restrained and stretched out tightly, she could barely move at all. This
was a hundred times worse than the handcuffs. To make it worse, all she
had on was that damned skimpy bikini. But despite her misery, there was a
strange fascination with it as well.
She had always felt a peculiar tingle when she saw an actress similarly
stretched out and helpless in a film--especially if she was scantily
clad--and had often wondered how the actress felt while making the scene,
knowing that millions of people would see her like that. Did they feel
self-conscious? Regina suspected they did. It was embarrassing enough to
have only three people see her in her predicament, and one of them was her
mother. Anyway, it was only for three hours and it was, after all, a new
experience. Elsa and her mother were gone, but Madame Petrushka was still
there observing her.
"Are you going to watch me for the entire three hours?" One part of her
wanted to be left alone, but another part was afraid Madame Petrushka
wouldn't come back.
"Watch you? Oh, my. You don't understand, I guess. This isn't the
punishment, not at all. This is only to hold you still." Madame
Petrushka walked around Regina and stood behind her.
"Are you going to whip me?"
"Whip you?" Madame Petrushka was genuinely taken aback. "Why, that
would be barbaric. I am much more refined than that."
Regina felt something lightly touch her back; she tried to move away, but
couldn't get rid of it. "I think there's a bug on my back, Madame
Petrushka."
"A bug, Miss Regina? No, there's no bug."
The "bug" moved up her back, across her shoulders, and back down again.
"What are you doing?"
"Beginning your lesson. If you're back wasn't bare, you wouldn't be able
to feel this annoyance, would you?"
"No, Madame Petrushka." Regina tried twitching, but the crawling
sensation followed her, never changing pressure.
Then it moved to her leg, and when Regina looked down, saw that Madame
Petrushka was drawing a red nail down the outside of her thigh. Just
above her knee, the nail moved to the inside of her thigh and back up
nearly to her womanhood. A similar torment was repeated on her other leg.
She tried moving what little she could, but Madame Petrushka seemed to
instinctively know when Regina would try to escape the maddening
sensation, and matched her movement with her own.
"Bare legs can get you into trouble, as you are finding out. Young girls
are the same all over the world, full of fire and wanting to show their
bodies. In my native country, our village had its share of girls just
like you. Not bad girls, just wild." The nail returned to Regina's back
where it traced a different pattern. "But unlike most peoples, we devised
a unique way to correct it. A beating left hostility, but some wise
person developed the torture of the nails. There was no lingering anger
after undergoing this torture, just exhaustion."
Regina, despite her futile attempts to avoid the nail on her bare back,
was nonetheless fascinated by Madame Petrushka's explanation.
Returning to her legs, Madame used a nail on each leg this time. It was
far worse now. "In the hands of an expert, a simple thing like a nail can
inflict unbearable torture without leaving a mark. We had a device
similar to the one holding you in the village square. More than once I
was placed in it. I was a wild one in those days." Madame Petrushka
laughed as she remembered. "Your own mother underwent eight hours one
night when she lived here."
"My mother?" The shock of this disclosure made Regina temporarily forget
her torture. Her mother was the most straight-laced person in the world.
"Yes. We caught her with a young man in her room."
Regina couldn't believe it. Not her mother!
"We sent the young man away--young men do such things, it's to be
expected--but we couldn't excuse such behavior in a young lady. So we
brought your mother naked into this very room and taught her better.
Years later, after she had met your father, she returned and thanked us.
Yes, we've only begun, Miss Regina. You're nearly as naked as your mother
was and we're going to work all over your body."