Triad Seventh Chapter: Propositions Helen did not dispense any praise or disapproval of our behavior the previous night when she served our breakfast the next morning. I was sure that she knew exactly what had happened. I had sensed her presence as I cleaned Cathy's face, and later Cathy's moans and screams had reverberated through the entire house for everyone to hear. But for Helen, today was business as usual, in other words, our daily visit to the gym of horrors. It did not make any difference to Helen that I told her I was now able to hold back my eruption until Cathy was completely satisfied, and it was no use to get Cathy to confirm my assessment. Soon after breakfast I found myself back in my customary position, chained to the wall, my balls trapped in a harness and Cathy kneeling in front of me, licking and sucking my cock for all she was worth. There were some changes in Helen's torture routine, however. She started to conduct individual sessions, concentrating on one of us in privacy while the other one was confined to our bedroom. I don't know what Helen did when she was alone with Cathy. My initial thoughts were that Cathy would have to lick Helen's pussy and that Helen didn't want me to be present when this happened, but Cathy never confirmed my suspicion. At times I could hear Cathy's orgasmic screams coming from the torture chamber and when Cathy returned to tell me that it was my turn she was barely able to walk. I assumed that Helen had used vibrators or other devices to make Cathy come until she was completely exhausted. During my own individual sessions I became acquainted with clamps. Helen didn't use the nice shiny items which almost looked like jewelry on me. No, I had to make do with old-fashioned clothes-pins, both the wooden and the plastic variety, which Helen attached to my nipples, my scrotum and just about any other place where she could squeeze together enough skin to slip into a clamp. While I was strapped to the table, looking like some strangely decorated ritual offering to an unknown god, Helen made me also feel the sting of hot wax on my skin. She was an expert at tilting the candelabrum just enough so that the hot wax would spill over and hit me in three different places at the same time. My cock, always sticking up like a flagpole, was an obvious target. But Helen wasn't too particular about which part of my body she would attack. Helen still continued to conduct sessions with both of us, when she let Cathy stimulate me while I was chained to the wall, and then let me watch as she inflicted her special brand of pain and pleasure on Cathy. Sometimes she would suspend me from the ceiling with Cathy being strapped to the table beneath me. On these occasions she would often disappear for a considerable length of time, leaving us on our own, contemplating each other but unable to make contact. One day, after Helen had tied Cathy and me up and had gone to the room next door, the phone rang and I could hear Helen speak to someone in a language I didn't understand - Mandarin I assumed. Her voice seemed louder than usual and I thought I detected a certain agitation. My impression was reinforced when Helen came into the torture chamber. There was something about that phone call which had upset her. "I've got to meet someone and I don't know how long it will take," she explained. "So I thought I'd better untie you for the time being. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts." And she was off. As I walked past the office, I noticed to my great surprise that the computer was switched on. Helen had started it up and had forgotten to log off. There was a document on display on the monitor, but I couldn't make head or tail of the Chinese characters. I'm naturally curious. Sometimes I snoop on other people behind their backs. It's not a very nice character trait, I know. But that's the way I am. I have occasionally read personal e-mails which Cathy received or sent, and often this resulted in my ears burning, because I found comments about myself which were not at all complimentary. The document in front of me didn't mean anything to me. Not only could I not read the text, I had no idea what it was. It might have been a part of Helen's translation or rewrite of a literary work, it might have been an essay in which she outlined her approach to translation, it might have been part of a diary containing comments about Cathy and me. There were probably many other possibilities. My curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know what this document was. I thought of sending it to my own mail box, but all the options on the menu bar were in Mandarin, I didn't know which one to click. Then I noticed the small printer icon. That was the same as on the English version of the software. I decided to print the document. I put the pages quietly into a desk drawer from where I could retrieve them later. I didn't tell Cathy about the breach of confidence I had committed. The fewer people knew, the better. Cathy might even disapprove of my snooping; she might insist that I destroy the pages and apologize to Helen. The next step would be to find someone who could tell me what was written on those pages I had