Author's Note: A highwayman robs a lady's coach on the turnpike at Southwark in 1697 and takes a rich prize; a Nazi interrogator extracts information from a captured British spy; Emily Cavandish recalls other encounters too, recounting them to a student psychiatrist in the sanatorium in which she is held. Is it possible that we can be reborn or is this just her delusions ? If we are reborn then can some lives be linked through time, intertwined across the centuries ? If memories live on, can love be eternal and hate continue so that revenge be served in future lives ?

Southwark, England. AD 1697

'Stand, and deliver.'

I jerk awake as the coach jolts to a halt. I hear feet scrabbling above my head and see my driver running for the trees.

I know I am alone.

A sharp rap on the window makes me jump and I turn to see masked face.

I cower, hiding my face and an instant later splinters of glass rain down on me.

'You jewels, Madam.'

The voice is not as deep as I expected, but just as commanding.

'Please...'

'Now.'

The highwayman cocks the pistol.

I reach to my throat fumbling with the clasp to my pearls as the figure dismounts.

The door opens and I hold out the necklace.

'And the bracelet.'

I look up sharply.

It is a woman's voice.

In the dim light I can see large eyes, jade green, a wisp of blonde hair beneath the tricorn hat. She wears a linen shirt with white lace frills, tight black leather breeches (a woman in trousers !) and boots up to her thigh; at her waist hangs a rapier.

'I don't like to be kept waiting.'

I pull off the bracelet and drop it into her gloved hand.

'Anything else ?'

'I shake my head.'

'Let's just make sure shall we ?' She gestures with the pistol and steps back away from the door holding her rapier so it doesn't get tangled in her cloak. 'Out !'

I follow obediently, my heart pounding but somehow now I know my attacker is a woman I feel less scared.

'Take off your dress.'

I look at her in horror. Surely she will not make me undress in public.

'Quickly.' She levels the pistol again.

I stare at her as she stands there facing me, legs apart; under the shirt I can see the swell of her breasts and when I look down the breeches outline her thighs and hips, I am sure I can see the bulge of her sex !

I reach behind my back and start to fumble with the laces of my gown which suddenly seems so bulky and impractical with its full skirts and underskirts and the restrictive corset beneath.

However, my efforts are in vain, my maid has laced me in tightly and I cannot even start to loosen the fastenings.

I see her roll her eyes, those intense green eyes the colour of jade and feel suddenly very inadequate in front of this commanding woman.

She steps behind me and I hear her draw her rapier, the chill rasp of steel against steel.

'No, please...' I start to tremble.

Something touches my back and then there is a tearing sound. I feel my dress fall away from my breasts and catch it trying to protect my modesty but her hands grab the back of my dress and tear it further.

'Let if fall.' Her voice is almost gentle.

I can imagine a lover commanding me thus.

I realise I am not crying.

I let the dress go and it sinks around me, slipping below my hips. She rips it again and suddenly I am standing there in my corset and hose and the leather and wood hoops that once supported my skirts. My fear turns to embarrassment and I lift one arm to cover my breasts while I hold my other hand over my sex.

When I left this morning it seemed fun to go out without my undergarments and my maid giggled as she dressed me.

I realise my attacker can see my bottom and turn towards her.

She stands there appraising me. I'm sure she is smiling. Her eyes are certainly sparkling.

'Not quite the lady I thought.'

I can imagine her lips curling into a smile.

She lifts her rapier and uses the tip to push my left arm down, away from my breasts.

'Very nice.'

My right hand is guided away from my sex exposing the dark triangle of pubic hair which my maid trims every week.

'Pretty.'

She walks around me, clearly inspecting my body and I fancy she is looking at my breasts and my bottom as I stand in my corset and silk hose and ankle boots surrounded by the wooden and leather cage that supported my skirts.

I know I am blushing.

'It seems you are not as well endowed as I expected.'

'You do not care for my body ?' I am shocked that I have said this, shocked enough that I am upset by it.

She laughs.

'I meant you had no money hidden away.'

I blush furiously.

She resheaths her blade and walks towards her horse.

'You are going to leave me here ?' Now I am frightened.

'I can't take you with me, not in that thing.' She looks at the cage of hoops that hangs from my waist.

I see her put her foot in the stirrup. I can see her trim thigh and firm bottom. I think she must be beautiful, her body is so...desirable.

Without a second thought I undo my skirt cage and run after her.

'Take me with you.'

She looks down at me from the saddle.

'Why ?'

'You think me pretty.'

'I said parts of you were pretty.' I see those jade green eyes sparkle with mirth but I can tell she is tempted.

A woman can read these things.

I am standing beneath her, bare breasted and with my sex exposed.

'I could be your servant.'

'I don't need a servant.' She gathers the reins.

'Your slave then.'

Those green eyes flash.

'I know you desire me.' I am confident, I am Lady Emily Cavandish, daughter of the Fifth Earl. All who look upon me desire me.

Man and woman !

'Give me your hands.'

I lift them up and she quickly binds them then winding her fist in my hair hauls me across the saddle and I lie helpless before her. She slaps my bottom hard and then I feel her kick the flanks of her horse, spurring it to the gallop.

We have ridden several miles when she stops to rest the horse. She is a skilled rider, certainly as capable as I, perhaps more so, though I have never ridden astride. As we have made our way out of the woods and the down lanes I have felt her hand brushing across my body, her fingers twisting in the silk ribbons that are sewn to my corset and fastened to the top of my hose with the metal clips that support them. On two occasions the has removed her glove and slipped her hand between my thighs.

I am shocked by my body's response to this but not surprised.

After we have rested and she has given me a swig of wine from her skin she takes a spare bit from her saddlebag and pushes it between my teeth, before strapping it behind my head, gagging me. Then she climbs back into the saddle pulling me after her though this time I sit astride the horse in a very unladylike fashion, particularly as I am wearing no undergarments. I feel her moving behind me and turn to catch my first glimpse of her face as she removes the scarf that has been covering it. She is as beautiful as I imagined and, I note her face if made up like a lady's. My view is, however, only fleeting as a moment later she ties the scarf around my head it so that my eyes are covered.

Then I feel her dig in her heels and we are off again.

Her caresses, fleetingly intimate as they were before are now lingering and downright lascivious. Her hands are bare now and one soon begins to tease one of my breasts, lifting and squeezing, playing with the nipple. It must be past midnight and I can feel the coolness of mist against my body and that has made my nipples swell; her caresses, however, make them stiffen more and I shudder from far more than cold.

I press myself back against her, gagged and blindfolded, my hands bound before me. I can feel the warmth of her body and that of the horse so intimately pressed between my thighs. I can feel the swell of her breasts too, firm against the back of the corset and I wish I could remove it to feel her even more intimately.

As we slow to a walk I can feel her guiding the horse with her legs and her other hand now slides, between my legs; rather than be shocked, I simply moan into my gag and press myself more firmly against her, arching slightly so that her fingers can press more intimately against me.

It is thus in a haze of lust that I reach her camp, squirming and moaning under her touch as she takes all liberties with me, even pushing her fingers inside my sex, something which made me cry out with pleasure, my body shuddering with sexual fulfillment.

We dismount and she carries me over rough ground for which I am grateful as I do not think I would be able to walk, not because of the bondage or the blindfold but simply that I am weak after all she has done to me.

I wake to find myself in a cave.

I am no longer gagged or bound and the blindfold has gone. I lie in the warmth of her bed, the bed in which we shared such intimacies that I would not have dreamed them, certainly not with another of my sex. The bedding smells of her, of leather and the scent of her horse. I recall the taste of her body on my tongue.

I am a little stiff but mostly I feel fulfilled though I am sorry to find myself alone.

There is sunlight beyond the cavemouth and I see a shadow move across it.

I sit up and hear the rattle of chain. I look down to see that I am chained by the ankle.

I realise I am otherwise naked.

The air in the cave is cool on my bare skin and I look around for something to cover myself. There is a white linen shirt nearby, one of hers I assume and I crawl towards it hoping perhaps that she might see me.

See me naked and on all fours like a beast.

The chain on my ankle is long and I can easily reach the shirt which I pull over my head. It comes down to just below my bottom, just below my sex and feels slightly rough against my body.

It smells of her.

My hair is loose and I push it from face trying to pull it behind my head.

She is crouched over a fire, a poacher's fire, smokeless, and she turns to look at me, smiling at me with a radiance that almost makes me gasp. She has lovely full lips, red and sensuous, strong white teeth, prominent cheekbones and those lovely jade green eyes. Her blonde hair is drawn behind her like a man's. I stand there with my hands behind my head holding my hair and just looking at her.

I see her stand. She is dressed as the night before in a frilled shirt, breeches and thighboots though she now wears no hat or cloak. Her rapier and pistols lie beside her within easy reach. She pulls a leather thong from her belt, perhaps it is the one she used to bind my hands before

'Is this what you need ?'

I nod and walk towards her.

I am barely aware of the chain clicking where it trails behind my ankle but suddenly she holds up her hand and I stop, looking down, following her gaze. The chain is almost at its full length, she has prevented me from falling.

I also notice how lifting my arms has lifted the shirt and she has been able to see the dark fur of my sex beneath it.

She stands behind me and ties my hair up then slips her hands around my waist kissing me on my cheek. I look down at her arms where they encircle me, she is strong but I know can also be gentle. Her grip has pulled the shirt more tightly against my skin and I can see the outline of my nipples. I shudder recalling her teeth on them as we lay together.

I luxuriate in her touch, in the raw intimacy of our contact and then turn putting my arms around her neck and pulling her close, kissing her full on the mouth, feel her tongue against mine, struck once again by the taste of the pigment she uses on her lips, slightly sweet like the juice of strawberries. I am aware to of the pressure of her breasts against mine, a strange softness in contrast to the firmness of her body.

'Take me again.' I swore to be hers and wish only to please her, to have her please me.

'Perhaps later.' She kisses me again. 'I will be back by sunset.'

'Please be careful.'

Her love, so new to me, has already, it seems, become an addiction, like laudanum, I must have more.

'Of course.' She pulls gently away from me. 'Now, turn around.'

I obey her and she crosses my wrists, binding them.

'But I am chained.'

'Indeed you are.'

She lifts me and carries me into the cave, putting me down on her bed of blankets and leather and for a moment I think I will get my wish, a resurgence of the pleasure we enjoyed where, still bound, I lay with her, pleasured her with my tongue and felt the joy of this returned upon me.

But she does not lie beside me, instead she crosses and binds my ankles as she has just bound my wrists before pulling the two together leaving me lying on my front with my wrists and ankles above my bottom.

'I will not try to escape.'

'You certainly won't now.' She pats my bare bottom. 'Beside's I'm not trying to stop you escaping, I'm punishing you for stealing my shirt.'

'I'm sorry.' I feel almost desperate that I have offended her. 'Please forgive me.'

'Oh, I'm sure I will, though I will probably have to put you over my knee and spank you when I get back.'

I look up at her in surprise.

