The voyage was long and rough, far worse than the journey out, that had so undone the nubile Polly. The problem arising from that young woman's defection, for no lady of quality could make a voyage aboard a ship full of men without a female companion, was solved very

satisfactorily by engaging the services of a young widow who had come to William's notice through his titular Consular duties, when she had arrived on his doorstep destitute, and with no alternative but to go on the streets of Palermo. For her passage home, she was more than happy to assume nominal stewardship of Arabella's virtue, and a rather more practical stewardship of her hair and clothes.

Carlo and she had exchanged little more than politnesses since the night he had thrashed her for her folly in going unescorted into the mountains of Petraverdi. Now, in the intervals of more clement weather, they walked on the deck and talked.

He asked if she were fully recovered from the events at Petraverdi, but made no other reference to the beating, and subsequent degradation. Certainly no apology, seeming to assume quite naturally the right to correct and guide her, a right she found herself conceding without protest.

Instead he told her of his reasons for visiting England, and enlisting her aid in the enterprise. It seemed he had been approached with a view to investing in the great manufacturies that were springing up in that country, to the amazement of the rest of Europe, only now just

recovering from the ravages of the wars against Napoleon, and the social upheavals in their wake. It was not just a matter of investing the financial resources of

Petraverdi to best advantage, but also a desire to see these new developments for himself, to see if they should be brought to Sicily for the benefit of his people. The businessmen, who had taken up so much of his time lately, had painted rosy pictures of the money to be made, and the enriched lives of the workers.

Isolated as she was, by birth and status, from the life of the towns, she could contribute little about manufacturing, but her extensive family connections among men in the City of London who knew, and possessed, money would be useful, and she promised to introduce him in these circles on their arrival.

It was New Year before they eventually beat their way up the Channel, and reached the great port of London at last. Arabella thought of her friends at Cousin Charlotte's and wondered, with a twinge of regret, what adventures they were getting up to. She squeezed her thighs on the ring in her healing clitoris to remind herself of her self-imposed curb on her recklessness.

Not all her friends had taken to the country, and there was plenty of social life to which she could introduce Carlo, after his busy days of commercial affairs. Then came the time when he had to go north on a tour of the new revolutionary manufacturing enterprises he had come so far to see. And while the cat was away the mouse (Some mouse!) would play. Her favourite dress maker was sent for and sworn to secrecy, and a new evening gown took shape.

It was sensational. A plain, chaste gown over hips and

waist and up the bodice, but there all thought of chastity stopped. The lace-edged cups that held her breasts barely covered her nipples, which threatened at any moment to rise above the horizon, like little morning suns, and dazzle the beholders. Serenely she glided through the company, curtsied to her hostess, dined, danced, and waved her fan at acquaintances across the floor. Her cousins cornered her in an interval and almost

forcibly bore her off to 'repair her toilette', although, patently, there was no need for such an operation.

"Arabella. You cannot parade like that. It's a miracle you have not popped out already, I can see the top edges of both your sweet pink rosettes quite clearly. The men have not taken their eyes off you all evening, even Lord Randolph, and he's over fifty."

"Yes," exclaimed the other, "what would happen if you curtsied to your partner just too deeply? The way you are laced, once they were out, they'd never go back. You'd be disgraced."

"Oh, girls, girls. Don't fuss so," Arabella smiled at them, "I've already thrown myself about, and no harm done. 'Tis just a trick. Shall I show you the way of it?"

Round-eyed they watched as she slid slim fingers into the lacy cups, and gasps escaped them as her breasts, released, sprang into view and spilled over the top of the gown, the bright gold rings in her nipples gleaming in the candlelight.

"'Tis all the fashion in Sicily, and I had my rings put in there, but never had the occasion to wear them thus before I came away." "They are so beautiful," exclaimed the elder cousin, "I once heard my Grandmother tell how ladies had worn rings like this, when she was a girl, but had thought she made it up to scandalise us. She was ever at such tricks, telling stories of ladies cavorting with coachmen, or using pieces of ivory, carved into the form of the male member, to pleasure themselves. Any unlikely tale to shock our young ears."

