Chapter 1: A Way Through The Wood

Early on a May morning, Kern sat at his kitchen table, drinking tea and watching his three women in the yard. Estelle was moving briskly and confidently as she harnessed Sally and Jenny to the buggy. Satisfied with her work, she came into the kitchen, where she joined Kern at the table, and poured a cup of tea. ‘All is good.’ She announced, and she gave him that cheeky grin again, the same one she had given him half an hour earlier when she had sat astride him on the bed. Kern half-smiled at her, but said nothing. He finished his tea, tousled her hair affectionately, and then went out to the yard.

The two ponies fidgeted nervously at his approach. He stooped to remove their shackles, and then took his seat in the buggy. Before Estelle had changed his life, he had often enjoyed fondling Sally’s breasts before driving her, but not now, not with Estelle watching through the window. He drove the buggy slowly past the house, and out onto the lane. Heading towards the wood, Kern mulled over the events of the past months. After paying eighteen thousand pounds for Estelle, he had not had any real slave value out of her. But the girl had redeemed what she owed him simply by staying when she could have fled, when she could have brought his whole world crashing down. And she had stayed on her own terms, as his mistress in bed, and as the mistress of his slaves.

Her woman’s common sense had told her that she must stop Kern’s sexual contacts with Sally, and she had done exactly that. He would wake in the morning to find Estelle’s cunning fingers coaxing his penis into life; she would always drain him before he went to the slave cell. And the slaves were now dressed at all times other than when in harness; no way was Estelle going to have nude women about the place, so she had sat and ordered suitable clothing from the Argos catalogue. Suitable meant that Kern could no longer relish the sight of Sally’s breasts swinging as she worked with broom or mop; now he only saw her dusky body when she was pulling the buggy. And no more did he enjoy the slave master’s supreme privilege, flogging a naked slave at the post, for Estelle had quickly assumed the role of overseer. 

Without the burden of an interest in their flesh, Estelle was able to take a detached and utilitarian view of slavery. She was amused by Kern’s insistence on using his slaves to draw the buggy; she recognised that it was a kink, but she did not pretend to share it. She let Kern take his enjoyment from buggy driving, but for the rest of the time the slaves were her domestic appliances. Whereas Kern had always been nervous of having a slave cook for him, Estelle had no such qualms; immediately following her ascendancy she had put Sally to work in the kitchen. Jenny had been used as a cleaning machine, paintwork had been scrubbed, and woodwork polished to a mirror finish. Every carpet in the house had been painstakingly hand-shampooed, a task that would have been unthinkable without the unflagging hands of slaves; Estelle had worked them for fourteen hours a day on that job.

At first the slaves had accepted Estelle’s power to send them to the whipping post only because they assumed, probably correctly, that Kern would cut them to pieces if they challenged his paramour. But Estelle very quickly gained her own authority over Sally and Jenny, essentially because she was a fair mistress. If they were obedient, if they worked hard, then they would not be punished. But if a smudge were left on a polished surface, or if a meal was not prepared correctly, then the offending slave would be released from wherever she was chained, and Estelle would point upstairs, to the post. No English was needed; the slaves knew what was upstairs, and why Estelle would want them there.

She had whipped each of them several times, but clearly took no pleasure in it. She would not use the cane, or the back-shredding bullwhip; the driving whip was her only tool. Estelle’s punishments would make the slaves howl, and they would finish with a shiny patina of blood on their backs, but she did not mutilate them. The punishment would always be ten strokes; she would have them strip to the waist, and then she would lash their bare backs. Kern had watched her at this work, and it was the most erotic thing he had ever seen. With her face calm and impassive, Estelle would stand back for about twenty seconds between strokes, giving the slave time to suffer each bite of the whip, and to anticipate the next.  After the punishment, and while the slave was still strapped to the post, Estelle would sponge the bloody back, and then towel it dry. No recuperation was allowed; the slave would be dressed and put back to work immediately.

