The Order
Her
stepfather’s photograph was on the front page yet again, she noticed over
breakfast. He looked younger in the
picture, even the grainy black and white of the newsprint unable to detract
from his blonde good looks. One of the magazines
had started calling him the “thinking woman’s Robert Redford”, which made
Justin feel good. Joely had to wonder
how it made Robert Redford feel.
She made
herself look closely at the photograph.
Yes, if she turned off the fact that she knew him, turned off all of the
associations, she could see that women would find him attractive. Her own mother had. She’d found him attractive enough to not only
marry him, but to hand over control of her fortune, to hand over guardianship
of her only child and control of her inheritance until she was thirty years
old. Of course her mother, her
beautiful, spoilt, socialite mother, had no idea that she was going to die
before Joely’s fourteenth birthday, and that Justin
would control his stepdaughter with an iron fist from then on. And sometimes with an open
palm.
At
twenty-four, the golden-haired daughter of a multi-millionairess, Joely had
control of nothing more than the pocket money Justin doled out. She had expensive clothes, as befitted the
stepdaughter of a man who was running for high political office, she had social
skills, courtesy of the tutors he’d arranged to come to the house. But she had no friends, no job, and almost no
knowledge of the world outside the walls of the mansion she lived in. Oh yes, they went to Gstaad
in Winter, sometimes to Aspen, and they holidayed on yachts or on a private
island in Summer, but only with a select few people, never mingling with the
general populace. Justin wanted her to
be kept secure, he said, safe from kidnappers and charlatans. Joely suspected that he meant safe fro
He hadn’t
completely succeeded in his aims, but he didn’t know that. There’s been that pool boy when Joely was eighteen, and the wealthy playboy on that Greek island the
year after. If he’d known, Justin would
have been furious – not with them, but with Joely herself. When he was in a good mood with her, he
touched her long curly blonde hair, brushed his knuckles over her smooth skin
and high cheekbones and called her “perfection on legs”, in a gently, fatherly
manner. No-one watching him admiring her
blue eyes, her delicate, symmetrical features, would have imagined that he
sometimes took a fierce pleasure in backhanding her across the face.
He vetted
her clothes – nothing too “puritanical” as he put it, and nothing too “slutty”. She was
expected to show some of her impressive cleavage at the functions she was his
partner or hostess for, but not too much.
He didn’t want her spilling out all over the place and detracting
attention from him, of course. A glimpse
of her long legs was allowed, but only a glimpse. He insisted on having right of refusal on all
garments she wore. He allowed her to
have a navel ring because he didn’t want to be seen as stuffy. It was trendy and the discreet studs she was
allowed to wear looked good in the midriff-baring outfits he occasionally
approved for her when he wanted to appeal to a younger audience. He ruled her life, or as much of it as he had
the time or inclination to.
Joely
suspected that he was trying to find a way to extend his hold over her past her
thirtieth birthday, and despite her resentment, she didn’t know how to prevent
this. She couldn’t see how to break free
of him. She fought him. She fought him as constantly and as hard as
she could, but while he held the purse-strings and while he was more than
willing to put his toned muscles to use on her, there was nothing that she
could do about it. Apart
from walk away. And if she did
that without his permission, she lost her inheritance. And that was not going to happen.
Joely
folded the paper, put it face down – Justin’s face down, on the table. Then she stood up, stretched, her thick
towelling robe heavy and soft against her skin, and left the brightly lit
breakfast room to have her morning shower.
The dishes and food fro
Her
bathroom was a refuge – the only room in the house with a lock on it, the only
room where her stepfather could not enter and criticise or accuse or
demand. Joely closed and locked the door
behind her with satisfaction.
Everything
in this room was to her satisfaction - none of the oh-so-pretty pinks and
peaches and creams that appeared elsewhere in the house. Her bathroom was blue and black, dark,
striking colours that felt strong and definite to her. Justin, when he’d seen what she’d done with
it, had commented that it looked like a bruise – he’d suggested she add some
purple to finish it off. Joely had
elected not to respond on that occasion.
He’d know what a bruise looked like.
He’d given her enough of them, after all. But never in front of the servants, although
some of them must have seen the results and wondered. And never just before a function he needed
her to play the adoring daughter at.
She dropped
the bathrobe, slid open the wide shower screen and stepped in. She needed all of her resources now. There was a big political gala on that night
and she was going to be expected to be charming and deferential towards Justin,
to be flirtatious with the money-men and gracious with the women. Of course, what she really wanted to do was
to tip one of the flutes of champagne she would be offered right over her
stepfather’s perfectly coiffed blonde head.
And to laugh at him.
Shaking her
head to clear it of this pleasant daydream, she turned the hot water tap on, then the cold, and reached up to adjust the shower
head. And cursed as it
came off in her hand. Joely knew
how to curse. She read any book she
could get her hands on (Justin vetoed many) and she hung around the servants –
they weren’t particularly welcoming, but they were company in this expensive
mausoleum she was entombed in, after all.
Now, she put all of her knowledge to good use, cursing fluently and
extensively as she tried in vain to force the shower head back on. Stamping one elegant foot in fury, she turned
the taps off again, stepped out and put her bathrobe back on.
