The Colonel used the end of his cane to lift Zoe's head by her chin, encouraging her to meet his gaze.
'Christy is younger than you are and as her older sister you must take a hand in teaching her. When she arrived she believed that she would hate it here and she'd hate to serve us. We will now begin to teach her that she can come to love being here. First we must wash her mind with the cleansing fire of pain. A pain that will make her understand that her body is nothing more than an instrument to bring the masters of Shrevra rewards for their long devotion to our community. Give her a dozen strokes of the cane and hit her where she will link the pain to the meaning of her body; the provision of gratification to her masters.'
'I can't do it!' Zoe shook her head.
'Then perhaps, she should teach you?'
The Colonel walked across to in front of where Christy hung spread-eagled. Zoe could see that the young girl was still looking defiant but there was also fear in her eyes.
'My child, you may choose to receive pain or to give pain. Remember though before you answer, there is no escape from Shrevra and until you learn obedience every day will be a painful step on the path to fulfilment.'
'Let me down. I'll whip her!'
'But Christy... don't you see what they're doing?' Zoe blurted.
'Sure I see honey, but we've got a choice, don't you understand? I don't want to collect bruises even if you do!'
Zoe couldn't believe what was suddenly happening. The cane was taken from her grasp and no sooner had Christy been freed than Zoe was being bound in her place.
'Christy, they're manipulating us! Don't listen to what he says... we have to stick together on this! Don't you understand what he's doing to us?'
'Sure I understand Zoe. It's just like college. You have to play by the rules to get on. I've always played by the rules if it's worth it and right now it's worth it!'
Zoe stared imploringly at the young American girl as she circled her, the cane in one hand, her other dragging her tangled blonde hair clear of her face. She stepped close in front of Zoe and whispered to her.
'Listen Zoe, we could be here for ages, haven't you figured it out? As long as we give these guys a good time and play the devoted slave girls we'll be okay. Hell, it shouldn't be that bad.'
Zoe shook her head in dismay as Christy stepped back, swung the cane and brought it down across her breasts with a sharp thwack. She gave a scream of pain and jerked her arms angrily against the ropes that bound her wrists.
'It isn't so bad Zoe. Not from my perspective anyway!'
The cane swished through the air and hit Zoe across the inside of her spread thighs and she gave another howl of pain. She watched, trembling, as the young American girl danced out of her vision, moving behind her.
'Christy, please... don't!'
The cane smacked down across her rump making her jerk and pull frantically against the ropes.
'Good, well done Christy,' the Colonel encouraged.
The cane struck again where her thighs curved into her buttocks and she gasped as the pain travelled through her body like an electric shock. She was trembling uncontrollably with sweat running all down her tethered body by the time she'd received her first six strokes from the cane.
'How are you feeling Zoe?'
Christy stood close behind her and Zoe felt the cane touching between her spread legs.
'Uhh, please, do you have to hit me so hard?' she begged.
'Heavens sweetheart, they'd spot it if I didn't do a proper job. Besides, you know I'm kinda getting to enjoy myself here.'
Zoe groaned as the cane slid against the folds of her sex.
'Is your mind focusing yet on pleasure and suffering?'
'Uhh...'
Zoe felt the cane tap lightly against her sex, then a second time, more forcefully. She gasped in pain and tried urgently to close her legs protectively together but it was impossible. Again the cane flicked against her, then she felt the other girl slide her fingers into her sex.
'Say Colonel, I think she's beginning to get aroused by this. Is that good or bad?'
'It's good that she can appreciate pain and find pleasure in her suffering. Now, give her the next six strokes!'
Shrevra lay isolated, as Zoe had guessed, in the Himalayan foothills. The valley where the monastery was situated was owned wholly by the sect, as was most of the neighbouring valley. The fertile lower hill slopes were given over to tea plantations that the monks ran and profited from. They also grew and harvested from large fields of wild poppies whose cultivation Zoe guessed was for opium.
