by Van ©2012
		Epilogue

ONE MONTH LATER...

---

Cassie waved as Ashley's Honda Civic pulled from Sarand-ip's parking lot and onto the highway.  Cricket Clarke was behind the wheel, taking the car, the former clerks' belongings, and Cricket, herself, to Foxwood as planned.  Tomboy and Trickster had decided to stay at Foxwood and Jester's "vacation" was over.

It had been a fun month.  There had been another delivery from Archer Metals, a backorder Cassie had been expecting.  Yes, Cassie had a new toy, and this time Cricket had been the test subject.  Cassie dabbed a tear from her right eye with her handkerchief.  What good are toys, she thought, when you have no one to play with?

Under Cassie's tutelage, Cricket had absorbed many new tricks of the BDSM trade (light on the SM), and she was most anxious to return to Foxwood and share her newly acquired knowledge with her fellow Foxwood Maidens, especially a certain Spoiled Princess.  Absence had not only made Cricket's heart grow fonder, but had caused her loins to burn for her beloved Alice.  Cassie smiled, even as she dabbed the last of her farewell tears and pocketed the hankie.  Alice was in for an "interesting" next few days.  In any case, for the moment, Cassie was alone.

Cassie reentered the shop and flipped the hanging sign on the front door from "CLOSED" to "OPEN."  She then pulled the "HELP WANTED" sign from behind a display case, placed it in the window where it could be seen from the highway, then turned and headed for the kitchenette to prepare a pot of tea.  She knew she'd be able to hear the bell over the front door if customers suddenly appeared.

Cassie paused in mid-stride, frozen in place with her head cocked to one side, as if she was listening to a distant sound... or music.

Seconds passed... and Cassie's lips curled in a dimpled smile.  She returned to the front shop, took the "HELP WANTED" sign from the window and tucked it back behind the display case.  Once again, she headed for the kitchenette.  The smile remained as she filled the electric kettle and leisurely arranged a tea service for three.

Tinkle-tinkle-tinkle.  It was the bell above the front door.

	EPILOGUE GUEST STARS:
		Sara Jean Underwood		Tiffany Hines
		as Jewel Grady		as Nina Gordon

Cassie returned to the front shop to greet a pair of women in their early twenties.  One was blond and White and the other Black.  Both were about 5' 3" and very easy on the eyes.

"Welcome to Sarand-ip," Cassie beamed.  "My name is Cassiopeia Fell, but please call me Cassie."

"Hi," the dark-skinned beauty replied with a shy smile.  "I'm Nina Gordon."

"And I'm Jewel Grady," the blond added.  She was also shy, or perhaps a little nervous.  "Uh..." she presented a parchment envelope.  "This is for you."

Cassie accepted the envelope.  It was addressed to her in an elegant, almost calligraphic hand that she recognized immediately.  She also recognized the logo embossed on the wax seal, a capital "S" surrounded by an olive branch wreath.  The missive was from Caroline Saunders, Mistress and owner of Silverberry Manor, the Victorian/Steampunk destination resort spa.  "Why don't we have some tea?" Cassie suggested, gesturing in the direction of the café.  "You do drink tea, I hope."

"I love tea," Jewel gushed, losing a little of her shyness.

"Me too!" Nina added.  "Can't work at Silverberry if you don't like tea."

Cassie smiled as she led the new arrivals to the café and settled them into chairs around one of the smaller tables.  The kettle came to a boil in no time.  She filled the teapot and carried the service to the table.  "While we wait for this to steep, I'll see what Caroline has to say."  She broke the seal of the envelope, pulled out the folded pages within, and began to read.

Nina and Jewel waited patiently as Cassie read Caroline's letter.

"I think that's probably ready," Cassie said after about a minute, nodding to the teapot.  She noted that both Jewel and Nina reached for the handle.  They locked eyes briefly, then Jewel lifted a cup and saucer, Nina lifted the pot, and together they poured the first cup.  Cassie smiled.  This confirmed both her initial impression and Caroline's words.  Both girls had dominant personalities, and they'd not yet sorted out their relative positions on the Top/Bottom continuum.  The dance was still in progress.

"Milk or sugar, Mistress?" Nina inquired.

"A splash of milk, please," Cassie answered, then returned to her reading.  The cup and saucer was placed before her, delivered by Jewel, and Cassie took a sip.  "Perfect, thank you," she smiled.  She folded the pages and tucked them back into the envelope, then gestured to the remaining cups.  "Please, ladies, help yourselves."  She continued smiling and sipping her tea as she watched the girls sort out who was going to get tea, milk, and sugar and in what order.  It was not exactly a comedy of errors, but the interaction provided additional confirmation of the pair's still gelling relationship.

