The Consultants 4.19

Part 4: Chapter 19

Leslie’s convalescence was progressing well. Nevertheless, the early autumn weather was lovely and she felt no urged to leave Gwyneth and the open spaces of the countryside round Saxon Court for the confines of London. Amber’s erratic schedule often allowed her to base herself there too, while Charles came down each weekend, arriving late on Friday evening and returning to Town on Monday at the crack of dawn so as to beat the traffic.

The last two weekends Charles and Leslie had gone around with a distinctly conspiratorial air about them. They were frequently in deep, private, conversation. When either of the other two came into sight, they broke off and abruptly switched to discussing the weather or some other anodyne subject.

On Sunday night, at dinner, it got the better of Amber and, in her inimitably undiplomatic style, abruptly demanded to know.

“What are you two plotting?”

Charles and Leslie immediately adopted a look of surprised innocence, gazing about them in a pretend search for the real recipient of the challenge.

“Plotting?” said Leslie with a light toss of the head, “What do you mean, plotting?”

“Oh, come off it,” said Gwyneth, “You and Charlotte have been as thick as thieves this last two weekends. You are obviously planning something. And, anyway what was Charlotte doing down by the lake last night after we had all gone to bed?”

“Lake?” said Charles. He suddenly felt hot in his rubber evening dress and wriggled in his seat wishing that despite the mutually imposed house-rule of dressing formally for Sunday dinner, he had chosen something a little less restrictive that the red tube-dress he had first worn at the Ritz. It was ridiculous that he felt more anxious now than he had then.

“Stop pretending,” Gwyneth persisted, “I know you were there. I looked out of my window as I drew the curtains and saw a tall figure in high heels picking its way over the grass to the water’s edge. It was only a silhouette, but from the profile it could only have been you.

“You walked about a bit, your heels sinking into the soft ground, and then you went over to that old dead tree by the side of the lake. There you bent down and seemed to be measuring something.”

“Oh, heck,” said Charles, realising that he was cornered. “I didn’t know anyone was watching.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” retorted Gwyneth.

“Okay, it was me.”

“Told you,” said Gwyneth to Amber, “you owe me.”

“Settle you later,” replied Amber.

“What were you doing, Charlotte?”

“It’s a secret. Something that Leslie dreamt up for all of us and I’m helping her to get set up. Shall we tell them Leslie?” Leslie shook her head.

“No, that would spoil it they must wait. Anyway,” Leslie went on, “you said that you were going to take the rest of the week off so with a bit of luck we should be finished and ready for the Grand Unveiling Ceremony, Charles gave a little surpassed, “Humpf”, next weekend.” Charles started to laugh.

“You know,” he said, turning to Gwyneth, “it’s really funny you seeing me last night. I even went to the trouble this morning of winding back the tape in the surveillance video so I wouldn’t be on it.”

“You’re too much a techno-freak,” teased Gwyneth. “I put my faith in the mark one eyeball.”

“I’ll remember to be more careful next time,” said Charles, then, the immediate crisis over, the conversation drifted of less dangerous topics.

*****

Next morning, Charles joined the others for breakfast. It made a pleasant change for him to have a leisurely start to the day rather than have to set the alarm clock for some ridiculously early hour like the last few weeks.

Charles really didn’t like mornings. He was very much a night time person. He often claimed that his happiest time had been when he was a research student and stayed up all night with the primitive home-made computer, built in the Electrical Engineering department, that was all the university had had in those far off days. Then he had gone to bed at about the same time as he had recently been getting up! As he was fond of saying, “I am quite prepared to accept the existence of mornings, if only on the basis of symmetry, but I have no wish to investigate them experimentally.”

The girls were all down before him and seated in the farmhouse kitchen round the big table that had served as their principal meeting point. Gwyneth was in a pair of the painted-on jodhpurs and silky polo-neck jumper that seemed to constitute the bulk of her wardrobe. The others wore leggings and casual sloppy sweaters.

Amber had her bare feet tucked up under her as she somehow perched on top of a barstool while, buttering a third slice of toast. Leslie, by contrast, had on a pair of high heeled mules. Having worn high heels for so long, she found even messing about in the house uncomfortable without at least eight centimetres separating her from the ground.

Charles entered the kitchen and bade the assembled company “Good morning.”

Amber, who had had her back to the door, swivelled round on her stool to greet him and immediately burst out laughing. Putting her hand to her mouth to suppress more giggles, she dropped the slice of toast in the process and toppled off the stool in a noisy heap at Charles’s feet, as she tried to prevent it landing, sticky side down on the flagged floor. Charles felt and looked hurt.

“What’s so funny?” he asked sullenly.

“Oh, I am sorry, Charlotte,” she said fighting to prevent another bout of the giggles while using his legs to help climb upright again. “It’s just that we’re here all casual in leggings and things and you arrive in your business suit.” Indeed, Charles had on his tight black leather pencil skirt over Wolford tights and a black body topped, or rather, bottomed off with a pair of patent court shoes with fourteen centimetre heels.

“Well, this is pretty well all I have here,” he retorted crossly. “Unless you’d rather I worn the red evening dress for breakfast as well as for dinner.”

