Part 7
I just knew there had to be a catch with Beth wanting to take me out for the day, and then I realized it was October thirty first, Halloween, the one day a year that ghosts and other ghouls can travel freely between this realm and the other. I wondered why she would pick this particular day to take me out and away from the castle. Perhaps it actually was ladies night at the club she spoke of, but with my level of suspicion it could also be one of the clubs she had visited in search of satisfaction at the end of a whip, and ladies night there could be a very bad experience for me. I didn't forget about deceiving her on the great wheel, and I doubt she did either.
With my binding oath to her I had little choice, and after I had spent some extra time in the bath I was dressed and ready for whatever awaited me out beyond the walls of the castle. I realized just recently that the words of my oath to her had a power over me, as if they were magically binding, and in light of that I didn't know how I was actually able to deceive her earlier on the great wheel. All in all it was still good to get out as it had been weeks since I had left the castle grounds, and a day away from my humiliating chores was still welcome.
Beth and I were dressed nicely enough that I caught Henry's eye on leaving, but I also received an amused smirk from him with the younger of us driving and obviously in charge. I concluded that Henry still had desire for me, but that he also still thought this a game, and I wondered how much of my torment was at his suggestion. With Beth's misdirection Henry probably thought I was getting off every time I was paddled by the ladies, but I had no way to set the record straight either as my tongue seemed magically tied when I attempted to broach the subject.
We drove to a salon and Beth treated both of us to some fine pampering, but she had to treat as I had no money of my own ever since I was enslaved by my mistress Beth and her willing accomplices. It was no accident that my freedoms were restricted outside the castle as well, all part of my continued spiral into deeper subservience to remind me of my new place in the order of things. That is why I was so suspicious of Beth's humane treatment of me on this first Halloween since she had escaped, unfortunately trapping the real Beth Eckhart in her place. Beth's behavior was an anomaly, just like when she feed me a proper breakfast after my first private show. Her real intention had to be to remove me from the castle on this most magical of nights, and I just knew there was some secret I was missing. It was infuriating to think I was once again being out maneuvered by the young Beth Eckhart, but by now I should have been used to it.
Our next stop was lunch, and it was wonderful to have somebody bring me hot food for once as I usually ate cold leftover food after I served everybody else. It had the effect of keeping my weight down, I didn't look like I was starving, but I realized once again the energy one can receive from a good meal, as after our lunch I felt great. Was Beth watching my diet so closely so she could maintain my body at the weight of a prisoner constantly hungry, and did this explain why I had devoured the men I did on two separate occasions? I would look more authentic this way at our shows without a stitch of clothing to hide beneath, and just like back in ancient times, a hungry prisoner was much easier to control.
With plenty of questions and suspicions, Beth and I drove toward our next destination in the late afternoon, and I wished I had worn more that the thin dress Henry seemed to appreciate earlier. It was the one Beth had selected for me, and I wondered why all the way to our destination two hours away.
It was getting dark when we arrived at the small castle, or large stone house depending how you looked at it. This was a private residence and no touring museum like our castle, but when Beth pulled up to the iron gates, the guard, (dressed in shining chain mail and armed with a broadsword), opened them for her as if we were expected.
This was a grand surprise as it looked like we were to attend a Halloween costume ball, but when we drove to the valet area I saw a coat of arms proudly displayed on the stone house that I never thought I would see again. It was the shield and crest of the evil duke's family, the one who had done all those horrible things to me and those around me in search of "his" treasure so long ago. His and his men's abuses caused me immense physical pleasure in inverse proportion to what they intended, but only due to the witches spell and not any mercy on their parts. His evil was so enduring that long after all of our passing his men and I were still trapped in the same dungeon, destine to live out our former lives for all eternity. If that wasn't bad enough, another innocent soul, (the real Beth Eckhart), was trapped there to this very day. The injustice gnawed at my soul, but I had to remind myself that I should have no hostility for these people throwing this grand party, and that it was madness to hold somebody responsible for what one of their long dead ancestors did to me in another life.