Then, not
prepared to wait until it could be fixed, she picked up her bathing lotion, her
specially formulated shampoo and conditioner, her loofah, her nailbrush and one
of her thick monogrammed towels and walked down the hallway to the nearest
bathroom – the one that came off Justin’s bedroom.
His
bathroom was all wood tones, very “Swedish sauna” as far as Joely was
concerned, with lush green plants and black-edged mirrors. She didn’t care for it at all, but right now,
aesthetics were not the issue. She
needed a shower, and since he was off at an opening of something, the coast was
clear. She enjoyed it,
for all that the smell of him lingered in the shower cubicle. She ignored all of the bathing products he
had lined up on the shelf, although she did snicker at the shampoo that had
been made up to help preserve his dyed hair colour. It wouldn’t do for the electorate to know
that the golden-haired boy was actually mouse-coloured with grey streaks now,
would it? She considered putting a
depilatory cream in his shampoo. And then dismissed it, tempting though it was. He’d make her
pay. He always did.
Showered,
hair washed, feeling clean and relaxed, Joely opened the shower door and
stepped out, just as the door to the bathroom was flung open and Justin walked
in. Joely, naked and dripping on the
bathmat, froze, her mouth open. Justin, his eyes all over her, froze in
place, but his mouth worked. His silver
tongue never deserted him.
“My God,”
he said. “You look just like your
mother.” And he took a step
forward. Joely recovered her ability to
move at the same time as she recovered her ability to talk, and she did both at
once.
“Get
out!!!” she yelled, doubling up, her arms over her body. Unbeknownst to him, he was standing between
her and her towel. “Get out!!” Her stepfather’s expression went from
surprised and amused to annoyed.
”It’s my bathroom, Joely,” he pointed out.
His ready temper fired as she reached out and shoved at him, trying to
get past him to the towel. He shoved her
back, hard, his hand on her shoulder sending her flying back against the vanity
unit. She had to bring her own hands
back to catch herself, to prevent serious injury, and again she could feel him
looking at her – at all of her.
“You
bastard!!” she screamed, reaching behind her for something, for
ammunition. A can of expensive shaving
lotion was hurled across the room, striking him on the chest. Furious by now, Justin lunged towards her,
not sidestepping fast enough to avoid being hit above the eye with a large bar
of sandalwood soap.
“Are you
mad?” he bellowed, his hand to his brow.
“Do you want to disfigure me? Is
that what you want?” He caught her
shoulders in his hands and shook her, shook her until her teeth were
rattling. She tried to bring her hands
up to cover her breasts, but he was shaking her too hard for her to move.
“Let me
go,” she managed to force out between her teeth. “Let me get dressed, you… you pervert!” It was at that point that her stepfather
brought one hand back and slapped her, hard, across the face.
Sprawled on
the floor, her hand to her cheek, Joely looked up at him. And smiled through the
pain.
“Well this
is going to look good at the party tonight, isn’t it?” she said, bringing her
knees up to hide the front of her body.
“Makeup won’t cover a black eye, Justin.” He stood there, his fists clenched, and
scowled down at her.
”You’ll say you had an accident,” he said.
“No I
won’t,” she said. “I’ll tell them you
hit me. That you walked in on me in the
bathroom and refused to let me get dressed and that you hit me. Again. That should look really good in the press
tomorrow, shouldn’t it?” She was
spitting the words, the acid of them almost burning her lips on the way
out.
Towering
over her, his face darkened still further, and Joely wondered whether this time
he really would let fly and use his fists on her. He never had, although he’d threatened to a
number of times. He took a step forward
and she cowered, hating herself for doing it, but scared of his strength and
his temper.
“Get up,”
he said.
“Hand me a
towel,” she said in reply.
“Get up,”
he said again, slowly this time, forcefully.
An arm over her breasts, a hand covering her blonde pubic curls, she
climbed up with difficulty, her wet feet struggling for purchase on the
slippery tiles of the floor. He scanned
her, from head to foot, slowly, almost contemptuously.
“You’re the
image of your mother,” he said, as he had before. “But you’re even more stupid than she
was. You’re not going to the party
tonight.” He said it as if it were a
punishment. Joely made sure her reaction
didn’t show. She didn’t want him to know
how pleased she was.
“But next
week, you’re going somewhere else.
Somewhere where you will learn some manners and learn how to control
your temper.”
”And I guess you’re going too?” she countered.
He glared at her.
”Watch it, daughter,” he said, flicking a towel at her and looking with
ill-disguised interest as she caught it, briefly uncovering her full breasts in
the process.
“Step-daughter,”
she corrected, as she always did.
………….
She didn’t
expect he’d take her himself, she’d imagined that some flunky would have the
job of delivering the difficult daughter to wherever it was she was being
consigned to – probably some sort of finishing school, she’d decided. But he actually drove his own car, a late
model Mercedes. He was uncommunicative
all through the two hour drive, and it wasn’t because of a hangover from the
party he’d been to the night before.
Justin never drank enough to lose control. He reserved his loss of control for his
stepdaughter. Now, however, he was
silent, perfectly controlled, looking smug as he drove.
He stopped
once to look at a road map, then took off again, still silent, driving through
a small town, turning off onto a small side road and pulling into a driveway
punctuated by large, wrought-iron gates.
He opened his window with the touch of a button, leaned out and pressed
the intercom.