"Well, these are real enough," put in her sister, gently fingering a now erect nipple, and the bright metal ring adorning it.

"Once word of this gets out, 'twill be all the rage, and none but Grandmas and old maids will dare be seen at a soireŠ or ball without at least a hint of their aureoles peeping out." She turned eager eyes on her cousin.

"Do you know the way of it? We must be the first with the fashion. After you of course, dearest Arabella," she added hastily.

By the time Carlo returned, the fashion had swept society, and women, young and not so young, vied to see how much they could expose. Carlo surveyed the sea of winking rosettes and a few nipples, and observed that someone must have imported the fashion from Sicily. Arabella laughed and owned up to her prank.

"You seem to read my every action."

"And you are grateful, no?" he queried. She squeezed his arm in assent, and affection.

The weeks went by. Though they shared a full social life, Carlo's business affairs seemed to take up more and more of his time as they seemed to be nearing fruition, then thunderclouds began to gather. At first a mere frown from time to time, which deepened into deep lines of worry. Carlo's easy manners became strained, and he seemed to be carrying some heavy burden. Outwardly the world would notice little, but she was getting familiar with his ways and could detect the signs during their rare moments together.

One evening he drew her aside.

"Arabella, my dear, I think it would be better if you were to distance yourself from me for a while." His face grave, he went on. "I will refrain from calling on you so frequently, and we will take care not to be seen together so constantly at the social functions we attend." Arabella surprised herself by the strength of the feeling of

devastation that surged through her. Why was he throwing her off like this? What had she done that was so irredeemable that he was not even prepared to try and correct her? For weeks now she had resisted the lurking impulses to kick over the traces, sustained by his presence and the physical reminder she carried in her most intimate flesh. Indeed, during his longer absences, she had taken to hanging a pearl drop, in a heavy gold mount, from the ring in her clitoris so that, each time she moved, each time she sat or rose again, she was reminded of her need to guard against further folly. Now he was withdrawing his support

permanently, or so it seemed. It was not to be borne.

"But Carlo, what have I done? Correct me for my fault, I will submit to anything, but do not cast me off," she wailed.

"Oh, my dear," he said, concern and contrition in his tone, "you do not understand. I do not suggest we distance ourselves because you have offended me. The very opposite is the case, and I care for you so much, I am willing to sacrifice your company in order that you are not caught up in the disgrace that seems likely to overtake me."

"Disgrace! What can you mean? I know you to be the most honourable of men, so how can you be disgraced?"

"I'm afraid that, unwittingly, I've been keeping company with men who are far from honourable and, through their scheming, it is entirely possible that I may be made to take the blame for their misdeeds, while they make off with the proceeds. All is not yet lost, but for some time to come I shall be in danger, and I will not have you brought down with me."

It seemed that the companies ostensibly set up as vehicles for investment in manufactures had been used by his colleagues to perpetrate wholesale swindles on the general public, and that Carlo would be seen, on paper, as the sole culprit. Given time he might be able to cover the embezzled funds, and restore the original legitimate purpose, but for the time being a sword of Damocles hung over him.

"There is no question of us parting," declared Arabella firmly, "I am much too dependent on you for my sensible behaviour.(What was she saying!) I came to London with you to offer you any family connections that might prove useful, and I'll not desert you at the very moment they are most needed.

"Tomorrow," she continued, "I shall ask my Uncle Randolph, Lord Partingham, to see me, and put your case to him. He is deep in all the financial affairs of the City, and politics and the courts as well. If any man can help us, it will be he."

True to her word, she sent a note to her Uncle the next morning and, by mid-afternoon was seated in his spacious study laying out the facts in well ordered detail.

"So you see, Uncle, he really is in considerable danger," she concluded, "and through no fault of his own, except for assuming that other men were as honourable as himself. I really would be most grateful if you could find a moment to look into the matter, as apart from the injustice of it, he has been of great service to me when I was in Sicily, and he has come to mean a lot to me."