Leslie got painfully to her feet, sensing that Amber had allowed her natural exuberance to go too far this time and that there was an urgent need to do some soothing.

“Now, Amber,” she remonstrated, “you’re being rotten to Charlotte and I won’t have it. I don’t know how I would have managed without everything she has done. It’s wicked to poke fun just because she hasn’t got everything that you’ve got.” Leslie mentally bit her lip.

“Whoops,” she thought, “I’m digging myself in to a hole as well. You can’t be too careful.

“Amber,” she went on aloud, “tell Charlotte that you are really sorry.”

“Sorry, Charlie” she said, then, rather sheepishly, she gave him a little, sisterly, peck on the cheek.

“It’s either ‘Charlotte’ or ‘Dr Graham’,” he said huffily, pulling back. Amber looked crestfallen at his response. Then, realising how silly the situation was becoming, he relented.

“Oh, it’s alright,” said Charles, “things have been a bit on top of all of us recently. Actually, I think it is better if I wear a strict skirt, it acts as a reminder to stop me relapsing into bad old ways and it sort of gives me a focus. Anyway, I don’t have the geometry for leggings, or perhaps too much geometry,” he added with a laugh, as he began to see the funny side of it all. “And I don’t feel like going to see Ray Browne just yet! Okay, Amber, I forgive you,” currently towering over her by some twenty or so centimetres, he gave her a kiss on the forehead, something that he knew would annoy her slightly, “but just you wait till later.”

Amber gave a little shudder of exited anticipation.

“So, what’s for breakfast?”

The meal over Charles and Leslie took their leave and made their way over to the stable block. It had come on to drizzle, so Charles pushed Leslie in her wheel-chair to save her the long walk over the wet rough cobble stones that paved the yard. The rain had left them quite slippery and Charles’s heels skidded to and fro on their smooth curved surfaces.

“I’m glad that I’ve got your wheel-chair to hang on to,” he observed to Leslie after one particularly exciting slide when both feet went off simultaneously on opposite direction, “This is much worse than I remember the village high street being when I used to go for nocturnal excursions.”

“Perhaps these stick up more,” Leslie theorised, “I know you can’t help it, but from the bumpy ride I getting I might have been better walking.”

“I doubt if you would have made it,” said Charles.

Leslie had to agree.

They passed along the row of old loose boxes that had been largely out of use after the, now destroyed, New Stables had been built in the 1930’s, and took up residence in the last of them, closing the door firmly behind them. This last loose box had been used as a general-purpose workshop when Saxon Court had been a working farm, before it had become training stables. It was well equipped though some of the machinery might not have been entirely out of place in an industrial museum. Consistent with looking after the needs of the farm in a self-contained way there was both woodworking tools and a small forge for metal bending. There was also a supply of wood and metal, bits and pieces, off-cuts and discarded farm paraphernalia that had accumulated there over the years.

On Charles’s last two visits he had brought some of Leslie’s tools from the house in London. During the week she had organised these as well as cleaning and oiling the old circular saw and lathe so that the workshop had taken on a very professional appearance. Leslie spread out the plans she had drawn on a bench and the two poured over them. A little later, intermittent sounds of sawing and hammering could be heard emanating from the stable. Of course this was all too much for Amber who had closely watched the earlier progress across the yard.

With Gwyneth gone to look after the animals that had not been lost in the fire, she had been left to her own devices for a while. Now she found herself creeping on tiptoe towards the sounds. The door, not quite perfectly balanced on its old hinges, has swung open a crack. She felt that if she could just open it a little more she could see what the plotters were up to. The door creaked, Leslie spun round and gave a shout, partly in pain, part in anger and slammed the door to, as Amber scampered back to the house to await Gwyneth’s return so that the two of them could go riding. When they returned later the stable door displayed a notice in bold letters.

Danger - Keep out

Nosy Parkers will be severely dealt with,

You have been warned

By order LW and CG Unique Fabrications

That day there were no more attempts at industrial espionage and Leslie and Charles were left in peace to get on with whatever they were doing.

*****

Next day, Charles was up, dressed this time in a black wool business suit, and seated in the breakfast room first. Amber arrived and, though eager to make amends for yesterday, took the opportunity to get her own back by going over to him and giving him a kiss on the forehead before she kicked off her shoes to mount a stool to sit elf like crossed-legs on top. The other followed in quick succession and soon the conversation, having dealt with the weather that seemed to be on the mend, turned to the ever popular discussion on the theme ‘clients I have known’.

They pushed their stools back from the table.

“I wondered,” said Charles addressing Gwyneth, “if you would mind if I borrowed your Range Rover for a couple of hours this morning. There’re some long pieces of timber that Leslie and I need that we can’t find around the farm and will be too big to go in my car.”

“Sure, no problem,” replied Gwyneth.

“Can I come?” asked Amber.

“NO!” Leslie and Charles declared together.

Charles’s first problem with the Range Rover was getting in. The tight skirts and spike heels that he invariably wore were, by a kind of Darwinian natural selection, fine for his BMW and not too bad for flopping into Leslie’s sports car, though getting out was another matter. However, you didn’t get in to the Range Rover, you climbed in.

