The Tithe That Binds (7 page)

Minerva walked to the sink counter and returned with two bowls. She handed one to Gabrielle and whispered, “Remember to do her pussy first. The feeling will be wasted if her limbs are already burning.”

Mara watched nervously as Gabrielle dipped a wooden paddle into the bowl. A sticky, thick substance dripped from the wood and hung in strings. Mara’s eyes widened when Gabrielle separated her pussy lips with two fingers, and she began coating the substance on her lips. It covered her whole mound, down to the cheeks of her bottom, and then the syrupy substance began to get warm.

Gabrielle laid the bowl between Mara’s spread legs and watched as her tithe’s eyes opened in fear and began to fill. “Ow. Oh god, get it off of me,” Mara screamed. Her pussy was on fire.

“I guess it’s working,” Minerva said. She began slathering down the girl’s arms and over her breasts and stomach. Gabrielle was working just as judiciously to get her legs covered, and she rocked Mara from side to side until her back was coated as well. They lifted the sheet and wrapped her in it like a cocoon. The wrap became a blistering hot oven of restraining pain, and Mara began wailing and screaming in agony.

“We should have put the ring gag in first to keep her from biting her tongue” Minerva noted. Gabrielle was right. The girl was sure to bring her many years of sadistic pleasure with such a reaction to pain. She gripped Mara’s jaw while she continued to shriek, and Gabrielle managed to seat the ring.

“Oh. Eese.” Mara felt as though her skin was burning from her. She continued to shriek until her voice was hoarse, and still the concoction burned. She cried and tried to scream at them to get the sheet off her. The two women walked into the other room with cups of tea, and between her wailing sobs, Mara heard them murmuring.

A long while later the burn seemed to be lessening, or maybe she was getting used to the agony. When her screams began to subside, Gabrielle appeared over her, and she tilted a cup to give her a little water. “You’re doing fine, Mara.”

“Eeese. Eeese, istress,” Mara begged. Her skin was boiling off her and only her head escaped the scalding burn.

“Hush now. You know I don’t like pleading,” Gabrielle reminded her tormented slave. The pain and tears were causing an intensely arousing reaction, and Gabrielle set down the cup and climbed onto the table.

She heard Minerva chuckle behind her. “It
is
an incredible feeling.” Her own building arousal had her leading Tara back to the seating area.

Gabrielle lifted her apron and skirt, and she straddled the wailing girl’s head.
Oh, god.
Mara began sobbing when her Mistress’ moist pussy lowered onto her opened mouth. She screamed in outrage and pain, and Gabrielle responded by crushing down on her ringed lips harder. Mara could not catch her breath, and the hole over her mouth began dripping onto her tongue. At last, she lashed out with an angry swipe of her tongue. The taste of the horrid woman was becoming familiar, and Mara worked her clit and folds in a frenzy. It there was any benefit to this new torment it was a slightly minimizing affect distracting her attention from her burning body.

Gabrielle began rocking over the girl’s mouth and she closed her eyes, imagining Elijah was there to plunge down her tortured tithe’s throat. It was a pleasure he was missing because of Chris McEnroe’s deceit. Just thinking of Eli, his dark eyes filled with passion while he thrust into Mara, had Gabrielle moaning and grinding out an explosive climax. She climbed off the table and watched her mother finishing her own orgasm with Tara.

Gabrielle enjoyed lunch with her mother on the front porch. Tara took care of their dishes while the women rocked and looked out on the settlement. Gabrielle scanned the trees across the pasture… and her green eyes narrowed and focused on a woman exiting the woods. It was the same spot she and Eli used to go to when they were courting. “Mother, is that Lucy?”

Minerva turned her gray steely eyes to where Gabrielle indicated. “Oh. My, my, my. And who do you suppose will be emerging from the thicket next?”

The women continued to gaze at the woods. Lucy sidetracked to the tithes’ bathhouse, which was empty in the afternoon. Gabrielle and Minerva ignored her while they watched the woods. “Oh shit,” Gabrielle whispered.

“Who is it?” Minerva could see the form of a man who definitely was not Holden.

“Eddie McEnroe. Jason told me he’d just been promoted to a guard helper in the work camps. For god’s sakes. He’s her first cousin,” Gabrielle gasped.

“The Preacher needs to be told,” Minerva’s firm voice did not hide her disgust. “I don’t think we should be involved, Gabrielle. Holden is going to be devastated.”