"Has he indeed. Then I must, indeed, see what may be done." Lord Randolph gave her a look that left her feeling slightly uneasy.

He was a large handsome man of about fifty, her Mother's half brother. She had often felt his eyes on her, ever since she became a woman, and his embraces had sometimes been a little over warm for so close a relative. Well, if the old lecher fancied her, so much the better under the circumstances. It would, she hoped, stir his zeal on Carlo's behalf, and so it seemed for twenty-four hours later, she received a summons to attend him again.

"Do you have news for me?" she asked, seated again in his study. "I do indeed," Lord Randolph replied, "but you may not thank me for it. It seems your friend, the Count, is in very deep indeed. As you say, he's likely to be made the scapegoat in this affair. Being a foreigner, it will go very hard for him if the swindle is ever made public. He'll be committed to Newgate and, once inside, I see little chance of him getting free. It will suit several people's book very well, if he takes the blame, and languishes there for twenty years."

"Twenty years!" gasped Arabella in horror. "Is there nothing you can do to prevent this then?"

"Why, yes. There might well be ways, if I am minded to." He looked at her very directly.

"Then we must act at once," she burst out impulsively, "I will do anything within my power to help him."

"I do not doubt it, my dear young lady," he replied, "the question is, will I?"

"But Uncle, you promised to do all you could."

"And so I shall, but at a price, and the price, dear girl, is you." A cold shudder ran down her back. She had always sensed his lust, and now it was out in the open. Well, she'd said she would do anything within her power to help Carlo and this, however degrading, was

certainly within her power.

"But Uncle, that would be incest," she protested.

"Only half incest," came the mocking response, "indeed, it could be argued it is not not technically incest at all. I do not propose spurting my seed against your womb, so there'd be no true intercourse, and you'd go in no fear of a swollen belly."

"Then what do you require of me?" she asked in a tone of acid. "I want your arse."

"My arse?" Disbelief, incomprehension and disgust all mixed. "I will spell it out for you, my dear, so that there can be no possible ambiguity about what I require, and you will pay." He leaned back in his chair, and spoke quite dispassionately and concisely, as if enumerating the terms of a lease or contract. "I will arrange to deflect any action against the Count for one calendar month. In exchange, you will give me, for the course of one evening the use of your arse, that is that part of

the rear of your body, that lies between your waist and your thighs. I will undertake not to interfere with any other portion of your anatomy and, especially will refrain from penetrating or depositing semen in your vagina.

"You'll find my requirements will make considerable demands on your resources," he added, "for they will include buggery, and the whip, but you have declared that you would do anything in your power, and this is you chance to make good your boast."

Arabella regarded him with a mixture of disgust, dismay and contempt. "And if he is unable to extricate himself within a month, what then?" "Why then," he replied, nonchalantly, "another evening's use of your arse buys another month. I will not press you for your answer this evening. I have drawn up a small memorandum of the Count's position so that you may see for yourself the seriousness of his predicament. If, when you have studied it, you come to the same conclusion, that you and I are his only hope of escaping confinement in Newgate, a confinement he is not likely to survive, send me your acceptance, and I will commence proceedings. But do not delay over long. The matter is pressing and, once the trap is sprung, even I will not be able to save your friend." "There is no need to delay," said Arabella, stiffly, "you have my acceptance. When do you require your pound of flesh?"

"Many shapely pounds, I believe, and just possibly, a drop or two of blood. Indeed I'm sure of it, since I intend to whip your globes severely. Be ready tomorrow evening. I will send my carriage for you when I am ready. I shall require you to bare yourself completely from the waist down, otherwise you may arrange your costume as you please." Arabella drew herself up straight.

"Very well, Sir. I shall be ready for your carriage when it calls. In the meantime, I expect you to honour your word and set all in train, as you engaged," and she swept from the room with no further farewell. The following evening found her full of mounting

apprehension. She had told Carlo merely that Lord Randolph was taking an interest, and was hopeful of averting disaster in the short term, and pleaded her monthlies as a reason for not seeing him that night, then called upon her hard-won experience to make what preparation she could for her coming ordeal.