pulled off the printer. But I couldn't possibly walk around downtown Boston, stop everybody who looked like they might be able to read Mandarin and ask them what was written on those pages. What if they contained a detailed description of what Helen, Cathy and I had been doing? It would have to be someone I could trust or someone who didn't know me - two somewhat contradictory requirements. Then I thought of Ricky. ----- Ricky had been a close buddy during my high-school years. We used to hang out a lot together. He had been the wilder one of the pair of us, and I had saved his skin on a number of occasions. At one stage, he got into trouble with the law. I never found out what exactly he was accused of. The stories which went around had him involved in all kinds of serious offenses, but how could the people spreading these rumors know anything, if I, his closest friend, didn't know what kind of trouble he was in? Whatever it was, Ricky found it serious enough to skip state. He now lives in New York City and runs a laundry service for hotels and restaurants. Ricky's people collect the dirty linen from his customers, wash and iron everything and then return it neatly folded to its owners. He started off with a couple of washing machines in a rented garage. Now his operation covers a large part of southern Manhattan. There are unconfirmed rumors that he launders more than just bed sheets and table cloths, but these rumors are probably just a case of sour grapes. Ricky had told me once that he was employing a large number of illegal immigrants, because they were much cheaper than union labor. Somehow, I associated illegal laundry workers with Chinese. Ricky should be able to ask one of them to translate the document for him. Of course, I couldn't do this over the phone. I would have to send him the pages by mail. I decided to call in a favor and ask Ricky for help. I wrote him a letter, telling him a little about the recent developments in my life and enclosed the printed pages. But I also told him it was merely to satisfy my curiosity, nothing really important. ----- When I returned from the post office, Helen was waiting for me, dressed in her usual black body stocking. Did she know where I had been and what I had been doing there? I sure didn't want to think about it now, so she could pick up what was on my mind. I made a conscious effort to think of something else. I tried to remember the names of my girlfriends before I met Cathy. That didn't take very long. Then I tried to remember the names - and the nicknames - of my teachers at high school. Helen wasn't into mind-reading at that moment - or maybe the stuff which passed through my mind didn't interest her. "Cathy's waiting for you," she announced. I realized that I hadn't seen any trace of Cathy since I returned. "Waiting for me? Where?" I wanted to know. "In the pleasure palace." I should have thought that much. "You'd better take off your clothes before you go in," Helen suggested. Helen handed me a miniature whip - the one she had been carrying on the evening of her arrival. "I know that you've been waiting for this for a long time - both of you," she said. Then she closed the door behind me. It took my eyes a while to adjust to the darkness. Helen had gradually reduced the electric lighting in the former storage room. At this stage there was just one 25-Watt light bulb left - and that had been covered with a black hood. Two candelabra were standing on the floor in diagonally opposite corners of the room. In between those candelabra I saw Cathy, naked, her arms raised above her head and tied to ropes which were hanging from the ceiling. Her legs were spread and equally immobilized. Cathy's body and limbs formed the letter X. She seemed to be more hanging, held up by the ropes, than standing by her own force. In the flickering light of the candles, I could see traces of wax on Cathy's breasts and abdomen - a sign that she, too, had been given a taste of Helen's imaginative use of the candelabra. Cathy's inner thighs were glistening with moisture. She probably had experienced several orgasms at Helen's capable hands. Cathy was blindfolded. She had heard the door open and close but didn't know who had entered the room, or whether there was, in fact, someone in the room with her. "Helen?" she asked tentatively. I remained quiet while I contemplated the sight in front of me. This must have been one of the most exciting images I ever set eyes on. This beautiful helpless woman, who had already suffered some abuse by Helen, was completely in my hands. I could do with her whatever pleased me. And there was the added thrill that she was unable to see me. Did this make me a coward? Helen had said that to be a good torture-master you have to love your victim. I loved Cathy. Standing there and looking at her, I loved her more than ever before. I loved her so much that I wanted to hear her scream - in pain and in joy. I stepped closer to her and hit her left breast with the whip. The unexpected attack made her gasp, but only briefly. She soon recovered her composure. "Oh, it's you, Stan. Don't be such a wimp. Whip me harder. Make me scream." It is hard to hurt someone you love. It is painful to see