Fall from Grace Page 17

  I swallowed hard and felt my heart beating fast at the thought of her. I imagined peeling off her singlet, undoing her bra at the back, then kneeling before her and slowly pulling down her shorts. They would stick to her cunt, not much, but enough to tug at the delicate flesh. And when her shorts fell around her ankles, I would stare at the cleft of her slit before slowly reaching forward and sliding my tongue along the front of the precise crack of her fragrant, faultless cunt.

  She turned around to look as they rounded the wall which enclosed the cemetery. Again, she pressed a button on her watch as though she was setting herself a target or recording something she needed to remember. I blinked and they were gone.

  I went in through the iron gate and climbed up the wooded rise to Authors’ Ridge. I stared down at Thoreau’s simple gravestone. A sudden wind rustled the leaves of the trees around me. I felt a chill of cold and shivered.

  ‘You look cold,’ I heard someone say.

  I turned. A young woman stood behind me. She was tall and dressed in black and purple. She had back triangles painted around her eyes, her hair was shaved at the sides of her head and, on top, a spiked up band of light green hair in Mohican style ran down its centre. Her lips were heavily painted with black lipstick. She wore a tightly laced leather corset, a diaphanous short black skirt, black fishnet tights with holes at the knees, and long black gloves that finished just above her elbows.

  ‘Yes, I am cold,’ I said, taken aback by her sudden and dramatic appearance. ‘I didn’t see you when I walked up here.’

  ‘I rose up from the ground. Here, come with me. You need something to keep you warm. Where are you from? England, I bet. My name’s Sublime. Marcia told me about you. She said she thought you might be looking for something we could offer. Our patrol saw you earlier.’

  She walked ahead and I followed. She took long strides and I found it hard to keep up.

  ‘Keep up,’ she called back without turning. ‘You don’t want to get lost here. They’ll never find you again. That’s if someone is looking for you in the first place.’

  I jogged a few steps to catch her up.

  ‘What do you mean, “if someone is looking for me”?’

  ‘Nothing, sweetie. Don’t get uptight.’

  Her words reminded me of Father Dawson, and I felt a sudden wave of panic. I ran again to stop her getting too far in front.

  ‘Here! Down here!’

  She opened a heavy iron-spiked gate and led me into a small area surrounded on three sides by drooping heavy, black chains. On the remaining side, built into the slope of the hill was a stone built entrance to a tomb. I had seen it before, or at least something that looked just like it - a couple of years back, in Camden, New Jersey with Professor Harrington. And it carried the same inscription over the entrance “burial vault - on a sloping wooded hill - grey granite - un-ornamental - surroundings: trees, turf, sky, a hill everything crude and natural”.

  ‘We should find a bit of heat for your here, I think.’

  She bent and entered beneath the massive pitched granite lintels.

  ‘Come on! It’s dark inside!’

  I looked back to see if anyone was about then ducked my head and went inside.

  I couldn’t see anything! It was pitch-dark!

  I held my hands out in front of me, turning slowly from side to side. Something stuck to my hands - something clammy! I pulled back and shook my hands to get rid of it. Whatever it was it wound itself around my wrists! I shook my hands in panic. I felt the pounding of my heart in my throat.

  ‘There’s something on my hands! Something around my wrists!’

  I heard laughter. Suddenly there was light - blinding light. A flaring torch had been lit. I turned my face away. I looked at my hands. They were covered in cobwebs.

  Slowly, my eyes got used to the brightness and I calmed down. Sublime was standing in front of me holding a burning torch in her hand.

  ‘Come on. They’re waiting. Quickly!’

  I followed her down a passageway. Sparks crackled from the flaming torch and landed on the ground around Sublime’s booted feet. It was as if she was walking on fire.

  The tunnel opened up into a large cavern. Dark figures lined the walls. Sublime stopped and placed the torch in an iron stand.

  ‘I have brought her, master, as you instructed,’ she announced.