She bathed with care and then had her maid massage her buttocks thoroughly, working plenty of oil in, to make the skin more elastic, since this did in fact reduce the extent of splitting under punishment. While she was massaged, she wore in her anus an almost life-sized dildo, heavily greased, to prepare that tight and tender orifice for what, she feared, would be a brutal anal rape. Uncle Randolph had long lusted after her, and she was sure he would extract the last drop of pain and degradation from her, now that she had agreed to submit to his demands. When it came time to dress, she kept her outfit to a

minimum, to the evident perplexity of her maid, though the girl was too well trained to voice an opinion. She wore her deepest, strictest corset against her skin, since he had specified that she should later be bare from the waist down. In some strange way she wanted the grip of the corset as some sort of symbolic protection of her person, even though she had agreed to a substantial part of it being given over unreservedly for him to abuse at his pleasure.

She was not sure if bare from the waist down precluded shoes and stockings, but wore them all the same, for her pride's sake. She had the maid remove the plug stretching her sphincter in preparation for what was like to be a brutal penetration, and apply a fresh coating of grease, inside as well as out. With her own not quite steady fingers she unhooked the pearl drop that

usually tugged meaningfully at her clitoris. She was committed to her folly, if it was one, and no twinges, in what served her in lieu of a guardian angel, were going to save her now. Finally a simple gown overall and she was ready.

At each carriage that clopped and jingled down the street below her window, she tensed and held her breath, expecting it to stop at her door, and found herself trembling as it continued on its way to some other assignation. In the event, she failed to hear it among other traffic on the road, and her heart lurched when the maid entered to tell her that the carriage awaited. With her head held high and a brave face, she descended the stairs, and entered the conveyance that was to take her to her contracted evening of pain and degradation.

Later, much later, she lay naked, face down on her bed, her body racked by sobs of shame, disgust and revulsion, her buttocks a flaming mass of bruised flesh and bloody trails, her anus throbbing agonizingly, while a sticky trickle escaped her defeated sphincter.

He had buggered her, swiftly and as brutally as she had feared, almost the instant she had arrived, and discarded her gown. He had taken her over his heavy desk in the same study where she had accepted his daunting bargain and, once his first lust was slaked, had kept her bending there while he thrashed her with a riding crop.

When she could stay down no longer, he had mocked her for her failure to live up to the stories of her endurance that had circulated through the clubs of St.James's, and she had somehow found the strength to go back. When he had finally beaten her into a weeping, pleading 'thing', he had taken her anus again. His lust had returned with his subjection of her body, but this was not the short sharp rape that had opened the evening's ordeal. This time he rode her steadily, and lengthily, his powerful strokes rocking her unresisting body, as he thrust deep into her rectum, drawing moans of pain as his great iron-hard staff battered its tender walls, before discharging his sticky seed into her depths. Later, stained with her bowel's content, it oozed out between her cheeks.

When it was over, he had thrown her gown at her, and told her she was to leave at once, without repairing her dress or appearance.

Now she lay in her misery, and clung to the one thought that had sustained her through those frightful hours in Lord Randolph's study. Whatever the cost, she had won Carlo a month's grace from his

persecutors. Would it be enough? She prayed it would, but if it were not, then she would not hesitate to do it all again.

"Oh, Carlo, Carlo," she moaned into her pillow, "I have been through hell for you, and I can't even tell you, lest you try to stop me. Pray God you can clear your name quickly but, if I have to, I'll buy you another month, and as many more thereafter as it takes, though my arse be cut to ribbons, and bored big enough to drive a coach through." Her prayer was not answered, for the next month Lord Randolph sent his carriage for her again, and again she suffered at his hands. It was after this visit that Carlo seemed to start believing, for the first time, that he might indeed save his freedom, and reputation. The strain in his face seemed to Arabella to have eased a little, though still evident to one such as she that knew him well.

