Chapter One

 

Angela recovered consciousness to find herself stretched out full length upon a narrow bunk. The room was a windowless, white walled room, alarmingly like a prison cell. For a few moments she lay looking uncomprehendingly about her. The walls were of white-painted brick; the light fitting in the ceiling heavily defended with mesh; the only door looked to be of painted steel without a handle but with a round peephole.

Yes, a cell! Surely it could be nothing else! She registered the fact but failed to come up with any explanation of how she came to be imprisoned. She sat up with a groan and found that she was naked under the single blanket and, pulling it automatically about her, looked around without success for her clothes. Raising a hand instinctively to her hair she found it gathered into an unaccustomed ponytail. She glanced at her wrist with a reflex equally born of habit, to find only a pale band showing where the wristwatch had been.

The room was perfectly empty apart from the bed, the blanket and herself. The cell was quite large and the air was warm. Nervous of being seen through the peep­hole, Angela kept the blanket firmly about her as she stood up. The soles of her feet felt strange against the composition floor. On closer examination, she saw that the surface was dark in colour and felt hard and leathery to the touch, as if it had been coated with something. Her mind ran through a series of increasingly wild explanations for her situation, until she had the sense to concentrate upon what she remembered last.

Had she been kidnapped? A sick, sinking feeling echoed the thought as memory flooded back.

She remembered walking uncertainly down a dismal alley leading to an abandoned wharf lined with derelict buildings and littered with burned-out car shells and broken masonry; dismally sure that she must have muddled the instructions she had been given. Then as she'd turned to retrace her steps, a car had suddenly appeared from behind and overtaken her.

The car itself had aroused no alarm; large, opulent and quiet, with a black chauffeur in a uniform cap at the wheel. The darkened rear window had slid downwards with a remote controlled hiss and a woman had beckoned, smiling.

Hopefully Angela had stepped to the door as it opened. She'd had an impression of expensive clothes and perfect grooming, the sparkle of jewellery and a whiff of expensive perfume.

This had been her kidnapper?

The moment she'd bent to speak to the woman, two unexpectedly powerful hands had hauled her headlong into the car and across the woman's lap. Someone else was in the rear seat too since a masculine hand had stopped Angela's first instinctive cry and another gripped her wrists. The car door had slammed shut and the interior darkened as the window slid up. By that time Angela was pinned face down and could only see dark upholstery and two pairs of legs. She struggled with renewed energy as the car accelerated, finding that her rear had been suddenly bared, her skirt thrown up about her waist and her tights and panties yanked rudely down about her thighs.

There had been a sharp slap delivered by a feminine hand to one of her bared bottom cheeks, and then a sharp needle-like stab to her right buttock cheek. Reaching back, her fingers found the spot, still slightly numb.

The sudden grating of a key in the lock halted her speculations. Instinctively clutching the gaudily patterned blanket to her, she turned to face the door. It was a woman who entered; tall, smartly dressed in white silk shirt, tight riding breeches and gleaming boots, exuding an aura of wealth and style. A lingering trace of expensive perfume identified her to Angela as the woman from the car. Her intense scrutiny disconcerted the English girl.

A second woman followed the first, shutting the cell door firmly behind them. This was a black woman, in stature no taller than Angela herself, but far more powerfully built. She too was attired as if for the stable, her clothing no less expensive than the other's and an equal chestnut gloss on her boots. Under one arm she carried a bundle of leather straps.

At a loss for words, Angela goggled from one to the other. She sought for signs of human sympathy in their faces but their harsh features only increased her fright. The black woman's face had a battered, punch-bag look; the other's was weather beaten, fiercely angular and eagle beaked. Angela dropped her eyes, quailing before their joint ferocity, only to stare in horrified conjecture at the wicked-looking riding whips each of them carried; the one tucked under the black woman's arm, the other held in a gloved hand, tapping it impatiently against a tightly booted calf.

It was the white woman who spoke with an air of sinister enjoyment of Angela's consternation. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ms. Stern, your new owner. I have acquired you to serve my pleasure, so it will be best for you to prepare yourself for a new role in life." The tapping crop lifted and pointed at her. "You have been brought here to my stables to be trained as a girl-pony to be employed for my personal service. I shall strip away your old self as a human and remould you as an animal, a two legged pony, mute, obedient and responding to whip and rein!"

Angela was suddenly outraged, her fury temporarily dissipating her fright. Was this a joke? She looked wildly to the black woman as if she might provide a more rational explanation. But the woman merely grinned at her, showing red mouth and then sharp white teeth like a hungry Black Panther. Her eyes displayed bright intelligence, as if cruelly amused by the English girl's rage and bewilderment.

"W-where are my clothes?" Angela demanded weakly, her rage disappearing almost as quickly as it had arrived.

The Stern woman frowned, her black brows knitting into a solid bar, lips forming a thin line expressive of anger. With no warning, she brought the crop slashing down across Angela's knuckles, simultaneously ripping the blanket abruptly away from the naked girl's failing grasp.

With a cry of pain and indignation, Angela made to snatch back her only protection; merely to have the other hand treated in the same way. With a scream of pain, she staggered back out of reach, clutching her wounded hands to her breast. The pain was atrocious, almost as if her fingers had been severed. She heard the black woman laugh callously while Ms Stern, casting away the blanket, swung the crop again and again, her lean face as hard and pitiless as an Indian brave.

Angela shrieked and stumbled forward, twisting and writhing as the cruel thong came down across her naked and unprotected flesh. Twice the curling leather cut into the intimate crevice between her legs, depriving her even of the breath to howl in protest. She tried to back away from her tormentor, keeping her legs together and fluttering her wounded hands in the direction of attack; a futile effort to block it, which horribly the she-fiend seemed only to enjoy countering.

A stroke that was meant for Angela's bottom, but which almost removed a finger that got in the way, cured its hysterical owner of any further attempt at interception. Clutching her crippled fingers to her bosom she collided suddenly with the wall and found herself pinned into one corner of the room. Another powerful crack across her behind forced Angela round to face her tormentors. Through her tears she recognised the fiendish pleasure they took in her distress and she squealed pitifully as the crop threatened once more, folding herself into as small a compass as she could and sobbing abjectly in defeat. For the moment, she was completely broken, suddenly realising how much these two harpies actually enjoyed inflicting pain upon her.

"This one shapes well, Ms. Stern."

"Yes, quite promising, I think, Juanita."

Reaching out, Ms Stern seized Angela by the hair to drag her from the corner and hold her helpless. Pain and terror drove Angela into instant submission. The cruel riding crop was thrust very visibly under her nose. The throbbing weals it had left across her behind combined with her enforced, doubled over posture made her feel terribly exposed to more of the same.

"The belt first please, Juanita!"