What was more, though the metal lattice step may have been fine for scraping mud off riding boots or blue Barbour wellies in order to preserve the carpets, it constituted a death trap for stilettos. After a couple of false starts that included some worrying cracks of protest from over tensioned seams it became clear that the only way was to pull the skirt up to crotch height while taking great care exactly where his feet went.

Finally inside Charles wriggled on the seat trying to get his skirt down again. Then he found problem number two. It the car had a manual transmission. He had driven nothing, but automatics for years. He gave the gearshift an experimental wiggle and tried out the pedals. No way could the thing be driven in heels.

“Good job I didn’t choose a pair with locks,” he thought as he kicked his shoes off for another try in bare feet, “I would never have lived it down having to go back for the keys.” That was better, but his skirt still restricted movement for his liking. Charles hitched it back up again.

“Well, the Range Rover is so high off the ground it’s only lorry drivers who will get a glimpse at the lace.”

Somehow Charles got the car out of the yard. Kangaroo style, but at least with all its paintwork and the gateposts intact.

“God, what will the GALs think?” flashed through his mind as he struggled with the machinery.

Long unused driving technique returned to his toes and Charles eventually made an uneventful progress to timber yard.

E Bramley and Son’s yard was very much a rural affair, the business having been handed down for several generations. No one knew exactly how many E Bramley’s there had been, or how many sons all of whom, with a typical frugality, had been christened Edward, but universally called Ted.

Great tree trunks, brought in from the neighbouring forest and sawn up into planks that lay stacked back on top of each other with sticks in between, encroached on all sides leaving space for the shack that served as an office and not much else. Some of it had reputedly been seasoning for fifty or more years. Certainly Ted was well known in the trade and his timber much sort after by furniture restorers and bespoke cabinetmakers.

“If you wanted some good stuff, Ted’s your man,” it was universally acknowledged.

Ted, a little wizened man of indeterminate age knew that and would only supply people he liked. In reality he was loath to let his beloved timber go and would only do so to a ‘good home.’ The family had supplied Saxon Court’s requirements long before Gwyneth took over and Leslie, having been introduced by Gwyneth, now got her best timber there too.

Charles drew to a halt outside the office and wriggled his reluctant toes back into their shoes. Dealing with strangers still required him to screw up his courage a bit and concentrate, especially when he feared that they might still be a bit traditional in their outlook. Not looking what he was doing he swung his feet out of the car, caught a heel in the latticework the step and fell flat on his face on the ground left soft, and muddy from the previous day’s shower.

“Not the most ladylike of entrances,” Charles observed later, “but at least it did serve to break the ice.”

Ted rushed out of his shed in great alarm.

“Are you all right Miss Charlotte? It is Miss Charlotte isn’t it? Miss Gwyneth rang to say to expect you. Here let me help you up. Are you sure you’re not hurt? I never did understand how you ladies manage in such high heels. I remember seeing the Queen Mother on the telly at a garden party, she’s well over ninety and had great big heels. Are you really sure you are all right? Would you like a cup of tea?” and so on.

“I’m fine,” said Charles clambering to his feet and vainly trying to wipe the mud off his suit. “I wish I put a rubber dress on,” he thought, “at least I could have hosed that down. As it is this suit looks like a big job for the cleaners.” He looked down and saw that, in the fall, he had kneed his tights and that the suit’s skirt had finally given up the fight and had split. “Though actually I think it’s a goner.” He retrieved the shoe and put it on. The force of the fall had pulled the heel away f rom the sole so it was attached at the root by a single nail. “I’ve been here before,” Charles said to himself as he struggled to keep the wobbly thing together. “Twice!”

Ted lead him over to the office, still fussing and implying that somehow it was his fault that Charles had fallen.

“I think it was because he holds Gwyneth in some kind of feudal regard and so feels that he should have handed me down personally or at very least provided a mounting block,” Charles later told the GALs.

At Ted’s insistence Charles gulped down a steaming mug of strong sweet tea. He normally was a sugarless black coffee only person, but couldn’t bring himself to refuse the drink and risk hurting Ted’s feelings. Eventually when Ted was convinced that his visitor would survive and that he need not send for an ambulance they got down to business.

Charles explained what he wanted. Ted was sure that he could help and would go down the yard to look.

“May I come too?” asked Charles.

“Why, yes, miss, if you would like to. If you’re feeling all right that is.”

Charles hobbled down the yard. Apart from a bruise or two the only part of him seriously hurt by the fall was his pride. Mind, with his torn clothes he looked like what Amber’s granny might have called the, ‘Wreck of the Hesperus.’ After two paces he stopped to kick off his shoes that would have been hopeless on the uneven surface, even with both heels properly attached, and continued behind Ted in stocking feet.

“How about that plank?” shouted Charles. “Over there on the left.” Ted stopped and turned to look.

“Yes, that’d do fine for one of your bits. Well spotted. Miss Leslie’s got an eye for a piece of timber too, but most ladies, if you will pardon my saying, don’t know one end of a log from t’other.”

Ted collected several pieces together, rip-sawed them roughly to size and loaded them into the car and on to its roof rack. Gwyneth had warned Charles not to discuss payment.

“I’ll get a bill sometime, this generation or the next,” she had laughed.