She picks up the gag and straps it into my mouth. I accept it with pleasure and enjoy the sight of her firm bottom in the tight leather breeches as she bends and picks up her cloak and hat and leaves me helpless with nothing to do but await my spanking.

Once I am alone, I begin to squirm, pulling at my bonds, not because I have any real desire to escape but, I think strangely, to test how much she wants me; they hold firm and, after what must be an hour of fruitless struggling, rolling from my side to my belly on the blankets and then the bare rock and even rolling over on to my back I have drawn no slack in the leather thongs that bind my wrists and ankles and my fingers have gained no purchase on the knots. I lie finally on my back in a most unladylike fashion with my knees splayed and the shirt now ridden up across my chest exposing my breasts, my body damp with sweat and my breathing deep with the exertion of my struggles.

Soon the sweat is cooling my body and, my nakedness barely concealed by the shirt, I begin to shiver. I try to pull down the shirt and to wrap myself in the blankets but, with my arms bound and my body bent into a bow by my bondage, enjoy only moderate success and decide to crawl, wriggle might be a more appropriate term, to the mouth of the cave to lie in the sunlight. The lack of modesty vexes me somewhat but I believe I am unlikely to be espied.

I awake with a start.

I must have drifted off to sleep.

She stands above me, a frown on her face.

'I don't recall giving you permission to move.' She has an edge to her voice: disapproval but not anger. She bends and unstraps my gag.

'I don't recall asking it.' I am thirsty and stiff and her tone makes me belligerent.

She continues to look down at me and I wonder if she is, indeed concerned that I might have been discovered.

I look too and see my naked body, my breasts and sex exposed, the skin red and hot from the sun.

'If you are going to live in the wild, you will have to learn to take care of yourself.'

I am suddenly angry, not with her but with my own foolishness.

'Perhaps if you didn't leave me tied up and in chains.'

'I might leave you in a sack next time.'

It is no idle threat but we both know what it implies. I can see the realisation in her face but she covers this by bending and frees my ankle from the chain then lifts me easily carrying me across her camp towards the river.

I feel again how strong she is, the wiry strength of her arms as she carries my brazenly displayed body with ease. Despite the stiffness in my body I am thrilled that she keeps me bound.

When I realise what she is about to do, it is too late; but then I am bound and there is little I can do anyway.

The chill of the water drives the breath from my body and as it closes over me I panic, pulling frantically as my bonds which continue to hold firm. I cannot free myself and, bound, I cannot lift my head from the water. In moments my chest is burning and I thrash in the grip of panic.

After an age she lifts me, gasping, clear of the surface, dragging me to the bank.

'You might have drowned me !' I lay in the cool mud at her feet.

'I needed to cool the burn.' She looks down at me as she sits on the bank. She wears her shirt and her breeches. Her bare feet sink into the mud on either side of my head.

She left me under the water while she took off her boots !

'Are you going to keep me tied up all the time ?' I try to remain indignant.

'When it pleases me.' She stands over me and frees my wrists and ankles, rubbing my hands and feet where they have become numb.

When she has finished I push myself up. My chest and belly are covered in thick grey mud that clings in a thin layer to my skin. I cup my hands and wash it off.

'You are going to have to wash my shirt.' She watches me as I wash myself.

'I'm not your maid.' I pout but I realise the white linen is soiled with the same grey mud.

'No, you are my slave.' She begins to pull the linen shirt over my head and, when I am naked throws it at me.

'Do a good job and I may feed you later.'

I turn and glare but I think from her voice that she is toying with me and when I see her looking at me, see the expression in her green eyes as she takes in my body I know she will do a lot more than feed me.

And so I move to the shade of a tree and begin to wash her shirt.

I have never washed anything in my life but I have watched my maids working at times and know the principles; I rub the mud from it and rinse it, and beating it on a rock and wringing it in my small fists. She watches me as I work, sitting on the bank in her breeches and shirt, beautiful, her golden hair the colour of a field of wheat at sunset, droplets of water sparkling in it like pearls. And I enjoy toiling in front of her, naked, her servant, her slave, pausing at times to blush back my hair where it has fallen from the thong she bound it with, hanging in dark coils of disarray on my skin that seems so white and pale compared to the darkness of hers.

Finally, I hold the garment up for her.

'Does Mistress approve ?'

She smiles looking past it at me, at my naked body, my pale skin, my stiffly erect nipples.

'Mistress approves.'

I lay the shirt out on a flat rock to dry in the sunshine and crawl towards her. My skin is wet, glistening in the afternoon light. The slight breeze chills me. While I worked I was warm but now I am close to shivering; despite this, I kneel in front of her spreading my legs, brazenly displaying my body.

I do not understand what makes me do this and I do not think I am shivering just with cold.

'Does it please Mistress to bind her slave again ?' I cannot resist sliding my hands behind my back as they were when she bound me, offering her my body.

'Perhaps.' She looks at me.

I am offering her everything I have, I pray that it is enough.

She stands and her shadow passes over me. I shiver.

'I recall Mistress was to chastise me for wearing her shirt without permission.' This is all I have.

'She was.' She bends and binds my wrists and I cannot believe the joy this ignites in my body.

She stands and begins to walk towards the cave.

I turn and watch, unsure what I am expected to do.

'Don't keep Mistress waiting.' She doesn't turn back.

I leap to my feet and follow her, my arms bound behind me, my naked body openly displayed, running behind her, my small breasts bouncing, helpless chattel.

That pain could create so much pleasure I would not have countenanced.

I have been spanked before, by my governess, a women for whom the saying 'spare the rod' was a mantra by which she lived rather than one of many lines to guide the education of a charge. Yet, never had it excited within me such lust or desire as when the girl with the jade green eyes girl began to beat me as I lay across her lap with my wrists bound behind my back.

When it came, the sharp slap of her hand on the chill skin of my buttocks brought with it such a quiver of delight that she might have stroked me with her fingers than laid the flat of her hand to me. I cried out, a mixture of surprise as much as pain but when the second blow alighted I was ready for it and let the pleasure of Mistress' touch flood through my helpless body. By the third or fourth stroke I was moaning but not with displeasure and I am sure that, as the skin of my bottom warmed, that heat spread to my loins in a way that could only otherwise be gained by the caresses of a lover.

At some point, joy suffused my body, pulsing through it in waves on which I rode like a soul cast adrift in a tiny boat upon a sea of pleasure and I could not tell within me any difference from the sensations that her body and tongue had elicited within me when we had lain together the night before; thus I enjoyed wave after wave of sexual climax until I thought I might swoon with pleasure.

And that I might enjoy restraint along with it. Who might have thought or predicted that being in kept in bondage could excite or arouse yet, as I lay bound, her prisoner, her captive, her willing slave, I hoped she might keep me so restrained forever, perhaps adding to my bonds so that I was kept always in state of helpless bondage, my limbs swaddled by her, utterly confined, chained and caged and subject to her whim, that she might touch me as she chose, punishing me and bringing my pleasure.

Finally, she gagged me, the leather strap again wedged between my teeth in a vague and futile attempt to silence my cries of joy that filled the cave and left me gasping with lust.

I stand in the mouth of the cave watching her practice: thrust, parry, repost, step, lunge...

Again I am wearing her shirt, my arms wrapped around me against the chill of the morning, my legs bare, my sex still tingling from her touch and from the pleasure of watching her in action; so strong, graceful, the sun shining off her hair reminding me of my father's wheatfields.

She turns to look at me with those jade green eyes, transfixing me.

My ankle is still chained to the stone floor of the cave.

Sheathing her rapier she strides towards me. She is flushed from her exertions, her cheeks red, sweat on her brow; her shirt is damp too, clinging to her body, her breasts; I can almost see the pinkness of her nipples.

'You look fine in my shirt.'

'Thank you, Mistress.' I curtsey, the shirt riding up my thighs.

I can't believe how much I want her.

'I may let you keep it.' She has a sparkle in her eye.

'Perhaps Mistress would care to try my garments.' I try to match her tone.

'I hardly think it.' She appraises me, appraises my body. 'I recall you left your coach wearing very little.'

'Hardly, my decision, Mistress.' I pout. 'I recall you cut the dress from my body.'

'It wasnt' the dress to which I referred.' She winks. 'I wonder that you are more a coquette in the semblance of the fine lady.'

'If you persist to insult me Madam, I will have no recourse but to seek satisfaction.' I should feel insulted.

'You would challenge me ?' Her hands go to her hips.

'In the absence of a champion, I would challenge any who insult a Lady.'

'Lady ?' She raises her eyebrows skeptically and I hurl myself at her.

She subdues me easily, of course, binding my wrists as she did the night before and then kneeling over her prize, her thighs spread, her weight across my back.

'I take it you yield ?'

'Yes, Mistress.' I am once again in the thrall of submissive desire of her domination over me.

She rises and stands before me and draws her rapier in a hiss of steel.

I lay an my belly at her feet, my face a few inches from her shiny black thigh boots. The linen shirt has ridden up and I know my bottom and my legs are exposed.

'Show me your contrition.' She taps her boot with the tip of her sword.

I have to obey.

I squirm forward on my belly, my breasts rubbing against the rough stone of the cave floor, so that I can plant my lips on the toes of her boots, lick them with my tongue, worship her, my Mistress, my Muse, my green eyed Goddess.

'Why do I have to be naked ?' Not only am I naked but I am bound, my wrists lashed behind my back again with a leather thong.

'Because it pleases me.' She is leaning against a tree, her arms folded across her breasts, watching me. 'Push in with your left knee.'

I do and the horse turns.

I am riding Bess, her huge black mare; naked and astride.

She is right. I can hardly call myself a lady now.

Can she really know how much this excites me ?

'If you need your hands then you must be able to guide a horse with your legs.'

I push with my right leg and Bess turns back.

'Now, bring her to the trot.'

'Like this ?' I look at her in surprise.

'You can't go everywhere at a walk.' She pushes off from the tree. 'Dig your heels in.'

I do and Bess springs to the trot quite alarmingly.

I can ride, of course, but never before astride and not on a horse so large.

And not naked !

However, my balance is good and, despite my bondage I maintain my posture surprised at how much my little breasts bounce. My bottom is a little sore too where she beat me the night before for letting the stew burn.

'How does Mistress stop her breasts from bouncing quite so violently.'

'Mistress' breasts are somewhat smaller.' She grins and turns watching me.

'Perhaps I might be permitted my corset next time.' I know there is a flush coming to my cheeks. I could imagine many ladies swooning at the very thought of what I am doing.

'Would you like your stockings too ?'

'If it pleased Mistress.' I bring the horse to a stop and she takes the bridle then helps me down, holding me close.

I still cannot believe how strong her arms are. I would never have thought that one of my sex could have such strength.

'Keep me bound.' I say it impulsively and look up at her pleading that she will permit me to stay in bondage. 'Please Mistress.'

'I was thinking I might send you to gather wood.' She runs her fingers into my hair pulling out the thong she has used to bind it back while I was riding.

That she pulls back my hair and binds it herself each morning and then releases it when we lay together at night pleases me intensely.

'I could do other things to keep Mistress warm.' I push myself against her suggestively.