After a week at Shrevra she was beginning to bitterly regret her hesitation to whip Christy on their first day at the monastery. Since then the girls paths had gone in radically different directions. Christy had quickly become slavishly obedient and had a list of daily tasks that contrasted radically with those set to Zoe. The girls shared a small room with two bunk beds, a narrow barred window, a washstand and a few meagre possessions. Each morning while Zoe had to scrub down the stone steps of the courtyard quadrangle then prepare porridge for the monks, Christy went to the living quarters of the six masters and she washed each master in turn. Each had his own private room with a private shower. So by mid-morning Zoe had got herself hot and sweaty while Christy had got to share six hot showers, in exchange for the hardship of washing the masters who she served. Zoe had asked her if they made any demands on her and was told that she was expected to suck each man until he came. The young American girl grinned and said that it wasn't too much of a hardship.
In the afternoons Zoe was made to work with the rest of the girls cleaning and cooking. The monastery had fifteen girls. Half of these were young Indian girls, each very pretty and the others were from various countries but shared in common the fact that they'd been abducted and sold into slavery. What alarmed Zoe was how obedient they had become. Most had been there for two or three years but even a French girl captured less than a year ago was wholly subservient and made no complaint against her life in the sect. The most recent arrival after Zoe and Christy was another English girl, Mandy, who had been there for a couple of months. Even she seemed practically converted into a docile and obliging creature by the sect's methods of initiation.
So while Zoe worked under the watchful eye of monks or native guards, Christy remained out of sight, serving the masters carnal needs. She quickly became reticent about divulging what she had to do, but Zoe guessed that the Colonel and the masters had quickly found her weak point and had ruthlessly exploited it.
Christy had demonstrated a penchant for inflicting pain and the masters used her to punish disobedient girls. On the other hand, Zoe had been used as a model for what any disobedient girls could expect and she often went to bed, her body smarting from a severe whipping.
As if to signal the favouritism that had been extended to Christy she was given different clothes to wear. Most of the girls were given a standard uniform of a white cotton skirt that barely covered their buttocks and a brightly coloured silk sash that was drawn around their breasts like boob-tubes and left the rest of their chest and stomach exposed. They had no underwear and were made to wear high-heeled shoes that laced with straps up their calves. The attire had been cleverly thought out. The high-heeled shoes were hopeless to walk in except on paved stone, which effectively kept the girls to the monastery. Also, the laces strapped around their calves were so tightly and intricately bound, woven and knotted together it would take ages for the shoes to be removed. The flimsy little cotton skirts were tied with a drawstring that had to be knotted in a bow at the small of the back. Very easy for a monk to quickly undo, should he wish. The colourful sashes that covered the girl's breasts even served another purpose. Any disobedient girl could expect her sash to be removed and used to bind her hands, gag her or blindfold her.
From the first day that she'd been brought to Shrevra, Zoe knew she had to try to escape and as each day slid past this seemed more and more imperative. Quite simply because she wondered how long it might be before she began to accept her fate and became resigned to her life as an obedient slave girl in this isolated fastness devoted to sadism. From what she could persuade the other girls to divulge it seemed that after a few years of living at Shrevra, once girls had become totally subservient to the demands made of them they were sold on, no doubt at a considerable profit. There was without doubt a ready market around the world for bright and beautiful young girls who had been turned into devoted sex slaves.
On one day, Zoe and Mandy had been working in the kitchens when one of the monks had complained that his porridge was cold. Mandy had immediately accepted the blame and promptly one of the kitchen workbenches was cleared of everything from its work surface. Zoe watched in horror and fascination as the girl willingly removed her skirt and climbed onto the bench. She lay face down and spread her legs and arms, clutching the edge of the table with her hands. One of the monks removed the sash from her breasts and ordered her to stretch her arms out above her head. She did as she was told and the monk wrapped the sash around her wrists, drawing her hands together. She was then told to spread her legs and with dismay Zoe watched the girl immediately obey.
Two more of the monks took the long canes with which Zoe was now all too familiar with and proceeded to give her a thorough thrashing. They were experts at telling how much a slave could take and worked the slender rods across her buttocks, taking it in turn to strike from the left and then the right, until her the soft pillows of flesh were bright pink all over, Mandy groaning and twisting against the hands that held her but keeping her legs obediently open. Abruptly one of the monks stopped the beating long enough to dig his fingers between the punished cheeks and delve into her sex. When he withdrew his hand, his fingers glistened with Mandy's juices.