Swinging the whip was about the only labour that Estelle undertook. She would not wash a cup, or lift a duster, or make a sandwich. She liked to stay up late watching satellite TV, and as she insisted that dirty dishes could not be left overnight, Sally would often be kept on her chain in the kitchen until the early hours, until the last cup of coffee had been drained, and the last snack consumed. The ponies had to be up again to pull the buggy on the dawn run, so Sally would get as little as three hours sleep at night. Estelle usually allowed them to rest on their bunks for a few hours during the day, but only if she had no work for them. She had learned how fear of the whip could overcome tiredness.

Now, as his two ponygirls pulled the buggy along the lane, Kern felt an increasing resentment towards Estelle. She had made a lot of useful changes, he could recognise that. She gave him good sex, enthusiastic sex; just as importantly, she gave willingly, which was a novelty in Kern’s life. And putting Sally in the kitchen had worked out brilliantly, although it was putting pounds on him. But he no longer felt like he was the master in his own house, something would have to be done. He turned the buggy onto the track through the wood, and whipped the ponies up to a trot.

The lash stung Jenny’s shoulders; that was the only communication she had with her brother now; he pulled back on the reins to slow down, and he used the lash to speed up. In the week after Estelle had become Kern’s queen, Jenny had tried to speak to him one day. She had been on her hands and knees, working on a stain in the living room carpet, when he had passed her. ‘Please Master, may I speak with you?’ She muttered furtively.

Her intention had been to beg for another chance as his overseer. He had ignored her, but a few minutes later Estelle had sent her up to the post. To have that little slip of a girl, who was not much more than half her age, strip her to the waist and whip her was a bitter humiliation to Jenny. She had to admit that it was less agonising than being bullwhipped by Kern, but it still should not be happening. And the girl was so cold about it all; never excited, never angry, she seemed to regard a whipping as being akin to changing a vacuum cleaner bag, it was something you did to make a machine work properly.

Estelle had whipped Jenny on two other occasions, for unsatisfactory cleaning work, and for falling asleep in the utility room. Sally had been whipped twice, for serving tea in a cup that was not perfectly clean, and for stealing food. When working in the kitchen, Sally was surrounded by the temptation of food that would never be given to the slaves, and often she had treated herself to a few morsels. But her luck had run out when she had been caught in the act of popping a piece of cheese into her mouth, and Estelle had painted her back red.

Sally despised all of the household’s three white people, but Jenny most of all. She understood that Kern was a sexual sadist, driven by a pathological need to control women, while Estelle was a stranger in a very strange land, who was making the best of her situation. But Jenny was something else; a calculating, treacherous thing, who had spitefully used her moment of supremacy to give Sally a thrashing with the cane. Sally could not understand that, and she would never forgive it. She preferred life under the rational Estelle to the former situation; mainly because she no longer had to entertain Kern, but also because there was now some protection given to feminine modesty. And except when in harness, she no longer had to be in constant fear of the whip; Estelle expected every job to be done perfectly, but she did not dole out punishment for amusement. As always, Sally waited. She waited for the wheel of chance to spin for her, as she was sure it would.

Kern gave the ponies their usual short rest in the wood. As they both squatted to urinate, he took a stroll, and he pondered his best course of action. It irritated him that Estelle could not share his love of pony driving, but he supposed that she was unable to appreciate it as an expression of total power and control. What really worried him was the awful thought that behind her shrewd eyes she might be mocking him. Saucy cow, perhaps he should whip her. But then he would be utterly alone in the world, and he could not bear that, not now he was accustomed to sharing his life with – with what? With a friend, for that’s what she was. Together they had got quietly drunk while watching the TV, they had roared with laughter together as Estelle had tried to read English newspapers. Together is a powerful adhesive; Kern knew he could not pull away from her now. 

Taking his seat in the buggy again, Kern tried to stop himself from fretting. Estelle was running the house very well, he should be grateful to her, and let her get on with it. And yet, as he sat behind the ponies, Sally’s powerful body pulled at him like a magnet. He thought of how he used to enjoy the warmth of her, how he had ejaculated between her breasts, and watched his milky fluid run over the rich tones of her skin. He had always thought that the pallid bodies of white women looked far too much like the tenants of graves, and had preferred darker meat. Tonight he would be sharing his bed with Estelle, but when he entered her, he would be thinking of Sally. Bloody hell, it was like marriage.

