Tales of Drysdale House (11A)

 My apologies that this took so long to post.It is a complex chapter and as a novice to AI images, I could not get what I wanted. The chapter ran very long so it will be posted over two days, tomorrow will be 11B, The whipping of Hannah Quigley

Tale 11A Feeding Hannah Quigley

Hannah’s cell was something out of a medieval movie. Stone flagstones made up the floor, the walls were of the quarried stone blocks that made up the foundation and cellars of Dragonwyck House. The ceiling was slightly vaulted; there was no natural light. The illumination came from a single incandescent bulb in the far corner, high in a sconce on the wall. It was a dismal room. The large cell was designed for more than one prisoner and was some twenty feet by thirty. Hannah was secured to a wall, out of sight of the barred window in the sturdy oak door. Her back was to me; she was sobbing.

“How can I eat this? there is no way I can eat this.”

I approached the girl, my boots made little or no sound. Hannah was kneeling with her back to me. She had a heavy iron collar around her neck; a chain ran from the collar to a ring bolt secured to the wall. Except for a pair of lacy red panties, the girl was nude. I cleared my throat; she did not respond. I crouched behind her and gently touched her arms. The poor girl started violently but did not turn around.

“Hannah? Hannah, Barbara is worried about you. How did you come to be in this state?”

The crying stopped, but she did not move.

“Hannah” It is me, Patrick Masters. How did you come to be in this state?”

“I can’t eat my food. They did not bring me a spoon. How can I eat my food if they didn’t bring me a spoon? They brought me a spoon at breakfast, but they didn’t bring me a spoon now. I haven’t eaten all day and I have no spoon.”

The girl was shaking; her shoulders were heaving. She was not audibly crying anymore but was in a highly emotional state. Clearly, she had been through a great deal in the last little while. She was naked, or nearly so, in a stone dungeon in a creepy old house. There was a heavy iron collar around her throat. She was chained to a wall. And yet she focused on a simple thing, the lack of a spoon with which to eat her gruel. She was hungry yet had no way to eat. Focusing on the lack of a simple utensil likely made it easier to avoid thinking about the greater horrors which had doubtless afflicted her in the past few hours.

“Hannah, you must eat. Hunger is making you hysterical. Take some of the gruel and eat it!”

The girl continued to shake. Her head turned back and forth in negation.”

“Can’t eat, no spoon. Hate Nutri-girl. Nasty stuff. Not fit for a decent woman. No spoon, can’t eat.”

Her fugue state continued. I slapped her face. Not hard, just hard enough to get her attention.  She stopped speaking, looking at me for the first time.

“Mr Masters? Are you here to help me. Look at what they have done to me? No don’t look at me! They took my clothes away, they whipped me, they did other things. Don’t look.”

Throughout all this, she kept hold of the bowl with both hands.

My voice was level and measured as I spoke.

“Barbara is worried about you. She asked me if I knew what had happened to you. What would your sister say if she saw right now?”

“No, she can never no, she can never see me like this. She warned me to stay away from Vansittart.”

She was losing control again. I dipped three fingers in the bowl of Nutri-girl and lifted it towards her mouth. She tried to turn her face away. I grabbed her jaw with my other hand and forced her mouth open. I shoved in some of the nutritious balanced food. As the food entered her mouth, her normal reflexes took over. She took it off my fingers. She swallowed like a good girl.

“Lick the rest of my fingers, then you can have some more.”

She cleaned off my fingers, then opened her mouth. I conveyed some more of the sticky mess to her mouth. Hunger took over; her panic forgotten in fulfilling basic needs, she greedily took in the food. She regressed to a simple eating animal; filling her belly was all. Each time I put some of the food in her mouth, she licked my fingers with greater attention, sucking all the gruel from my digits. Her hands never let go of their death-grip on the wooden bowl.

As her breathing calmed, she ate less greedily, less in an animalistic fashion. When she had eaten a third of the bowl, I said.

“Enough for now. Take some time to digest. You should drink something; is there any drinking water?”

I had left my pack in the servant’s alcove of the Dragonwyck’s Great Hall. I had some items with me, including my canteen and Ander’s crossbow, but did not want to part with the water I carried unless it was necessary. She answered.

“There are three buckets on the bench over there. The left hand one is drinking water; the middle one is for washing. The right hand one is for, uh, waste.”

On a bench just within Hannah’s reach if the chain on her collar was stretched as far as it would go were the three buckets. I went and filled a small cup with water and brought it to the shaking girl. She carefully set the bowl down and sipped the water slowly. She was now in more command of herself.

I watched as she drank. When she was done, I fetched another cup. She drank slowly. Hannah was still on her knees. I knew from my friends in the Frick family the powerful symbolism of feeding and watering a woman. Particularly one on her knees, in a collar, with only a wisp of silk around her loins. The silk, thin, semi-transparent, and in some places merely lace was little covering. She looked up at me.

“You shouldn’t be looking at me. Not in this state. Please get my clothes and get my out of here.”