Could Beth possibly know this, or were we just guests at this particular medieval costume party by chance? I concluded that with Beth's position at the royal library she could certainly know who these people were related to, but her true intentions were a mystery to me.
It all happened so fast, Beth pulled up right after the expensive car in front of us moved, and the doors were opened for us by two costumed footmen, and another took Beth's bags from the trunk as her ordinary car was whisked away to make room for another expensive one sitting at the gate waiting to enter. There was no way to object without making a scene, and I wanted to slip away into anniminity and my presumed costume as soon as possible. The other guests were costumed on their arrival, and it wasn't a surprise that we were lead away from them down a corridor with two footmen as escorts, one of which had Beth's bags.
We were escorted to a ornate siting room with a warm fire burning in a huge fireplace, and when we entered a man and a woman stood, also already in costume dress with white upper face masks to hide their identity. The man looked me over with a broad smile from below his mask, and he was replete with a greatcoat and sash, and looked as if he could have come directly from a formal event from my time so long ago. The woman looked at me as well, but more like she was examining a stain on her expensive dress, as if she were saying with her eyes "what is this mess, and where did I get it on me?". She was also dressed for a formal affair from long ago, but in her case she reminded me of the finely dressed "ladies" in attendance when I was dragged bound and naked before the evil duke and his court, after my capture over three hundred years ago.
"Is this her?" the man asked Beth.
"Yes, her given name is Ann" Beth replied.
"Of course it is dear" I heard the woman reply dismissively.
Beth's hold over me had become so powerful that I couldn't even speak up for myself, and I knew she had delivered me to these people with her implied consent to do to me as they will. It was the second condition of my oath to her, and Beth knew I couldn't disobey. I also just realized this party and meeting were no coincidence now, and while I could sense what the man had on his mind, the woman frightened me.
"The footman will show you to your room where you can get dressed dear", the woman told Beth, dismissing her in a practiced way. Beth followed the footman carrying her bags, but I could see on her young face she didn't like the way she was handled.
"What did the young Ms. Eckhart tell you of this evenings plans Ann?" the woman asked in a deceptively soft voice as soon as the door closed behind Beth.
"Nothing Ma'am" I responded.
"As she promised, but still one never knows with this generation though. I am Countess Cathrine, and I won't bore you with the rest of my title, but sufficient to say if Ms. Eckhart's research is as through as she suggests, our two families go way, way back together. You are a guest of our castle at the moment, and tonight there will be a costume ball to celebrate Halloween, and we intend to put you to work as Ms. Eckhart has graciously volunteered your services. Later we will celebrate your apparent rediscovery, after we verify it's authenticity. Ms. Eckhart has already provided us with your costume, something she suggests you are quite familiar with back at home, and as we have little time to waste you can slip into it over there before I have my brother put you to work."
I slipped out of my nice dress and underthings behind a dressing screen as both of them watched impatiently, and I slipped into the waiting serving wenches dress that I was quite familiar with. This one was old and thread bare, and tighter that any other I wore, as if it had been washed a hundred times just for this event. I kept my high heeled boots on, and when I stepped around for "inspection" there was some disagreement between the two as to if I should be allowed to wear them or not. The man insisted I keep them on, and I followed him to the serving area where I was instantly put to work serving the costumed guests the their drinks and meals. The kitchen staff kept me hopping, and with the number of guests I served all by myself I sensed I was set up to fail. A dropped spoon, a tap of a fork on an empty glass, all designed to remind me of my place well below those I served.
There were dramatic readings of Poe, and several others at a lectern in front of the group, but I had no time to enjoy them as I struggled to serve the entire room. I had the eye of many of the men as I rushed around in my thin attire, but the ladies seemed more amused by the show I was forced to provide, as if I were part of the entertainment for them. After I served the desert and after dinner drinks I thought this night of humiliation was near it's end, with the guests faces hidden, but my face and body on displayed for all to see. Our host the Countess rose and thanked the guests for their attendance, and also me, their old family friend for playing the part of our serving wench so convincingly. The guests applauded my service warmly, obviously thinking I was part of the show, and I couldn't find it in my heart to be angry for the work I had been coerced into by them.