He drove the ponies home, frequently cracking the whip over their heads, and giving Jenny a few lashes with it. But he was careful not to cut Sally; he had plans for that gorgeous body.

Chapter 2: All Our Yesterdays

When Kern arrived back at the house, Estelle was waiting in yard, as she usually was. She shackled the slaves’ feet, and then took Sally to the cell to shower and dress. In a few minutes, Sally was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. Estelle returned to the buggy to fetch Jenny, who was then showered, dressed, and ready for her role of serving maid. In the meantime, Kern watched the news headlines on TV; after breakfast he would have to crack on with some work, but for now he relaxed.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Kern slowly chewed his toast, and watched Estelle eat. She was enjoying what hotels misleadingly call a Full English Breakfast; sausages, mushrooms, eggs, bacon, fried bread, and tomatoes. He wondered how she could eat so much without piling weight on. She ate American style, cutting her food up, and then transferring the fork to her right hand. She looked up at him. ‘Today we go shopping?’ Her English was coming along in leaps and bounds; she used French, in which she was fluent, as an intermediate language.  When she could not find the right English phrase she would try some French, and if Kern did not understand she would simply repeat the words, but much louder. Like most of his generation, Kern had studied French for four years at secondary school, but had only a weak smattering of the language.

‘No, today I must work.’ Kern replied in carefully enunciated robotic English.  And he spoke the truth, for his financial situation was becoming critical. He had sunk as low as a freelance writer can get, he was taking in proofreading work. If he took Estelle into town he would spend money he just did not have, which would mean increasing his ominous credit card balance.

‘Tomorrow we go shopping?’ Estelle was pleading with him now.

‘Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.’   Kern swallowed the last of his tea, left the table, and went up to his study. He switched on his PC, and clicked on his internet connection icon. Outlook Express found no new email, so he fired up IE and proceeded to check through his various alias mailboxes. There was nothing for him; his former confidant, the Canadian dentist, no longer corresponded. Kern then uploaded selected photos of his slaves to appropriate newsgroups; he had recently started to do this as a way to ensure that something of him would continue whatever happened. His pictures of their whipped backs had been well received, and he was glad that he had taken some nice shots of Estelle strapped across the caning horse. Work, he had to do some work. He closed the internet connection, then inserted a CD from a double-glazing company. The CD contained several dozen images of windows, doors, and conservatories; Kern’s task was to select the best of them, crop and touch them up as necessary, spin a few words around them, and produce the artwork for a two-sided advertising flier that would be inserted into newspapers. A piece of cake, and he did not intend to spend more than a day on it.

He heard Estelle bring a slave upstairs, and then he could hear the rowing machine creaking rhythmically. Shortly after, the other slave was brought up, and then he heard the whirr of the treadmill resistance fan. Kern ignored the routine around him; he worked quickly and efficiently on the job in hand, which would bring in five hundred pounds. He was progressing faster than he had expected, and he thought he deserved a coffee. He went out to the landing, and shouted down to Estelle. There was no reply; he supposed she was out in the garden. Jenny would have to do it then, so he went into the training room to fetch her. 

Both slaves were dressed in the shorts and T-shirts Estelle had ordered as their training kit. Seeing Sally in the rowing machine instantly aroused Kern, the front of her shirt had become translucent with sweat, her shoulder muscles rippled as she worked the oars. He knew that he must have her again, but not now. He turned to the treadmill. ‘Jenny, stop.’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘Put your feet together.’

‘Yes, Master.’

Jenny was soon shackled, and making her cautious way down the stairs to the kitchen.  Kern returned to his study, but could not get back into his work. He was still staring idly at the PC screen when Jenny arrived with his coffee and biscuits. He told her to put the tray on his desk, and then he took her back to the treadmill. With a biscuit sticking out of his mouth like a cigar, he attacked the keyboard, determined to get the job finished. As always, when he piled on the pressure the words began to flow, and he had finished the copy while the coffee was still warm. Draining the mug, he heard a commotion from next door, so he went to investigate. Sally was no longer in the training room; Estelle must have taken her downstairs without him hearing. But Jenny was still there, she was gagged, and Estelle was strapping her to the whipping post.