She didn’t’ try to cover herself with her hands. I surmised that in the time, at least a day, that she had been in this stone prison, she had been taught that was not allowed.

“I can’t right now. I don’t have the keys. But I will get you out of this place. I promised your sister, Barbara.”

It was a lie that I didn’t have the keys. I had the master keys I had taken from the fleeing servants. But I could not have her in the way when settling accounts with VanRijn and Vansittart. Besides, Hannah’s appearance would cause a hue and cry and Anders and I needed secrecy.

“You are well worth looking at, very attractive, very attractive indeed.”

Hannah seemed pleased to be complimented; and upset that she was appraised, naked and kneeling. Still she made no move to get up, her hands started to flutter towards covering her breasts, then were still by her side.

“Please don’t look at my breasts.”

“You have lovely tits. You must be proud of them.”

Hawkins, the assistant foreman for special livestock, ie slaves, on the Lazy F had once told me, ‘Ladies have breasts, free women have boobs, slaves have tits.’ Years of handling acquisitions had made Hawkins jaded by female beauty.

Hannah looked up at me.

“Please don’t stare at my breasts.” She took a deep breath. “I am not proud of them, I did nothing to earn them, they are all natural. But I am pleased with them, better than most women, I think. Nicely shaped, and firm, and dense.”

She sounded proud.

I squatted down on my haunches and gazed at her belly and pussy encased in the red silk. The wisp of silk clinging to her loins conformed to her nicely, revealing much. She was mostly shaven, except for a circular patch, like a soul patch, around an inch in diameter, just above her slit. The girl reddened. Embarrassment? Excitement? A bit of both?

“Oh God, stop, please. Look at my tits, anywhere else please. Oh God, get me out of here, please I beg…”

I cut her off.

“I want you to think about something before you beg to be freed. Consider the collared girl, Lena, that VanRijn keeps here.”

“Oh, that poor girl. VanRijn says she is a slave. In this day and age!”

I interrupted Hannah again.

“That is Mr VanRijn to you. While you are naked and, in his dungeon, I think you should talk about him respectfully.”

“Yes, sir. I will sir.”

Her head had dropped at the sound of authority in my voice. She was in a heavy iron collar, attached by an iron chain to a stone wall; she was naked except for a wisp of silk clinging to her loins.

“I am sorry, sir.”

“VanRijn claims the right to hold slaves by an ancient charter from 1625 to his ancestors, a charter that was never revoked. How would Lena ever get free?”

“She could petition a court, sir. She could petition for her freedom. And then the judge and the court would rule for her freedom.”

“Would it? Don’t be so sure. Courts change their opinions based on the social conditions of the time. The New Feminism is gaining strength; society is dividing women into Good Upright Decent Women, and dangerous, wild women who need to be controlled. Who need to be under authority. Call it slavery or called them indentured females; times are changing. And what category would a naked collared girl be put into?”

Hannah dropped her head. She looked at herself. She said nothing. I continued.

“Now use your legal training.  What could Lena do?”

“She could petition the court for her freedom.”

“Now think, Hannah. When you petition a court what are you doing?”

“You are asking or begging the court for something,”

“And who begs to be freed?”

Hannah Quigley was a lawyer; she saw the point immediately.

“So, if she begs to be freed; she is confessing she is a slave. And as a slave she has no standing in front of the court to beg anything.”

Hannah Quigley was a lawyer; we are argumentative.

“So I am not begging to be freed. I am demanding, as free woman to be unchained.”

I smiled at the kneeling girl.

“I promise you, Hannah Quigley, I will not leave Dragonwyck without you. You will need to be patient.”

“Now tell me from the beginning, how did you end up here, naked and collared and chained to a wall?”

The girl started to get up.

“No you can stay as you are,”

Hannah subsided to her knees, She looked good there with an iron collar around her neck; naked with only a wisp of red silk around her loins, caressing and defining her body.

“Last night after dinner, Vansittart, I mean Mr Vansittart and Mr Montgomery, Capt Cathcart’s second in command and..”

“No, the beginning beginning. How did you end up with Vansittart in the first place? You can widen your knees a bit too.”

“Yes sir, Sorry, sir. Well, Barbara and I, that is Barbara Quigley, my older sister who owns our law firm began hearing things in Pittsburgh. Terrible things. That Mr Vansittart was going around telling people and Mr VanRijn that it was due to our laziness and incompetence that Mr VanRijn had to settle his case against Frick Steel.

It wasn’t true, Sir. Not at all. Barbara is a great lawyer. She is very careful and does everything right. I look up to her.”

I nodded. I had met Barbara Quigley. I knew it wasn’t her fault that VanRijn ended up paying a huge sum to the Fricks.

“Knees further apart. That silk really defines where it almost covers. Continue.”

“Yes, sir. Barbara said to just ignore him sir. She said everyone would see it was just sour grapes on his part. That there was no use getting in a pissing contest with a snake sir. I am sorry, sir. That was her words, sir.