“Justin
Williams,” he said in reply to the disembodied “hello” that came through. “I’m expected.” The gates opened and they drove through. And kept driving, down a
winding, tree-lined road that seemed to go forever.
”What is this place?” Joely demanded, her first words
of the trip.
“You’ll
find out,” he said, with satisfaction in his tone. “You’ll definitely find out.”
The
building was massive, like a cross between Dracula’s castle and a hospital,
dark stone sprawling out over a huge amount of land. It was obviously centuries old, but it looked
as if it had grown there, as if it had sprung fully-formed from the earth
around it. Surrounded by high trees,
with fields of crops behind it and walled-off areas to each side, it looked big
enough to have a village enclosed within it.
“What the
hell is this?” she asked. Justin said
nothing as he opened his door and climbed from his seat. Then he leaned back in.
“Get out,”
he said.
A man was
waiting for them. Middle-aged, with
plain, forgettable features, he was wearing a coarse-looking brown robe with a
tie around the waist. The robe fell
almost to his feet, which were clad in sandals.
“Mr
Williams,” he said, coming forward. He
held out his hand to Justin, then looked past him and smiled. “And this must be Joely. My, aren’t you lovely.” He didn’t say it in the way that people
normally did, as if they were congratulating Justin on her beauty. He just said it simply, as a statement of
fact.
“Thank
you,” she responded automatically, liking his smile. It was gentle and
friendly. Justin took exception to it.
“I expect
you to be very firm with her,” he said, sounding firm himself. The man, the monk, it seemed, nodded.
“And I
expect you to honour all of the clauses relating to secrecy,” Justin added.
“Hell
yeah,” Joely couldn’t resist. “We couldn’t have anyone knowing that the great,
caring Justin Williams is locking his stepdaughter up in a monastery to be
starved and whipped now, could we?” He
gave her a look, the sort of look that made her have to fight the impulse to
step back from him. But she persevered.
“Well
that’s what this is, isn’t it? A monastery? Or is it
a combined monastery and convent? Do you
put those things together now?” She
asked the question of the monk.
“No,” he
replied calmly. “My name is
Bernard. Do you have a suitcase?”
”Yes,” she said, waving her hand at the car.
“It’s in there.”
”You’ll have to excuse my daughter,” said Justin. “She’s a spoilt brat.”
”You’ll have to excuse my stepfather,” Joely responded quickly. “He’s a prick.”
She knew as
soon as the words were out that she’d pushed too far. Her stepfather’s hand came up automatically,
the smooth pink palm flexed and ready to strike, but before she could flinch,
the monk’s hand fastened on Justin’s wrist.
Her stepfather’s face tightened still further and his arm tensed,
shaking as he tried to twist free of the grip.
Bernard met his eyes, held the gaze, expressionless and
unflinching. Justin stopped his
undignified struggle, let his arm fall, and the monk smiled and turned back to
Joely.
“Come,” he
said to her, turning his back on Justin as if he no longer existed. “Someone will bring your suitcase in.”
Stunned,
Joely looked up at her stepfather, his steel-grey eyes
clouded with disbelief, and decided that she wanted to be on the side of anyone
who could do that to Justin. She
followed Bernard without another word or a backward glance.
“This is a
silent order,” the monk said to her as he led the way down a long passageway,
his hands tucked into opposite sleeves.
He turned to smile at her. “I
speak only when I am welcoming students or communicating with those from
outside.”
“Is that
often?” Joely asked. “Do you have many
students?”
”We do not answer questions,” he responded obliquely. “And we value obedience.” Peeved, her curiosity piqued, Joely stopped
walking.
“Come,” he
said, beckoning her.
“I need to
know more,” she said stubbornly. The
monk turned back to face her, his lips curved into an amused smile.
“And you
will,” he said. “But you will find your
own answers. You cannot give orders
here, Joely. And you will find that
disobedience or rudeness like that which you just showed to your stepfather
will not be tolerated.”
”You stopped him from hitting me,” she pointed out, still warmed by that
memory.
“Perhaps I
wanted to punish you myself” Bernard said, still smiling. He was joking. She hoped.
“Come,” he said. He walked down
the hallway, and, not knowing what else to do, Joely followed.
A right-angled
turn in the hallway brought them into a massive room, flooded with light from
windows on two sides, a vaulted ceiling neck-craning high above them. The floor was stone, large cobble-stones set
in a circular pattern spiralling out from a cylindrical stone pillar in the
centre, and the far wall also seemed to be made of stone, but was covered in
large, colourful tapestries. It looked
like a baronial hall from a mediaeval castle.
All that was missing were the long table and suits of armour. The monk turned to look at her, and held up
his hand to indicate that she should stop.
“What is
this room…?” she began, but he held his finger to his lips.
“You mean I
have to be quiet too?” Joely asked, ready to argue the point. “I’m not a monk!” Again, his finger pressed against his lips
insistently. She made a noise of
annoyance, then sighed loudly.
“Fine,” she
said. She made an elaborate pantomime of
zipping up her lips.
Footsteps
sounded on the cobblestones, and one of the tapestries swung out towards
them. Through the opening walked three
men, all dressed as the monk in front of her was, in brown robes, with a cord tied at their waist. These three all had hoods pulled up over
their heads, however, and she had to admit they looked a bit sinister. The hoods shaded their faces and two of them
had their hands hidden in their sleeves.
