The Dominant Male

unfortunate young woman, so Patience had taken the risk. Verity had been ruefully contemplating the livid mark where a cane had caught her upper thigh.
    ‘Well,’ she had said, wrinkling her handsome brow in thought. ‘It’s better than my last position. They are Tartars at Holcombe Hall, proper Tartars.’ She rubbed her big, pink breasts with the towel until they jiggled like jellies. ‘And this place is much better than Foscote Abbey. I wouldn’t take a place there again, lessen I was really, desperate.’
    ‘What isn’t so usual,’ put in Modesty, a tall and rather beautiful girl with long, brown hair, ‘is how his Lordship so often carries out corrections his own self.’
    ‘Oh yes, and doesn’t he like to lay it on!’ Agreed Verity, ruefully.
    ‘That ain’t all he likes, neither… Owww..!’
    The conversation had been cut short by the decisive crack of cane on Modesty’s plump buttocks, Mrs Cattermole having quickly dealt with Amity, and the whole crowd of naked girls had been chivvied off to be laced tight into their corsets.
    There it was again. Definitely a key in a lock. It must be Verity’s cell next door. But was that the sound of the door being opened or re-locked? After the morning ablutions it was work, relentless work. And work was why she needed to get her sleep. Dozing off whilst polishing the silver, a spot of dust missed through sleepy inattention – the least fault in a maid’s work would mean a whipping and a proper one at that.
    She was moaning again, writhing in the bonds that kept her pinioned on her back. Patience’s ankles were held by iron cuffs, the chain between them padlocked behind the bottom of the iron bedstead in such a way that she was forced to lay with legs apart, able to move no more than inches. Her wrists were also cuffed with iron as was her throat, the chain connecting all three so short that her hands were pinioned just beneath her chin.
    ‘This will stop your monkey tricks, Miss!’ Mrs Snodgrass, the housekeeper had said through set, thin lips the first time Mrs Cattermole had trussed Patience up this way. ‘Self-abuse is not tolerated at Birkhurst House!’
    Patience found herself blushing at the memory. New and naïve, she had failed the ‘Bobbit test’ on her third night at the hall. Without warning all the maids had been rousted from their beds at midnight and lined up in the hall. Bobbit was a spaniel, a specially trained one, it transpired to her mortification, with a particular skill for nosing out one particular feminine odour. The maids all had to hold their hands out for the dog to sniff, and if it caught that certain scent the dog started barking and jumping up and down excitedly. Patience, who had long eased away the day’s cares with a cunning finger, found herself being barked at by the horrid little beast.
    The thrashing that she had received for this indiscretion had been ruthless and ferocious. But almost worse had been the public shame. The only salve available for her blistered pride had been the thought that she had not been the only maid caught out that night, and she was not the only one the other maids sniggered at as they were led off to their punishment. Now the night-chains ensured that the next time the girls were roused from their beds for a Bobbit test, Patience had been quite safe, her fingers simply could not stray to that place any more, however urgent and distracting her desire.
    It would, she thought, as she lay in that stifling heat, half-suffocated by the pungent scent of latex, almost be worth another thrashing. This urge, this need, this awful desperation… Her pelvis thrust itself up of its own volition, trying to press against the latex sheet. But this was too soft, too light, altogether too insubstantial to do anything but tantalise her further. Oh God , she thought, how can I endure this? How could anyone? The perspiration made the latex slick against her skin and, even chained into position as she was, her bottom slid around in the rubber nightgown they had put her in.
    She was quite unable to suppress another long and desperate moan. Until a sound froze the whimper in her throat. This time there was no room for doubt. A key was being fitted in the lock. She froze, almost afraid to breathe, as the clattering noise continued. It wasn’t Mrs Cattermole or Mrs Snodgrass she realised, a shiver running up her body despite the stifling heat. They knew which key fitted every door on that long corridor. But