"You're right, my dear," he agreed, when she remarked on it, "the situation is still very dangerous, but I do have faith now that, given time, I can cover all the monies that have been stolen. The saving grace is that the wolves seem to be hanging back from pulling me down. I can only think that your Uncle's power is very great, and he can bend people to his will."

Arabella groaned inwardly at the thought of bending to her Uncle's will; her next summons was due in a week.

When it came, the ordeal that followed took a new twist. On her first two visits, the pattern had been similar. She had been taken to the study, where she had stripped and then been buggered, whipped, and buggered again, before being sent home, still clutching her clothing. This time she was taken to a bare windowless room before being made to remove her gown.

Although the room was constructed mainly of stone, a heavy wooden partition had been built across one end, shutting off a space about four foot deep. A hole had been cut in the centre of the partition at waist height and, when she had been made to bend and put her whole upper body through the hole, Arabella found herself looking into a confined space lit only through an open access door at one end of the partition. Her corsetted bust rested on a small shelf, just within the opening, and her arms hung down either side of it. Lord Randolph entered the confined space and secured her wrists with straps, so that her arms were

stretched downwards, and she was quite unable to withdraw. Her

immobility was completed a moment later when, shutting the door behind him, leaving her in total darkness, he passed behind her and drew her ankles well apart, securing them to ring bolts set in the floor. Her confinement was completed by a shaped plank, with padded edge, which dropped down onto her waist and effectively sealed her upper person from the room. She was very aware that her lower person was displayed, fully and vulnerably, on the other side of the screen. Half a naked and anonymous female who must submit to any demands made on her, since she lacked any means to resist.

The seal about her waist was not so efficient as to cut off every last vestige of sound, although for some minutes there seemed to be complete silence, as if Lord Randolph had left the room. Then she became aware of sounds that made her blood run cold.

Men's voices! How many she could not tell, but the room behind her seemed to fill up, and she thought she caught the scent of cigar smoke and brandy. Her mind and body both revolted at the thought of being used by a crowd, but what could she do, confined as[ she was? There was no point in crying out a protest. Even if it could be heard above the babble of voices on the other side of the partition, Lord Randolph would not spare her; indeed, it would be like him to claim that in giving her arse to him, she gave him the right to dispose of it in any way, and to whomsoever he chose. Besides, if she were heard, it would be only too likely that more than one of the men would be from their own tight society, and would recognise her voice. She bit her lip and waited, trembling, for whatever was to befall.

When it came it was predictable, but no less devastating for that. Some arrangements seemed to be in hand, perhaps fixing the order of their participation, and then the voices died to a murmur, as if proceedings were about to commence. Suddenly an atrocious blaze of pain across her stretched buttocks. As she gasped and groaned, it was repeated, cutting into her widest and fullest part, and in turn was succeeded by another and another, until seven bands of agony burned in her flesh. Seven? A magic number? Half the notorious 'butcher's' dozen? She had no way of knowing and, before she could give any thought to the matter, a hard probe was nuzzling the cringing anus she had had greased so carefully not an hour before to try and help her endure this

inevitable penetration. The rod pressed harder and she tried, against all instinct, to relax the sphincter, and ease its entrance. Bitter experience had taught her that resistance not only heightened the pain, but prolonged the agony. It was best to aid her ravisher and get it over with, since buggery was inevitable.

The member felt enormous, greater than she remembered her Uncle's, and its thrusts rocked and threatened to rend her, but, after an eternity of battering, above which she could hear his companions' shouts of

encouragement, his juice burst into her rectum, and the bruising phallus collapsed into a soft rope which slid stickily from her leaking

aperture.

She slumped in her bonds, and gasped for the breath that had been driven from her body. As her breathing steadied, the conversation behind her dropped to a murmur again, and she braced herself for the next assault. Again seven strokes, and again a brutal anal rape. Man followed man, she lost count after the fifth or sixth had had her scream herself nearly senseless by striking her on her thighs, before stabbing her anus with his iron-hard member, with no attempt at getting the tip lodged in the opening before making his thrust. It was as well that he came down the order, when her anus and rectum had been stretched and anointed and she ran with grease and semen, or she might have sustained worse injuries than the intimate bruising he inflicted.