  She stood aside and indicated me with her outstretched hand. A figure stepped forward. His voice boomed out.

  ‘I am Athala. You are a lost soul seeking salvation?’

  He came into the light of the torch. He was tall and dark. His straight black hair hung down over his shoulders, his purple robe trailed to the ground, his face was pale, and his eyes dark.

  ‘Speak! Are you seeking salvation?’

  My blood ran cold!

  ‘Speak!’ he shouted.

  I trembled as I spoke - his words were so powerful, so commanding, I could say nothing else.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sublime! Undress her. She needs to be naked.’

  Sublime slowly undid the buttons of the blouse I had eventually bought to replace my wet T shirt. I shivered with a burst of excitement as my breasts were revealed. I looked down and saw my nipples hardening. She drew the blouse over my shoulders. It was cold inside the huge cavern and I shivered again as goose-pimples came up on my breasts. She undid my jeans and slipped them down to my ankles. I was wearing light blue panties and I squirmed my hips as she tugged them down. They caught in the flesh of my cunt - I felt the delightful tug as the flesh was pulled by the clinging material. She rested them just above my knees as one by one, she lifted my feet off the ground and removed the jeans then, after looking at my cunt for a moment, she drew the panties off over my feet in the same way.

  I stood naked, my arms by my side, my nipples aching with hardness, my cunt hot and wet with the moisture of excitement and anticipation.

  ‘Now, you may approach,’ said Athala. ‘But not standing. You are not fit as yet to stand in the presence of Athala. You must kneel first, show me your need for penitence, and then I may allow you to crawl before me.’

  I kept my knees together and knelt. I sat up straight and felt the tension between my shoulders and down my back. I wondered if he wanted me to put my hands together - to show him how much I needed his forgiveness. I could only think of being a penitent - laying my sins before him, letting him decide if he would offer to show me some light in my dark and hopeless life. I lifted my hands and pressed my palms together then put the tips of my fingers against my trembling lips. I felt my lips moving in a silent prayer - a prayer to Athala and the forgiveness which he held in his hands.

  ‘I see your desperation, my child. Sublime! You have done well to find her. Here! A reward for a faithful pet.’

  Sublime went to him and dropped to her knees at his feet. She looked up into his dark eyes expectantly. He opened his robe and revealed his hard throbbing cock, standing rigidly at an upward angle from the base of his flat stomach.

  ‘You may suck it for a few moments. I will allow you to take it deep into your throat, but not to hold it with your hands. Perhaps another time, when you have served me again, I will allow that.’

  I watched as Sublime slowly pressed her black lips against the pulsating tip of his cock. Her mouth opened as she contacted the hot burgeoning surface. It slid in - she did not pause. I watched first the tip enter then, as her throat tightened and her cheeks dished in, I watched the heavy, beating shaft enter until its base pressed hard against her clasping lips. She held it there, not breathing, looking up at him, her master - the one who had granted her this brief favour, this short moment of delectable pleasure.

  She rocked forward very slowly, and then rocked back in the same way. He did not move and I saw the shaft of his cock glistening with her spit as it was withdr
awn from her black-lipped mouth. He dropped his right hand behind her head and pulled her down onto it. Again it filled her throat. This time he held her there and she waited obediently until the time he would decide to release her. In the end, her salvation came. Casually, he removed his hand and drew back. His still-hard cock slipped out and I stared at its glistening venous surface as Sublime struggled for breath.

  She stayed on her knees as spit ran down in long gluey strands from her gaping mouth.

  He beckoned me forward.

  ‘On your hands and knees.’

  I went down on all fours and crawled towards him.

  ‘Slowly. There is no rush to repentance. Think of what you are doing. Let each rising hand remind you of your sins, let each scraping knee bring back the flavour of your evil ways. Think, as you approach me, how you have transgressed, how you have sought your own pleasure, allowed yourself to be punished just so that the fever of joy would be released from within you. Do not rush to my feet, for there will be little pleasure for you once you arrive.’

