Chapter Fifteen – The Secret Theater of Pain and Degradation
1. Coming Round
“Three!”
Amy’s comfortable dream became a sudden waking nightmare. She had been—she thought—riding her favorite pony, giving it free rein and holding her arms outstretched for balance. In the nightmare, her ankles and wrists were spread wide and pinioned by ropes to two thick upright poles. In the dream she’d been wearing a clinging, suede cowgirl dress covered in spangles and rhinestones. Now, as a sudden draught swirled across her flesh, she realized she wore no clothes at all. Every single item of clothing, even her underwear and best court-style shoes, had been taken from her.
Amy gasped in horror, twisted in the ropes and grimaced as they bit into her slender wrists. Looking around wildly in the guttering candlelight, she saw canvas—evidently this was a tent—but there was more. Paula, similarly naked, was bound hand and foot, lying on the ground a few yards away. Another young woman sat, legs splayed to either side of Paula’s head, which she had grasped by the hair. Paula’s face, hidden from Amy’s view, was being forced into the woman’s… Amy shuddered involuntarily.
The link between the dream and the waking nightmare lay in the person of the ringmaster, who now stood before her. A little over average height, slim-hipped yet athletic, with slicked-back dark hair and piercing green eyes, he regarded her at arm’s length. Appraising her, Amy thought, as if she were merchandise in a market.
A blush colored her cheeks. She’d never been looked at that way by any man she knew—still less by a complete stranger like the ringmaster. She pulled again at the ropes, only to find they were utterly secure, and a moan of frustration escaped her lips.
Ringmaster?
Memories came at her in a blurred rush. The circus. The ‘special performance.’ Being drawn out of the audience. Trying on a new dress, one that fitted like a glove and made her look wild, untamed. Riding a pony bareback…
“You wicked bastard,” she said levelly, looking into his eyes. “You hypnotized me!”
The ringmaster shrugged, “I merely allowed you to express your hidden desires. One cannot be hypnotized without consent. That would be quite improper.”
“No,thisis improper. Let me go and give me back my clothes!”
His reply was simply to reach out and grasp a nipple between finger and thumb. Amy squeaked in outrage and tried to shrink back from the invasive hand, but merely bounced on the ropes as his grip tightened. The ringmaster grinned.
“I think not,” he said. “I’m merely following your own express desires, as announced to a hundred or so witnesses… And such a performance you gave! You’ve the makings of a good trouper. I saw it in you as soon I clapped eyes on you. Plus, you have such a wonderful body; it’d be a sin to hide it under clothes.”
Performance? What on earth had he made her do while she’d been under his influence? A shudder of revulsion started somewhere deep in her belly. But there was something else, some half-memory, in the back of her mind.
His hand was still roaming over her breast. If Amy had been the kind of person who’d learned to spit, she’d have spat in his face.
“Untie me! Now! And get that… that woman to stop doing… what she’s doing… with Paula! Or else…” She stopped, the stretched position straining her belly and taking strength from her lungs, and tried to take a deep breath.
The ringmaster’s hand circled her tit teasingly, then held it as if testing its weight. The extended position she was restrained in had flattened Amy’s naturally pert shape, so there wasn’t much to test. She endured the fingering with clenched teeth.
“Or else…?” the ringmaster demanded. His face was in shadow but she could see his amusement. “On the contrary, what I’m doing now, and what I shall be doing shortly, is exactly what you really want me to do: I’m letting you join the circus. Consi
