 

“Well I love her!”

 

“That’s nice, cupcake.”

 

Peter got out some thin wire and began to bind Petra’s breasts tightly, hitting them every now and then for his own enjoyment.

 

“They sag more than yours,” he told Lucy. “But I like that. They bind up real good and will turn purple.”

 

Petra was taken off Lucy’s lap and walked on all fours around the room.

 

“This is where she belongs,” Peter told Lucy. “Glad to be back at this, aren’t you?”

 

 Petra nodded and he added two clothes pins to her nipples. They were the plastic ones with teeth that really sunk in. What’s more, he had weighted them so they pulled down more on her rather large sensitive teats, stretching them agonizingly. She gave loud grunts as he made her wiggle on her crawl.

 

Peter ended Petra’s dog walk right up against Lucy’s cunt flaps which had been shaven a week beforehand and were still very smooth. They were also bulging from the coal and dripping like crazy.

 

“Get in there,” he told Petra, pointing at the petite crevice before her.

 

“She can’t lick with that gag on,” said Lucy.

 

“No she can’t,” agreed Peter, giving Petra a kick in the backside. “But she can forage around with her nose like a pig looking for truffles.”

 

Petra snorted and set around moving Lucy’s clit with her nose. It was difficult but manageable.

 

“Harder,” cried Lucy. “Faster!”

 

Peter smacked Petra’s great bum with a heavy draftsman’s ruler he got off Ted’s desk and said: “You heard her, bitch! Harder! Faster! Make those bells ring.”

 

Petra groaned loudly and increased her pace.

 

Then Peter got behind Petra, pulling first her skirt and then her rather large panties down. Yes, Petra was damp down there, glistening nicely because she was all excited. Lucy was too wrapped up in her own ecstasy to care, the throbbing in her breasts and flaps still there but not so seemingly prominent anymore. As Petra continued to move Lucy, Peter began to shove his penis into Petra’s big but still reasonably tight vagina. It took less than the first stroke to get a howl of rage out of her for Peter’s dick was covered by a condom whose tip had been dipped in deep heat cream. It burned her horribly inside, excruciatingly but not, thankfully, in a permanent way. And, as he continued to thrust without even the hint of mercy, she came and came.

 

Suddenly a great scream erupted from Petra and she shook mightily. Peter kept going for a while longer before withdrawing and examining her. Slowly this scream became body shaking sobbing.

 

“She’s crying,” said Lucy, surprise in her voice. “I made a tear or two run down her face and off the tip of her nose last year but you made her cry.”

 

Peter removed the gag from Petra and threw it aside.  He let her weep on his shoulder for a while then had Lucy lick away the tears.

 

“You were wonderful,” Petra blubbered to Peter. “Did you come?”

 

“No,” said Peter honestly.

 

“Then you must get back there now,” she sniffled. “Surely you must.”

 

“Can you…?” he began.

 

“I don’t know! But…You must! Oh, you must!”

 

Peter did so making her groan deeply and beg him to hurry. It didn’t take long but it was long enough for Petra who collapsed soon after into a heap. Just then there was a knock on the door. Peter put his pants back on, threw the used condom in the bin and hastened to find out who it was.

 

“Its Toni,” came back a voice from the other side. “ It’s all right. I’m alone.”

 

Peter let her in and she quickly took in the scene in front of her.

 

“Lovely, simply lovely,” she told Peter. “So you managed to get stuck into that old crow after all.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Do you mind if I join in?”

 

Both Peter and Petra nodded. Lucy looked away.

 

“I’ll snap a few for the boss,” said Peter.

 

“You do that,” said Toni, ditching her skirt and panties. She wasn’t very tall but her vagina was quite taken up with a lot of tangled black growth. Somewhere within this tangle was a clit that needed attention. So she strode over to Petra, grabbed her by the hair on her head and forced her to do the servicing.

 

 “Lick it long and hard you slut!” she cried. “And I want to see that fucked up long pointy nose of yours shin with my juice.”

 

“Yes, Toni,” Petra managed to get out before her face was engulfed by the Maltese. It was fortunate she had a long tongue well suited to searching out and finding a clit hidden somewhere in forest.

 

Toni came and Petra lapped it up and prodded and licked for more. Peter snapped away.