The Countess offered me up to do a dramatic reading of my own while the guests enjoyed their desert, and she further suggested if I didn't do a convincing job of it I would be taken away in irons to a fate "worse than death". The guests all laughed at her apparent joke, but also were thinking whatever they saw next would be part of the show.
I walked to the lectern without a choice as the Countess looked at me sharply, only to find my reading glasses and a very old book waiting. I cleared my throat, opened the book, and stared at it silently for several awkward seconds before I began to read, now certain this night was not even close to over for me: ..."I, whose name can't be known..." and I read on for twenty minutes as none of the men even blinked at the horrifying personal tale I related to them, but curiously not written in my own hand. I was sure most thought it some kind of perverse literature, but some in attendance knew better, and it was these people I tried to watch most carefully. It was obvious that my reading had most of them quite excited by the way they were shifting in their seats, and when I reached the "hastening my release" part, I turned the page determined not to read the magical phrase out loud. I was surprised to find it missing, and several in attendance watched carefully for my reaction, Beth and the Countess being two of them.
The room was dead silent when I closed the old book as this was obviously not Poe, nor anything else that one would expect a serving wench to dramatically read for them. I was very flushed after my reading, and when the Countess rose and asked me if I wrote this unusual book, I stammered before I answered carefully, mindful of the consequences of being caught in a lie. "No Ma'am", I answered, not only for her, but the others in attendance as well. "The script is from an unfamiliar hand, and judging from the construction of this tome, I would guess it to be at least four hundred years old." My answer was both the truth and a lie all at the same time, but for the guests this was still part of the show. It was after all my story, but a hand written copy and not the original.
Two footmen were waiting for the signal from the Countess, and when she pointed they moved in and put me in irons before the stunned group who had for the most part not touched their desert during my read. As they lead me away the Countess told her guests that their serving wench would be interrogated in the dungeons to find out if she did in fact write this odd book, and that she would report back the results of her interrogation the next time they got together. The group stood and applauded what to them was the final act of my performance as I was lead away in chains, and I caught Beth's eye as she smiled at me in a sinister way. The two men marched me up several flights of stairs, and we arrived at a room with a heavy door at the top corner of the small castle. They brought me in and locked me in a jail cell, right after they gagged me with a massive plug that buckled behind the back of my head. They left and bared the massive wood door with an ominous thud as I heard the noises associated with all the guests leaving through the thin windows of this top floor dungeon.
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The room was dark and frightening, and with the way I was deposited in it I had no chance to even look around before the heavy wood door cast the room into darkness. I sensed something moving in the room with me after I sat trying to come to terms with what just happened, and I was startled by a familiar voice. "Good evening Ma lady", my old dungeon master whispered into my ear. "Listen closely as I have little time on, they want 'our' treasure, and if you give them so much as one piece we will be trapped for all eternity. You have kept your bargain with us by giving the locations of our treasure that will eventually free us, and the treacherous bookworm has not! They will have but a few hours with you before you must be returned to our castle, because as you well know Halloween is a special night where extraordinary things can happen. Just a few unpleasant hours for you in exchange for our eventual freedom, please choose wisely."
I was once again alone, but with even more to think about as I heard the last of the guest's cars drive off several floors below. I was left cuffed and gagged in the dark dungeon long enough to hope the Countess had forgotten about me, but that was a foolish thought. I eventually heard the heavy bar raised off the door, and several people entered, but conspicuously absent was my mistress Beth, at least based on the stature of the masked people standing before me. Modern lights were turned on, and after my eyes adjusted to the harsh light I saw four leather masked people in long black cloaks, one of which had to be the Countess.