Kern realised what was happening, he had taken Jenny off the machine for at least ten minutes, so she had not completed the required distance. And now Estelle, unaware of the interruption, was going to whip her. Jenny turned her head towards her master and brother, her eyes made a desperate appeal to him. Kern considered intervening, but rejected the notion. There had not been a whipping in the house for weeks; it was good for the slaves to get a regular taste of leather. He stayed to watch.

Estelle swung the whip in her usual unenthusiastic but effective way; Jenny’s scarred back was soon streaming blood. It seemed to Kern that Jenny’s back was becoming ever more fragile; her stifled cries through the gag, and the violent jerking of her body when the lash bit told of her intense suffering. He remembered how stoic she had been the last time he bullwhipped her, and he wondered if she was coming to the end of her endurance. When the punishment was over, Estelle was intending to put Jenny back on the treadmill to finish her distance, but Kern stopped her. ‘Leave her with me Estelle.’ He wanted to have a talk with Jenny. But Estelle was adamant. ‘No, she must finish.’

Kern felt his temper rising. ‘Estelle, I said leave her with me.’

Estelle did not reply, but she retained her grip on Jenny’s arm, and she glared at Kern, who made an instant decision. He slapped Estelle’s face, and he pointed at the post. The girl understood immediately, the colour drained from her face, but she kept her dignity, she would not plead. She took off her blouse and bra, and she placed her hands in position to be strapped to the post. Kern made her take off her skirt and panties as well, to Jenny’s immense delight.  But Jenny was not to have the pleasure of seeing Estelle flogged; Kern took her to the cell. Passing through the kitchen, he noticed that Sally was preparing lunch.

Back in the training room, with Estelle’s naked form on the post, Kern realised that he had never whipped her before. He considered the using the bullwhip on her, but did not want to cut her too badly, so he settled on the whip that had just been used on Jenny. He swung it as hard as he could, and his victim screamed at every stroke. She fainted once, but the next stroke revived her to scream again.  Twelve lashes seemed like enough to end her arrogance for once and for all; she was crying bitterly as Kern released her from the post. Her legs buckled under her, he carried her to the bedroom and laid her on the bed. Never before had he felt such remorse; seeing her body racked by huge sobs, he felt his own eyes cloud with tears. He lay down beside her, and together they cried themselves to sleep.

In the kitchen, Sally was worried; the pie she had cooked for lunch would have to come out of the oven soon, or it would burn. She busied herself with chopping salad, the wicked blade of her knife slicing through tomatoes, celery, lettuce, and spring onions. It was precisely because he had feared the weapons potential of the kitchen that Kern had not used a slave cook, it had taken Estelle’s recognition of how powerfully the slaves had been conditioned to obedience to change that. Sally finished with the salad; she was becoming increasingly concerned that she might be whipped for burning the pie; there was still no sign of the boss and his bitch. Turning to the oven, she saw Estelle standing in the doorway, a strange expression on her face.

Sally was frozen, she stood with the knife pointing at Estelle, who smiled and came up to her. She put her arms around Sally, and kissed her full on the lips; Sally was horrified, it had not occurred to her that Estelle might be a lesbian. But she had been trained to obey, so she parted her lips to receive a probing tongue, and she opened her thighs for the exploring hand she expected. The embarrassed Estelle pulled back quickly, she smiled at Sally again, and she shook her head. She said one word. ‘Goodbye.’ Then she left through the back door, closing it quietly behind her. Out in the yard, she wondered if she should take her farewells of Jenny; but no, she thought that Jenny probably took whippings personally, and time was pressing. She went out to the lane, and walked quickly towards the main road.

Gone?  Estelle gone? Temporarily, Kern’s grief could not have been greater if Estelle had died. He just was not ready for it.

‘She should have died hereafter, there would have been a time for such a word tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, when all our yesterdays have lighted fools the road to dusty death.’