them suffer. One part of me wanted to swap places with Cathy, found it easier to be punished than to punish. But another, stronger part told me, 'You want this. She wants it. Do it!' I let the whip slash across Cathy's right breast, struggling to overcome my reluctance to hurt her. Cathy's gasp was a little louder this time. But she wanted more. "Harder," she said. "Show me how much you love me." I brought the whip down between Cathy's legs. This time there was no doubt that I had caused her pain. Cathy lost her foothold. Her body was dangling from the ceiling, only held up by the ropes around her wrists. I waited for Cathy's feet to find a firm hold again, while I planned my next attack. I realized that this wasn't just about inflicting physical pain. This was also about letting Cathy know how powerless she was; that she was completely at my mercy. It was about making it clear to Cathy that I could hit her where I wanted, when I wanted, and as hard as I wanted. I noticed that Cathy was holding her breath. Every fiber of her strained to sense my next move, to brace herself for the next assault. I walked around Cathy, trying not to let her hear where I was. Then, in a rapid succession of movements I swung the whip across her buttocks and the front of her thighs. "You're getting better. More, please," Cathy requested. She still hadn't fully understood that _I_ was in control of the situation. That _I_ was going to do what _I_ wanted, when _I_ wanted it. I continued my cat-and-mouse play, alternating short sharp attacks with periods of silence. I whipped her breasts, much harder this time, her back, her flank, her buttocks and the back of her thighs. Whenever I hit the center of her inner thighs, Cathy's screams of pain and approval grew louder. She urged me on to hit her faster, harder. Standing next to Cathy, I put my free hand between her legs. I let my fingers slide up and down her slit, pry it open, enter her. When I squeezed her clit between two fingers Cathy moaned with desire. I withdrew my hand and, at the same instant brought down the whip where my hand had been. Cathy's scream confirmed that I had hit my target as planned, and that my attack had surprised her, as intended. The whip also visited the less obvious parts of her body. Her feet, her legs, her outstretched arms, including the armpits, her sides, were all legitimate targets for castigation. Eventually, I succumbed to Cathy's demands. I let the whip rain down on Cathy's front without paying much attention to where I hit her. I worked myself into a frenzy. I aimed for her pussy and her screams confirmed every time I hit my target. Her screams also told me that she had achieved what she had longed for: she reached her climax under the impact of my whip! I removed the blindfold and kissed the tears off Cathy's face. I assured her of my everlasting love. Cathy thanked me for being such a severe master. But I wasn't finished yet. I knelt down in front of Cathy and licked her pussy lips. Cathy moaned in response to the gentle touch of my tongue on her punished sex. She opened her legs as much as her position allowed to give my mouth easy access to her pussy. By doing so, she also opened herself for my attack at the back door. I thrust the whip-handle into Cathy's ass as I held on to her clit with my lips. I pushed the hard stick in and out of her rear, while my tongue brought her to another climax. Only then did I free Cathy from the ropes. I bent her over the table and entered her pussy from behind. I fucked her whipped cunt until the last candle of the two candelabra had burned itself out and left us in near- complete darkness. ----- "Congratulations! You two are starting to tick really well together." Helen's compliment as she brought us our breakfast the next morning made me feel extremely proud of myself, although 'tick' wasn't the verb I would have used. "Have you ever thought of bringing other people into your love games?" I was sure this question was leading somewhere, I just didn't know where. I decided to remain quiet until I knew what Helen was driving at. Cathy did not exercise the same restraint. "What other people did you have in mind?" "No one in particular. But before you try out perfect strangers you might experiment with people you know. Friends, for example." Cathy went into thinking mode. "I left all my friends behind when I moved to Boston and didn't stay in touch with any of them. And here I've only made a few casual acquaintances - apart from Stan, of course. I don't think I know anybody I want to have wild sex with." "How about you Stan? Do you know anybody you want to share Cathy with - or who you might want to share with Cathy?" I felt like saying, "What's wrong with just the three of us?" but thought that Helen might take that as a non- constructive, non-cooperative comment. I went through my list of friends and acquaintances, both male and female. Julie seemed an obvious contender, but Cathy had rejected her once before. Besides, Julie's domestic situation didn't make her a serious candidate. Other than that, my situation was similar to Cathy's. I, too, had lost contact with most of my high-school friends. "Nobody except those Cathy already knows," I said