The woman spoke while staring into my eyes, and the voice was that of the Countess, "Are you the Ann who originally wrote the account of your capture and interrogation that you read earlier, the one who should be well over three hundred and seventy five years old"? The question was well thought out, and with the gag in place I could either shake, or nod my head, leaving little room for deception on my part. I didn't know if I could deceive her with my oath to Beth allowing her to share me with whoever she chooses, so I just stared back at her...
A smile formed on the part of her face that I could see, "I see you haven't been completely broken 'yet' as Ms. Eckhart suggested to us earlier, so much the better." The two muscular men who I assumed were the footmen who put me in irons and delivered me here earlier unlocked the cell door, and each took a cuffed arm and lifted me to my feet.
One threw a black sack over my head of the kind the hangman used to use for royal executions, and what little confidence I had instantly melted away as I imagined they intended to hang me. I struggled uselessly as they dragged me through the dungeon, and my arms and legs were spread widely and secured in place once my boots were pulled off. It was a familiar position, and when the sack was pulled from my head I found myself on a great wheel almost exactly like the one the evil duke brought with him to our castle so long ago. It made sense that such a man would have more than one of the horrible torture devices, especially with his known affinity for women.
It was slightly different in that each appendage was still cuffed in thick iron manacles, but instead of chains, there were iron jack screws to tension each. The result was that I not only hung from my wrists, but my ankles supported some of my weight as well, making it possible to spend an almost indefinite amount of time in it. The men gave me a huge spin and my arms also supported some of my weight when inverted, however my tight wenches dress fell to my hips with the effects of gravity, and the fall of my unrestrained breasts. The men stepped back as I stopped up side down, and I saw for the first time the life sized oil painting hanging behind them on the stone wall.
The painting was a nude of me, as I was the first time the men put me onto the great wheel all those years ago. Still not overly thin as I had become from near starvation, and full of breast that didn't hang in my inverted position on the wheel. My long fair hair hung to the floor, and the wisp of fair hair natural to me did nothing to hide the gaping nature of my neither regions, stretched obscenely by the staff buried deep inside of me and held in place by a hole directly between my stretched legs. I had forgotten about the painter brought in to document me thusly very early into my ordeal, and I was put back into that position repeatedly until he was finished with his work. There was a second smaller staff pinned in my open mouth, and it went into it's own hole over my head and forced me to cock my neck unnaturally and look toward the outer ring of the great wheel. The effect in the painting was of a single jousting pole impaling my still living body, and I am sure it was used to "encourage" cooperation from whoever didn't either want to find themselves, or someone dear to them in a similar position.
The Countess never broke my stare at the painting when she knelt by my head, "Horribly magnificent isn't it, and our family history claims she survived for decades in the dungeons without ever giving up her secret, apparently your secret, but it doesn't look anything like you! What magic is this that you can be that woman from long ago, and here with us now?" She removed my gag and lowered her voice so just I could hear, "I should like to know how I could be preserved in a similar manor, especially as I get older, but the men want to have some fun with you first as I watch."
There were whips of all different kinds hanging on the wall, as well as some very bad things like a pear that would destroy my body if it were used. One of them selected a leather paddle, and while capable of a painful sting when wielded by the ladies of my own castle to motivate me, it was the least horrible of the bunch. The Countess told the men to wait, obviously in charge of the event and the men, and I saw her turn on a camera in front of me, and I only could assume one behind me as well. Was she going to watch this over and over again for entertainment, or just to gloat if she managed to get me to reveal the secret her ancestors couldn't.
The first smack of the paddle landed on my ass, but with my dress still covering me there I hardly made a sound. I was rolled right side up and one of the men grabbed the bodice of my dress and tore it away, revealing my stretched body to his appreciating eyes. The paddle made an intimidating crack where it next met my bare flesh, and I couldn't suppress the moan that escaped my lips from the masculine hand on his ancient tool. One of them rolled the great wheel in a slow circle as the second grabbed the cat from the wall and worked me over in front as the man with the paddle worked me over from behind. My breasts were a favorite target, but they always were, and I was freely flowing when I had my first screaming orgasm.