She never knew if Lord Randolph had taken a turn among his guests and if so, when. They were just nameless arms, wielding that cruel crop, and nameless penises, tearing her tender membranes, ten, even a dozen of them, she was past caring when the last finished with her, and the voices died away.

After a long interval of silence, she sensed the door opening again. Dear God! Let it be Lord Randolph to release her, and not to take the turn he forwent in favour of his guests. A hand rested lightly on her furrowed buttocks, and explored the damage inflicted by the crop, and the bulging anus swollen and pouting from the abuse it had suffered. A woman's voice spoke behind her.

"So this is how Randolph amuses himself." A cultured voice. One of her own class, perhaps Lady Partingham herself. Arabella did not know her Aunt well, since Lord Randolph had remarried some five years ago, and in any case, the baffle between them made her words difficult to hear, especially in Arabella's distressed condition.

"I wonder who you are. His Mistress, perhaps, or just some whore prepared to earn her pay very hardily? No matter," she went on, in the same conversational tones, "since you are bought and paid for either way, I feel I am entitled to a share of his sport."

Arabella shuddered at the cool menace in that emotionless voice, then screamed as she had not done before. The crop had risen between her thighs, and caught her a searing cut right into her vulva, exposed as it was by the wide-legged, deeply bent pose enforced upon her. Four more 'screamers' slashed into her cunt (she thanked whatever God there was that the woman, apparently, was unaware that seven was the approved number for the evening.) before the dreadful torment ceased, and the slim feminine hands returned to her rear.

"That will teach you to have intercourse with His Lordship," she murmured, "now let us see what we have here. Ah, a buggered bumhole. Yes that's a reamed anus, if ever I saw one. Well, I'll take my turn here too, since that is the name of the game this evening."

First one slim finger explored the tender spot, then two. They worked their way in, rotating and probing, and were joined by a third. The pain and discomfort of this new assault on her bruised and abraded intimate parts drew fresh groans from the pinioned victim, which grew in

intensity as a fourth finger and then the thumb joined their fellow. Surely she cannot go further. There was no way that a fist, even a feminine fist, could be thrust into that tight place!

But there was a way, a pitiless, inexorable, agonizing way. Her fingers formed into a driving wedge, the woman pressed remorselessly into the anus, twisting right and left, while the strained and throbbing sphincter whitened as it slowly rose towards the knuckles, to the accompaniment of a broken mewling from behind the screen. At last it reached the crest and, to a choked cry from penetratee, the penetrator thrust her whole hand past the obstruction, and deep into Arabella's bowel.

The shock of the deep impalement, momentary relief, as the fist stretch of the sphincter relaxed to mere wrist, and then an

extraordinary atrocious, stomach-churning, nerve-stretching sensation, for the woman had opened her fingers within the crammed rectum, and was groping among the organs packed behind the taut and now distended belly. Nothing had prepared Arabella for this mixture of agony and

over-stimulation, and she howled in her distress.

The woman laughed, and passed her other hand between

Arabella's thighs again to caress the vulva she had so savagely lacerated a few minutes before.

"What have we here?" she remarked in a tone of surprise as her fingers found the ring in the clitoris. "For your gentleman callers to see if anyone's at home?" She gave a savage tug. "Ah, yes. A she-cat on heat by the sound of it." as Arabella shrieked with pain. "Well, now I've rung your bell, and we've shaken hands, I'd best be off before Randolph catches me with his best toy; I woudn't want him to get me to take your place. Don't bother to show me the door, I can find my own way out." And she pulled her hand free in one strong movement, almost turning the poor over-wrought sphincter inside-out, and drawing another agonized wail. When Lord Randolph returned from saying Adieu to the cronies with whom he had shared his prize, she was only semi-concious in her bonds.