Church of Chains by Sean O'Kane

keep pace with her but pulled in front and reined in. She stopped and looked up at him.
    “We’re going to see just how fast you can really run Number Three. Hold your hands out.”
    She obeyed automatically but was puzzled by his uncharacteristic good humour. He was grinning as he dismounted and approached her. Using a long rein he tied her wrist restraints together and then tied the other end to the pommel of his saddle. Paula looked on in dismay but didn’t dare say anything.
    He remounted without even looking at her and put his heels to his horse. At first it was just a walk. Then it was a trot and finally it was a canter. Paula ran as she had never run before but the fact that her arms were tied in front of her made it doubly difficult to keep up. Brother Harris looked back and laughed as he pulled his horse away from the route the other girls were taking, the way back to the monastery.
    Through sweat-blurred vision Paula saw that they were going even farther out into the estate than they had been before. Already her breath was rasping in her burning lungs and her legs pumped desperately. And still he pulled her farther away from the monastery.
    At last, inevitably, she couldn’t keep it up and fell headlong with a despairing wail. Her arms were wrenched cruelly as she pitched forward, hit the ground and was dragged along over grass and mud until Brother Harris reined in. She lay still, panting and gasping while he dismounted and came back to her. Her nipples were aching from having been dragged violently across the ground and the whole of her breast flesh felt bruised.
    Suddenly a line of white-hot pain exploded across her shoulders and there was a dry Crack! as if a pistol had been fired. Paula’s body reacted with an involuntary arching of the back and she saw him reeling in the long horsewhip, preparing to lash her again. It was the heaviest whip she had ever experienced, the pain and the weight of the blow had left her breathless. She had become well used to the crop but grimly she realised that she was in for a totally new kind of flogging. She got her arms under her and began to rise but another lash cracked down and this time the whip curled round her ribs and bit into the soft flesh at the side of her breast where it hung beneath her. She cried out and flattened herself against the ground again in an instinctive attempt to shield herself. But the next lash had her desperately rolling away and trying to rise again. Brother Harris had moved round to stand at her head, and it was laid down her back, parallel to the spine and buried itself deep in the crack between her buttocks. The long braided cord snaked into the secret crevices of her body and tore into the soft flesh of her sex lips. It made her shriek and frantically try to get her legs under her. But Harris gave her no chance to rise on her own. He pounced on her and deliberately hooked his fingers into her nipple rings to haul her up. She screamed again as the tender pink nipples were wrenched away from her body and she shot to her feet faster than she believed possible. He kept pulling up though, so that she had to dance up onto tiptoe to try and stop the pain. Only then did he speak.
    “There’s only a few days left Number Three to make quite sure that you know you are nothing except what we allow you to be.”
    “ Master!” Paula cried desperately, “I know I am nothing! Really I do!”
    “Father Burton wants to make absolutely sure.”
    He released his agonising grip on her and returned to his horse, urging it back into a trot. Paula staggered after him, trying hopelessly to galvanise her aching legs into action again.
    The next time she fell, he dragged her for much longer before he stopped. Paula knew what was coming this time but had only got up as far as knees and elbows before he whipped her again. And again he went for her breasts to start with, they swayed invitingly beneath her body, Paula knew, but there was no help for it. She had to