'It will not cook the dinner.' Her fist tightens in my hair and I shudder with pleasure.

'Then perhaps Mistress would let me dress in my stockings for her later.'

I had put them on one evening when it was colder and then had noticed her watching me more closely than usual, enjoying my body. I had made a point of bending over beside the fire, knowing that my sex was clearly visible to her.

She had taken me forcefully, pinning me down, binding me, having me remove her clothes with my teeth and then pleasure her as she sat astride me her fingers stroking the silk clad flesh of my thighs before plunging her tongue into my sex.

She had kept me bound for three days still wearing the stockings. Made me go about camp with my breasts and bottom bare, feeding me like an animal as I knelt beside her, making me lap water from a bowl, squat to relieve myself in front of her.

'Stand and deliver.'

I watch from the trees, my heart pounding as she levels her pistol at the driver of the carriage.

He raises his hands and the carriage window opens.

I see a bonnet over soft blonde curls.

The Duchess of Granville !

'What is the meaning of this ?' Her ladyship is just as haughty as I remember her.

My highwayman guides her horse forward.

'A robbery, Madam.' She nods cordially. 'If you would be so kind as to hand over your valuables.'

'I will not !'

'Very well.' The highwayman lifts her pistol. 'Then I will shoot your coachman.'

This is a side of her I have not seen.

Ruthless, brutal.

There is a flash and smoke erupts, a second later the harsh crack of a pistol shot.

The coachman reels backwards.

No !

But what else has she been doing when she leaves me chained by the ankle and bound in her camp.

I know what she is, what she does.

Now, I am her accomplice.

The Duchess looks very pale and, as the highwayman draws her rapier, removes her necklace.

'And the rings.'

'No, please...'

'I will remove your fingers with them if you refuse.'

The Duchess struggles to pulls the rings from her fingers. She is clearly trying but it is taking some time and I can see the green-eyed highwayman becoming more nervous, looking up and down the turnpike.

Finally the Duchess succeeds.

'Your earrings too.' My highwayman holds the tip of her sword beneath the Duchess' chin.

From where I am hiding, it seems almost an intimate gesture. I can see the Duchess realising the nature of her attacker, see the shock registering on her face even on the background of what is happening to her.

I remember that night many months ago when I was sitting in that seat and wonder what the highwayman might do if the Duchess made the same request as me. Would she take her as a slave alongside me ?

I know I could not share her.

I watch her take the jewels, her leather gloved hand brushing the Duchess' and then she lowers the tip of her sword to the blonde's creamy breast.

'Something to remember me by.' She nicks the skin, bright red blood welling up from the tiny wound. It will be an obvious scar on the Duchess' perfect body.

I wonder if she will brag about it.

I am insanely jealous.

'Where have you been ?' I have been bound in the cave for a day and a night, chained at the ankle. I am stiff and cold, dirty and soiled.

'York.' She crouches down to release me easing out my legs where my ankles have been bound to my wrists.

'Why ?'

'To be seen there.'

I look at her blankly.

'The Duchess.' She rubs my arms. 'She may recognise me. If I was in York I couldn't have robbed her.'

'You know the Duchess of Granville ?' My jealousy sparks.

'I did once.' She smiles. 'A long time ago.'

Her words have just touched something deep inside me, the spark of jealously flares, like black powder.

'So you rode to York ?' I am my voice quavers with emotion.

'I have friends there. They will vouch for me.'

'Friends ?' I don't know why this should be so surprising but the flare of jealousy has just engulfed me in a white hot burst, and explosion.

I cannot share her !

'Yes.' She smiles. 'Believe it or not, I do have friends.'

'Men and women ?' I sit up rubbing my wrists pulling away from her, pulling the blanket to cover my nakedness, embarrassed my the stink of my body, that I have voided my bladder while bound, by the fact that she might no longer want or need me.

'Both.' She senses my disquiet and reaches out, smoothing my disheveled hair.

I am not sure which worries me most: men or women.

'Go and bathe.' She removes the chain from my ankle.

It is cold, early morning and I am shivering though more with emotion than cold. I keep the blanket around me and walk to the river dreading the chill of the water, of the day, perhaps the days to come when she tosses me aside or robs a coach containing another beautiful woman. I realise that I fear this more than the realisation that my dashing highwayman is a thug and a murderer.

She follows me and suddenly I don't want her to be there. That I want to come to her as a lady again, make her desire me.

My stockings are now ruined.

Steeling myself, I plunge into the chill water, wishing it would sweep me away but when I surface, she is there, standing over me, watching me in the gathering light and I see the sun on her hair. As I emerge from the water, she wraps me in a blanket and then in her arms, sweeping me from my feet enfolding me in her strength and I can't help but press myself against her.

She carries me back to the cave and continues to hold me but when I do not respond as usual she throws off the blankets and goes to make a fire leaving me shivering, alone. Her dagger has slipped out of her boot and I clutch it to my bosom.

In an hour, she brings me tea and pulls bread and cheese from her saddlebags.

We eat in silence and the dawn becomes daylight creeping into the camp so that I can see the dust in her hair and on her cloak, the grime on her linen shirt, the mud on her boots.

I squat facing her, naked save for the blanket wrapped around my shoulders.

'Is it because I shot the coachman ?' Her voice cuts through the silence and I look up surprised to see her jade green eyes appraising me intently.

She really is beautiful.

How can I tell her that it has nothing to do with the coachman but everything to do with what I now know she is ? How can I tell her that I thought I had found love but that I fear I am simply a prize from one of her adventures, a bauble to toy with and then discard ?

She looks at me, waiting for my reply.

'It isn't the coachman.'

'I would think it is because I went to York without you but it was something that happened last night.'

When we returned to camp after she robbed the Duchess, I threw myself at her with an urgency that took her by surprise; I begged her to bind my and use me, to beat me if she chose; I serviced her with every feminine wile I could summon.

I look away, shift on my heels, the blanket drops away slightly and I quickly recover my breast where I have cut it in the same spot as she marked the Duchess of Granville.

The highwayman regards me for a moment, her jade green eyes seem to pierce my soul and my heart pounds.

'I have missed you.' Her voice is soft and I cannot believe she is talking about her trip to York.

She reaches out and touches my face and I nuzzle against her fingers.

Then she stands and throws off her cloak, strips her shirt revealing her small firm breasts, her broad shoulders, her firm muscles.

'Next time I go to York I will take you.' She looks down at me.

'Thank you, Mistress.'

'You will have to pretend to be my whore.'

'Yes, Mistress.' I bow my head to conceal the smile that I cannot suppress.

'And I will dress you for the part.' She tousles my hair. 'And I know you know what I mean.'

'Yes, Mistress.' I feel joy suffuse me but it cannot quench the jealousy, not quite.

She thinks for a moment. 'You will have to call me 'Master' while we are there.'

'Yes, Mistress.'

I look up, enjoying the magnificence of her body.

'When I have bathed I will start to teach you the rapier.' She starts undo her breeches and I crawl towards he expectantly.

'Help me with my boots.'

'Yes, Mistress.' I help her to pull them off.

'Clean them, and the rest of my gear.'

'Yes, Mistress.'

'And rub down Bess.'

'Yes, Mistress.'

'And don't even think about putting on one of my shirts or I will beat you with my rapier until you cannot sit down.'

'I bought you a present.' She smiles across at me as we emerge from the river after my lesson. I am bruised along my arms from my wrist to my shoulder and I haven't even held a sword; we have been practicing with sticks. She and I are both naked, our skins puckered from the chill of the water; her blonde hair is plastered to her scalp and hangs down her back.

A few moments later, she pulls a packet from her saddlebags and passes it to me. It is wrapped in paper and tied with a red ribbon and I pull the bow then unwrap it.

The parcel contains stockings, white silk with tiny pink bows stitched to the top.

'They are beautiful.' I kiss her. 'Thank you, Mistress.'

'I do expect you to wear them for me.'

'Mistress said I was to remain naked today.'

'Mistress has changed her mind.'

I slip the stockings over my feet and slide them up my legs.

'I will bind you.'

'I certainly hope so, Mistress.' I stand for her, my legs apart showing her my body.

'The ribbon is for your hair.'

I gather up my hair and tie the ribbon around it.

'Do I look like your whore, Mistress ?' I put my hands behind my head and push out my breasts.

'It's hard to believe you are a lady.'

'Bind me !' I want her to do it, to bind my wrists and use me, to put me across her knee and spank me, tie my ankles so she can tease my sex with her tongue or her fingers or her toes; gag me so I have no fear of crying out my pleasure.

She pulls my wrists behind my back and secures them then presses herself against me, her hands going to my breasts, teasing my nipples. Her lips caress my neck.

'Keep me like this, Mistress.' I writhe as her hands move lower. 'Keep me as your whore, your slave; keep me naked and use me for your pleasure.'

'Not completely naked, I hope.'

'I hope Mistress will dress her whore as she pleases.'

Her hand slips between my thighs and strokes my sex, her fingers slick against the wet flesh. I squirm on her fingers, my passion building, my body warming.

'We were meant to be together.' She tells me. 'And we will be always.'

I try to turn, to kiss her but she prevents me, continuing to toy with my helpless body.

'Always ?' I cannot truly believe it.

'Always.' She turns my head, kissing the side of my mouth. 'Though you do not always remember.'

'Remember ?' I don't understand but perhaps that is because of the sensations of lust coursing through my body. I push back with my bound hands, my fingers seeking her sex.

'It is not the first time we have been together and it will not be the last.' She tells me.

Pleasure surges within me as my craving for her is sated briefly but then the thought of parting tears at me, jealousy gnawing, ripping at my soul, rending it so that in heat of our passion my mind roars with an unquenchable fire, a fever that will now always burn within me.

I know we will be together, I will ensure it.

She is mine and I will only let death part us.


Jamaica 1763

I wake to find the fever passed.

I try to move but I am still cuffed, my hands locked behind me in leather restraints, my ankles similarly constrained. My maid does this when the sickness grips me, I have been known to be violent.

I am gagged too.

I try to sit up but am still leashed, the leather collar around my throat tied to the headboard of my bed.

It is hardly the way a lady should be treated but then I am already 'damaged goods' as they say here behind my back and occasionally to my face and, at least I have a roof over my head and servants to care for me, even if they do keep me restrained.

It is evening, the heat of the tropical day passing, a wind from the sea blowing though the window making the curtains flutter and cooling my body still pink and slick with sweat.

I am naked and have no means to cover myself, my bedcovers cast aside in the throws of my ranting.

When it leaves me, the fever goes as quickly as it seizes me.

The door to my room opens and I turn to see my maid enter.

She is used to caring for me and recognises my state in an instant realising the fever is passed.

She sits on the bed and lifts my shoulders onto her thigh, my head rests in her lap. Then she unbuckles my gag and eases it out of my mouth.

I work my jaw.

'Thank you.'

She stroke my cheek.

'I think you are recovered.'

'Yes, Juanita.' I try to smile. 'For the moment at least.'

She pours a glass of water from a pitcher and lifts it to my lips. She will not remove my restraints until the doctor has seen me.