“I think you’re right, mother. Do you think we should see if they do it tomorrow? It might be better to have the Preacher or an elder witness it. I’d hate to get in a screaming match with Lucy denying it. It would put Holden in a position of defending her or believing us.”

“She’s a McEnroe,” Minerva stated in acidic distaste. “She won’t change her stripes. We’ll see if we can pick out her pattern and set her up. Let’s go check Mara.” Minerva pushed herself up from the rocking chair and glanced at the trees again.

As the burning finally went away, it was replaced with an increasing itching sensation. By the time the women came into the house, Mara was struggling to rub against the confining sheet. “Loosen her restraints a little. The rubbing will pull the hair loose,” Minerva instructed.

“Eeese, eese, istress,” Mara cried.

“Stop pleading, Mara,” Gabrielle warned. The agony on the girl’s face had her pussy leaking again, and she thought about her tithe’s soft pink tongue, lapping her. Gabrielle loosened the thong a little, and the tithe began rustling under the sheet. “How much longer?”

“Until the follicles release, maybe another hour,” Minerva replied.

The women sat by the fireplace and made plans to catch Lucy. “What do you think Holden will do?”

“Punishment will be left to the elders and the Preacher, and Holden will be given a chance to dissolve their union,” Minerva predicted. “I think he’ll take it. I think he’s regretted their marriage since he made the mistake.”

“What then?” Gabrielle asked.
Infidelity!
Gabrielle could not remember ever hearing of a case between clan unions.

“For Lucy? Who knows? If Holden relinquishes her, the elders will probably send her to the work camps. Holden has her tithe to keep him pleasured for a while. I imagine it won’t be hard for him to find a new wife. He’s not bachelor material like Caleb, and I think that’s why he’s stuck it out as long as he has. He could have made a bigger scene out of what Lucy did to Linda.”

When they returned to Mara, she was sleeping. “Unwrap her slowly and let’s take a look,” Minerva said. Mara’s skin was bright pink, and the sheet had absorbed most of the exfoliate and loosened hair. “Perfect. Wash her with cool water and keep the lotion on her. Keep her restrained, because she’ll want to scratch when the peeling starts this afternoon, and she could scar. I’ll check on you tomorrow, but she should be ready when Eli gets back.”

“Thanks, mother. Did I tell you Eli’s training her to cart for me?”

“I had a feeling, when he let your pony go. I’ll check with Edna and see if she saved any of her old gear.”

Mara spent two more days strapped to the table. A slave came by to put a waste bucket beneath her hips twice a day. Gabrielle tended to her and removed the ring the first evening to feed her. Mara was exhausted from the pain and itching, and now the top layer of her skin was stretching and peeling. She wanted to tear it off. Gabrielle washed her with cool water and kept lotion on her skin. She noted her tithe had not spoken of her friend the entire time.

Minerva finally announced that Mara was finished, and they let her up from the table. Her legs were wobbly and her back ached. She stared down at her bared pussy in surprise. Gabrielle actually laughed at her shocked expression. She let her walk around for a while, and then she was led to the bedroom. There was a cage in the corner Mara had not noticed before, and she was ordered inside and locked into it.

Mara curled up and fell asleep again. She woke to men’s voices yelling and arguing from the other room. One of the voices belonged to the devil, and although Mara shivered at the thought of his return, she also felt her pussy respond with a clenching clasp of arousal.

While Mara had been sleeping, Minerva and Gabrielle made plans. Elijah and Abram surprised them by showing up early. They looked tired, but said that everything had gone well. Jill was already secured with the widows, and Edna offered to keep an eye on them. It had been many years since the women had had a slave of their own.

Minerva and Gabrielle explained the situation with Lucy, and Abram trudged off to collect the Preacher and Shawn again. When they returned, the hushed discussion lasted for half an hour. “Elijah, she’s meeting him at our old copse. We’ve watched them for past two days. They wait until Holden leaves to check the grain supplies.”

“Then you think they’re meeting now?” the Preacher asked.

“If we hurry. They’ll be heading back around three,” Gabrielle answered.

The six of them left to the woods, skirting around the edge of the thicket. Elijah pointed and held his finger to his lips, and they worked their way closer until they could all hear the sounds of a very passionate exchange. Abram and Eli stood to the sides, slithering their hands through the brush. The Preacher nodded, and they pulled the branches back and he strode through the vines into the small clearing.