with a smirk. I confess that I wasn't unhappy about this outcome. Sex with Cathy had taken on a completely new quality; it was more intense and much more satisfying than it had ever been. I didn't feel any need to rush out and invite other people to join us. Now, if Helen would be willing to participate in our lovemaking, that would have been a completely different matter! The meager outcome of our stocktaking didn't seem to surprise Helen. She picked up our emptied trays and left with the usual reminder to be downstairs in fifteen minutes. ----- "If you like, I can introduce you to some of my friends here. They are very cultured people who'll understand your needs and will treat you with the respect and firmness you deserve," Helen picked up the subject she had embarked upon earlier this morning. I had spent about an hour in my customary position, pinned to the wall with my balls imprisoned, while Cathy had stimulated my cock. Then Helen had released me and asked me to help her with Cathy. It seemed that she trusted my progress enough to assume that I wouldn't misuse the freedom of my hands to rip off that devilish harness which was torturing my balls. I struggled with the implications of what Helen had just said. Did she really mean what I had understood or was I getting over sensitive? But what else could 'understand your needs' mean? And 'treat you with the respect and firmness you deserve'? In any case, Helen's friends were perfect strangers to me. And I wasn't ready to involve people I had never met before in my sex life. I didn't want to appear ungrateful for the offered help. So I just said, "Maybe later." And, to change the subject, I added, "I didn't know you had friends in Boston." "I make friends wherever I go," was Helen's reply. "You two are living proof of that." Helen made Cathy kneel on one half of the table, with her legs spread, after she had fastened her wrists to two ropes hanging from the ceiling. Cathy followed Helen's instructions willingly and without hesitation. "Looks like we're stuck with the four cavemen - at least for the time being," she said. Apparently she had been sold on the idea of additional sex partners and seemed to be disappointed about the limited number of candidates. "But I've done them already." "You know, Cathy, I've always wondered why you call Stan's friends cavemen." Helen picked up on Cathy's remark while she handed me two nipple clamps and pointed at Cathy's breasts. "Actually, I had stopped calling them cavemen. Looks like just now I slipped back into my old bad habits. If you want I'll apologize to them for having given them that nickname." Cathy drew in her breath as I grabbed one of her nipples with one hand and tried to fix a nipple clamp to it. This was my first ever attempt. Obviously, my hands weren't as skilled as Helen's and the process was more painful than necessary. Helen continued her conversation with Cathy while she helped me fit the clamp. "That sounds like a good idea, but that wasn't the reason for my question. When you call Stan caveman, he knows that you want him to be rough, you want him to fuck you hard. So, when you call Stan's friends cavemen, it can only mean ..." Helen wasn't able to finish her sentence. "No, no, no. It doesn't mean what you're thinking," Cathy interrupted her. "You're jumping to the wrong conclusion." The movements of Cathy's upper body to underline how wrong Helen's conclusion was, made it difficult for me to grab Cathy's other nipple. Helen decided to change the subject. "Do you remember the poker evening when you were spanked by Stan's friends?" she asked Cathy. "How could I possibly forget?" Cathy asked back. It occurred to me that this conversation about my poker mates might be connected with the fact that they were due for another visit the following day. "You got spanked four times that evening. How many times did you climax when Stan fucked you afterwards?" "Four times." "That's right. Once for each punishment. Or maybe once for each punisher?" "That doesn't mean anything. The number four is just a coincidence. I never imagined them doing anything other than spank me. I didn't get turned on by _them_, but by the effect of their hands on my bottom." Helen didn't seem to think that Cathy's protestations were worthy of a reply. She turned towards me. In the meantime, I had managed to fit the second nipple clamp on my own. "Tell me, Stan. Doesn't it get boring to play cards all night, and all you've got to show for it are a few lousy cents?" "We all agreed from the beginning that we didn't want to play for significant sums of money. You know the saying about not mixing money and friendship. We don't play because of the money. It's a get-together of a few friends; that's what matters. The few cents we win or lose are just symbolic." As I talked, Helen got another set of clamps from her collection and fitted two of them to Cathy's pussy lips, one on each side. Then she handed me another pair, indicating that I should do the same with them, a little lower down. "I wasn't talking about money. Wouldn't it be nice if you could offer your friends a prize that is really memorable." I had an inkling of what Helen might be getting at but preferred to