Charles bade the still concerned Ted good-bye and, thanking him for all his help, got back in to the car. It was so much easier in bare feet and with a split skirt, he realised. On the way back to Saxon Court a lorry pulled up at the side of him as he waited for a set of traffic lights. Glancing across, he realised that a man in the passenger seat of was looking down at his legs to where his panties were showing. Charles’s embarrassed reflex was to try to pull down his skirt to cover the remnants of his tights.

“Humm, men!” he thought, as the lights changed.

*****

The sounds of construction continued unabated for three more days. Amber was beside herself with curiosity. The day of the visit to Ted’s yard she had kept a surreptitious watch to see what Charles had brought back in the hope of figuring out what they were building in the loose box, but somehow she had missed his return. In reality the plotters had anticipated her and Charles had rung Leslie on his mobile so that she had flung open the doors immediately as he’d arrived to let him drive straight in. Amber’s frustration got even worse when two days later Charles made another excursion. This time she spotted him returning and, before it disappeared, saw that the Range Rover seemed to be filled with bundles of rolled up canvas, perhaps like tent material.

“What were they up to?”

Then the banging stopped. That was even worse. Again temptation got the better of Amber and she once again crept up to the door and pressed her ear to it. Through the wood she heard shrieks of laughter. Then silence, followed after a minute of two with the creaking sound of something being moved, then a somewhat anguished, “Ouch,” from Leslie and a “Whee,” from Charles.

“Okay, let’s test the others,” she heard him say. “Yes,” said Leslie, “but could you be a dear and fetch me another cushion from the house first.”

“Sure,” replied Charles putting his to the door latch and sending Amber flying, her days as a spy having come to an end.

After dinner they all settled in the lounge for coffee.

“I know,” Leslie started, “that you must be dying to know what Charles and I have been up to recently.” There was nodded assent from the other two. “Indeed,” she went on in her dominatrix voice, “some persons have rather let their curiosity get the better of them. An impropriety that they,” she stared hard at Amber who wriggled in her chair and grinned, “may live to regret.

“What we have done is make the pieces for a little private mediaeval fun. There is Charles’s patent ducking stool and an intriguing variant on the stocks and a pillory. We propose to install them on the lakeshore tomorrow and, as we couldn’t very well hide the fact we though that we had better tell you. They are a present for Gwyneth for putting up with us. We also have another surprise for you, Gwyneth, but that we will keep under wraps. Then, if the day after tomorrow is okay we can have fun trying it all out.

“Who gets to do what?” asked Amber as soon as Leslie stopped to draw breath.

“We’ve been wondering about that for a while. At first we thought about drawing lots or devising some sort of forfeit game. In the end, because of the pieces that we’ve made, we think that you and Gwyneth should toss to see who tries the ducking stool first, then Charles and I will do penance in the stocks so that who ever wins, or loses, the toss can get their own back. Then we have something else planned for after.”

Gwyneth was not so sure that she liked the sound of this, but naturally Amber was all eager.

“Oh, great,” and was out of her chair and halfway upstairs to get her purse and a coin to toss before she could protest.

“Come back!” shouted Leslie holding up a coin, “I’ve got my grand-father’s gold sovereign here.” Amber was back in a trice and tried to grab it from her hand.

“Can I toss,” she asked.

“Steady down, Amber.” Leslie chided. “So that there is no cheeting I’ll toss. Heads you get to try the stool, tails and it is Gwyneth who will plumb the abyss.” Leslie tossed the coin. It came down tails. Amber looked crest fallen.

“How many times do I get ducked,” asked a concerned Gwyneth, “I mean, you don’t mean right under, do you?”

“Oh yes,” said Amber.

Gwyneth gave her a, ‘I’m not asking you,’ look. Leslie caught the sense of Gwyneth’s concern.

“Don’t you want to try it, Gwyneth,” she asked.

“Well I’m not over keen, how about me swapping with Amber?”

“Yes please,” said the latter.

“Well I suppose so,” said Leslie glancing across at Charles, “but I thought that you will want to use the stool with clients, either your own or some I’d like to send down, who have ask for it in the past, so that you ought to experience it yourself.

“I’ll have a go in a month or two, if the lake isn’t frozen over, but just at the moment I’m still a bit fragile in the undercarriage.”

“Okay, I suppose so, you convince me, but only just,” replied a still reluctant Gwyneth.

“Good girl,” Leslie encouraged. “As far as the magnitude of the punishment how about rolling a dice so that you get between one and six? If Amber had won the toss I would have suggested multiplying the throw by ten.”

*****

The morning of the ‘execution’ was bright and sunny; early autumn at its best. The last act of Charles and Leslie the previous evening had been to erect, near to the stool and stocks, a brightly coloured canvas pavilion that was right out of a Hollywood version of a mediaeval tournament. Having placed a number of anonymous parcels inside they laced up the opening and additionally fastened a set of padlocks through eyelets.

“Never know who comes prowling about at night,” Leslie pointedly observed to Amber.

Now, lit by the morning sun, flags fluttered at the corners in a light breeze. It was like a film set. Indeed Amber, as the television professional waited outside the garden door, ENG camera on her shoulder, while Charles, down at the lakeside made unnecessary last adjustments to the ducking stool. He rechecked the counter balance to make sure it was set correctly for Gwyneth’s weight and waved to Amber. She responded by panning the camera and zooming on to him for a cutaway shot.