Gratefully, I take a sip and the another.

'Thank you.' I have done this often enough that I know to take small sips or the water will make me cough and retch though I don't know if this is an effect of the illness or the gag.

'I will summon the doctor in the morning.'

'You are so good to me, Juanita.' I don't mind being restrained. Another night will hardly be an ordeal. I know why they keep my like this and, to some extent it gives me comfort.

I feel her slide up the bed pulling me with her, nestling me against her body, side on, my right shoulder between her breasts, my head resting against her shoulder. She kisses the top of my head and strokes my hair from my face. I can smell the musky scent of her body, dark and hinting of the spices that are grown here in the plantation.

She gives me more water, little sips until the glass is empty, then she replaces my gag.

I make no protest, simply taking the leather covered bit between my teeth and waiting as she buckles the strap behind my head.

I know what is coming and that I need it.

Juanita's hand slides up to my right breast, lifting it.

Though I expected this, I still stiffen.

'Relax, Mistress. Juanita will care for you.' Her voice is soft with the lilting pattern of speech in these islands.

I like to be touched like this but fear someone were to find us. I fear that my husband might walk in to find us like this.

She runs a finger tip around my nipple and I feel it respond.

I look down knowing that I will see my nipple stiff, knowing that there will be a flush in my chest and throat. Juanita's fingers are long, the colour of coffee, dark against my pale, pink flesh.

Already my body is responding, the familiar warmth building inside me, the sensations that a woman is not supposed to feel surfacing.

Her finger moves to my other nipple but this time she pinches it gently and I give a little cry through my gag that makes her laugh.

'Mistress' nipples are so small and sensitive.' She chides me, pinching me again and I squirm in her arms. 'So pink and delicious.'

She lifts my breast and kisses it with her full dark lips, then nibbles at the soft pale flesh.

I writhe until she grabs my hair and pulls my head back bending to take my nipple in her teeth, nibbling, kissing, stretching it.

I squirm beneath her, panting around my gag, my body filling with joy.

Then she pushes me back, lifts her skirts and straddles me, before bending to nuzzle my breasts more fully, nipping at them again with her strong white teeth and biting my nipples harder, stretching my breasts with her mouth.

I can smell her hair as it falls free across my face; dark and twisted and wiry and wish I could kiss her as she kisses me.

Her mouth moves down to my belly, tongue thrusting into my navel and her hands going to my buttocks.

I lift my hips showing her what I want, where I want her tongue, though she clearly knows.

Her strong fingers knead my bottom as he tongue explores my belly, teeth biting and lips kissing.

I am strapped to the frame the doctor uses to administer my therapies, a wood and leather contraption that holds me with my legs spread wide, bent over at the waist, my arms drawn behind me and hooked at the elbows over a wooden bar, my wrists strapped to the leather belt around my waist that is used to keep me restrained when I am not bound to my bed.

The purgings happen regularly, almost daily sometimes when I am 'well', enemas run into my body to flush out the evil that inhabits it. They are, nominally, to treat my fevers, to temper the infection that surfaces from time to time but the household knows that they are really to drive out a much greater evil, to free me from the lust that grips me more often than the fevers, the lust that is fulfilled by my maid with her longs brown fingers and white teeth and skilled tongue.

All know I am damaged goods, not perhaps that I was found in bed with Lady de Havilland's daughter and she barely nineteen and, as a result that I was married off to the colonies before the scandal could reach them; but all here know the nature of my crime. Her youth and the fact she was bound no doubt helped her cause just as it perhaps harmed mine but wonder if, somewhere in the home counties a woman of thirty two suffers a similar fate to me though probably more discretely.

I still recall her fondly, remember lovely young body squirming beneath mine clad in only her silken stockings, begging me to gag her lest the servants hear her cries as I lapped at her sweet sex. Her nipples were pink like raspberries and, I thought at the time, just as delicious as I dripped honey onto her chest and licked it from her bare skin.

Her warning about the gag was timely and, sadly, one I ignored although, I suspect we would have eventually been caught regardless. A woman of society has little privacy.

I have none.

I hear the doctor enter, I know his step and that it is his time to arrive. He is, I suppose, a handsome enough fellow though has an effeminate look, three years in the colonies now, the graduate of some London school and the victim of some scandal to be here I would wager. He wears a blue velvet coat and had silver buckles on his shoes.

He greets me even though I cannot respond. When he visits I am gagged with a large wooden ball wrapped in leather. It is more effective than the leather training bit my maid uses most of the time. It makes me drool, augmenting I think, the impression of my madness.

I hear him open his bag. If I turned, I might just be able to see him but I do not. I know that is coming and it holds no interest for me.

The nozzle is, as always, cold against my bottom. How he achieves this in the heat of the Jamaican summer I cannot imagine and yet, it is always so. Perhaps it is the grease he applies to lubricate the device. He pushes it inside me with ease now before twisting it and fastening it to the leather belt then connects the hose and funnel, hanging that from the frame to which I am bound.

He has a choice of bottles, some plain, some spiced, some perfumed. Today I catch the scent of rosewater though this might hang in the air, entering my room through the open window. If I am to be treated thus, then having the frame in my chamber overlooking the sea adds a pleasantness that might not be present were I confined to some cellar or locked in an attic room. From my bondage I can seen the turquoise of the sea, as it laps upon the white sand of the beach; see the canopies of the palm trees and the garden of the house.

I know what is coming and feel the first touch of the fluid as it runs into my body; cool but not as startlingly so as the nozzle. I know I am a little tense, the last few enemas have been spiced and made me sweat as much as my fevers. This one is not and I feel myself relax although I know what will follow. The fullness is pleasant at first, somehow comforting but, as the doctor continues to fill the funnel and the fluid runs in the cramps begin, intermittent at first and them more lingering until I am squirming and panting around my gag as might a woman in labour.

He leaves me for a while, perhaps twenty minutes to take coffee while I writhe and sweat and gasp, drooling as I do so on the wooden floor.

When he returns, Juanita is with him. She carries a bucket and, to my great relief, she drains the fluid from my belly, filling the bucket and carrying it to the drainage pit.

I am left alone with the doctor.

I do not move, do not struggle as he removes the nozzle.

Then, a few moment later something replaces it. Something warm and firm. I know what it is and, the first time he did this to me I struggled and squirmed, screaming into my gag. Aid came but who would believe the word of a drooling madwoman over a medical man. In truth, they didn't even bother to take out my gag.

Juanita knew but said nothing.

He beat me and ordered me kept restrained and gagged for a week.

I never told anyone.

Now it is a regular thing, his hard pink manhood in my tight sphincter pumping into me for his pleasure, his balls beating against my sex. He gains much satisfaction from it, sometimes, more confident after three years, drawing out his pleasure, bringing himself to the brink before easing back and then beginning again. Sometimes he takes me twice though he eschews my sex thereby serving me little pleasure.

And they say my desires are strange.

I am not beaten often now. The purges are the mainstay of my therapies and, when the doctor has left, Juanita releases me. I have been in the frame for several hours and my back aches as I straighten. Juanita wipes my chin and removes my gag.

When my husband is home, she dresses me so that I can dine with him but, when he is out on the plantation she simply clips a leash to my collar and leads me to the kitchens where I am fed.

After I have eaten she allows me exercise, walking me, still naked around the courtyard keeping me out of the sun. My wrists stay cuffed to my belt and the leather cuffs still circle my ankles. If she is displeased, particularly if I have refused to eat, she binds my elbows together behind my back and, sometimes hobbles my ankles so that I have to shuffle awkwardly to keep up with her. If she is being particularly cruel she gags me too and sometimes uses the leather blindfold.

The men of the household know my routine and most find jobs to do in the courtyard in the early afternoon so they can watch me as I am paraded naked and bound for their pleasure. If Juanita has chores, I will often kneel beside her, my leash tied to the end of the table at which she works or to her chair. Sometimes she leave me like this, deliberately, to allow some of the bolder men to approach me. They have far more knowledge of what to do with a woman than the effeminate doctor and, though only a few will bend me over the table and use me roughly, most have enjoyed handling my body, especially my nipples and my sex.

Their attentions please me, though not as much as Juanita's and when she returns to find them enjoying the pleasures of my body she shoos them away before teasing me herself. I particularly enjoy her touch at these times if she has been handling spices and they are still on her fingers. One of the men is usually willing to lick her hands clean when she has finished and, if nobody offers, I will do it.

My husband would, I know, beat the men and Juanita, were he to discover these lewd behaviours but they will not tell him and I am fully aware of the consequences should I do so. Besides, I rather enjoy their attentions, especially those of Carlo who is very well built carter and certainly knows how to guide a filly.

It is evening and I am once again bound to my bed, wrists cuffed to the heavy wooden posts upon which it stands, posts that are set with rings for just this purpose. I lie on my back, naked, vulnerable, my limbs spread. Juanita has run her tongue over my sex, brought a flush to my cheeks and a warmth to my loins.

She took the precaution of gagging me first.

Sometimes, when she thinks I will not settle, she gives me laudanum and, when she does

my dreams show me visions of a girl with jade green eyes and hair the colour of a field of wheat at sunset. I see her sometimes too when in the delirium of the fevers. She is quite beautiful, full lips and prominent bones above her cheeks. I can tell she is a strong woman from the way she holds her shoulders. I am sure I know her though I cannot recall where I might have seen her. I have looked for her when I am permitted out of the house but I do not think I met her here in the Caribbean.

Such are dreams.

When she comes to me, she is a vision of loveliness and her is smile a joy to behold; I cannot help but feel love for her; however, though I try I cannot reach her, cannot speak to her; and she becomes angry; I fear I have offended her terribly, perhaps in some past life. I can, sometimes, hear her voice deriding me, telling me I am a whore and a slut, that I am cursed and that this madness I endure is of my own making.

I know ghosts do not exist but she seems the very incarnation of an unquiet spirit that I cannot but believe she is seeking revenge for some terrible wrong. That is when the madness truly grips me and I want only to throw myself at her feet and beg her forgiveness, offer myself to her in atonement for what I have done.


Berlin, Germany AD1943

I am bound to a chair, tight rough ropes secure my arms behind my back and my legs are pulled wide apart, tied at the ankle to the chair's back legs. The stress on my body is intense, my elbows touching, my thighs spread wide, back arched; ropes bite into my flesh and my hands and feet are numb; there is a rope too around my throat.

'Tell me where they are.' My interrogator's English is almost flawless, too perfect, in fact. She is blonde, hair the colour of a wheatfield at sunset and eyes of jade green, not the blue of those who claim to be the master race, the Teutons, the Reich.

I look up at her, shocked by how beautiful she is, with her full red lips and strong cheekbones but it is the eyes that captivate me.

She seems so strong.

She slaps me hard and I taste blood in my cheek.

'I do not know what you want.' I speak German, deliberately accented.

She grabs the front of my blouse and rips it open, buttons pop and bounce across the floor. I am wearing a silk braziere, black, my breasts stiff cones and I see her smile.