"Now," Cassie said once all three had tea.  "Caroline speaks glowingly of your dedication as maids and says you've expressed an interest in moving up the Silverberry hierarchy and taking greater roles in the more sophisticated role-playing scenarios."

"Yes, Mistress," the girls answered.

"I'll be candid," Cassie continued.  "Mistress Caroline rates your bondage experience as novice, approaching intermediate, and with serious deficiencies.  She considers this a matter of experience and opportunity, not aptitude or diligence."  The girls nodded.  "She's asked me to rectify the situation by taking you on as shop girls and giving you a well-rounded education in the bondage arts and sciences."

"Yes, Mistress," the girls responded in unison, their eyes lowered and hands in their laps.

Cassie smiled.  The girls had assumed the manners expected of Silverberry employees.  This suited Cassie's purposes just fine.  "Here's how we'll proceed.  You will work as clerks during the day and instruction will be at night.  Some lessons will involve the two of you together.  Others, especially the more demanding and extended sessions, will require one of you to mind the shop while the other is occupied elsewhere."

"Yes, Mistress," the girls answered.

"I expect nothing less than complete, instant, unquestioning obedience, especially during instruction."

"Yes, Mistress."

Cassie smiled.  "You will find parts of the curriculum to be quite demanding; however, while I may be a strict teacher, I've been told I'm not a particularly unpleasant person to work for.  In addition to training, we're all going to have a lot of fun."

Jewel and Nina exchanged a quick glance, then once again answered in unison.  "Yes, Mistress."

"A final warning," Cassie continued.  "These first few days I'll be evaluating your individual levels of physical and mental tolerance.  It will be something like a bondage boot camp.  Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mistress."  The girls were now noticeably nervous, but still in control.

Cassie's smile broadened.  "Okay then, ladies.  Let's finish our tea, then get you settled in.  You can pull your car into the garage in back and carry your things up to your room.  Then, I'll give you a tour of the shop.  Welcome to Sarand-ip."

"Thank you, Mistress." the new shop girls responded as one.

The girls were smiling, but still a little anxious.  Cassie considered this to be completely understandable.  She took another sip of tea.  "Tell me, ladies," she purred, "are you familiar with 'Gorean slave binders?'  They're something of a new product."

Jewel and Nina exchanged another glance, then answered in unison.  "No, Mistress."

Cassie smiled as she executed a slow pirouette before her bedroom's full-length mirror.  She was in a rarely worn costume, but one perfectly suited for the next phase of her new students' first lesson.

The costume in question consisted of: 

• Knee-boots of gleaming black leather over smoky black pantyhose.  The boots had four-inch stiletto heels, laced up the front, and were skintight, custom made to Cassie's exact measurements.  Otherwise, extended wear would have been a punishing ordeal.  They weren't exactly what one would call comfy, but they only appeared to be "cruel shoes."
• Next, a torso-hugging one-piece garment in the style of a scandalous, very French-cut strapless leotard or one-piece swimsuit, but executed in the same gleaming black leather as the boots.  It incorporated a series of laced panels and narrow straps that constricted Cassie's waist as effectively as a corset.  Also, Cassie's breasts were completely exposed, supported by the modest shelves of a pair of half-moon cutouts.
  
• Cassie's hands and arms were clad in opera gloves of chamois-thin, black leather.  They stretched from her fingertips to her upper arms, just below her armpits.  Black leather bracers were buckled on her wrists, over the gloves.
• Her remaining accessories were her ubiquitous silver necklace with its distinctive cat charm and a choker-style, black leather collar with short spikes of gleaming steel.
• Finally, her raven hair was oiled, combed back, and coiled into a tight, severe bun.

Cassie's lips curled in a cruel smile.  Role-playing aside, Cassiopeia Fell didn't have a mean bone in her exquisite body, but dressed as she was, it was impossible not to describe her smile as anything but cruel.  Cassie was a hot, kinky vision, and she knew it.  She picked up a black riding crop, slid her right wrist through its dangling thong, took the braided handle in her right hand, then gave the side of her right boot a businesslike whack!

"Adequate," she purred, then left the bedroom.  She made her way down the stairs, into the kitchen, then down the stairs to the basement.  Her boots sounded on the wooden steps as she made her slow, stately, elegant descent.

Tap, tap, tap, tap...

Jewel and Nina were waiting, watching her arrival with wide, anxious eyes.  Who wouldn't be anxious (and excited) at the appearance of the majestic, beautiful, ominous vision that was Mistress Cassie?  This was especially true, given the girls' current circumstances.  Both were bound, gagged, and naked.  Specifically...