The one in front did not. His
arms swung as he walked towards Joely.
He was four steps away from her before she got a clear look at him, and
her own face knotted into a frown of surprise.
He was
drop-dead gorgeous, with a smooth, young face, straight, clean features, a full-lipped mouth above a dimpled chin and unusually
coloured eyes. She couldn’t see them
clearly enough to hazard a guess on colour, because they seemed to be many
colours in one. His flamboyant good
looks were very much at odds with the starkness of the robe he wore, and if
anything, his attire highlighted them.
She glanced at the two monks who flanked him. No, they didn’t have his looks. The one on his right was tall and solid, and
the one on his left even more so. He
looked like one of the progressions from ape to homo-sapien,
in fact. She looked back at the young
one, the heart-throb in the middle. Who
was he?
“Who are…?”
she began. In a gesture she was already
becoming annoyed with, he raised one long finger to his lips.
Rolling her
eyes, she noticed that Berrnard, the one who had
brought her to this point, was walking away.
She felt a tinge of panic. He was
her link to the outside world, the one who knew who she was, who her stepfather
was. These three knew her only as a
“student”, whatever that was, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be left alone
with them. Then she looked up again into
the face of the one nearest her and decided that there could be worse
fates.
She was to
change her mind rapidly.
The young
monk pointed at her chest, at her blouse, and made movements which indicated
that she should unbutton it and take it off.
His hand gestures were very expressive, very clear. Joely’s response
was predictable.
“I don’t
fucking think so!” she said heatedly.
This time his finger touched her lips, firmly, telling her to be
silent. He shook his head at her. The heat of battle flared in her face, but as
she opened her mouth to tell him exactly what to do with his finger, he nodded
at the two monks behind him and they stepped forward, one on each side of
her. Before she could step back or swing
a punch, each of them had a strong grip on one of her arms, and a foot hooked
around one of her ankles.
“What are
you doing?” Joely demanded, struggling as hard as she could against them. She might as well have saved herself the
bother, because neither of them moved an inch or a muscle.
The young
monk stepped closer and began to undo the buttons on her blouse.
“No!” she
protested. “That’s it! I’m out of here! You can’t do this!” But they could and they did. Despite her yelling, her struggling, the two
monks held her easily and the younger one undressed her, slipping her blouse
down her arms, her jeans down her legs, bending to undo her sneakers and
pulling them and her socks off. He put
them into a hessian bag with a drawstring at the
top. Then he slid his fingers into the
elastic of her thong panties.
“No!” she yelled
again, really throwing herself against the grip of the two older men. “Don’t you dare!” He ignored her, sliding the hot pink silk
down her long legs to join her jeans at mid-calf, then straightening up and
reaching round her to undo her matching bra.
“I’ll sue
you for everything you’ve got, you pervert!”
Joely was panicking now, and the quick downward look he directed at her
breasts as they were revealed did not improve the situation.
“I saw
that!” she yelled at him. “You
looked! Aren’t you supposed to take vows
of celibacy or something? Let me
go!” The last demand was directed at the
two men who were holding her. They
showed no sign of having heard her. With
a wry twist of his mouth that might have been a smile, the young monk touched
his finger to his lips again.
“I will NOT
be quiet!” Joely assured him loudly. “I
will scream the place down. Let me go
and let me put my clothes back on NOW!
My stepfather has some very close friends who are lawyers, and by the
time I’m finished with you, buddy boy, you’re not going to have to make any
vows of poverty because you’re not going to have anything left!” She was screeching now, hurting her own ears
with her volume, but not having any apparent effect on her three
listeners. The thought that her
stepfather probably knew exactly what was happening to her at the moment did
not bring her any pleasure at all.
The two
monks beside her shifted their grips enough to allow the one in front to slide
her blouse and bra down her arms and off, and moved their holds on her legs
enough for him to do the same with her jeans and panties. Joely stood, slim, naked and helpless, held
between two brown-cloaked monks in the cavernous hall of the old building,
every quick, panicked breath causing her pale breasts to rise and fall, her
arms and legs shaking with her attempts to break free.
The week
before, she had been mortified that her stepfather had seen her undressed, had
thrown things at him in an ill-advised temper tantrum. Now she was nude in front of three
strangers. She could feel her face
burning with embarrassment and her struggles were as much to cover herself as
they were to get away. This couldn’t be
happening. She couldn’t be standing here
without a stitch on, exposed in front of these men.
The young
monk, having tucked her clothes into the bag, reached towards her again. She would have cringed back if she could,
sure he was going to touch her body, but his hands went to her ear, gently
removing her earring. She shook her head
at him, finding her capacity to fight again, a hard heat in her belly.
“Those are
worth a fortune,” she said. “You have no
idea how much trouble you’re going to be in when my stepfather…” He touched her lips again, and she only
wished she’d thought fast enough to bite his finger before he moved away,
touching her other ear. She tried to
shake her head to make it harder, but it didn’t work. Her prized diamond studs sat nestled in his
palm, dazzling for the instant before he closed his tanned hand. He undid her Cartier watch, not fumbling with
the difficult clasp, and slid it over her hand.
And then he smiled at her and looked down her body, his gaze skimming over
her breasts and coming to rest on her navel.
“No!” she
said insistently again. “Don’t take that
out! It’ll grow over and I’ll have to
have it done again and it’ll hurt!