'Such a lovely body Lady Cavandish.' She switches to German knowing at least I will understand her. She runs a leather gloved finger down he bare skin of my chest between my breasts. 'So delightful...' English again. Her smile fades. 'It would be a shame to...change you.'

'I am Marguerite Harloun.' I fix my gaze on her, on her jade green eyes trying to ensure my German is not perfect. Trying not to tell her anything. 'I am a Belgian citizen.'

'You are Lady Emily Cavandish.' She slaps me again. 'Daughter of the 14th Earl.' Another slap. 'And you are a British spy.'

She removes her uniform cap and pulls her long blonde hair behind her head, binding it there with a leather thong then she loosens to top button of her tight leather tunic. She is magnificent, towering over me, tall, slim, dressed in tight black leather, one of their 'special' agents.

In any other circumstances I might be thrilled by an encounter such as this.

I notice she is examining me in the same way as I appraise her, noting my breasts and my tight belly. My sex is visible, I am sure, through my silk knickers, exposed where my skirt has ridden up uncovering my stocking tops and the metal of my suspender clips.

'Such a shame.' She gives a little shake of her head and turns on her heels giving me a view of her tight bottom in the skin tight leather breeches. I can see how her calfs taper, accentuated by the five inch heels of her patent leather boots that almost make her walk on the tips of her toes.

'Leave us.' She commands the guards and, although they hesitate for a moment they know they must obey and they flee leaving us alone.

'Just us girls as you're Yankie cousins say.' She speaks English again. Her voice is almost flirtatious. She undoes another button of her tunic and sits in my lap her long legs straddling mine, her arms alighting on my shoulders. It is the gesture of affection such as a lover might perform.

Or a whore.

I am hanging by my wrists from a bar, naked now, every shred of clothing gone, my arms spread leaving my body open, my breasts exposed; my legs are crossed and bound, tied to the floor by a short rope, the effect almost demure.

She beats me with her hands, not the expected whip; this is closer, more intimate, visceral, her gloved fists pounding my flesh, driving into my belly, my back, my ribs; her flesh separated from mine by the thin leather of her gloves so that she feels it too, every blow. When she pauses to catch her breath she holds me between her fists, our bodies kept apart only by her tunic as she leans against me as a fighter does to steady a heavy bag, a gloved caress.

She is so close to me that we share breath: I can taste red wine, spirit, schnapps perhaps, inhale her, French perfume, the scent of her body; she is excited by the power she has over me.

Aroused.

In a few moments, she starts to beat me again, fewer blows but harder this time. Solid punches, the visceral pound of fist on flesh, leaving me gasping. Helpless, I spin slowly and when I complete my turn, I see she has opened her tunic exposing the black bra that cups her small neat breasts, it is lacy, surprisingly feminine in contrast to the black leather that swathes her. Baring herself seems such an act of intimacy that I am sorry to have missed it, to have seen her fingers opening the buttons, exposing herself to me. She is sweating, her skin damp, flushed from her exertion and I can feel the heat roll out from inside the leather onto my bare cold skin.

Her nipples, like mine are stiffly erect.

She holds me more intimately this time, skin to skin, my body hanging against hers, between her breasts as we breathe together.

I am suddenly aware of her fingers beginning to caress my nipple and I look down at her, at her face. Her lips are so close to mine that I could kiss her if our relationship were different.

When she pushes me away I am bereft.

I watch her turn, watch her shrug out of her tunic. Her body is toned, sculpted, shoulders lean and muscular; her skin more tanned than mine but the black straps of her braziere are stark against her flesh. I know how strong she is, know that she can pound my flesh for as long as I can endure.

Perhaps longer.

I am, once again, bound to the chair as I was when I first awoke here in this room that has become my torture chamber; the ropes bite into my bruised skin, the cord tight once again around my throat. If I could move more I could perhaps end my pain at her hands, tighten the ligature and I wonder if I would.

This is torture too, of a form, not as harsh but as devious as any she has employed.

It was, I think, the drugs that finally drew the information from my lips, at least that is what I assume though I do not recall what I said, only know that our relationship has changed, her demeanour no longer so intense, not as focussed, less passionate.

She still torments me, of course, the clips on my nipples and my sex shock me with increasing intensity until I scream through my gag no longer able to endure the pain she inflicts and then, just as I think I can take no more, they die away and I fight for breath around the gag, my head pounding from thirst, from the ligature around my throat, my skin hot and dry.

How long I have been here I cannot say, weeks probably, months perhaps, or it could just be days. At first, with the physical torture, it was easier to keep a tally even though this room has no windows and there is no way to keep track of time. The drugs ended this, brought me sleep that might have been days or hours.

She has been there for all of it, my only companion, my only tenuous like with life beyond these four walls.

When I was a little girl, I thought I would live for ever.

When she enters she is wearing a dress uniform, white leather, wrapped around her body. The skirt is so tight it hobbles her steps. A small ceremonial dagger at her hip.

I am surprised, I thought it would be morning.

She holds a glass, something with an olive and despite my will my eyes follow it desperately. I cannot remember when I last ate or drunk. Certainly I have not eaten for days, probably weeks and the last time I drank was kneeling over a bowl such as one might use for a pet, lapping at the water, my head a few inches from her booted feet as if I was her dog.

Once I might not have countenanced such an act but my will is gone. I have nothing now but my body and she owns that too.

I wonder if she will take me back to the party with her, crawling naked and leashed.

I watch as she sets down her glass beside the generator, cringing despite myself in fear that she will turn it up, increase my pain but she does not, she turns it off though the sharp pop of the switch makes me jerk in my bonds as the needles drop to zero.

She takes up her glass turns to face me swaying slightly on heels that are, if anything the highest I have even seen a woman wear, fearful black leather boots that seem to make her walk on the tips of her toes. I think she might be drunk.

She holds the glass over my mouth and pours the contents through the ring that she has wedged behind my teeth. I taste the harsh spirit, and my dry throat spasms into a coughing fit that, with the ligature around my throat nearly makes me lose consciosness.

The alcohol burns all the way to my belly and, an instant later, is sucked through my body to my brain.

She throws the glass against the wall smashing it and begins to unbutton her blouson.

Her braziere is white lace, beautiful, virginal, so fine I can see her erect nipples, the pink of her areoles. He skirt follows revealing silken camiknickers that do nothing to conceal her blonde bush. Her stockings have seams and the suspender clips are decorated with rubies.

She sits astride me as she did when she began her conquest of me and I look up into her jade green eyes. My soul is their prisoner now just as my body belongs to her.

I am aware of her drawing her dagger, taking the tip to my left breast and I feel the sharp stab of pain as she nicks my skin, marking it.

Then she rests her arms on my shoulders and I feel her undoing the strap of my gag.

She pulls the ring from my teeth.

When I try to close my mouth the pain is intense.

Then, without warning she kisses me full on the lips, her tongue pressing itself into my open mouth, moist and warm.

For some reason I worry about my blood, oozing from the small wound on my breast staining the white silk of her braziere.

When she lifts her mouth from mine we are both breathless.

Then I see her lift her dagger, feel her draw it across my throat. It is almost painless and when I look down my life is ebbing away, running down my body and hers.


Bethlem Hospital, Bromley, England, 2004

'What was her name, your highwaywoman ?'

I am with a student. She has wild red hair and shrewd blue eyes and sits in a metal chair safely beyond my reach. She has written notes about my accounts of the highwayman, the agent and my life in Jamaica.

'Eleanor.'

I am strapped to a medical examination trolley, heavy leather bands around my throat and chest, across my belly and forearms, my wrists and thighs, my ankles. Aside from this I am naked.

In this world, nothing changes; those who have power still abuse those who are vulnerable and power hangs by a thread. One day one wields the whip, one day one feels it.

I have lived often enough to know that, though rarely have I wielded the whip.

'Tell me more about these past lives.' The student, Kathleen, asks.

'I know you don't believe me.' I turn to look at her through the slit of my muzzle.

I am not quite sure why my carers have made to look like a naked female Hannibal Lecter, perhaps it is to disquiet the student.

Power and vulnerability.

The muzzle is better than being gagged and the couch makes a change from the straight jacket and ankle cuffs, kneeling or sitting in my padded cell. At least here, in this sanatorium, I am not being violated, though some sort of abuse other than the mind numbing boredom of my captivity would almost be welcome.

'Perhaps you'd like to talk about this life. About the woman you kidnapped.' The student lifts her glasses to look at me more intently.

She is goading me and I jerk against my bonds in a rush of emotion, frustration. The couch jumps. The student jumps too and I smile behind my muzzle.

I know she is afraid of me, this woman she sees before her with cropped hair who is kept restrained, muzzled. Perhaps it really is possible to smell her fear.

'I didn't kidnap her.' I am more sure of myself today. I think they have changed the dose of my drugs.

'You kept her chained up in a basement for three years.' The redheaded student has the self-righteous zeal of youth and it gives her strength. 'That sounds like kidnapping to me.'

'She was playing hard to get.' I make light of it but the thought causes me pain.

Could she reject me so utterly ?

'The woman had sores on her ankle from the chain you locked on her.'

'It was how she kept me.'

The student frowns not understanding. She is astute, recognises the subtleties of language.

'The highwayman, it was how she kept me.' I explain. 'Chained by the ankle in her camp.'

'I thought you were lovers ?' She gives me her skeptical look.

'We were.'

'But she still kept you chained up ?' The student still doesn't believe me.

'I liked it.' I smile. 'Like it.' I pull at my bonds. 'Surely you've played those sort of games.'

He blush tells me all I need to know.

The advantage is, once again, mine.

'So is that why you enjoy coming here ?' I wink lasciviously.

'I come here as part of my training, to study you.' She regards me coldly, her soft red lips drawn thin.

'But having me strapped naked to the couch must be a bonus.' I move in a mix of trying to get more comfortable and showing her how helpless I am. I might be mad but I still have needs and I have been strapped to the gurney for several hours.

'Are you dom or sub ?' I continue to goad, trying to decide if she is gay or straight; she doesn't rise to the bait.

'The court transcript says there was a cage in the basement that you used to lock her in.'

'It's part of the game.' I have rehearsed these arguments before although, of course, it's not a game. My conviction that she was Eleanor reborn is the reason I am here and not in prison. 'There's no point in submitting and getting everything your own way.'

'It wasn't a game for her, you stalked her...abducted her.' The student's zeal has returned. 'She's had to leave the country.'

I know she has moved to California.

'She likes playing hard to get.' I smile and moisten my lips in a way that I know unnerves her.

'Is that why she tortured and killed you last time you met ?' She is referring to my past life.

'You have been paying attention.'

'That doesn't mean I believe you.' She looks back through her notes. 'Why did you send her lingerie ?' The student is shrewd. I think I know where this questioning is going.

'I've told you, we were lovers.' I smile again and try again to goad her. 'Do you like to wear stockings, Kathleen ?'

She looks away disgusted and I enjoy my triumph. She does have nice legs, I'm sure she wears stockings. I expect she has some very pretty lingerie under that rather formal pinafore dress.

There is silence for a few moments. I can almost hear her mind working.