 

Petra’s breasts were now a nice shade of blue and Toni delighted in teasing them a little by nudging them with her knee. This was enough to send shockwave after shockwave through the Lebanese woman’s system, making Lucy wonder if she should say something about this casual bout of cruelty. Finally, Toni gave up on this play and had the woman she was abusing stand. This was not easy owing to the handcuffs and the recent rough play but she nevertheless managed to do so. Slowly, Toni undid the wire around the big breasts.

 

“I need to get proper circulation back into them,” the Maltese told Petra. “Sorry about this.”

 

The once ensnared breasts were struck hard by the Toni a dozen times then squeezed like grapefruit. Petra stood still and took it, her nostrils flaring with each strike, with each squeeze.

 

“There!” said Toni. “All better.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

  “You’re free,” said the Maltese after getting behind Petra and clicking open the handcuffs. Peter took them and put them back into his bag.

 

“Thank you,” whispered Petra. “And thank you ever so much Peter.”

 

“When you shower next,” he told her, “the sensation caused by the deep heat should begin to ease.”

 

“I know,” breathed Petra. “I tried it on myself about a month ago.”

 

“I’m leaving,” grinned Toni, putting on her panties and skirt. Peter took Petra in his arms and gave her a long kiss rivaling the one Petra had given Lucy.

 

“We’ll leave you to it then,” said Peter, moving to go with Toni. A moment later the door clicked shut and once more Petra was alone with the 19 year old.

 

“So are you going to untie me?” the smaller woman asked.

 

“If I do, would you move in with me and Peter?” asked Petra.

 

“When?”

 

“When he asks me.”

 

“I don’t know…”

 

“You don’t know?! Suck cunt then, bitch!” said Petra climbing onto Lucy’s chair and positioning herself over Lucy.

 

 It was dripping, Petra’s love hole was dripping like it would drip forever and there was the taste and odor of male spunk from Peter as well as Petra’s pungent aroma. And hair, lots of pubic hair hanging down. But suck Lucy did and continued to do so until Petra got wobbly at the knees and lifted herself off.

 

Petra took the ruler Peter had used on her and gave Lucy a resounding whack across her much abused breasts. This drew a frantic scream. The pins had danced.

 

“Whose bitch are you?” asked Petra, waving the ruler.

 

“Yours, mistress,” Lucy blubbered, not wanting to be hit again and yet wanting to be at the same time.

 

“Don’t ever forget it,” said Petra giving her another whack. The pins danced again. She left Lucy to digest the new situation. She made herself a coffee.

 

“Breathe on me again?” suggested Lucy, eyeing Petra wantonly.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“You know,” said Lucy, trying to shrug but having difficulty doing so because of the rope.

 

Petra finished her drink, went over to Lucy and blew air once more into her captive’s nostrils.

 

“Arrrhh!” murmured Lucy appreciatively.

 

Petra removed everything from Lucy that was still paining her, including the coal, untied her and let her fall into her arms.

 

“Your coming home with me,” said Petra. “Tomorrow you will get your things and move in with me. Soon I imagine we will be moving in with Peter. Understand?”

 

“Oh, yes! But what if….”

 

“What if what happens?”

 

“What if Peter tells me to, say, tie you up or put you on the wrack or give you an enema or something.”

 

“Then you will do so because he will own both of us. But you are mine just as I will be his, got that?”

 

“Yes, Petra…Yes…Mistress.”

 

“And I have a wrack for you. And I will give you enemas and make you trot for me while you beg me for release. And you will beg! I will see to that.”

 

“Yes, Mistress. What if he wants to…?”

 

“He will do whatever he wants. If he wishes you branded then you will be branded. Got that?”

 

“Only?”

 

“Only what?”

 

“If I am to be branded, and you know how, couldn’t you do it?”

 

“We’ll see.”

 

“Yes, Mistress.”

 

Slowly they dressed. Petra collected the instruments of torture and put them into their containers to eventually give back to those who owned them. Then they went downstairs in an elevator to a cab stand and there waited for a cab. A half hour later they got one.

 

On the way the beefy looking cab driver, whose name was Ernie, said: “You girls been having a good time?”

 

“We’ve been to a Christmas function at work,” said Lucy.

 

“Oh, one of them!” grouched the cabbie, shaking his head sadly. “Boring, right? Every year the same thing?”

 

“Not quite this year,” said Lucy.

 

“No, not at all,” smiled Petra.

 

“I guess it’s the company you keep,” suggested Lucy softly, in a will-o’-the-wisp fashion.

 

“Yes,” breathed Petra in Lucy’s direction before hugging and kissing her. “The company.”

 

       

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