Given to the Club by Emily Tilton

Chapter 17

Helena

I washed myself with my back to Jones. I fancied I could feel those eyes on me, that doorkeeper’s gaze somehow both polite in a servant’s customary manner and mortifyingly frank—as if the man knew his station, but also knew that his employers had given him permission to look as he pleased at the naked young women consigned to his care.

With a deep crease in my brow, I ran the soapy washcloth between my thighs and then between my bottom-cheeks. I bit my lip to keep from moaning at the feeling of warmth that remained there even with the governor turned down; of the mingled soreness from my guardian’s hard cock and comfort from the soothing water.

Gerard must, I thought, have reduced my arousal to two, or even to one; I could still feel the faint echo of need, but the sensation had not gone away completely, as I remembered it doing with the horrid device at zero. Again, as in the chamber of pleasure, I had the unwelcome thought that I would have an easier time of it if my guardian simply applied the governor’s full effect.

I felt the warm water of the shower cascading over my shoulders, and I tried to concentrate only on that, but instead I kept thinking of Jones’ eyes, watching me clean my private parts. I thought of Gerard’s dark eyes, too, to my distress—as if through the doorkeeper’s right of inspecting the club’s sexual playthings, my own master exercised his dominance.

I had to bite my lip very hard, then, as I felt the faint thrill of a tingle, and then the now familiar, though still very odd, sensation of the governor keeping me in check. The beginnings of pleasure that the washcloth had brought down there faded away, and I blushed hard thinking of how the controller must have beeped in Gerard’s distant pocket.

I focused all my attention on the pain in my lip, still caught in my teeth, to keep a sob of helpless need down in my throat. Trying to use the washcloth as delicately as I could, I cleaned the places where my guardian had used his rigid, driving manhood to take me as his own.

“Finish up now, miss,” Jones said behind me. “No use dawdling.”

* * *

The doorkeeper watched me move to the electrostatic body dryer, though I tried to pay him as little mind as I could. Next to the dryer was a sink with a mirror above it, and I had a more difficult time keeping my eyes from Jones’ face in the glass as I wove my hair in a loose braid.

Next to the sink I found a glass dish piled high with hair elastics in the same blue color I had seen on the tiny governor before Gerard had placed it between my thighs. As I fastened my golden braid I tried not to wonder how many elastics the club went through in a month, or a week—how many girls found themselves in the chamber of pleasure, and then brought here to wash up after their masters used them.

I looked at myself in the mirror, saw my brow pucker at the thought, and to my distress felt the governor at work again down below my belly. A desperate urge to put my hand down there, to do everything I could to increase the muted sensation, came upon me. I wondered how my guardian could possibly have told Jones that he shouldn’t have much trouble with any naughtiness in the shower.

Had he been joking? Or did he expect that, because I could feel my need so very strongly now that the governor had lessened my pleasure, I would feel even more ashamed to touch myself? I stood there, looking into my blushing face, until suddenly I felt Jones’ hands on me, putting the belt back around my waist. Unable to help it, I started, and tried to shake myself away.

The doorkeeper’s hands, surprising in their sudden strength, held me in place.

“Don’t make a fuss, now, miss,” he said in a bland servant’s voice that utterly belied the menace in his words. “I’m allowed to use the strap on you if you make a fuss and I have to tell you I would do it with the greatest pleasure.”

I closed my eyes and forced my hands to the front of my body, their fingers balled into fists. Jones began to buckle the stout leather belt around my waist. I felt again the location of its fastening, on my back. Again I knew my masters were telling me without words that my body was at the command of the club.

I nearly whimpered as I felt, once more, the operation of the tiny device between my legs. The knowledge that somewhere, nearby but out of sight, somewhere close to the dreadful-doored chamber of discipline, the controller in my guardian’s pocket had just beeped, made my whole body seem to flash with mortified heat.

“Your hands, miss,” the doorkeeper said, and I couldn’t keep back a tiny sob as I lowered them and allowed him to place the cuffs around my wrists, then clip them to the belt.

Jones led me back through the chamber of pleasure, his hand on my elbow. I tried not to let my eyes fall upon the huge bed where Gerard had enjoyed me. The task of controlling my wayward thoughts proved much more difficult than that of keeping my gaze upon the carpet; I could not stop wondering what ideas occupied the mind of the servant who treated me with such efficiency, but also revealed his own masculine hunger for my naked body.

We passed through the door of that chamber, and again I saw the terrible painting under the word Discipline. Three men punished the girl who resembled me. Their leader, her master, had the dreadful implement whose awful name and function Gerard had told me.

I remembered him, the man whose duty was it seemed to reform me, speaking of sharing me. I remembered that I belonged not only to my guardian but to the gentlemen of his club. Jones’ hand on my elbow made me shudder as he propelled me forward, because I wondered suddenly if the sharing extended to servants… if it meant sharing the right to punish me, to use me, with the establishment’s doorkeepers.