'She didn't recognise you.' She looks at me shrewdly, taps her pen against her teeth. 'Something the highwaywoman, Eleanor, said about you not remembering a past life, that you had been together before.'

She is right, partly. I also did it because I had to know.

'You were trying to rekindle the memories.' The student is quite attractive when she concentrates.

'I thought you didn't believe my past life fantasies.'

'I don't.' She says it dismissively, without thinking as she makes another note.

'Then why are you so interested ?'

'I told you, it's part of my training.'

I know she is curious.

What I don't tell her is that the girl with the jade green eyes has indeed been punishing me. That her lack of reaction to me was what lead me to kidnap her. I had to know if this was one of those lives where I was destined to be alone or if her indifference was part of her revenge.

I see the student look at her watch through my tears.


Bethlem Hospital, Southwark, 1822

The Bedlam of the nineteenth century is a grim brick building, not the shining glass and steel of its future self, but its function is the same, its windows heavily barred and we are kept restrained in cells.

I am here for corrective treatment. There is no pretense this time.

I am being 'cured' of my lesbian desires though the word 'unnatural' is used here.

'Bestial therapy' they call it, trying to rekindle my baser 'animal' instincts.

I spend all my time with a phallus inside me, a large brass intruder wrapped in leather, bigger than any man I have seen, a constant reminder of the 'natural' order. There is oil inside the beast so that as I move, it moves and I am constantly reminded of its presence.

It is held inside me by leather 'knickers' that are laced and padlocked around my hips allowing me to perform my other 'animal' functions without hinderance.

To return me to my natural 'animal' state I must crawl on all fours, my hands in leather mitts turning them into paws. There are cuffs on my wrists and my ankles and a chain between them keeping me in bondage. I wear a hood too, sewn leather like the knickers and locked in place, it is designed to look like a dog's head with ears and a snout. It muzzles me so I cannot speak, only make animal noises which I am encouraged to do.

I am beaten if I try to speak, six lashes per human sound I make.

The orderlies walk me on a leash, most of them, I'm sure getting sexual pleasure from doing so. I few overtly touch me but at least they cannot rape me, not when I am like this.

That is done officially and under license by Dr Roberts' patented stimulating machine; a steam powered device on which I spend three hours every afternoon. Three hours without the beast locked inside me, though this machine fulfills the same purpose, fucking me with a constant motion, a steam driven phallus pumping inside me, unceasing.

Each afternoon I am strapped to the heavy wooden frame, far more sturdy than the device the doctor in Jamiaca used. The frame keeps my back arched, my hips thrust forward as if I am offering myself up to the treatment, my arms are fastened behind me and my legs pulled back, my wrists and ankles secured by heavy leather straps, a leather collar round my neck. Lubricant is used to ease the huge intruder between my nether lips though after a few minutes none is needed. Women may prefer an emotional connection for sexual congress but enough physical stimulation can induce arousal and orgasm.

An orderly is assigned to me for each session though, in reality, there are often several competing to perform my therapy for they are allowed at these times to touch my body in a way that is forbidden during my other training. Thus as the steam hammer pummels me, so their hands play with my flesh, enjoying particularly my breasts, pinching my nipples stroking my thighs. There is a platform too, on which one at a time can stand and when I am not muzzled it is the perfect height for a man to use my mouth for his sexual pleasure. Thus, as I enjoy the sexual arousal of Dr Roberts' machine, so do the orderlies enjoy it of me, pushing their drooling members into my mouth where I am forced to tease and pleasure them, swallowing the contents of their emissions.

For this humiliation, a ring is pushed between my teeth lest I should bite one of them in their nether regions, something I suspect would be hard to explain to their wives. It is far more humiliating than the sodomisation by the doctor in Jamaica and suffers from the loss of the view out over the Caribbean Sea. It does, however, have one advantage, in that, while the machine pumps at me, I am kept in a state of constant sexual arousal, brought to sexual fulfillment repeatedly until, sometimes, I think my body cannot sustain another climax of pleasure.

Sometimes, when I am released from the machine, I can barely crawl and have to be dragged back to my cell where the beast is once again pushed inside me and the leather knickers locked in place. There, once again in my chains, I am given a few minutes to eat my food from a bowl placed in the floor in front of me before the hood is replaced and I am left collared, an animal caged for the night.

The girl with the jade green eyes and hair the colour of a wheatfield at sunset has visited me a few times. It was, of course, she who denounced me, exposed my unnatural ways.


Whitechapel, London 1888

There is a ligature around my neck and I fight for breath. My head is pounding and it feels like my eyes are bulging, bursting out of my skull.

I feel him cum inside me and when he doesn't release his hold I fear he will choke me.

I cannot free myself, I am handcuffed to the brass frame of the bed, my wrists above my head; my legs are spread, bound by my ankles to the frame at the foot of the bed. The filth rag he had tied across my mouth prevents coherent speech.

I am naked.

Finally, he releases his hold on the ligature and climbs off me as I suck in life-giving air around the gag.

I am covered in sweat, not just the exertion nor the strangulation; I have a fever and when I cough there is often blood.

I watch him dress, fumbling with the studs in his shirt and his collar, pulling on the jacket of his uniform; lacing his boots. When he has finished, he takes out the key to his handcuffs and releases my wrists, pulling the cuffs free and placing them in his pocket.

Then he is gone.

I reach behind my head to untie the gag and then sit up, leaning down to untie my ankles.

Madam comes in; my lover with her jade green eyes and hair the colour of a wheatfield at sunset. She is holding the money the man, my last client, has paid to use me and I watch her push it into the top of her cleavage.

I am her slave again; not legally, of course, but morally, financially, eternally.

'Mr Andrews is here.' She tells me.

'Yes, Madam.' I pull my left ankle free and begin to untie my right.

'He wishes to cane you.'

'Yes, Madam.'

This is not unexpected, like Sergeant Simmonds the policeman who has just 'arrested' and interrogated me, Mr Andrews has his own peccadillos. He will want to tie my hands then bend me over and cane me. He will then take me from behind.

He will want me dressed first.

Mr Andrews is a school teacher and I can imagine what discipline he doles out to his students. From me he wants a fallen young lady to discipline and Madam will provide him with one.

I pull on stockings, grimy with much use, the my juices and those of a dozen other girls staining them, mixed with the emissions of the men they have serviced, then I stand facing the wall, bracing myself while Madam wraps a corset around my already tiny waist; I cannot afford to eat, but the drugs Madam gives me keep my hunger at bay. There is no point in feeding me when I will soon be dead.

The drugs keep me loyal too. Even if I was to have the strength to run away, or the desire, I would soon find myself shivering and cold, sick with craving.

She laces the corset tight; there was a time when I could barely breathe when it was tightened but now it is little more than a discomfort, a distraction, one more torment my body must struggle to endure.

She clips suspenders to the bottom of the corset and the top of my stockings.

And that is my outfit.

The fallen maiden.

With my breasts and my sex bare, Madam leads directs me to stand in the corner of the room. She pulls a phial from the top of her stocking and holds it to my lips. I swallow urgently, supping at the laudanum taking a much as I can and swallowing it down where it burns my throat and my stomach.

A calmness washes over me; the drug will kill the pain of the beating that is to come.

'She is was a good girl.' I hear Madam telling Mr Andrews. 'But she has slipped into slovenly ways.'

'Spare the rod, Mrs Turpin...' Mr Andrews waved his cane.

I am facing the corner, standing with my hands behind my back as if bound wearing my corset, humble in my stockinged feet.

'Come here, girl.'

I turn keeping my head bowed and shuffle over towards him.

'Do you have anything to say for yourself ?'

'I'm sorry, Sir.' I drop to my knees. 'Please forgive me.'

'Forgiveness is not an option, young lady.' He lets the tip of his cane rest on my breasts. 'You must be punished.'

'Yes, Sir.' I try to keep the fear out of my voice.

Smack !

The cane lands on my breasts, the sharp jolt of pain dulled a little by the morphine. Instinctively I bring my hands up, a gesture of protection, comfort.

'Miss Cavandish !' Mr Andrews admonishes me and my hands fall away.

I can see a red line across my pale flesh, bright against the fading bruises of my previous encounters.

My pulse quickens.

'Hands !'

I hold them out, palm up and endure the sharp slap of pain across my palms.

'Now, let us return to your breasts.' He emphasises the last word, enjoying the sound. I expect it is not a word he uses much outside these walls.

I place my hands behind my back again and push out my breasts where they jut out over my corset, offering them to him.

He strikes me again and I force myself to keep my hands behind my back.

I endure four strokes before he catches my nipple and I bring my hands up again accompanied by a gasp of pain.

Disappointed by my weakness I offer my palms for further chastisement.

'Perhaps it might be kinder to bind you.'

'Yes, Sir.' My hands are throbbing.

I lift hands as if praying and he takes rope that has been laid out on the bed for him and binds my wrists, wrapping the rope around them and then cinching it tight.

He is meticulous in what he does to me.

I lower my hands and he places his foot on the rope.

I endure five more blows, harsh strokes of pain in my breasts that leave them red and hot.

'Two more.' He pronounces.

'Please, Sir.' I have tears in my eyes from what I have already endured and know the next two, the final strokes, will be aimed at my nipples. Having my breasts abused is something I can endure; perhaps more than endure; perhaps it is something I need; but the cane on my nipples is beyond my ability to withstand. It is partly that many of Madam's clients target my nipples, biting and pinching them, some bringing clothes pegs or paper fasteners to torment them but it is partly the memory of my first session with Mr Andrews, the burning agony as he beat my flesh for the first time; virgin and unprepared for the onslaught, not cushioned then by the numbing effect of the laudanum, of the casual tolerance that this life induces. It was the first time I openly cried, sobbed in fact, demonstrated weakness but I knew that, to be with the girl with the jade green eyes, I would have to endure.

I think she knows me in this life, that is probably why she accepted me as one of her girls though she will not admit it to me.

'You have been a naughty girl, Miss Cavandish. It is my duty to ensure you recognise that.' Mr Andrews touches my right nipple with the tip of his cane.

'Yes, Sir.' I acknowledge what is true. Though I have not been bad in this life.

I do not feel the blows so harshly these days but the memory brings with it a pain of itself.

'Please, Sir.'

Though I beg he delivers them. The pain engulfs me.

'Thank you, Sir.' I am weeping openly and we pause as my body is racked with coughing.

He uses the rope to lead me over to a low table. I crawl behind him, awkwardly on my knees, hands bound before me as if I am praying, and then bend over it. He passes the rope under the table so that I am forced down onto its hard surface. It is, at least, cooling on my burning breasts and throbbing nipples.

He binds my ankles and then ties the rope to from my wrists to them.

My bottom is now in the air, open to his abuse.

But first he will cane my feet. Three strokes each before pushing the tip of the cane into my soles until I beg him to stop. It will be painful to walk for several days but a whore works on her back, she does not need to walk.

As he beats my feet, he fondles my bottom then, when he has finished, strokes it with the cane. From his silence and his breathing I suspect this adds to the anticipation for us both.

'Count for my, Miss Cavandish.'