  I slowed down even more as I heard his ominous words. I measured the pace of my approach carefully and, each time I lifted my hand or moved my knees forward, I thought again of the ways I had been filled with pleasure at the hands of those who punished me. I reminded myself of the degradation and shame that I had been exposed to and how, no matter what depths of humiliation I had been drawn down to, I had still been rent by the heat in my cunt and the fire of my own burning orgasms. I felt a wave of shame and the need to repent.

  I looked down at Athala’s bare feet as I came nearer. I hoped he would allow me to lick them, to drip my spit on them, to feel them against my lips. Perhaps I might be able to bite at his toenails, or lick between his toes, or press my eyes against the prominent bones of his ankles. Or, more rightly, he might not let me do any of those things, and I would be forced only to imagine the pleasure of being held back, restrained from seeking out the joy of my uncontrolled desires. I shivered all over as I realised there was no way out of the trap in which I found myself - punishment gave me pleasure in the same way that having potential punishment withheld gave me pleasure. I was truly a sinner - ensnared in a paradox of ecstasy. Surely there was no salvation for someone like me.

  ‘You have been suffering, my child, and taking your pleasures with your pain. I will try and exorcise you of your evil. I will try and bring out the devil of pleasure which hides behind every lash, every scream, and every degrading humiliation to which you are subject.’

  I stopped at his feet. I wanted to bend my lips towards them. I would have been content with just that. I did not know if I could stand the ecstasy of actual contact with his skin. I waited expectantly.

  ‘Follow!’ he ordered.

  He turned and strode off into the darkness. I crawled behind him, each movement of my hips squeezing the softness of my cunt, each reach of my arms exerting extra tension against the throbbing aching in my nipples.

  His robe swirled around his feet as he walked up several steps onto a rostrum. He turned back, pulled his robe open and dropped down onto a heavy stone throne. He let his legs fall wide apart. His cock was still hard, the slow throbbing of his erection bulging out the heavy veins which ran up its massive shaft.

  ‘You may not come nearer. Lie on your back and open your legs. I will look at your naked cunt for a while and decide exactly how you should be punished. I need to select something which will cause only pain, from which you cannot release your own pleasure and need. Lie on your back. I must ponder the problem.’

  I did as he said - there was no alternative. I felt completely under his control. I looked up at the dark roof of the cavern - it flashed with the shimmering light of the torches which were placed around the walls. I opened my legs, aware that I was exposing my cunt fully to his gaze, and that it would be his seeing of it which dictated my punishment. I felt moisture on my flesh and knew that its soft surface was glistening in the light of the torches.

  I watched the flickering reflections on the roof as what seemed an age passed in silence. I thought I heard him leave his throne for a while, and I thought I saw a shadow cast across my body, but I did not take my gaze from where I had fixed it on the roof. I felt committed to carry out only his instructions. Shadows told me that others moved nearby, but still I forced myself to look only upwards.

  Suddenly, my hands were being held, my fingers were being prised open. Then something was forced across each of my palms, and I saw a fresh set of shadows flickering wildly on the dark roof. A torch had been placed in each of my hands. I felt the heat from the spluttering flames and hot, sparkling shards of fire spewed from them and fell around my arms.

  Then I felt bodies crouched by my legs. I did not dare look down. My ankles were grabbed. My legs were spread wide. Thin cords were tied around them and these were secured by metal pins driven into the ground. I flinched every time the hammer banged against the metal spikes. My cunt was fully exposed - I imagined its wetness glittering in the flickering light. I gripped the torches tightly in my hand. Still I did not move.

  I lay beneath the sparking flames of the torches - naked and exposed to the dark shadowy figures that surrounded me, my cunt open and bare, my nipples hard and throbbing as the hot glittering embers from the torches showered down upon them. I was terrified.