I took a hesitant step, my eyes fixed on the awful thing in the bearded man’s hand.

Cunt paddle. To whip a girl between her thighs.

Another step, at the urging of Jones’ insistent right hand. He reached out the left to grasp the ornate brass knob upon the horrid door.

The wide paddle’s trajectory, not from above the way a man would swing a strap or a cane, but curving up, from the side, the blade moving toward the poor young woman’s exposed private lips. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out just at the idea of the doorkeeper opening that door, of his forcing me toward it with my hands bound at my sides.

Then I saw what lay on the other side of the door, and I drew back. I twisted, and tried to pull my arm from Jones’ grip. I had no real thought, I knew even in that wild instant, of what I would do if I should manage to get my elbow free: I imagined even as I felt the doorkeeper’s hand tighten to keep me in place that if I should run naked down the hall in all probability I would stumble and fall headlong.

Perhaps I would tumble face-first into the gorgeous tile outside the morning room for all the passing gentlemen to see; to my dismay I could see it in my mind as I felt myself drawn roughly into the chamber of discipline with its red walls and its terrible furniture. The wild, wayward thought came to me that perhaps at Drake’s club, if a gentleman or gentlemen found a naked girl that way, prostrate with her backside uppermost, she would belong to him for the moment. Perhaps he would not have to return her to her master immediately, but would have the right and even the obligation to fuck her right there, taking his cock out and bestriding her on the landing, doing his best to assist in her chastisement and her training as a fucking piece for the club’s enjoyment.

I emitted a soft cry of dismay, because at the thought of such abject degradation and at the sight of the chamber of discipline before my eyes I felt the wantonness grow between my thighs, and I felt the governor control it. My hands stirred at my sides, and I clenched my fists desperately, cheeks blazing hot as I barely managed to keep them from drifting inward and presenting Jones with evidence of immodesty that he might use as an excuse to punish me.

I needn’t have taken the trouble, though, for the doorkeeper said, “Right, miss. The professor wished you to obey me, and you just tried to get away. I’ll have to whip you for that, I’m afraid.”

I knew by sheer instinct that everything in that room pertained to the punishment of wayward young women. I could scarcely comprehend the actual nature or operation of the things I saw in the chamber at first, however, with the notable exception of the one toward which Jones propelled me now. It was a post of a height a few centimeters lower than my own. Made of dark wood, it had gleaming brass fixtures at its top. To these, I understood as soon as the doorkeeper had me in front of it, he intended to fasten my wrists.

Entirely unable to help myself now, I began to struggle wildly against him, crying out in fear at the thought of what would occur next, as soon as Jones had me bound to the post.

“Please…” I begged. “Please… no. I’ll do as you tell me… I’ll be good…” I babbled as he held my waist firmly by the belt and unclipped my left wrist from it. A terrible, wild thought came into my head. “I’ll be a good girl for you,” I tried. “I’ll… I’ll do… things. Those things. To make you feel good.”

Jones only chuckled as he easily controlled my struggling arm and fastened the clip on the cuff to the ring on the post. “You will, miss. You certainly will—if I know the way of the club.” He shifted me around a little, changing his hands so he could perform the same operation on my right wrist. “For now I’m going to whip you extra for being such a little whore as to offer yourself to the doorkeeper.”

“Oh, heavens,” I cried, for not only had my face blazed up like a bonfire, but I had felt the governor again between my legs, suppressing a thrill of arousal that Jones had called up by calling me that same awful thing Gerard had.

Bound to the post, now, I turned my face back over my shoulder to look at him. I saw that he had moved to a wooden rack that stood near the door, on which dangled several lengths of leather, all slightly different in their size, width, and thickness, my vision now confirmed. I shuddered violently as Jones selected a long thin strap with a divided tail.

With this horrid thing in his hand, he turned to me. “Eyes forward, miss,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

My face puckered into a mask of woe, but I could not obey, for I still cherished a hope that he would show mercy if I made him look at my piteous face. The thought of turning away and presenting him, the doorkeeper, with my bare backside for his menial discipline, filled me with dread.

Worse, it also filled me with the other feeling, the shameful heat down in the place Gerard had claimed and then, it seemed to me, delivered to this servant. The sensation of the governor’s control there nearly made me turn my face away in mortification rather than obedience.

Only when I heard the beeping, and saw my guardian come into the chamber of discipline, however, in the very next moment, did I do that. I saw the expression upon Gerard’s face at the sight of Jones about to whip me. I understood to my dismay that he approved, though I could see also his disappointment and annoyance that I had earned such a punishment.

I turned away, averting my gaze downward to the base of the wooden post so that I wouldn’t have to look at any of the other things in the room. A sob burst from my chest.

“Carry on, Jones,” Gerard’s voice said coldly. “Give the girl what she’s clearly earned.”