Seconds after waking, an instinct had told him that he would not be seeing Estelle again. He had raged around the house, Sally was so terrified that she sat at the kitchen table and wept, something she very rarely did. But Kern’s anger was entirely directed at himself, at his own stupidity. Why had he thought he could whip a free woman? And why had he not chained her in the cellar afterwards? He did not delude himself that Estelle might come back, or that he would be able to find her; she would easily and invisibly slip into the general population, just another fish in the ocean.

But even while wallowing in his tragedy, Kern knew that he had to come to terms with the new situation. Life had to go on; there were slaves to be fed, worked, and controlled. He decided that he would continue with the household routine established by Estelle, it worked well enough. As evening came on, he stripped the ponies for a run. Neither of them had been fed since breakfast, they were both hungry. That suited Kern, he believed that a slave should always be hungry, and should frequently feel the benefit of the lash. He drove them at a brisk walk up the lane, wandered through the wood without stopping, and then trotted them home.

Sally baked a fresh pie while Kern bathed and changed, he had instructed her to throw the previous one away, and not to dare touch it. Jenny waited at his table, after which she was put in the cell for the night, still hungry. He kept Sally in the kitchen until midnight, and then he took her to his bed. One of the good things about Estelle had been that he did not have to chain her to the bed, but he really did not notice the shackle around Sally’s left ankle as she brought him to climax with her lips.

Chapter 3: The Angel

Day followed day, slowly for the slaves, and quickly for Kern. He tried to keep the house as clean as Estelle had left it, but found that the required level of detailed supervision bored him. Inspired by a TV programme on female body builders, he stepped up Sally’s physical training; the conviction set in that if only he trained her hard enough, she would be able to pull the buggy alone. He brought the cane back into use, the main recipient being Sally, for often she could not meet her training targets.

Every buggy run was timed now, Kern aimed to shave ten seconds off each day. He tried to be moderate with the whip, but his own targets forced him to lash the ponies more and more, so that their backs were always raw. Both slaves were becoming desperate and despondent; their lives were a living hell of work and punishment. One day, Jenny plucked up the courage to appeal to her master. ‘Please Master, may I speak to you?’

‘Go on then.’ Kern was very guarded.

‘Please Master, I am working for you as hard as I can, although I don’t think Sally is. You are whipping me so much, but I can work just as hard without being whipped, maybe I could work harder.’

‘Well Jenny, it is my right to whip you as I see fit, so I will flog you for your insolence.’

‘Yes Master, thank you Master.’ Jenny went to the post, Kern cut ten stripes in her buttocks with the bullwhip, her back was in too poor a state to be flogged.

That evening, Kern took the buggy out as usual. Jenny was still in great pain from her whipping, and had difficulty walking to the buggy. Kern thought that she would loosen up, but decided that he would not time the run; he would give them an easy circuit. Slowly and painfully, Jenny dragged her body and her half of the load up the lane. After turning into the wood, Kern ordered the trot. Jenny did not even begin to respond; Kern lashed her savagely, and she dropped to her knees. He dismounted, Jenny’s bulging eyes and greying face told him that he could drive her no further. He un-harnessed her, and knelt beside her. ‘Jenny, can you hear me?’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘You are to follow the buggy home. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Master.’

Kern resumed his seat. The shortest way home was to retrace the buggy’s path, so he hauled on Sally’s right rein and gave her a flick with the whip. She jumped forward, and the buggy turned. Hauling Kern’s weight alone was a challenge for her, and she had difficulty keeping a straight line. Kern was strict in keeping her moving, but did not whip her insanely. Every few minutes he would look behind to check on Jenny’s progress; she seemed to be recovering, and kept close to the buggy.

Arriving back in the yard, Kern immediately un-harnessed Sally. Crucially, he had not shackled her when Jenny came up to them. Kern turned away from Sally, and took Jenny’s arm; he led her over to the shower pole, to chain her there while he dealt with Sally.

This was the moment of carelessness that Sally had awaited for so long; she was completely unrestrained. For a second or two, she considered whether to run. She looked at Kern; he had his back to her while he fitted Jenny’s neck chain. Her mind was made up when she heard the angry rasp of a truck horn from the main road; that was her starting signal, she ran for the side of the house, giving Kern a hard shove in the back as she passed him. Caught off balance, Kern fell forward, but kept himself off the ground with his hands; looking up, he saw Sally disappearing around the side of the house. He propelled himself forward like a sprinter leaving the starting block, and the race was on.