"See I told you it was her", I heard the Countess say after my first noisy orgasm.
She looked to one of the men, "Go ahead, you've wanted to ever since you first saw her you dog."
The man dumped off his black robe to reveal he wore no more than I did under my dress, and he stood up on a part of the great wheels frame to take me as I was inverted. He first brought two of his fingers up through my messy womanhood, and then spread my ass further and worked them around my rear passage deliciously. He plunged his average manhood down into me, and I gasped at the intrusion even though he wasn't all that impressive, nothing like the inhuman monster he was apparently related to. He then worked his slippery fingers around my rear opening, working one, then two inside. I orgasmed instantly when he did that, thrashing around violently, but he didn't. He kept pumping me in both places and I was on the way to a second lesser one when I became aware of action behind me. I felt something cold pressed up against the small of my back, and then a feeling like I had never experienced before. I screamed silently as my breath was literally taken away, with every muscle in my body acting on their own accord.
"Oh my God" the man said, "I actually felt it right through her, DO IT AGAIN!" And they did until he came, flooding me until it spilled over, and each of them took a turn doing the same as I could tell it felt wonderful for them. The Countess watched, obviously amused by the whole event, and I found myself hanging there with our combine fluids running to my breasts with my lungs on fire trying to breathe.
The Countess finally told the men that was enough, and I was rolled back over feeling like death. She stood there waiting for me to breathe normally, and when I could she held up a box like device no larger than her hand. "You are only protected from men with devices and methods the witch had experience with, this is a taser, modified for our unique purposes. You will tell me everything I want to know, if not tonight, then perhaps when we rent you from Ms. Eckhart. She has already agreed to you staying with us next time, it is therefore only a matter of when you speak and not if."
I knew I couldn't endure this kind of thing very long at all if she were telling the truth, and I suspected my body wouldn't show enough signs of abuse to cause any questions back at home either. The Countess was merciless with the taser and her questions, first my breasts, and then lower, and after that I don't remember a thing...
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I woke dressed in the clothes I left the castle in, but lying across the back seat of Beth's car with the morning sun in my eyes. When she saw my motion in the rear view mirror she asked sarcastically "still alive?" She then got serious with me, "The castle and the library are the real treasures for me, Henry is a temporary plaything at the moment, and you are in the way. I intend to sell you to your new friends for half of the treasure as soon as I can make Henry believe you want this, and what they do with you I could care less. The best part of all this is you won't be able to tell anyone what has happened, or what will happen, as your lips are magically sealed on the subject. Just like reading the last page of a really good book but not being able to tell anyone what happens. As to the book, the kings scribe made a copy for each of the great houses long ago as both a warning, and dark entertainment, but obviously without the last page."
We arrived back home before noon, and Beth snuck us in telling Henry and the others that I drank entirely too much at their party, and I was going to my cell to sleep it off. The tour guides walked the visitors right through, my freshly naked body hidden under my course blanket as modern clothes just wouldn't do, and looking like just another mannequin on display. Evening came, however the only way I was aware of it was the absence of guests brought down on tour. Master Tucker brought me bread and water for dinner, but this time it wasn't stale and probably came from his own plate.
I had no chores that night either as I just wasn't up to it with the effects of my interrogation, but I was woken from my slumber by a familiar voice. "Ma Lady", and I was handed my book magically removed from it's hiding place on the one night it could by my ghostly dungeon master, "read the last page and switch places with the treacherous bookworm."
It was so tempting, she would be the one sold to the evil duke's spawn, and I would get my Henry back. But what of the one true innocent in all this, the real Beth Eckhart, trapped for all eternity one cell over. I opened my book, carefully not looking at the words on the last page as much as I wanted to, and I found what I expected. The note said "Do not read this last page", in Beth's own hand, and without a pen or paper I had only one choice. I tore the note, throwing the "Do not" on the floor before replacing it, and I closed the book and pushed it through to the cell with the bones in it.
"A compassionate choice Ma lady"...
story continues in The Bones In The Dungeon 8
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