Nina was standing with her back against one of the basement's steel support columns.  Her wrists were crossed behind the column, her legs were together, and she was bound in place with yards of carefully applied and tightly hitched synthetic hemp rope.  Every few inches, horizontal and lateral bands dimpled her dusky flesh from shoulders to ankles, binding her body against the rounded steel of the column.

The author of Nina's predicament was Cassie, of course, and the Mistress of Sarand-ip had done her usual artistic and technically flawless job of rendering Nina inescapably helpless while protecting her pressure points and ability to breathe.  Aficionados of the scene would find Nina's bondage reminiscent of the art of John Willie, similar to the post or tree bondage Maestro Willie often inflicted on Gwendoline, U-89, and his other fictional damsels and villainesses.

Nina's dark skin had been oiled before Cassie applied the ropes, and her brown flesh glistened under the harsh light of the fixture dangling nearly directly overhead.  She was gagged with one of Cassie's heavy-duty, whiffle-type ball-gags.  Its hollow, thick-walled, black rubber sphere was pierced by a dozen or so round holes, and the gag had two straps.  One buckled at the nape of Nina's neck, tight enough to make her cheeks bulge, and the other under her saliva-dripping chin.

Cassie strolled towards the bound beauty and pressed the leaf-shaped tip of her riding crop against the captive's left breast, applying enough pressure to dimple the firm, rope-framed, brown globe.  "Oh Nina..." Cassie sighed, slowly shaking her head.  She lowered the crop and walked a slow circle around Nina and the column, examining every detail of her bondage.  Tap, tap, tap, tap...  "Mistress Caroline described you as a budding escape artiste," Cassie continued.  "And yet, you've made absolutely no progress whatsoever dealing with my ropes."  She returned to the front and lifted Nina's chin with the crop and the pair locked eyes.  "Granted, I have a great deal of experience restraining female flesh, and all seven of the key knots you would need to untie in order to escape are a yard or more from your fluttering fingers, but still..."  Cassie's gloating smile was chilling (and erotic).  "I'll have to arrange a series of progressively easier rope challenges until we find the actual level of your skill as an escapologist."

Cassie spun on her stiletto heels and directed her smile towards Jewel.  "And as for you, young lady..."

Jewel was not tied to a post.  She had become the second test subject for Cassie's latest acquisition from Archer Metals, the device for which Cricket had been the first.

The same aficionados who would appreciate the John Wilie influence of Nina's post-tie would recognize Cody Archer's latest creation as a direct steal from Gwendoline and "The Missing Princess."  Cody Archer wasn't the first to replicate the device in question, but hers was about as close to a faithful copy as was humanly possible.

Jewel was straddling a "Willie Stand," a vertical steel post with a serrated, blade-like steel plate directly under her crotch and a second steel plate studded with short spikes that threatened to punish her dimpled butt-cheeks.  Her ankles were fettered about two feet apart by a set of rigid, horizontal steel stocks attached to the vertical post.  Her wrists were bound behind her back with faux-hemp rope.

There were only two major differences between Jewel and the unfortunate damsel in the Maestro Willie illustration:  Jewel wasn't tottering on shoes with ridiculously high heels, nor was she wearing stockings with garters.  The blond's bare feet were flat on the floor and her legs as naked as the rest of her.

Jewel's shoulders were rolled back, her back arched, and her arms pulled towards a steel ring in a bracket clamped to a support column a few feet behind and at the same height as the top of the stand.  Also, her bound wrists were linked to bands of rope cinched around her thighs, just above the knees, and the taut strands were enforcing the pose.  Her crotch hovered just above the serrations of the "saddle," her butt just clear of the spikes of the back plate, and her upper body was pulled back by her wrist and thigh bonds.

The very idea of Jewel resting her crotch on the serrations was unthinkable.  Truth be told, the steel teeth had more in common with a mechanical gear than a saw-blade and would not cause physical damage, but they'd certainly make a very unpleasant resting place.  Straightening her back would press Jewel's butt against the back-panel's spikes.  All she could do was stand there.  It wasn't an extreme pose, but it allowed absolutely no relief for her back muscles.

Cassie smiled.  "Insidious, isn't it?"

The question was rhetorical, rendered absolutely so by the ball-gag filling Jewel's mouth.  It was a twin of the gag silencing Nina.  Jewel's smooth, firm, well-tanned skin glistened as she'd also been oiled by Cassie's loving hands.  In addition, beads of sweat were beginning to form on her shining forehead.