Sally turned right into the hedge-lined lane, heading for the sound of the real world. About a hundred yards from the house, the lane curved to the left; looking straight ahead as she ran, Sally could see across two fields to the road, where the low sun was flashing off the windows of vehicles. She did not take the bend; instead she rolled over the top of the hedge, thorns tearing cruelly at her flesh. As she landed in the field she looked back, to see Kern pounding down the lane after her, and she set off again, ignoring her lacerated hands and stomach. Kern followed his runaway slave over the hedge; his clothing protected him from the worst of the thorns.

Day after day, week after week, Sally had been worked on the treadmill. The leg strength and the stamina that had been forced into her under the ever-present threat of a beating now told in her favour. As hunter and hunted crossed the field of half-grown oilseed, the distance between them stretched rapidly. There was a wire fence at the bottom of the oilseed field, then a field of sugar beet, then another hedge, on the far side of which was the road. Sally reached the fence; she put one hand on top of a post, and tried to vault over the wire. She almost cleared it, but her left foot caught the top wire, and she fell heavily into the field beyond. As she regained her feet, a jagged pain from her right ankle made her cry out, momentarily lifting Kern’s spirits. But she carried on, half hopping and half running, through the beet tops towards freedom and safety.

To Kern, Sally’s black form fluttering across the field was like the angel of death. In another two hundred yard she would reach the bottom hedge, and then the road. He stopped at the fence, and leaned against it with his chest heaving. The early evening traffic was a steady roar; salesmen, commuters, and truckers competed for scarce road space. He stood and watched hopelessly, someone had seen her. A truck drew up at the side of the road, its hazard lights flashing. Kern saw the driver come around the front of the truck to the hedge, the nosey bastard was shouting something to Sally; Kern could not hear his words, but he heard Sally’s reply. ‘Help me, please God help me.’

Other drivers were pulling up behind the truck, a small crowd was gathering at the hedge, arms were outstretched to help the fugitive; a man was taking his jacket off to give some cover to her naked body. A woman saw Kern, pointed at him; for a terrible moment he thought he was to be pursued by a mob. He turned towards his house, trying to walk with dignity, but his self-control was breaking as he retraced his footsteps across the oilseed field; he stumbled across its furrows, falling several times.

Jenny, of course, was still where he had left her. When she saw Kern return alone, and covered in mud, she knew that Sally had got away. Things were ending exactly as she had dreaded, in the most disastrous way possible. An emotional storm raged across Kern’s face; he looked ready to kill, and ready to die. He walked past Jenny without looking at her, straight into the house. The darkest of terrors flashed across Jenny’s mind; he might inflict a final satanic orgy of flagellation on her; he might end both their lives on his own terms. When he re-appeared he was carrying a whip; he came over to Jenny, and her fear vented itself as a high-pitched porcine squealing.

But Kern’s wishes were shockingly mundane. ‘Time for you to do the laundry.’ And he unfastened her chain, seized her by the arm, and marched her to the utility room. She was again chained by the neck, and she set to work. Her brother was baffling her now, she wondered if he just could not accept reality, and had shut it out. Part of her still wanted to protect him, part of her desperately wanted protection from him. Her mind tried to work out the likely sequence of events. Sally must have reached the road, or Kern would not have come back without her. Someone would have used a mobile phone to call 999, they would have asked for police and ambulance. How long would the ambulance take? Maybe twenty minutes, but the police would arrive much quicker. So Sally would blurt out her story, and she would point a shaky hand in the direction of her former prison. Jenny figured that in half an hour at the very most, the fat lady would sing, and it would all be over.

Half an hour passed, an hour, two hours. Was it possible that nobody would believe Sally's absurd tale of brutal slavery? No, Jenny knew there was no chance of that; the forces of retribution would surely be gathering for an irresistible assault.