Don’t…no!” Again, her wriggles
made no difference. Deftly, he grasped
the navel ring and undid it, sliding it out.
Then he bent lower, and, her legs held apart by the other two men, Joely
struggled wildly. It was only when his
fingers touched her lightly, gently pushing some of the golden curls at the
apex of her thighs aside, that she realised he was looking for any more
piercings.
”I don’t have any others,” she spat at him.
“So you can just stop looking around there now!” He looked anyway, her exposed position making
it easy for him to get a clear picture of the area in question, and her face
was bright red, partly with anger but mostly with mortification by the time he
put her jewellery into the bag, straightened up and looked down into her eyes
again. His face was expressionless, but
his eyes looked suspiciously as if they were amused.
“Well,
that’s your cheap thrill for the day,” she said. “I do hope you enjoyed it.” His hand came out towards her face, and she
prepared herself to take the tip of his finger off when it touched her lips
this time. But this time it didn’t. It cupped the side of her face, lifting it
and tilting it up to look full into his face.
He was very tall. She hadn’t
noticed before, but he was a long way up, even from her five foot nine
height. He smiled, a very appealing
smile that she would have found it impossible not to respond to if she hadn’t
been standing naked and trapped in front of him.
He stroked
her cheek with his thumb, then ran the same thumb down
her little nose. Then he took his hand
away from her face and made a beckoning gesture. As he did, the two monks who’d been holding
her let her go, one of the
“Give me
that,” she said firmly, reaching for it with one hand, the other going to cover
her pubic hair. “I mean it. You’ve done the obligatory strip search, and
I want my clothes back NOW.” The man who
held it, the one she thought of as the ape man, smiled too, an infuriatingly
superior smile that made it perfectly clear that it didn’t matter what she said
or did, she was not getting the bag. On
a sound of pure fury, Joely launched herself at him, kicking and punching in
the human equivalent of a threshing machine.
This time it was the young monk who caught her, his arm around her waist
lifting her off her feet and holding her firmly against him as the older two
walked away, her clothes with them.
Joely
continued to struggle, elbows and feet connecting with every part of him she
could get at as he walked, carrying her with him, across the room, several
steps behind the other two men.
“I want my
clothes!” she yelled after them as they disappeared behind the tapestry. “Bring the
“What’s
that?” she asked. He continued to hold
it out to her, his weird eyes calm, patient.
Joely clamped one arm across her breasts, slid
her hand over her groin.
“What is
it?” she demanded again. He slid the
cloth between his hands and let it fall down between them, revealing a robe not unlike his own.
He held it up.
“I’m not
putting that on,” she said. He nodded, the smile back on his lips. Yes you are.
She shook her head.
“No, I am
not,” she said definitely. He shrugged,
folded it again and put it back down on the ground. Joely watched him do it, wishing she hadn’t
been so hasty. At least it would have
been a covering, some sort of covering.
As he
turned back to her, he reached out to her again, and before she had time to
protest, he had spun her about, his hands on her shoulders and she was being
pushed across the room, this time along the line of the tapestry-covered
wall. She fought for the first ten
forced steps, then propped, struggling against his hands, one of which shifted
its grip and dealt her a sharp smack on her bottom, startling a pained squeal
out of her. Another smack got her moving
again, walking forward reluctantly, one large, strong
hand on her shoulder, the other hovering around her unprotected backside.
He turned
her to the right, down a small passageway that had not been evident from the
other side of the room, into an alcove that held an old tub, a bucket, a
scrubbing brush and a bottle of floor cleaner.
And then his hands dropped to the tie around his waist and undid
it. Visions of rape danced in front of Joely’s eyes and she panicked again, darting to one side in
an effort to escape him, and as he caught her this time, she screamed as loud
as she could.
Fear made
her voice shake, made tears sting the back of her eyes. Surely her stepfather wouldn’t have signed
her up for this? Even Justin wouldn’t do
that, would he?
The young
monk spun her round quickly, her back to the tub, held her there with his body
and caught her shoulders with his hands, shaking them lightly until she looked
up into his face.
He stroked
her cheek and her jaw, his eyes gentle, soothing. He shook his head, pointed down to the robe
he still wore. The rope tie he’d undone
was clutched in his hand, and before her gaze, he looped it into a knotted
circle. Then, smiling reassuringly, he
picked up one of her now limp hands and then the other, tightening the knot
until they were held together in front of her.
Through all this, she kept looking at his eyes. The light from the windows behind her were
illuminating his face now, and his eyes looked golden, but with darker flecks
in them. His face was beyond handsome,
somewhere between beautiful and perfect, and she could see that his hair was
dark, maybe brown, maybe black. It was only as he tightened the rope that she
looked down and realised what he’d done.
“Why?” she asked,
the tears still in her voice. At that,
he leaned forward and down, smoothed her hair away from her face and brushed
his lips gently against her forehead.
Then he stepped back, leaving her standing there, her breasts framed
between her arms, her hands cupped over her lower belly, while he picked up the
bucket and filled it with water from the taps that ran into the tub. He tipped floor cleaner in too, then recapped
the bottle, picked up the scrubbing brush and handed it to her. She took it awkwardly with her bound hands,
but didn’t fight as his hand settled between her shoulder blades and eased her
forward. He picked up the bucket with
his other hand.