wait for further details. Besides, I was too busy fitting the clamps to Cathy's pussy. "I'm not thinking of a competition where the best poker player wins. What I have in mind is more like a prize draw where everybody wins a prize. The only question is who wins which prize." Helen inspected my work. Then she fitted thin metal bars between each pair of clamps. These bars had the effect of forcing the pussy lips apart. Cathy's pussy was now pried wide open, giving a clear view of her clit and the entrance to her love hole. "What kind of prize are you thinking of?" Cathy wanted to know. "I'll give you a hint. It's got something to do with sticking cocks into orifices." The answer confirmed what I had suspected. But Cathy hadn't been prepared for this outcome of the conversation. "You mean you want me to let them fuck me?" she gasped. Helen didn't think the question needed an answer. She took another, larger clamp from the drawer and attached it to Cathy's clit. As Cathy drew in breath in reaction to the sudden pressure on her clit, I asked, "But Cathy has only three orifices. There are four guests. Didn't you say that everyone should win a prize?" I realized that my intervention was on purely arithmetical grounds. I wanted to point out a flaw in Helen's plan, and thus I talked about Cathy as if she were an object with a specific number of holes. It didn't occur to me that Cathy - or I - might object to Helen's intended use of those holes as prizes in a draw. "That's where you come in, Stan." My mouth became temporarily disconnected from my brain. It took me a while to reestablish the connection. After I did, I blubbered, "You're not seriously suggesting ...?" "You understood very well what I'm proposing. But to make it quite clear: I don't expect you to take a cock into your mouth." I was in a state of shock. Somehow I knew that I couldn't get out of this. Cathy had agreed, although sometimes reluctantly, to everything Helen and I had come up with. How could I possibly refuse? Everything around me turned into a blur. Cathy hadn't said anything so far. I had interpreted her silence as a sign of solidarity. Maybe she was just as shocked as I was. I found out how wrong I was when she finally broke her silence. "One caveman fucking another caveman. That should be fun to watch," was Cathy's only comment. How could I possibly do this? I watched through a haze as Helen hooked an empty plastic bottle to the clamp on Cathy's clit. Then she fixed another larger bottle, upside down to the wall and connected it with a thin tube to the bottle between Cathy's legs. The whole contraption reminded me of an intravenous drip. In spite of my state of shock I found myself marveling at the vivid imagination of this mysterious woman. How did she manage to come up with so many different ways of causing discomfort and achieving stimulation at the same time? "This drip will gradually fill the smaller bottle here," Helen explained what I had already figured out. "There's no sudden pain, but as the bottle fills, it gets heavier and the pull on the clamp increases. Your challenge is to make Cathy come before the bottle overflows." "Make Cathy come? But how? Her pussy was fully taken up by the contraption Helen had installed there, her nipples were caught in Helen's clamps. How could I make Cathy come?" Once more Helen answered my question before I had pronounced it. "Her ass," she said. "Lick it, rim her hole, stick your tongue inside as far as you can." I decided to accept the opportunity Helen had offered me to take my mind off my own worries, and with it the challenge to make Cathy come by stimulating her ass with my tongue. I stood behind the table, in a position where I had easy access to Cathy's behind. I spread her cheeks with my hands and touched her puckered hole with the tip of my tongue. "That feels wonderful," Cathy moaned. "More, please." I pushed Cathy's cheeks further apart and trailed my tongue along the crack between them, starting from the small of her back, all the way down getting as close to her pussy as was possible without disturbing Helen's contraption. Cathy purred like a cat. She didn't seem to feel any discomfort yet from the weight of the slowly filling bottle. As I stabbed my tongue into Cathy's rear hole, my own worries returned. One of my friends was going to do with his cock to me what I was doing with my tongue to Cathy. I still hadn't come to terms with the idea. I had to force myself to concentrate on pleasuring Cathy. I moistened her ass hole with my saliva to make penetration easier. I dug my tongue deeper into her behind. I twisted my tongue inside her and ran it around the rim. Cathy reacted to my efforts with shouts of encouragement. The sounds coming from her grew more urgent as the bottle hanging on her clit clamp was gradually filling up. It didn't seem likely that I would be able to make Cathy come simply from stimulating her with my tongue. I decided to get reinforcement. I stuck first one, than two fingers into her hole - a move which won Cathy's immediate approval. Cathy's moans grew louder as I pushed my fingers in and out of her hole. "More," she demanded between gasps, "deeper". I wouldn't leave her pleas unanswered. I