He and Leslie had debated, at some length, what he should wear for his task of stool operator. In the end they had opted for a long black hobble-skirted rubber dress that was so narrow at the hem it had taken him ten minutes to get from the house to his station by the stool with a detour via the workshop to pick up some last minute, just in case, bits and pieces. As he had set out Leslie had produced a rubber hangman’s hood that she insisted he also wore ‘for effect’ saying that for authenticity the victim should not know who carried out the execution.

Charles attempted to point out that it would not tax Gwyneth’s mental faculties to work out who it was, but she waved his objections aside on grounds of greater historical accuracy. Leslie had helped him into the hood that, to his surprise and consternation, had a large built-in gag then, before he could protest, fitted him with a padlocked collar so that he was unable to take it off.

On cue, Leslie and Gwyneth emerged from the hall. Contrary to what Victoria painters of heroines, such as Joan of Arc, had shown so as not to offend the sensibilities of their patrons, burning at the stake used to be done with the victims nude so spectators could see the flesh melt. By contrast the ducking stool was intended more for humiliation than execution so then victims, almost invariably women, were usually dressed in a white muslin gown giving the illusion of modesty when dry, only to become totally revealing when wet. So, it was for Gwyneth who appeared from the house in a pleated white dress reminiscent of that in an Organza perfume advert.

She had unpinned her hair so that it hung in a black cascade over her shoulders and down her back. Her hands were tied close together behind her back and her ankles linked with another short length of rope allowing her to make only the smallest of steps in her bare feet. She hesitated, unsure just how best to get down the final big step with her ankles so closely linked. With simulated lack of mercy Leslie jerked sharply in on the rope attached to a halter round Gwyneth’s neck so that she slipped rather than stepped down, then led her slowly down to the water’s edge. It took all of five minutes to cover the 60 metres, Gwyneth struggling convincingly as Leslie towed her down the slope rather faster than her hobbled legs wanted to go.

Part way down, she stumbled and fell to her knees. It was all good television, captured in close up detail by Amber. Eventually the little procession got to the ducking stool where Charles stood, arms folded trying to look as stern as he could with his faced hooded. Leslie handed the rope to Charles.

“The prisoner is all yours Mistress Executioner,” she said in a loud voice for the sake of the video. “You know the sentence, six immersions, each one longer than the next.”

“Hay, I only rolled a three when we were deciding last night,” Gwyneth screamed out as Charles bowed his assent.

“You’ve just now earned the other three by protesting,” said Leslie unhooking a ball gag from a nail on the side of the stool and inserting it with practised skill into Gwyneth’s mouth. “Carry on Executioner, if you please,” she reiterated.

Together they pushed the spluttering and struggling Gwyneth against the backrest of the stool, its carrying arm resting on a stump. Her hands were briefly unfastened then relinked behind the seat to which she was secured by leather belt round the waist and a second one round her chest, lifting her otherwise unsupported breasts so that the nipples jutted out beneath their thin fabric covering. She glanced down and saw something sticking out between her legs. In a flash of realisation she understood. This ducking stool had no ordinary seat. Instead there was a narrow bar that would bite into her sex if she were to put any weight on it. She had once tried the horse in Leslie’s dungeon. After a few minutes the pain, it had been unbearable as, it seemed, the thing tried to split her in two. For the moment she was all right standing slightly tiptoe. Then Charles took hold of an ankle and folded the leg up under her fixing it in place with another strap. Immediately her weight was transferred from toes to crotch. She screamed as much as the gag allowed and the other leg received the same treatment.

For some minutes they left her there, Amber capturing her increasingly desperate writhings, as she tried in vain to ease the pain. Though the morning was sill cool, Gwyneth’s face was soon covered in sweat from the effects of her exertions and the sexual stimulation of the bar that was pushing her inexorably towards and orgasm.

“Time to cool the prisoner off a little, Mistress Executioner,” Leslie called out to Charles. “Gad, she looks like a filly in heat,” she added with a laugh. Charles pressed on the counter weight at the end of the ducking stool’s pivot arm and swung the victim up and out over the water of the lake.

Gwyneth shrieked as the seat jounced then began its smooth swing. She tugged and squealed in petrified excitement as she hovered three metres from the shore with her toes not quite touching the water. She enjoyed the exhilaration of galloping on one of her horses and revelled in the white-knuckle rides at theme parks, but this was terrifyingly different. Was Charlotte going to gently immerse her or just drop her in? It seemed like an eternity to her before the question was answered, though if fact it was perhaps no more than fifteen seconds, just enough for Amber to run round the lake to get the angle she wanted. Then she was falling, not fast because the ducking stool was carefully balanced for ease of working, yet falling nevertheless. She hit the surface with a splash and the water welled up around her.

Charles held her under for only a second before bringing the spluttering Gwyneth back to the surface and swung her onshore again so that the end of the beam carrying the stool came once more to a rest on its stump leaving her feet well clear of the ground so that her clitoris was again pressed hard into the bar between her legs.