Joely
looked across the vast room to the darkness of the hall she’d come through from
the front door. She could run for
it. She often jogged around the property
at her home in the mornings. She was a
fast runner, and with fear to give her speed, she was sure she’d set new
records. But she’d felt the strength of
his body when he held her, could see that he was young, not even thirty, so she
knew that the chances were that he’d be faster.
And there was also the fact that she was naked, of course. And that there were doors and gates to be
negotiated, none of which would be easy with her hands tied. How had she let that happen? Was it just the relief that he wasn’t going
to rape her that had made her stand there quietly while he tied her up like
this?
He guided
her to the centre of the room, put the bucket down, and then pushed on her
shoulder, indicating that she should kneel, right beside the round stone
pillar.
“If you
think I am cleaning this floor,” she said.
“You are sadly…” He was nodding
his head, smiling.
“No, I am
not,” she said. He
nodded again, quite definite. And
then he picked up one of the loose ends of the rope tied around her wrists and
hooked it onto something that hung from the pillar, a chain with a strange,
intricate link at the end of it that clicked into place with some movement of
his fingers. The chain went right round
the pillar, set into a groove that ran round it. Joely looked down at her hands, then up at
his face in disbelief. To all intents
and purposes, she was tethered to the pillar.
He pointed down to the floor.
Well, he could point all he liked, there was no way she was cleaning
that floor. Yes, it might be draughty in
this room, and her naked body might be covered with goosebumps,
and she might be horribly embarrassed about not having any clothes on, but
there was no way she was becoming a household slave for anyone!
An hour
later, having scrubbed eight cobblestones to his satisfaction, Joely sat back
on her heels and stretched her neck.
The stones hadn’t looked dirty, but it was amazing how much grime she
had scrubbed off them, how dirty the water in the bucket was getting, and how
oddly satisfying she was finding the cleaning part of the task. Initially, she hadn’t shifted anything,
because she’d sat on the cold floor, her knees drawn up to cover her chest, her
feet placed to hide the unpierced parts between her legs, and just rubbed the
brush over the floor half-heartedly. The
young monk had grinned and shook his head, dropping to his knees beside
her. He’d taken the scrubbing brush from
her, got onto all fours, and shown her how to do it, really pushing hard on the
brush, dragging it over the stone and into the grooves around it.
“I want
some clothes,” Joely said. He shook his
head.
“Yes,” she
insisted. “I’m cold.” He pointed to the floor, to the centre-stone,
then moved his finger around, following the spiral pattern, around and around
and around, out to what was probably the third round from the centre. Then he touched the material of his own
robe. The message was clear. Clean the floor and you’ll get clothes. He handed her the scrubbing brush and she
made another dainty attempt at cleaning while staying covered. He shook his head again. Sighing, wincing at the picture she was about
to be presenting, Joely rolled onto all fours, picked up the brush and began
scrubbing properly.
If he
watched while her big breasts bounced, while her bare bottom swung from side to
side, she didn’t see him, and she looked at him out of the corner of her eye
several times as she cleaned the cobblestones.
He always seemed to be looking in her general direction, but not
specifically at any of the many points of interest on her body. And his hood partially shielded his face from
view so she couldn’t get a clear look at his eyes anyway.
He took the
bucket from her, walked across the room, his feet sounding on the stones as he
went, and she waited as he disappeared into the alcove. Distantly, she could hear the sound of
running water, and wasn’t surprised when he came back with clean, soapy liquid. She grimaced as her sore knees came into
contact with the stones again, but she set her jaw, picked up the brush and
started again. Joely wanted her
clothes. If this was the first test in
this horrible place, well, she was going to pass it. She’d always done well at tests. Her tutors had always been impressed. She didn’t normally perform tests naked, but
she wasn’t going to let that get in the way.
If Justin thought he was going to break her spirit like this, he could
think again.
She had
just finished the ninth stone and was moving onto the tenth when she saw the
tapestry swing open, saw a group of monks walk out. Immediately, she curled up, clutching at the
bucket in an attempt to hide her nude body.
The young monk shook his head, reached down and tugged it away from
her. He pointed at the floor again.
“You’re
kidding me?” she demanded. “I’m expected
to put on a free show for all comers?”
He pointed to his lips, an annoyed look in his eyes.
“A silent
free show for all comers?” she modified.
He pointed to the floor. Joely
was aware that the group of men had stopped walking, were looking her way. She tugged at the rope, willing it to
disappear, wishing she’d made the attempt to run before. She glanced up at the monk beside her again,
a pleading look in her eyes. He looked
steadily back. Sighing, Joely picked up
the scrubbing brush again and rolled back into position, doing her best to
ignore the fact that a group of men was watching.
As soon as
the rhythmic scrubbing started, the brush scratching across the stones, her
heavy breasts swaying half a beat behind, the monks began walking again, their
path taking them right past where Joely was working. One of them reached out and patted the
younger monk on the shoulder, and then they kept walking, for all the world as if it was perfectly normal to have a naked
young woman cleaning the floor. Which, for all she knew, it was.