But I couldn’t let him get away with saying bad things about Barbara, Sir. She is my older sister and has always taken care of me. She put me through law school and then took me into her firm. So, I had to do something. I flew to San Francisco and confronted Mr Vansittart. But he wouldn’t be moved. He said hateful things. But I wouldn’t give in. I argued back. I argued like a lawyer. He didn’t like that.

I watched Hannah’s body as she talked. She was showing signs of arousal as she was forced to allocute on her knees. Her nipples were hard, and the camel toe on the red silk was prominent. Unconsciously, the adjusted the band on the red panties which made her charms even more apparent.

I always carry some Scotch mints with me. They are good for quick energy. I took one from a bag in my pocket and put it on her tongue.

“Good girl, have a mint. Now suck it, don’t crunch it.”

After a sip of water the girl continued.

“A few days ago, Mr Vansittart said we should go to see Mr VanRijn. So he, and I, and a man called Holgar Svenson flew up here from San Francisco in a helicopter. It all happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to call Barbara. How did you know I was here, sir?”

“I didn’t. I have matters of my own to settle with VanRijn and Vansittart. Your sister Barbara did ask me to ask around San Francisco about you if I had a chance. What she would say if she saw you now, I don’t know.

“But sir, it is not my fault!”

“If you had stayed in Pittsburgh, none of this would have happened.”

Hannah looked dejected. Clearly, she did not want to continue, but she pushed on.

“For two or three days, Mr Vansittart and I met with Mr VanRijn every afternoon. In the evening we had dinner in the Grant Hall. The first night when the butler came out with the meal, followed by a maid, and that poor creature, Lena, wearing only a collar.”

I interrupted.

“The maid was the butler’s daughter; the cook was his wife. They have all left now.”

Hannah nodded.

“That makes sense sir. Last night it all came to a head. I was embarrassed whenever Lena came out of course. The humiliation that poor girl must have felt! Exposed like that, so embarrassing. Mr VanRijn would not give her clothes at all. ‘Why give her clothes when she will never go outside’. How horrible! And he would touch her whenever he wanted. And she had to take it! So horrible”

“Get to the point, Hannah. And keep your thighs apart.”

“Yes, sir. Well last night, Mr VanRijn’s great-niece arrived. She was not upset by having a naked slave girl about the place at all. She made the girl kneel whenever she served her. Everyone was angry at everyone else. Mr Vansittart was angry with me because I would not admit that Barbara had done anything wrong. Mr VanRijn was baiting Mr Vansittart, that maybe he would take Barbara’s side, Mr Montgomery was teasing the maid that maybe she should serving as Lena did, naked and in a collar. The maid was embarrassed; the butler was angry. Mr Holgar Svenson and Mr VanRijn were each upset with each other. Apparently each thought the other was going to give them some secret information about the Frick Family. They were both blaming Mr Vansittart for misleading them. Captain Cathcart was worried about the people living near the estate getting ‘uppity’. Miss VanRijn was egging everyone on and setting us all against each other and making goo-goo eyes at Mr Jackson, sone of the security guards.”

“Then Mr VanRijn had some kind of attack, gall bladder, I think during dessert and had to leave. It got worse then. Mr Svenson left first, I think he would like to have killed someone. He told Miss VanRijn that ‘women like you should learn your place’, and she got angry and called Mr Jackson for support, and Mr Svenson told Mr Jackson that he had dealt with better men than he, when he was just a boy, and that a warrior doesn’t worry about ‘play-soldiers’. Then Mr Jackson shut up, and Miss VanRijn laughed at him which made him even angrier.”

Hannah took a deep breath after saying all that one rush. I gave her more to drink, holding the cup for her. I told her to put her hands behind her back while I gave her the water.

“Sometime during all that the butler and the maid left, and then Captain Cathcart. That left Mr Vansittart, Mr Montgomery, Miss VanRijn, and I at the table. Mr Jackson was hanging out at the drinks cart, looking at Miss VanRijn. I should have left then; I wish I had.”

“Then Miss VanRijn kept prodding Mr Vansittart about Mr VanRijn believing me and Barbara over him and saying he would be in trouble. Mr Vansittart didn’t dare snap at Miss VanRijn because she was Mr VanRijn’s niece so he shouted at me. He said all he needed was the evidence. Then Miss VanRijn said that maybe they should whip the truth out of me and I got up to run. But it was too late. She had Mr Jackson grab me, and I almost got away from him, but Mr Montgomery got me, and then Mr Jackson grabbed my other arm. Then Miss VanRijn said to Mr Vansittart, ‘to the dungeons with her. It is your last chance.”

Hannah stopped again. I decided she needed to eat some more of the Nutri-girl to prepare for the next part. I had her hold the bowl as before, taking the gruel on my fingers and putting the food in Hannah’s mouth. She accepted being fed, she was becoming very docile. She was more demonstrative with licking my fingers, using her tongue and lips together to extract the food. I left me fingers near her mouth after each feeding, she would reach out with her tongue or lips to caress my digits. When she had finished another third of the bowl, I had her put her hands behind her back again and popped a scotch mint into her mouth.

“Good girl”, I said.

“Thank you, sir.”