There was a brittle tension between the last two players in the drama; Jenny finished the washing, Kern made her do it again. He checked on her minute by minute, striding into the utility room with the whip in his hand. He knew his nerves were getting the better of him, but could do nothing about it. Standing in the doorway watching Jenny work, Kern suddenly realised that there was no traffic noise from the main road. Jenny must have noticed too, for she turned her head, and she looked him in the eye. He advanced on her, and released her neck chain.

'You should know better, I'm taking you up to the post.' It would be good to hear the smack of leather on her back, and he would not get another chance.

Jenny shook her head, and tears welled up in her eyes. 'They've closed the road; they'll be here soon. You're not going to whip me again, not ever.'

Kern seized her by a wrist, dragged her into the kitchen. Now they could both hear a helicopter approaching. With his free hand, Kern picked up a pair of handcuffs from the table, he tried to turn Jenny to cuff her, but she fought him, lashing out with her fists. He closed with her, and managed to get a grip on each of her wrists, but still she struggled. The swishing throb of rotor blades filled the air as the two of them wrestled. They fell onto a chair, it collapsed under their combined weight, two of its legs detaching completely. Kern landed on top of Jenny, and pinned her wrists to the floor with his hands. Breathless from the fight, he gasped as he held her down.

Jenny screamed at him. 'Let me go, let me go - can't you see it's all over?'

Kern hauled her upright, spun her round, cuffed her at last, and turned her to face him again. The helicopter noise was fading; it had passed over the house and was moving away.

Jenny spoke again, this time more quietly. ‘Dress me Bob, we can deny it all.’

Their eyes locked for a moment, but Kern did not reply. Jenny had been his first slave; now she was his last, and his visitors would find things in good order. He took her to the cell, gagged her, and chained her to the floor. As he returned to the house, he could hear booted feet running in the lane, and now he could see the navigation lights of the helicopter, it was sliding sideways towards him from the direction of the wood, a couple of hundred feet off the ground, its turbine noise a shrieking roar. Kern had watched the TV cop shows; he knew they would have a thermal imaging camera locked onto him. Now, and for the first time, an icy fear came over him.

He darted into the house, slammed the door behind him, and put the whip down on the table. It had been the first whip that he had ever used, on Jenny, when she was first chained to the treadmill. And he had lashed her up the lane and through the wood with it, on those difficult runs with a single pony. Later on, when he taken Sally as his second slave, it had easily persuaded the pair of them that they could keep trotting when their bodies were begging for a halt. Yes, that whip had given him good service, it was a pity he would not be using it again. Estelle had used it too, but the memory of her brought a lump to his throat, so he forced his mind back to the present. Seeing the smashed chair, he realised that he did not have to let the police take him; he picked up a leg, and turned to the door.

Almost calmly, Kern walked out into the yard for the last time, with the chair leg tucked under his left arm. The fear had left him, he was not unhappy, and he was not ashamed. What millions could only dream about, he had done. He had grabbed his dream, not his dick. That dream had lasted for only a year, but in that time he had experienced more pleasures than enrich a dozen dull lives. Was there someone crouching against the back wall? He walked forward to see who was skulking there, and then someone was shouting at him from behind. ‘Armed police. Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon!’

Kern whirled around to face his challenger; bullets hit him in the neck and chest, he fell to the ground. His last thought was that he had been far too soft with the slaves, and for a few seconds before life was extinct his right arm twitched up and down, as if it were holding a whip.

Epilogue

Jenny’s psychiatrist was initially opposed to her attending Kern’s burial, but persuaded himself that it might help her to draw a line under the affair. There had been pressure to have Kern cremated, but Jenny stood firm; people just wanted to destroy him, and she would not have that. Inevitably, there were uninvited guests; a camera crew, several press photographers, and a clutch of onlookers. Jenny was the only mourner, but as the car took her out through the cemetery gates she saw a small brunette stood on the pavement, clutching a bunch of lilies. Seeing Estelle’s face again, for the first time since the little bitch had whipped her on the day she had left, was a tremendous shock for Jenny. But she did not cry out; settling back into the soft leather upholstery, she dreamed of sweet revenge.

END