Lucy shrieked and grabbed for her dress. She slapped Eddie across the face before his shocked mind could grasp the sight of the Preacher and principal elder. “He raped me,” Lucy screamed, and tears burst from her eyes.

Minerva walked into the clearing. “And did he rape you yesterday? And the day before that?”

Lucy searched the group for an ally, and her eyes caught on Gabrielle. She was smiling with a satisfied green cat-eyed stare at her. “You,” Lucy shrieked. She jumped to her feet and dropped her dress, preparing to claw Gabrielle.

Eddie continued to sit on the ground, slowly pulling his clothes on. He glanced uneasily up at Abram.
Shit.
This little game with his cousin had just earned him time on the wheel again. The enforcer held out the cuffs, and Eddie did not resist.
Hell, not with Elijah here too.

The Preacher grabbed for Lucy, and in her outrage she spun and slapped him. She stilled immediately and dropped to her knees. “I’m sorry, Preacher. Oh, no. Oh, god.” She looked up and whispered, “He raped me. The women are lying.”

“No, Lucy.” The Preacher looked down his narrow nose in disgust. “Get your clothes on, woman. There’s no reason to march you through town naked, and humiliate your husband even more.”

Gabrielle glanced at Minerva. They noticed the Preacher did not refer to her as Mistress. They did not know that when Holden approached him about using Edna’s tithe to breed for his sons, he had already discussed the possibility of dissolving his union with Lucy. In the Preacher’s mind, he had already stripped her status.

Lucy struggled more than Eddie had when Abram grabbed her arms to secure the cuffs. They got them latched behind her back, and the Preacher ordered Abram to collar them. Lucy began sobbing and fell to the ground. Abram collared her anyway, and hooked on the leash.

The group left the trees with Elijah leading Eddie and Abram leading Lucy, dragging her by her neck when she refused to stand. Gabrielle followed behind with Minerva, the Preacher, and Shawn. By the time they reached the settlement, everyone was on their porches and staring at the people marching up the street.

The only one smiling was Caleb. He kicked his kneeling slave. “Fetch Holden.”

“Yes, Master.” Paula dashed to the work camp.

“Elijah, can we meet with him at your place first? I want to get a sense of his feelings on this, and I think he’d feel better at a friend’s house instead of the church.”

“Of course, Preacher. It might be better to leave these two with Caleb, though,” Elijah suggested. “If Holden loses it, it could get ugly.”

This was the screaming Mara heard that woke her from her sleep. She could only catch snatches of the conversation.

“At least three occasions that were witnessed, Holden. The settlement might have an idea of what happened, but no one has said anything. It gives you the opportunity to allow her to be punished and not dissolve your union,” Shawn said.

After Holden’s initial outburst, he had sunk to the sofa with his head in his hands. He looked exhausted and beaten. “I’ve fought so hard to justify Lucy,” he sighed, and slowly looked up. “I’m tired, Preacher. I want it over.”

“There is no love?”

“There has been no love for a long, long time. Only excuses, Preacher.”

“On your word, Preacher.” Shawn had to wait for the Preacher to make the determination. “The elders will vote her name stricken from the clan.”

“So be it,” the Preacher declared. With that, Lucy McEnroe Tilson had a line drawn through her name in the clan registry.

With her union to Holden dissolved, she was no longer safe from the work camp. Abram and Caleb brought Eddie and Lucy to the enforcement quarters where Abram and the other enforcers declared sentence. After five years of service in the camp, Eddie was once again demoted to worker status and given a year on the wheel.

Lucy watched Eddie led away. He gave her a look that chilled her for costing him his position and sending him to a year of the harshest work in the camp. Eddie had no idea why he had allowed her to seduce him, and he tried to ignore the fact that he certainly had done nothing to halt her advances.

Lucy scanned the enforcement officers, and she decided that her best bet was with Sherman. His wife was an insipid little thing and always sickly. Lucy tried to offer him secretive looks and suggestions, turning her body so her breasts were outlined in profile to him. Charles kicked him under the table and Sherman stomped on his foot. He knew what the hell she was doing.

When Sherman ignored her, she turned her attention to Abram again. He was glaring at her, and Lucy realized her attempt at seduction had been noticed. Sherman muttered, “Hell. Eddie deserves a year on the wheel just for falling for her crap.”