“Are you all right?” demanded Leslie.

Gwyneth vigorously shook her head, “NO!” it said. As expected her wet dress now clung transparently to her body and water streamed from hair that, with a small admixture of pondweed, clung round her face and shoulders.

“What are you waiting for, Executioner, or do you wish to take the prisoner’s place? The second immersion, if you please.”

Charles swung Gwyneth out for a second time. Now that she knew what to expect it was no more pleasant than the first time, either in anticipation or when again she sank beneath the water. Charles counted to five and brought her up. This time instead of bringing her ashore he waited till she had got her breath then released her with a splash from a height of around a metre above the surface. This took her by surprise and she only just had time to snatch a breath and close her eyes before the lake enveloped her again. The extra impetus took her much deeper than the previous two shallow dips. She could feel the pressure of the water squeezing her chest then her toes touched something soft, she had reached the bottom. She had often swum in the lake and as a girl had tried to measure the depth from the little rowing boat her father had kept by the shore. It was a good 2metres down. She rose to the surface and into the daylight.

Charles brought her ashore and together he and Leslie started to unfasten her. Leslie removed the gag. “No more, pleaded Gwyneth,”

“No,” said Leslie. “Three is what we agreed and three it is, I was just pulling your leg.”

“Well, it wasn’t very funny. God, I feel like a tea-bag!”

“Okay,” soothed Leslie, “can you walk over to the pavilion and we’ll get you dry. Let’s put on a bit of a show for Amber’s video.”

Leslie slowly led Gwyneth to the tent and pushed her inside. It was all warm and cosy as a result of a bottled gas heater that had been running since breakfast. Leslie stripped off Gwyneth’s wet dress a started to towel her down while Charles poured out a double Scotch.

“So what was it like,” he asked, handing her the glass.

“Awful, but kind of exciting at the same time. Too many sensations all at once, you just have to experience it. It’s a bit like Oblivion or one of those other rides where you are dropped, but they don’t have your wicked seating arrangement,” she replied, smiling as she continued to separate her hair from the weed with which it had become braided.

“I will another time,” Leslie reassured her but for variety Charlotte and I are in for a different kind off punishment.

Amber reappeared. With nothing to video she had been nosing about outside. Now she entered all excitement. “I’ve been looking at the stocks. The seats have got …”

“Enhancements,” said Leslie looking up.

Eventually it was Leslie and Charles’s turn. Leslie had removed his hood and gag. It was a relief to have it out because his jaw had been protesting almost from the moment she had put it in hours ago, on the other hand, knowing what was to come he rather wished he still had it or, at least, the hood.

The two were led by Gwyneth, dressed now as a mediaeval queen complete with high conical hat from which streamed a silken train, over to the stocks while Amber started on another episode of her documentary, ‘A day in the life of Country Folk.’

The stocks were indeed ‘special,’ at least as far as its seat was concerned. A horizontal board, at ground level, split in two length-wise gave access to two pairs of ankle holes. Strips connected the ankle board to the seat raised a little off the ground. The seat itself was just a square-sectioned bar barely 7cm to a side. Though running at right angles to the crotch splitting shaft of the ducking stool, sitting on it would soon become very uncomfortable. That was only part of the story, however. As Amber had discovered the seat bar was pivoted so that it could rotate freely about its horizontal axis and visible hanging down from it as the procession approached were two phallic protuberances, one lined up with each pair of ankle holes. The stocks had no seat back, as such. Instead a third board, set higher than and behind the seat, echoed the ankle board except that the holes were smaller, sized so as to hold the victim’s wrists.

“Okay, Gwyneth,” Leslie said, turning to her when they arrived, “now you can get your own back on us.” She kicked off her shoes, removed her panties and sat down on the seat with her ankles resting in two of the sockets.

“Come on, Charlotte, hurry up I don’t have the will power to sit here voluntarily for very long.” Charles unzipped the back of his hobble skirt and, draping the surplus rubber in front of him, settled down at the side of Leslie.

“Right, now lock the ankle bar then come and help us with the seat.” Leslie and Charles eased themselves up off the seat while Gwyneth rotated it through 180 degrees. As she held it steady they gingerly lowered themselves on to the waiting spikes. Leslie winced, partly for the benefit of camerawoman Amber, who was having a whale of a time capturing a variety of intimate close-ups, but mostly because it hurt.

“I thought that you had lubricated these things,” she said.

“I did,” said Charles. “It seems a jolly sight bigger than on the test run, you didn’t change them did you?”

“Yes,” Leslie confessed “I thought the new ones looked more impressive.”

“I don’t care what they look like; it’s what they feel like.”

Gwyneth decided it was time to take command.

“Shut up you two, now get on with it. I’ll count up to three and if you are not properly impaled I’ll pull you hands away. One, two, …”

Charles realised that no way was the gradualist approach going to work in time. Leslie’s replacement dildo was just too fat to go in easily. His mind went back to that fateful day so many months ago when he had dressed in Amber’s rubber gear and had ultimately had to wear it when visiting Barry Schofield before landing the big contract. He had had the same trouble then. How tiny that butt-bug seemed now. Then he had rested it, point up, on the edge of the bath and just sat down, hard. He did the same again. Bloody hell, it hurt and he shouted out at the pain just as Gwyneth got to “three,” and pulled his arms back to lock them in place. Gwyneth stood by the ankle board and looked at them.