'Yes, Sir.'

The cane strikes my bare bottom.

This is something I can easily endure though the need to count is a distraction from the opportunity to enjoy what I am suffering.

'One.'

The pain warms me and I remember a morning in a woodland clearing when I was treated like this for the first time, beaten, abused.

'Two.'

And found myself aroused by it.

'Three...'

Not only aroused but reached sexual climax.

'Four...'

The heat is spreading.

'Five...six...seven...'

Madam comes to untie me sometime later. I am not sure how long but I have catered for two clients and there are other girls here who offer more traditional 'charms' that she has been working.

Her touch wakes me prising me from the blissful relief of sleep.

My bottom is still warm, and my sex, still suffused with pleasure though not from the brief penetration of Mr Andrew's manhood as he reached the peak of his corrective treatment sowing within me the seeds of what was presumably my downfall.

My breasts throb where I have been lying on them and my nipples ache.

She unties my ankles but leaves my wrists bound as she helps me to my feet then she leads me by my bound wrists out into the hallway, and along to her room. Passing between girls and their clients who regard me with undisguised lust.

I follow, hobbling at first then becoming used to the pain in my bruised feet.

In her room she throws the rope from my wrists over a hook in one of the beams and pulls so that my wrists are lifted above me head, drawing me up onto my toes. She ties off the rope and, leaving me like this, begins to disrobe. I watch her struggle with the fastenings of her dress even though this, like the clothes of most of the girls, is designed for easy removal. Dressed in her corset and stockings she takes out the phial of laudanum again holds it to my lips.

I drink obediently and the pain in my body fades even as my throat and belly burn.

I watch as she examines my body, inspecting the bruises.

'Poor Emily.' She runs her fingers over my breasts feeling the lumps where I have suffered more intense beatings than the one so recently administered. Then she bends and kisses my right breast on the little scar that she made when she first took me to her bed and I close my eyes, leaving my world to dissolve into pleasure.

Her tongue caresses my nipple, its pressure causing pain on the bruised nub that makes my gasp but then her touch seems to take away all pain.

Perhaps it is the drug.

Her hands move across my body and then her mouth finds mine and we kiss. I taste gin, tobacco, her scent.

When our lips part, I am left bereft.

'Please...' I keep my eyes closed.

Her hand goes into my hair and she pulls my head back, her lips caressing my neck, my throat.

When she releases my hair she starts to unlace the corset and I know what is coming.

She uses a bosun's whip, a cat-o-nine tails, knotted and soaked with salt but the pain is masked by the laudanum and between she touches my body, toying with my breasts, teasing my nipples, sliding her hands between my legs.

I, sinner that I am, bear it all willingly.

When she has finished, she releases me from the hook but leaves my wrists bound, pulling them back over my head and passing the rope between my legs then wrapping it around my waist and tying it. Bound like this and still clad in my stockings, I am lead to her bed where she holds me against her, her hands once again exploring my body.

I lie beside her with my eyes closed, savouring the moment. I cannot bear to meet her gaze to look once again into those beautiful jade green eyes.

She bites my nipples and I cry out, but not with pain, then her tongue moves down my body lapping at my navel and then thrusting itself between my legs which part for her eagerly. Her touch is sure, practiced and it excites me even as my labia chafe on the coarse rope.

This body was born to be abused, just as Lady Cavandish discovered her masochistic desires, I know them too. My treatment by Mr Andrews was not entirely unwelcome. It helps to enjoy the pain I suffer, helps me to bear it but it disgusts me that it provides a haven for my body.

I want to relish the pain of every blow. I know I deserve this punishment.

I cum quickly under her tongue. She is well practiced. A reminder of happier times and of terrible ones, of love and betrayal.

Then she is astride me, her sex over my mouth and I have a chance to make amends.

My next client is an aristocrat and I wonder what he might think if he knew what I was a lifetime ago. He had a thin face and a fine nose, very red lips. His pupils are small and I think her must use laudanum too.

I watch him put down his cane and remove his top hat, slip off his cloak and hang it from the peg.

He has brought a carpet bag with him and I think I can guess what it might contain.

He begins by ripping open the bodice of my dress.

The act is violent, even in this place where women are beaten for the pleasure of men.

Madam will, I expect charge him. She will beat me too.

He holds my hair and sinks his teeth into my neck until I scream.

When he releases me there is blood on his lips and I can feel a warm wetness on my neck.

'Madam says you enjoy pain.' His voice is aristocratic, the son of a minor peer from the home counties I expect, up in town for pleasure.

'Yes, Sir.'

'Do you truly enjoy it ?' He picks up his cane again, drawing the sword from within it.

'Yes, Sir.' I try to keep my voice steady.

There is nothing he can do to me that will hurt enough.

He uses the sword to cut away my dress and then my corset and I tremble from the act and the memory of this happening before, beside the turnpike one night long ago.

I am left in my stockings.

He circles me, inspecting me, no doubt surveying the bruises on my flesh.

He holds the tip of he sword to my throat, pushing against the flesh until I feel a trickle of blood run from it.

'Hurt me !' I want it.

I see him smile, cruelly and then he opens the carpet bag.

He begins by binding me to the foot of the bed, spreading my arms wide, kneeling, then he gags me, a leather covered ball that he straps in my mouth; and then a collar around my neck, thigh leather, too tight, like Sergeant Simmond's ligature.

Men seem to enjoy this physical manifestation of their power.

Then he violates me, pushing something into my bottom, stretching it violently, making me cry out into my gag.

My breasts are next, steel clips for my nipples, hung with weights that stretch my tortured flesh.

Then he whips me, a sound thrashing, meticulous, blow after blow, inch by inch down my bare back taking me from gasps of pain, through sobbing and pleading until, no longer able to whimper, I am reduced to silence.

Madam must know what he does but she does not come to stop him.

Nobody comes.

I am alone with my pain, slumped in my bonds, blood on my throat and my lips.

I am dimly aware of him untying me, lying me across the bed on my back, spreading my legs and my arms, binding me once again; vulnerable, subdued.

Finally punished in a way I deserve.

When he enters me, my body is not ready to accept him and his penetration is as violent as the entry of the rod in my bottom. He takes me roughly, slapping me, my breasts and my cheeks, his hand moving to my throat.

Then I see the knife...


California State Prison 2018

The student with red hair and blue eyes is back. My second visitor today.

Not a student now, a fully qualified forensic psychiatrist.

Just as I am no longer a mad woman.

Dr Kathleen Crowther PhD carries her notebook, the one she used as a student.

I have, apparently, made her famous, a world expert and she is being granted one last visit.

'I wanted to ask you...' She says almost conversationally. 'What happened to the highwaywoman ?'

I feel pain inside me and tense against my restraints in a jarring clank of metal.

She no longer jumps.

My mouth is dry but tears spring unbidden to my eyes.

I am not frightened but the question stirs the pain that gnaws within me.

'If...if you'd rather not talk about it...' She knows our relationship is changed. She has not power here.

I might still look like the mad woman with her hair cropped short and I am still kept naked and restrained in a cell. However, I am no longer mad, not officially.

I am now bad, a criminal.

Perhaps that is why I am not muzzled today or perhaps it is one final dignity afforded to me.

I wonder if the sight of my face is more or less reassuring than the visage of Hannibal Lecter.

She looks down at me and then at the door.

I stare ahead in silence for a moment and she turns to leave raising her hand to the call button so someone will come and unlock the door.

'Wait !' I have to tell someone.

She turns back.

'I will tell you.' I strain at my restraints trying to point to the other chair. 'Please, sit down.'

She looks suddenly nervous and stands for a moment caught between her distaste and inquisitiveness that is more than professional curiosity.

Finally, her internal debate over, she sits though edges the chair back so that she keeps a maximum distance from me.

The priest, my first visitor, was more trusting but then, I suspect, he is more used to it.

Can I really tell her ?

'Lady Cavandish ?' She uses my old title, the one from my past lives that she doesn't believe in.

I am Emily now, or Prisoner Cavandish.

I look at her. She is a blur now, her features lost behind a lens of tears.

My mouth is so dry.

'Water, please.' I can barely say the words.

'I'm not really...'

'Please...' I beg her as one woman to another.

She is committed now, a pact with a dead woman; she pours a cup and lifts it to my lips as I raise my head.

I take a sip of warm water that tastes of the chemicals and plastic and metal that surround me.

So different from the coolness of that woodland stream so many lifetimes ago.

'Thank you.'

I lick my lips. My voice is stranger now.

'The highwayman was hung.' I blurt it out, acknowledging it out loud for the first time in many lifetimes.

She is startled. I see her flush but she maintains eye contact.

'I'm sorry.' She seems to mean it.

'I told them all they needed to know.' My voice is edged, with guilt and tears and pain.

Actually, I am scared.

'You...?'

'In return for a pardon.' It comes out easily now, the bitterness of so many years, decades, centuries. 'I betrayed her and when they hung her. I watched her die.'

There is a strange expression on her face but I can't read it; if I could wipe my eyes I might be able to see more clearly, decide if it is loathing or fear, anger perhaps or, probably, disbelief at the ramblings of a mad woman.

Perhaps she will alter her diagnosis.

She is silent for a moment. I hear her sob and then I feel her hold my hand.

'You shouldn't touch me.'

She doesn't let go.

The door to my opens and the green eyed nurse comes in. I am surprised it is her. I just assumed it would be one of the men. She looks different, perhaps it is the way she has done her hair, and I can hear the click of heels on the lino floor; that would explain why she seems taller. I notice she is wearing a surgical mask. However, I can see her eyes, the ones that remind me so much of Eleanor, my highwayman.

The way the other woman's did.

Today they seem even more like hers, my Eleanor's, jade green.

I expect her to rebuke the student (that is how I still think of her), Kathleen, for touching me but she does not.

The priest is behind her and some sort of official.

'It's time.' The nurse is her usual businesslike self though, perhaps, I can hear a softness in her voice that has not been there before.

Even her voice reminds me of Eleanor.

The official reads out my sentence.

I know now the woman I kidnapped wasn't Eleanor. The woman I followed half way across the world just looked like somebody I used to know.

Perhaps I am mad.

I have tortured and killed an innocent woman trying to convince her that she is a lover from a past life.

I see the nurse lift the syringe and feel the coolness of the drug in my veins.

'It must be terrible.' The student's voice is slightly distant as the drug takes me into darkness and I don't know if she means the fact that I sentenced my lover to death or tortured another woman because I thought I could bring her back.

Surely she cannot mean dying.

I think she understands the guilt I feel. Perhaps she knows now why the girl with the jade green eyes has haunted my dreams and tormented my waking hours, punishing me through time.

I doubt she can understand the madness, the obsession, that made me stalk the other woman, the one I thought was her, the one I kept prisoner trying to remind her what we were, the one I tortured, not for revenge but from the frustration of loneliness.

'No.' I laugh the cocktail of drugs, like so many before, entering my mind, clouding my thoughts. My vision is fading and I look up at the nurse above me. 'Only this life has been terrible.' The brightness of Eleanor's jade green eyes is now the only thing I can see.