By the time
she finished the twentieth stone, Joely was operating on automatic pilot. She was cold, she was sore, she was
miserable, and she would have handed over her inheritance for a pillow to kneel
on and a blanket to huddle in. When he
took the bucket from her, she almost cried, thinking that he was filling it up
yet again, but he took the scrubbing brush as well, and when he came back, he
was empty-handed. He crouched down in
front of her, undoing the complicated knots he’d put in the ropes that bound
her hands, and then walked back to unhook them from the chain. Joely sagged onto the floor, now untied, but
too worn out to get up. He looked back
at her, and as he did, the hood fell back from his head, revealing
shoulder-length dark brown hair. She
experienced a slight tinge of familiarity and a stirring of surprise at how
handsome he was, but she was too tired to care.
He pulled the hood back up, walked over to her and leaned down, grasping
her upper arms and helping her to a standing position.
She shook
as she stood, and he steadied her, his hands on her shoulders, a look of
concern and disbelief on his face. He
looked back at the floor as if confirming how little of it she had actually
cleaned, then back at her. Joely
continued to shake as he backed up, his hands steadying her as he assessed her
condition. Then he bent down, tipped her
over his shoulder and straightened up, walking towards the tapestry. At the entrance, he leaned down to pick up
the white robe and then continued inside, up a long, long flight of stone
stairs. Hanging uncomfortably over his
shoulder, painfully aware that she was still naked and very exposed, Joely
didn’t bother to protest. No-one
listened when she did anyway. Instead,
she focused on the vague outline of what looked to be a very tight butt, just
below her face, and on trying to wriggle enough to ease the pressure on her
stomach.
He walked
down a hallway, then another and then another, finally opening a door and
carrying her inside, seating her on an antique wooden chair and walking off
through an interior door. Her arms
folded over herself, her knees drawn up for warmth and comfort, Joely looked
around the room. It was white. There was a white ceiling, white walls, white
drapes, white comforter on the bed. The floor was wood, a light-coloured pine,
and there was a standing wardrobe that matched it tucked over next to the small
window. The bed was narrow and high, and
it was the most tempting thing Joely had ever seen. All she wanted to do was climb into it, under
the blankets, put her head on the pillow and sleep for
a month. She was mustering the energy to
do just that when he came back, took her hands and tugged her up out of the
chair.
“No,” she
muttered. “I’m too tired.”
”You’ll enjoy it,” he said, in a lilting Irish accent. Momentarily too tired to register, Joely was
about to argue when she realised what had happened.
“It
speaks!” she said.
“It does,” he
agreed. “But not as much you do. And not in the public areas
where we’re expected to be silent.”
”I have no intention of being silent,” she said, tired but still
firm. “I am not a monk.”
”That much is obvious,” he said, glancing down.
With her hands still held in his, she couldn’t even react to the teasing
tone in his voice by covering herself.
She tried to, but his grip tightened.
“But if you
don’t learn to be silent in the public areas, you’ll be punished,” he
said. “Now come on.”
She let him
lead her into what, judging by the sounds of running water, was a
bathroom. It was. A free-standing, claw-footed white bath stood
in the middle of the small room, which also contained a basic toilet, a bidet
and a hand-basin with a jug beside it and a mirror on the wall above it. There was no shower.
“Five star
accommodation I see,” she murmured, and this time he didn’t even bother to
answer her. He just swung her up off her
feet and into the tub, into which water was still running. Then he handed her a bar of soap.
“I don’t
use soap,” she explained. “I use a
specially formulated cleanser. It’s in
my luggage.” He smiled and leaned
against the wall, his arms crossed.
“I don’t
use soap,” she said again, slowly this time, because she was obviously dealing
with an idiot. An
amazingly good-looking one, but still an idiot. He didn’t move. Joely toyed with the idea of climbing out to
get her cleanser herself but decided against it for two reasons. The first was because she didn’t have the
energy. The second was because there had
been no sign of her luggage in the room.
“All right,
I’ll use it this one time,” she said.
“You may go now.” His smile
became more pronounced.
“Oh for
heaven’s sake, you’ve had your fun!” Joely yelled. He covered his ears.
“Be quiet,
woman!” he said.
“I will NOT
be quiet,” she said. “In fact, I sing in
the bath, so bad luck, buddy.” And she
proceeded to do just that, working her way loudly through as many Beatles songs
as she could think of while soaping herself up and trying to keep as much of
herself covered as possible. At one
stage she looked defiantly up at him and was chagrined to notice that he
appeared to be shaking with suppressed laughter. When she almost hit a high note, he covered
both of his ears with his hands again and looked pained.
“Well go
away then,” she said, reaching round to try to soap up her back. Her hair felt lank and dirty too. Justin had given her no time to shower
properly this morning, and without her special shampoos and treatments, all of
the curl was going to drop right out.
She was still sighing over that when she realised that the young monk
had moved, was crouching down behind her and taking the soap from her hand.
“Allow me,”
he said.
“No,” she
said. “Go away.” He smiled and pried the soap from her hand,
not giving her any choice.
“Lean
forward,” he said. She didn’t at first,
but when he pressed gently on her shoulder, she gave in. Then, despite her lingering embarrassment,
she almost purred when he began rubbing soapy hands over her back. In fact, she protested when he stopped and
stood up. He returned almost
immediately, the jug in his hand. He
filled it up and she waited for the delicious spill of warm water down her
back. There were clearly some aspects of
this place that were better than others.
She reached
over to turn off the still running taps, and then straightened up in a rush,
spluttering and swearing as the contents of the jug were tipped over her head.
