'That's none of your business! You will take her place and like each girl before you, once the Colonel grows bored with you, you'll be sold too.'

So now Vanessa stood, wondering not just what lay in store for her in the short term as the Colonel's plaything, but what fate lay in store for Zoe and before too long, for her as well. It was rumoured that the girls who were chosen to serve the Colonel enjoyed a privileged, though brief time in his private apartment and as Vanessa stood expectantly she wondered where Zoe was and how she would be after her time as he Colonel's private plaything.

'Ah, the new girl. Vanessa, come here!'

Vanessa dutifully went and stood before the Colonel.

'So you are going to replace Zoe. Are you looking forward to serving me?'

'Yes, Colonel,' Vanessa answered demurely, lowering her gaze as the man circled her.

'You have the most magnificent breasts I've seen on such a slender, young girl. Most magnificent...'

Zoe felt the warmth of the man's breath close behind her and then his hand stroked from her shoulder down her arm before moving on to caress her right breast.

'Come into the gallery girl and let me show you what you can look forward to. We will be in time to see the conclusion of Zoe's afternoon meditation.'

Obediently Vanessa followed the man into an adjoining room.

Zoe hung suspended from two wooden poles to which she was bound by numerous slender ropes. There was one pole pressed against her back, with her arms pulled and tied behind the pole. Her ankles were tied to the second smaller pole and both poles dangled from ropes secured to the ceiling. Zoe hung a few feet above the floor, her head and breasts dangling down. Her naked body, shiny with perspiration was bound repeatedly with the slender white rope around her stomach, across her chest and around her ankles. A blindfold of black silk covered her eyes. Standing before her was one of the monks and he gave a respectful nod of acknowledgement when he saw the Colonel.

At the sounds of their arrival, although blindfolded, Zoe lifted her head and looked in the direction of the door by which Vanessa and the Colonel had entered. The Colonel signalled to Vanessa to remain silent.

'This has been Zoe's meditation position every day she has been here. She has learnt to focus on the nature of the ropes. How they bind her and how they give her deliverance. In the early days, a knotted rope was drawn tightly between the lips of her sex and after an hour or so she would be so sensitive there that the merest stimulation would bring her deliverance. She has learnt that once she has her orgasm she will be freed from the ropes but until she does, all she can expect is to remain bound by the ropes. She has quickly learnt to welcome the different ways we can stimulate her.'

Whilst the Colonel spoke the other man circled the tethered girl, whose blindfolded face moved following the sounds of his footsteps.

'How are you feeling Zoe? Do you wish you could come? Are those slender limbs of yours aching with so much discomfort that you'd do anything to be freed from the ropes?'

'Yes, Master Simon... please... help me to come...' Zoe whimpered, wriggling ineffectually against the web of ropes that tightly held her.

'So tell me Zoe, how can I help you? I have more ropes but you have to tell me what you want me to do.'

'Need to come... want to come... please, make me!'

'Tell me what you want to feel then.'

Vanessa watched mesmerised as Zoe sighed and shook her head in frustration and longing.

'Bind my breasts... make them ache, please... you know what I like!' Zoe begged, her arms jerking now against the ropes and poles that held her so uncomfortably suspended.

'Does it feel good if I do this to you?'

'Yes... mmm, yes...'

Vanessa watched, speechlessly as the man slipped a fine cord around one of Zoe's breasts and drew it tight. As he wound it repeatedly around her Zoe gasped and sighed appreciatively until the man knotted off the end of the cord and her breast was a crimson hued cone of tightly bound flesh. Without another word spoken the man then dealt with her other breast.

'Does that feel good? What else would you like me to do for you?' the man asked, smiling with satisfaction at the condition of the blindfolded girl tethered before him.

'I think you've seen enough now, follow me,' the Colonel ordered, placing his hand on Vanessa's shoulder and turning her from the spectacle before her.

As the door was closed behind them, Vanessa could hear Zoe begging the man to whip her and the last thing she heard was the other girl crying out loudly, though whether in pain of pleasure or most likely a mixture of both, Vanessa was unsure. The Colonel lifted Vanessa's chin with one hand and regarded her body critically.

'It has taken just a month to teach Zoe just how much she loves to submit herself to the deliverance of pain. Now I will sell her and then commence work on you, Vanessa. Being younger and less strong willed than her, you will be like putty in my hands. I will mould you into the perfectly compliant submissive and then sell you too. And you see, there's no escape, because just like Zoe, deep down you want to be treated like this and so you've already sealed your own fate!'

Vanessa knew she had to escape. Of course being treated as a sexual submissive was one thing, she got off on it, she couldn't deny that, but to get so addicted to it that she was in danger of ending up as a sex slave for the rest of her life, was another thing altogether! If she wanted to play the submissive that was fine, but to be held in some foul place like Shrevra and brainwashed into wanting pain to get her sexual kicks was not Vanessa's idea of a fun time.

As luck would have it the Colonel absented himself for three days, it was rumoured to go on a trip to buy more girls. This gave Vanessa a chance to try to talk Zoe into joining her in her bid for freedom. To her delight, Zoe was more than willing.

'My God Zoe, I thought they'd turned you into some brainwashed, torture loving sex-slave!' Vanessa exclaimed, when Zoe readily agreed to join her.

'No way, I knew I just had to play along with their games. I don't mind someone giving me a good whipping but I'd like to be able to choose who it is and how much I have to suffer!'

'But when I saw you trussed up and what Master Simon was doing to you, you seemed to be really enjoying it.' Vanessa suggested.

'Maybe I was!' Zoe laughed, blushing. 'Up to a point, anyway!'

They knew from talk amongst the natives that the whole valley was owned by the sect, as well as much of the next, including where the airstrip was. However at the southern end of the neighbouring valley there was a small village and a tea plantation that was owned by an Englishman. There was a rough dirt road from the monastery leading out of the valley and into the next which went past the airstrip and on down to the village. Needless to say the monks had it guarded. Zoe's idea was therefore to climb straight over the hills into the next valley and to make for the Englishman's plantation villa. Her plan was not to try to escape unseen in the middle of the night, when the guards were at their most vigilant, but to walk calmly out of the front gates in the middle of the day.

'I wonder how much longer I've got before I get sold?' Zoe asked.

'I reckon that your time will be up when the Colonel gets back.'

'Then it's time to get out of here. And pretty damned quick!'

'Brother Daniel,' Vanessa stood demurely before the monk, her hands folded behind her back, shoulders drawn back so that her breasts were prominently thrust forward.