'But...why...surely...?'

'In the other lives she was always there.' I am in darkness, the drug is claiming me taking away the last of my vision though I can still see her face in my memory, masked, her eyes shining. I can feel the breeze on my face, smell her scent...

I know I have little time left in this world or perhaps I have already left it, my consciousness floating as I wait to be reborn, wait for a chance to be with her again.

The nurse holds my other hand and I feel its warmth.

I recall Eleanor's touch.

I think she has finally got her revenge and perhaps this time she will forgive me.


Paris, France AD 2065

I am a whore again.

Sold this time by my family.

The garments I wear are scandalously brief by any life I have lived, little triangles of gauzy cloth held together by ribbons of silk that even now I am wearing them they do nothing to conceal my body, simply outlining it, emphasising the curves of my breasts and buttocks over which they are stretched; I can even see my nipples outlined by the gauze.

Being dressed like this does something to my body, makes it respond in ways I would not believe.

The man, my new owner, gives me a pair of stocking, sheer and with an obvious seam up the back like I wore once in a war that was supposed to end all wars. There is a little strip of gauzy material to go around my waist, it has six ribbons with plastic clips that support the stockings. The stockings do the same to my legs as the skimpy garments do to my breasts and bottom.

Then I put on the shoes. Why any woman would chose to wear such shoes is beyond my comprehension but through the centuries I have grown accustomed to the fetish that is feminine footwear. The heels are six inches at least and the toe built up so that the balls of my feet only just take my weight and my toes are forced to bend at nearly a right angle. A girl wearing these must strut with her bottom out and breasts thrust forward to make any sort of progress.

Then he cuffs my hands behind my back in steel hoops like shackles that shrink on my wrists, imprisoning them. A collar comes next, constricting steel again, locking tight around my throat and finally a gag, a large plug, overtly sexual in nature, that he straps between my teeth.

'Go and dance.'

While I have been dressing I have heard the music, a deep rhythmic throbbing; primitive, primaeval; like the sort of music I used to hear on the plantations. The music that would get inside my head, that on some nights, especially when the fever struck and I was not yet discovered, would make me shed my nightclothes and dance naked in the moonlight.

Dance ! I can barely walk in the shoes and cannot now even use my arms to balance.

He opens a door and pushes me through.

The music takes me, irresistible, a pulse, a driving energy. I begin to move my hips, sway my body, bend and writhe as I did on those nights so long ago before my maid found me and called the footman to restrain me.

I am not alone now. The room is full of men and some women; their dress is not what I am familiar with though they are all dressed more than I, except for three other women who dance, like me in similar skimpy outfits; one, like me is in bondage. The men mostly wear short jackets over rather plain tunics, they also wear loose fitting trousers and boots. The women are more scantily dressed though not nearly as naked as me and my fellow dancers; most wear rather brief dresses that show off their breasts and slim waists and end somewhere on the thigh; several are completely translucent showing their underwear if they are wearing any; their shoes have heels like mine, some are almost as high. A few of these, too are in bondage, a few gagged, one hooded, kneeling. This is clearly some sort of party, most of the men and women who are not bound hold drinks and talk though conversation must be difficult over the music.

I am on a narrow stage perhaps a yard wide and certainly no more than two feet high so the men and women can not only see me but the ones nearest the stage can easily touch me.

I see a woman in front of me pull a piece of paper out of her stocking top and wave it at me; it is coloured and, I think, the money used by the free classes. I lean towards her and she shakes her shoulders moving her rather large breasts as if she is dancing too. We move in front of each other for a few moments and I turn trying to show her I am restrained hoping that perhaps she will help me but she simply smiles again and slaps my bottom. I straighten quickly and suddenly she pushes the paper she has been holding into my knickers. I step back and she smiles shaking her chest again and then points down the stage to where a man is waving a similar piece of paper.

This is what I am expected to do.

To dance for money.

A slap on my bottom makes me turn and a man stuffs another piece of paper into the top of one of my stockings. He clearly wants me to dance for him and I do, shaking my chest and hips which he and his companions clearly enjoy.

When I have given him the attention I feel he has paid for I turn away and strut down towards the man I was heading towards before. He waves the money and I lean forward thinking that if I wasn't gagged it might please him if I were to take it with my teeth; he pulls it away and gestures that he wants me to bend lower; I drop to my knees in front of him which seems to please him immensely. I shake my breasts for him and he rewards me by stuffing the money into my bra. There was a time when I would have slapped him but I am restrained and I cannot even argue because of the gag.

I feel something pushed into the back of my knickers and turn. The man behind me is handsome, dark, partly shaven, his hair swept back; I met a corsair captain like him once. I am still on my knees and, rather than turn, I lean back lying over my heels looking up at him. I can see he is excited by this and I enjoy the way he takes a long lascivious look at my body. He stuffs another note in my bra, groping my nipple as he does so and I kneel up again turning to glare at him. He seems to enjoy this but then I am distracted by a hand between my thighs and find a woman tucking money into my knickers. She is heavily made up, a little like the women of the ladies of eighteenth century, with brightly rouged lips and blackened eyes behind dark glasses, red blushed cheeks; she wears a black leather jacket which hangs open showing a lacy black bra and a very short leather skirt that shows her stocking tops; her heels are as high as mine. She looks at me with a theatrical flourish, removes her glasses to reveal her jade green eyes.

For a moment the world stops.

Her hand is still between my legs and I feel her run her finger across my sex; I look at her in astonishment, not so much for what she has just done but for how it has made me feel and the realisation that my sex is so wet it probably shows through my knickers.

I blush furiously.

She winks at me and, much to my disappointment, takes her hand out of my knickers.

'Later.' She mouths the word to me and turns away.

I want to follow her but I must dance and, still watching her I climb to my feet and begin to flaunt my body to the crowds that watch.

The music fades and my dancing time is over. I do not know how long I have been made to perform but it is probably several hours with short breaks between during which my gag has been removed and I have been given water from a clear bottle that is hard like glass. My wrists have remained cuffed and I can still feel the collar round my neck.

There are fewer people here now, over the last few dances they have drifted away, couples and groups leaving presumably to take carriages and I stand now by the empty stage.

I look for the girl with the jade green eyes but cannot see her and then the man who made me dance appears. He holds a a leather leash which he clips to my collar, holding me still while he removes the money from my garments, handling my breasts and groping my sex unashamedly as he does so, as he has done all evening. Then he turns and leads me towards the back of the room. I follow. What else can I do ?

I take one last look for the girl with the jade green eyes and hair the colour of a wheatfield at sunset and then we are in the back room again where I dressed.

And there she is. The green eyed girl, still as I remember her in her make up and leather. she gives the man more money and he passes her my lead.

I think I have just been sold again or, perhaps rented out.

She takes my leash and leads me out into a night that is illuminated by erie yellow lamps that glow rather than flicker strange garish signs, words, written in huge letters on buildings and floating in the sky. I look around me in astonishment and shiver though it is not cold but the green eyed girl looks at me and smiles and I know I am safe.

She leads through crowds who part for us; a girl on a leash, a slave, scantily clad or naked, restrained, gagged as I am is not unusual in the world. Girls holding hands, even behaving in an overtly sexual way is normal too. I will not be persecuted for what I hope I am about to do.

I pray to whatever god decides these things, if any still remain, that she will have forgiven me.

We pass a number of gleaming metal boxes with glass windows that hover that are the coaches and cars of this time. And then, at the side of the glassy black road, is a vehicle I recognise but one that does not belong here in this time. It is a motorbike, gleaming steel frame and rubber tyres, handlebars swept back like those from a hundred years ago. I catch the scent of what I know is petrol, a truly rare and precious commodity.

This is an affectation of the free classes, the rich; a toy like a pretty slave on a leash.

Yes, I am pretty. I have dark hair and dark eyes that allure, long lashes too and a slim frame. All these have served me well through my lifetimes, they are useful tool for a lady and for a whore.

The girl with the jade green eyes pulls metal keys from the pocket of her jacket and swings her leg over the saddle, then she gestures for me to climb up behind her.

The rush of pleasure as I press my body against hers is enough to make me gasp.

I lift my feet, my heels fitting snugly over the footrests and grasp the handle at the back of the saddle. The girl starts the bike, a cough then a roar that vibrates through my sex.

I am once again in the forest, her body pressed against mine, her hands on my body.

There is a clunk and then the bike accelerates away, cascading through the gears as we gather speed, weave through traffic and then launch ourselves on to the highway.

The wind in my face is cool after the heat of the city and I press myself against her, near naked and chilled in the rush of air.

If I was not gagged, I would kiss her. I do nuzzle my cheek against hers and she lifts her hand to stroke my face.

I have so many questions including the greatest one of all.

Am I forgiven ?

In time, I see the ocean, a shimmering line of darkness that slowly broadens to a swathe of velvet reflecting the stars above between the light of boats and cities in the distance that have tamed the waves. Far away I can see the lights of the bridge that links this land to the country where I lived in for so long, where the lady in the carriage cat her lit in with the highwayman in that fateful life. It arcs high into the heavens, another example of how far we have come. I remember all my lives now, stretching back through the millennia, savage times and civilised ones, conquering armies, empires rising and falling on and on back through time.

The girl with the jade green eyes has always been there; sometimes briefly, a ghost, a manifestation of my madness though, more often, physically, an anchor to which my soul can cling, a solace for the pain and the suffering of my many lives. Through history there have always been victors and victims, the strong abusing the weak; and so often the victims are women, the weaker sex; those touched by madness, poverty, the lottery of birthright; though civilisation rises and laws protect us laws how easily that power can be stripped away.

Thus I have been drawn to her through time, clung to her, thrived on her love and accepted willingly her mistreatment. She has always been strong and I have always loved her.

She parks the bike and leads me down onto the beach, towards the rolling surf. I follow obediently, awkward on the heels in the soft sand, shivering from the long ride and the cool breeze. When she stops I am breathless from the effort and drop to my knees, looking up at her as she gazes out at the ocean.

She reaches down and removes my gag.

'Do you recall that we sailed it once ?' She gestures to the ocean.

'More than once.' I am struggling to stop my teeth chattering.

'You don't call me Mistress these days ?' Her voice chides.

'You will always be 'Mistress' to me if you will keep me as your slave.'

She drops to her knees beside me and shrugs off her jacket, drapes it around my shoulders.

Her body is magnificent, toned and strong, her shoulders broad. The lacy black bra emphasises her little breasts.

'Forgive me, Mistress.' I have waited nearly four hundred years for this moment.

She looks at me and I gaze at those jade green eyes.

'I forgave you long ago, Emily.' She takes me in her arms and brushes her lips to mine.

I feel the warmth of her breath and taste the gloss on her lips.

'Then will you keep me as your slave.' I feel I shall die if she refuses me and if I don't I will just walk into the ocean, end the pain for a short time at least.

'As long as you behave.' There is mirth in her voice even as she draws the knife to mark me as hers.

I kiss her.

'I don't recall giving you permission to do that.'

'Perhaps I need to be chastised.'

She pulls me across her lap and starts to spank me.