removed my fingers and spat at her ass to add more lubrication. Then I resumed my finger-fuck, this time inserting three fingers into Cathy's ass, pushing them rhythmically in and out. I realized that I had lost my battle when the overflowing water from the plastic bottle splashed onto the table. Cathy's moans had been growing increasingly urgent, partly as a result of my efforts, partly because of the increasing weight of the bottle pulling on her clit. "You've lost the first round, but I'll give you a second chance," Helen declared as she first disconnected the drip feed and then unhooked the small bottle from the clamp. Cathy screamed in a mixture of pain and relief when Helen pulled the clamp from her clit. But the relief was only temporary. The ropes which had previously held up Cathy's arms were used to lift her legs into the air as Helen made Cathy lie with her back on the table. She strapped Cathy's arms to the table and lowered a small horizontal bar from the ceiling. She attached strings to Cathy's nipple clamps, then pulled the strings over the horizontal bar and attached another bottle, about twice the size of the previous one, to the other end of the strings. It was clear that this time the increasing weight of the bottle would pull on Cathy's nipples. "Go ahead, finger her," Helen ordered me. "But don't touch her clit. It's too sensitive at the moment. The challenge is the same as before. You've got to make Cathy come before the bottle is full. And you're only allowed to use your hands." Cathy was desperate for a climax. My stimulation of her ass had brought her close but hadn't quite produced the result she longed for. This time she didn't want to suffer pain without getting a reward. I spread her pussy lips and pushed two fingers inside. Her wetness indicated her state of excitement. I didn't waste any time on subtleties and started to finger-fuck her in earnest from the word go. Cathy still wasn't satisfied. "Fist me," she ordered. "Stick your whole hand into my cunt." I was shocked. I had heard about fisting before, but how did Cathy know about this practice? Was this one of the things which Helen did when she conducted her individual session with Cathy? Cathy had never told me that she enjoyed such an extreme form of penetration. There was no time for hesitation. Cathy urged me on. I squeezed my fingers together to form a duck's bill. Then I pushed my hand into Cathy's cunt. Cathy was strapped to the table and her legs where lifted straight up and pulled apart by the ropes around her ankles. Otherwise, I'm sure, she would have lifted her bottom off the table and pushed forward to make my entry easier. It took considerable time with lots of patient pushing and twisting to get my hand inside her hole. Cathy accompanied my efforts producing a variety of animalistic sounds. Those sounds never stopped until Cathy reached an orgasm which made her entire body shake. "Christ, you're real pigs," Helen said as she carefully removed the clamps from Cathy's nipples. "It's a good thing you don't have any nearby neighbors, otherwise they might be wondering if anybody's being killed." I was deaf to Helen's admonition. The last time she had expressed her moral outrage, it had only been with the intention to make us declare that we had no regrets. Besides, if some guy was going to stick his cock into my ass, why couldn't I stick my hand into my wife's cunt? ----- And that was what my mind would stay on for the rest of the day and most of the next: my virgin ass was going to be fucked by one of my friends. I had given up any hope that I might be able to avoid the inevitable, but I couldn't stop myself thinking about it. I remembered a series of interviews I had read some time ago, in which people who had been spanked as children and adolescents - and some who were still punished by their partners as adults - had talked about the experience. Many of those people had stated that the worst part was the anticipation. Being told in advance that a punishment was due in the evening or the next day, turned them into a bundle of nerves until the punishment was finally administered. I wasn't due for any punishment, but my reaction was exactly the same. I wasn't able to think of anything else, at least not for any length of time. My thoughts kept returning to the one subject. The time I spent waiting for the unavoidable to happen was probably worse than when it actually happened. I wondered who would win me in the prize draw. I had seen their cocks only once: after the last poker evening, when Cathy had given all four of them a blowjob. I remembered that Eddy's cock was bent like a saber and that Bill's cock was short and fat but had a large knobby head. I couldn't remember anything remarkable about the other two. But I did remember that Bill had confessed to me on his way to the door that this had been his first ever blowjob. "Sue wouldn't dream of touching my cock with her mouth," he had said. Had any of my friends any experience in fucking another man? How would they react? Would the lucky winner accept his prize as an opportunity to experience something new? Or would he consider it a slight on his manliness to suggest that he should fuck another man?