“You…you
fool!” she spat out through the stream of water trailing down her face. “What do you think you’re…arrrrgh!” She heard him laugh, and then another jug
full of water was emptied over her head.
She was spinning round to look at him, modesty forgotten, when she saw
him tipping a bottle of very inferior shampoo into his hand.
“No,” she
said firmly, through the wet strands of hair that were now plastered over her
face. “I was reasonable about the soap,
but I draw the line at that.” She
noticed that he’d rolled the sleeves of his robe up, and that his arms were
tanned and strong-looking, sinews and muscles well-defined. Then she noticed that those arms were coming
towards her again.
“I said
no,” she pointed out. She braced her
hands on the sides of the tub and prepared to get out, but one large hand
planted itself on the top of her head and pushed down.
“Stay
there,” he said, laughter in his voice, but firmness in his tone.
Almost
shaking again, this time with annoyance, she stayed put, even relaxing after as
while as he rubbed the shampoo into her hair.
He had good hands, she noted, lulled and soothed (despite herself) by
his touch. And then she spluttered
again, this time through soapy water, as he tipped another jug over her head.
“You did that
deliberately!” she accused, spinning round to face him. “You could have warned me!” His golden-brown eyes were unrepentant, and
as before, looked very merry. Their gaze
skimmed down over her and she looked down and gasped. Soapy water was sliding over her body, her pink nipples were peeking through a sheen of
it. She crossed her hands over her
breasts.
“I didn’t
think monks were supposed to…to be interested in things like that,” she
commented heatedly. His mouth curved
into a broad smile and as he moved, the hood fell back again. His hands soapy, he didn’t reach for it this
time, just left it lying down his back, his thick head of straight, dark-brown
hair framing his face.
“Do I know
you?” she asked him. A lift of one side
of his mouth, a shrug, and he was bending to fill up the jug again.
He helped
her out of the bath, her hand in his, and although she wished she had a third
arm to help her to cover herself, she was glad for the support. Her knees were still sore, as was her back,
and her legs felt weak. The thick towel
he reached for looked like something straight out of a catalogue from
heaven.
“Thank
you,” she said, waiting for him to hand it to her. When he didn’t, she tried to grab it off him,
sick of the games. He moved it out of
her reach and grinned in a very un-monk-like fashion as far as Joely was
concerned, even though she had no idea what monks were supposed to be
like.
“I’ll do
it,” he said. “Stand like this.” He moved his own arms straight out from his
body.
“Why would
I do that?” she asked. He didn’t
answer. He just raised one eyebrow and
waited.
He dried
every inch of her, squeezing the water out of her hair in best hairdresser
fashion, patting her face dry, then smoothing the towel over the rest of her
body, individually drying her breasts, batting her hands away when she tried to
do that bit herself, sliding his arms around her body to dry her bottom,
sponging the moisture from her pubic hair and drying in between her legs, each
toe and each finger.
“I think
you missed a bit,” she said sarcastically as he finished. He smiled, spun her around and dried her
bottom again, his hand on her shoulder holding her there as she tried to move
away. He hung the towel up and pointed
to the toilet.
“Do you
need to go?” he asked, his accent making even those words sound lyrical.
“Yes,” she
said, her arms covering her breasts and groin again. Yes, he’d seen it all, but she wasn’t going
to willingly extend the show. He just
stood there.
“Yes, I do
need to go,” Joely said, in case he hadn’t understood.
“Go on
then,” he said. He leaned back against
the doorframe and waited. For the first
time, she noticed that there was no door in the frame. But that wasn’t what was bothering her most.
“Come on,”
she entreated. “Let me go to the toilet
in peace.” He nodded, pretending to zip
his lips in exactly the same fashion as she had earlier, mocking the first monk
she’d met. Oh yes, he was going to be
very peaceful, he wasn’t going to make a sound while he stood there and watched
her go to the toilet. Very
funny.
“I’ve
changed my mind,” she said haughtily. “I
don’t need to go.” He grinned at that,
took two quick steps towards her and reached for her sides. Joely backed up immediately, her knees
against the toilet seat, her hands pushing ineffectually at his as he tickled
up and down, expertly digging into the soft, sensitive skin. As she squirmed and gasped, his fingers
travelled over her belly and hips and then back up, under her breasts, until
she squealed and protested and surrendered and sat down on the toilet. Then he backed off, leaning against the
doorframe again as she, scarlet-faced and resentful, did what had to be
done. There was no toilet paper, a fact
she pointed out to him.
“There’s a
bidet,” he pointed out in return. She
used it, still fuming that he was there, watching her.
She
followed him out into the main room and this time, when he held up the white
cotton robe, she reached for it, almost snatching it from his hands and
dragging it over her head. It was a
rough, thick material, but it felt wonderful and warm against her skin, falling
almost to her feet and covering her from the neck down. His smile was patronising this time, as smug
as Justin’s had been in the car. It said
“you could have taken that before and saved yourself a lot of trouble and
embarrassment” just as surely as if he’d said the words out loud.
Infuriated,
she glared at him, once again taking in the unusual eyes, the classic, perfect
features of his face, the tall, strong-looking body.
“You’re a
very strange sort of monk,” she commented.
“There, I
knew we’d eventually find something we agreed on,” he said drily.