  ‘Now, my child, we shall see if there is a way of punishing you without releasing your pleasure. We shall see if the flames of your own desire can indeed be quelled by the fires of suffering.’

  I stared up at the roof - shadowy images danced across its uneven rock surface. I knew I must not look away - it was part of my test.

  ‘Let the test begin!’

  There was no pause, no time to prepare. I saw a fleeting shadow on the roof, and then I felt the cutting slap of a leather belt brought down squarely across the exposed flesh of my cunt. I did not know whether I felt pain or surprise, whether I was filled with fear or horror. I only knew I must keep the torches in my hands and my eyes firmly fixed on the shadowy ceiling of rock above me.

  The next came down, and the next, and the next. Each time I saw a fleeting glimpse of shadows, a sense of movement in the torchlight, but nothing more. The pain was intense - it penetrated me so deeply, every part of me was burned by it, every nerve I had was scorched by it. Surely this was pure pain. It could serve no other purpose than to inflict hurt.

  Sparks flew from the torches in a storm of flashing shards. I gripped them as hard as possible. I never moved - not for a second did I give in to the lacerating pain that the belt brought to my exposed cunt. But my inability to respond spelled my doom. I did not have to move. I did not have to squirm or rise up to the cutting belt. I did not have to lift my hips to meet it, or tighten my buttocks to feel the squeezing pressure on my flesh. It was enough that the pain was there, that I was enduring it, that there was no escape, no relief, no promise that it would end. It was enough that I was secured by my ankles, and that my hands were gripping the torches. It was enough that my ankles were held fast by the ropes and pins, and that my hands were held fast by my own obligation to do as I was instructed. And, as the belt came down time after time, and I stared at the flickering images on the ceiling, and the sparks spluttered from the fiery torches, I felt the heat of my own desire burning inside me. I don’t know where it started - it was impossible to tell, I was too racked with pain to tell - but it spread throughout me and centred on the vicious pain that covered and penetrated the soft flesh of my cunt. I tried to hold my breath - to keep it back - but it was a pointless effort. I bit my lips, I let my mouth fill with spit, I pressed my tongue against the back of my teeth, but nothing held it back. Suddenly, I opened my mouth. It was like a demon escaping. Breath burst from me. It was released like an explosion and, as the belt came down again and again - thrashing the flesh of my cunt, opening it more, bruising it, setting it on fire - my own joy flooded through me and
I drowned beneath its tormenting, unstoppable surge.

  It was raining hard as I walked slowly down to the iron gate that led out onto the road. I dropped the latch behind me - it clanked like a cell door. I felt as if I had been released early from a prison, as if my sentence had been commuted, as if I was a hopeless case, rejected as impossible to rehabilitate. I had not looked back, but had left the tomb of Athala feeling only despondent and dejected. It seemed as though I was truly beyond redemption. It seemed as though no pain or suffering could hold back my pleasure. The beating had continued but it had only released more joy. My ecstasy had grown as it had continued and I had screamed out with delight as I lay unmoving beneath the torrent of cutting blows.

  Rain dripped from the end of my nose and off my chin as I leant against the curving wall that bordered the cemetery.

  I saw some figures approaching - it was the small group of runners I had seen earlier. The beautiful Oriental girl was still at the front. Their heavy swatches of hair bobbed from side to side as they approached. The group paused. The Oriental girl smiled and looked at her watch.

  ‘You were not too long,’ she said. ‘I will check you out at 3.30. Safe to carry on now. Goodbye. Come on, patrol.’

  She waved to the group and together they started running again.

  I watched them jogging along the pavement that ran alongside the long snaking wall of the cemetery. I realised that they were not just passing runners, they were a patrol, guarding the perimeter to the cemetery and what it enclosed. They had checked me in and checked me out. I could not be the only one seeking the treatment of Athala. I was filled with dread as a thought occurred to me. Could I be the only one for whom it did not work?