“Very pretty, now what do we do, just leave you there for the rest of the day and hope that it rains?”

“Well, actually,” Charles replied, “if you look in the pavilion you will find a supply of tomatoes and other traditional goo for throwing.”

Soon they were being pelted with missiles. Not that Gwyneth’s aim was particularly accurate. Normally a serious girl, this was proving to be fun, certainly well worth the earlier dip, and she was finding it hard not to get the giggles, especially as her tall head-dress insisted on falling off at the slightest provocation. Still, though she tried a few from the side and an occasional high lob intended to land on top of Leslie’s head most of the shots were point blank and could hardly fail to miss one or other of the faces that soon became coated with a gooey mess.

There was no way the captives could dodge the bombardment. Rather they had to sit very still as any wriggling on the part of one of them immediately set the seat bar in motion and stirred the dildo inside the other one.

Eventually Gwyneth ran out of ammunition.

“Bother,” she thought, “I was enjoying this.” She looked around for inspiration. “I know,” she said out loud and made off in the direction of the stables leaving Charles and Leslie to wonder if they had bitten off rather more than they had bargained for.

“If she ever finds out about your Grand-fathers coin she’ll murder us,” whispered Charles, spitting out a tomato seed.

“You mean the one with two tails?”

“Yes.”

“That okay,” Leslie laughed, “I’ve got another one with two heads!”

“I wonder what she’s up to? I’m getting desperate for a pee, apart from looking like a badly made salad.”

“Probably good for you complexion. Anyway it’s a punishment, you’re not supposed to like it,” Charles observed, not at that moment being all that concerned about Leslie’s problems as he tried to move his backside into a more comfortable position.

“Hey, stop wiggling,” Leslie protested. “I don’t know what these things do to you but you’re making me want to go even more. Stop it!”

Gwyneth returned some minutes later struggling to carry a heavy bucket in each hand.

“Oh, ho! I don’t like the look of this!” said Leslie.

“Me neither,” Charles agreed. Gwyneth stopped behind them then, picking one of the buckets up on its own, poured the slurry she had just fetched fresh from the stable sluice over Leslie’s head.

“Enjoy that?” she asked the spluttering woman. “Well, just to make sure you don’t see what I have thought up for the next course you can be the woman in the iron mask for a while,” with which she plonked the evil smelling upturned bucket over Leslie’s head, its rim coming to rest on her shoulder.

“And as for you, my fine friend,” she said, turning to Charles, you are just as bad as she is,” and repeated the treatment. Charles and Leslie were left in malodorous semi-darkness for half and hour.

Then, suddenly, with a “tra-la-la” the buckets were removed.

“And now for the grand transformation scene.” Gwyneth had taken off her queen’s robes and was wearing, with nothing underneath, a transparent plastic all-in-one hooded sweat-suit like the one Leslie had chosen when preparing Charles for the first of his ‘birthday presents.’ The reason was much the same for trailing up to the house was a fat hosepipe the nozzle to which was in Gwyneth’s hands. She turned on the jet and hosed the two down, deliberately landing it between Leslie’s legs and up Charles’s skirt causing it to billow in the blast. At least all the wreckage was swilled away and Gwyneth finally deigned to release them.

They chattered excitedly about their recent experience as they made their way back to the house to change and have lunch.

“At least with all that water about,” Leslie observed, “you couldn’t see me peeing!”

*****

Lunch over Leslie pushed her chair back.

“Well, shall we continue with the family entertainment?” she asked. There was general ascent.

“Then it is time for a change in the personae dramatis.

“Amber, it’s your turn now, please will you go and put one of your black latex catsuits on, the one with the hood with the pony-tail tube for preference and join us over at the workshop? Charlotte can take over the camera.”

Amber was gone in a flash.

“I think I have done too much walking already today,” she said turning to Gwyneth. “Do you mind giving me a ride in the wheel chair?”

A few minutes later they were across the yard in the workshop.

“This is our special treat for you and Amber,” Leslie was explaining. The ‘treat’ was a lightweight two-wheeled cart similar to the sulkies used for trotting races. However, this particular example had a few local peculiarities. The shafts were adapted to fit a human ‘pony’, (surprisingly of just Amber’s size!) while the seat, though for a single passenger and a little wider, front to back, had obviously come out of the same design office as the stocks that had earlier invaded Leslie and Charles’s bottoms.

“Very nice,” said Gwyneth, appreciatively running a finger over the brightly painted woodwork. “Who gets to drive it, I assume that you intend Amber to provide the horsepower?”

“It’s your turn, dear,” Leslie replied.

“Well, in that case I think for a first time I’m not going to risk it with the dildo upwards. I think your intended pony will take a lot of breaking.”

“From recent experience, I’m sure you’re right,” agreed Charles.

“Then after you can have two,” Leslie added mischievously.

There was a knock at the door.

“Can I come in?” asked Amber peeping through the crack.

“Yes, come in,” called Leslie from her wheel chair. “You never asked before when you were creeping round.”