"Mistress Caroline said you are one of her most gifted Yoga instructors," Cassie purred, using the tip of her riding crop to tease Jewel's left nipple.  The dark pink nubbin was fully erect.  Both of Jewel's nipples were fully erect.  Cassie waved the crop towards Nina, but without taking her eyes from the helpless blond's gagged face.  "You both have fit, well-toned physiques, but Caroline specifically mentioned your flexibility, Jewel.  That's why you're riding the stand and Nina gets to relax."

Nina suppressed the urge to force a disgruntled moan past her gag.  Cassie's tight ropes virtually melded her to the post, and the rigidly enforced immobility was not relaxing.  However, she had to admit she was getting the better deal.  Nina was very glad she wasn't in Jewel's place.

"I see you haven't managed to free your wrists," Cassie said, still addressing Jewel.  Now the tip of the crop was teasing Jewel's right nipple.  She slid the leaf-shaped tip between Jewel's breasts, then down her strained body to her navel.  "Of course, if by some miracle you had managed to reach the unreachable knot, you'd still be astride my stand.  There's no way you could possibly bend down and free your ankles.  Don't you agree?"

It was another rhetorical question.  Jewel gazed back at her tall, beautiful, terrifying Mistress with sad blue eyes.

Cassie took a step back and another to one side, standing where she could see both students and they could see each other.  "All right, ladies," she purred.  "You've had nearly two hours to fully appreciate your situations.  One of you is going to remain as you are until sunrise.  The other will share my bed.  My bed-mate will remain stringently bound, of course, and will have to earn the right to sleep on the mattress, as opposed to the hard floor, but she'll find it a welcome change from the basement."

Nina and Jewel locked eyes, then heaved simultaneous gagged sighs.

Cassie noted that neither student was trying to influence her choice, nor did they seem particularly distressed.  A thrill rippled through Cassie's pussy and up her spine.  Strong and beautiful, both of them, she thought.  I owe Caroline a great deal for this gift.

Cassie had no intention of leaving Jewel exactly as she was now for the entire night.  If she decided to take Nina to bed, first she'd change Jewel's upper-body bondage to an inescapable box-tie, perhaps a reverse-prayer box-tie, depending on her mood.  The gorgeous blond would remain straddling the stand, and while it would not be a piece of cake, she'd be fine.  As a precaution, Cassie would add a vertical safety rope hitched through the box-tie and tied to the steel ring dangling from the rafter directly over the stand.  Jewel would be okay.

On the other hand, if Nina remained bound to the post as she was, she'd also be fine.  No doubt her gorgeous brown eyes would be very sad if forced to watch Cassie lead a bound and gagged Jewel up the basement stairs, but come morning she'd be unharmed.

Truth be told, Cassie hadn't yet decided who would spend the night in the basement and who would share her bed.  Whatever her choice, both damsels would spend tomorrow strapped to their respective beds with medical restraints.  Tomorrow night, tonight's bed-mate would spend the hours of darkness bound and gagged in some hideously contorted (but instructive) position, while tonight's loser would have her opportunity to demonstrate the level of training of her tongue and lips.  On day three, one would spend her working hours as Cassie's shop girl in Victorian costume (including a tight corset and steel chastity belt).  The other would pass the day as Cassie's Shibari practice dummy.

Decisions, decisions, Cassie mused.  Jewel and Nina's first week really would be like boot camp.  Cassie had to take them apart and find their limits, bondage-wise.  Her next task would be to find and eliminate their bad habits as riggers.  The upper tier of the Silverberry staff were true professionals.  Caroline wouldn't have sent the girls to Sarand-ip if she didn't think they had the required potential, and Cassie already agreed with her old friend's assessment.  That said, the blond and dark beauties needed work.  The coming instruction was going to be nearly as demanding for Cassie as it would be for her students.  She gazed at Jewel's tan, strong, beautiful body, and Nina's mahogany and equally strong and beautiful physique.  Whatever the challenges, being their teacher would not be an unpleasant task.

Cassie turned and headed for the stairs.  Tap, tap, tap, tap...  "I'll be back in a while," she called back over one bare shoulder.  Tap, tap, tap, tap...  "Perhaps an hour... maybe two."  She knew her student's eyes were on her disappearing form, her shining boots, thong-cleaved, nylon-sheathed rear, her corseted waist, tan shoulders, leather-clad arms, collared throat, and her tight, raven-black bun.  Even without checking, Cassie knew she had an appreciative audience.  She mounted the stairs—  Tap, tap, tap, tap...  —and closed the basement door behind her.  Thunk.

Cassie left the basement lights burning.  She wanted her students to be able to gaze upon each others predicaments.

◄

Chapter 11

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