Amber giggled. As suggested she had on a black latex catsuit. From the back of her head a hung a yellowish-blond mane produced by bunching up one of her innumerable wigs and pulling the hair through the ponytail tube of the suit’s hood. Incongruously she had a pair of designer trainers on her feet, perhaps out of some kind of premonition of what Leslie had in mind for her she would be better able to make a run for it than in high heels.

“Will I do?” she asked, doing a pirouette.

“I think so said Leslie, pretending to be not quite sure. “Turn round again slowly, will you, and let’s have another look?”

Amber turned round.

“Now,” shouted Leslie and the others grabbed Amber’s arms and held them. “Right, Amber, it’s your turn to be the star of the show. Open wide!” From behind the wheel chair she produced a bridal that had been hanging there.

Amber shook her head in protest as Charles and Gwyneth pressed on her arms to bend her close enough to Leslie for her to be able to force the bit between Amber’s teeth and buckle up the straps behind her head and under the chin leaving the reins hanging down her back. They pushed Amber backward between the shafts of the sulky and locked her wrists to them. Leslie handed Gwyneth another set of straps.

“We thought,” she said, “that as this particular pony is a bit of an unknown quantity you might feel happier if you used a martingale for the initial outings.”

“Oh, what a good idea.” Gwyneth took the straps and with a practiced hand, began fitting them connecting them one end to each of the rings at the side of the bit. The leather straps then passed under Amber’s crotch, through a ring at the front of the sulky before being collected up with the reins directly attached to the bridal. The martingale would stop Amber tossing her head up while pulling on it would force her head down into be chest at the same time putting pressure on her sex.

“Just about ready for a trial run, give Gwyneth a leg-up will you Charlotte.”

“I think that the mediaeval dress is a bit wrong for the sulky,” Charles observed as he tried to arrange Gwyneth’s skirts to avoid the wheels and not drag on the ground, “but it will have to do.”

“And finally, the boots.” Leslie handed Charles a pair of ankle boots. Essentially they were 15cm high-heels that had the sole and heel integrated into a single rounded shape built up and out to look like pony hooves the base being ringed with a real steel horse shoe. Charles knelt down and started to untie Amber’s trainers. She stamped her foot. Gwyneth gave the reins a tug.

“Steady, girl,” she said. Charles finished fastening Amber’s feet into the ‘hooves’, keeping a weary eye on their metal shoes lest she should kick out again. Charles stood up.

“All done,” he said.

Gwyneth clicked her tongue.

“Walk forward.” She ordered. Amber hesitated a moment. Gwyneth took the whip out of its socket and gave Amber a light crack on her bottom. She bucked, pulling on the sulky’s shafts, but Gwyneth was already in her element as horse trainer and had anticipated the reaction, immediately pulling Amber’s head down with the martingale.

“Walk” she ordered again, giving the reins a shake. Amber moved off, gingerly at first, clip-clopping over the cobbles of the yard at a slow waking pace unsure of the novel hoof-boots. Leslie and Charles watched them go. Once across the yard and on to the grass, Gwyneth gave Amber another crack of the whip to move her pace up a gear and set off on a circuit of the lake.

“Bother,” said Leslie as she watched them, “I forgot the tail, I’ll have to fit it when they get back.”

“I’ve got a gadget I would like to try out too,” said Charles.

“What’s that?” Charles went over to one of the workbenches returning with an adjustable metal bar. At each end short rods were attached on opposite sides at right angles to the main bar using swivel joints.

“I thought that this could be used to enforce the much favoured high trotting action,” he said handing the device to Leslie. “I took the liberty to drill horizontal holes under the insteps of the hoof boot.”

“You what?” protested Leslie. “Do you know what they cost? This had better be good my girl or I have you scrubbing out the latrines for a month.”

“May it please your Ladyship,” Charles replied without any overt sign of penitence, “the idea is to insert the fastenings at the ends of this bar into the holes. Then, by adjusting the length of the bar you can make it so that if, say, your left foot is on the ground you can only make a pace froward by lifting your right foot high up in an arc. Probably a bit unstable, but the shafts should steady you.”

“I hope that you are using the word ‘you’ as a generality,” laughed Leslie, turning the device over in her hands and experimenting with the action. “I don’t think that I could manage so much hip movement at the moment, but I am sure that combined with my tail it will give Amber a lot of excitement. Make her even more frisky I would have thought, shouldn’t you? Go down to the lake, Charlotte dear, beckon them back so we can do a retro-fit.”

*****

Brrrring, brrrring, Leslie reached over for the ‘phone, wincing as she did so, abrupt changes of position still catching her unawares.

“Hello Lesso,” it was an excited Amber on the other end. “I’ve just found an amazing ad on the Internet. It says, ‘Those already well versed in BD and SM are invited to vacation at a fairy-tale castle set in extensive, secluded grounds. Well-equipped dungeons offer a comprehensive range of traditional and modern apparatus. The spacious bedrooms have many ‘interesting features’ that will appeal to the connoisseur. In order to give opportunities for the greatest range of possible activities a maximum of four guests can be accommodated at anyone time.’ All this came out in a torrent.

“There’s more,” she went on, “but how about all four of us going for Christmas?”

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28.06.13