Daphne

Prologue

You're sitting at a bar. There's a guy two bar stools away who looks like he could handle himself in a scuffle. You finish your beer, order another, and introduce yourself. He says his name is Mike and the two of you start talking. After a few beers, he says, "Let me tell you a story."

* * *

I'll never forget that Saturday night. It was about two years ago. I was at Leo's warehouse with an old buddy, Jerry.

Leo's an importer of sex toys. Not just the plain vanilla stuff, but real kinky stuff too - if you want to get a dildo with electrodes built-in and a high-voltage power supply so you can light someone up, Leo's your guy. Compared to some of his wares, that's pretty tame.

As a promotional gimmick, he has a show practically every weekend in an unused section of his warehouse - he calls them 'product demonstrations' - where the attendees are encouraged to try his products on a live 'model.'

Leo's 'models' are co-eds that he recruits from the local University. He somehow persuades them to strip naked and then allow themselves to be tied up so they are helpless to prevent dozens of perfect strangers from assaulting them with dildoes, vibrators, and other toys, some pleasurable, some not.

Speaking of 'not pleasurable,' we're regulars at Leo's on Saturdays - we demonstrate the heavier-duty whips on the naked 'model.' Not every Saturday - our schedules don't permit that - but at least once a month.

Leo's instructions to us are always the same: we're to deal that night's model a metered amount of pain with a minimum of physical damage - they're college students with classes on Monday, after all. In a few minutes, Leo's guests are entertained by watching some naked girl, suspended in midair by her wrists, her legs lashed wide apart, writhing to the rhythm of our whips while shrieking at the top of her lungs. Later, some would buy the demoed products, presumably taking them back to their basement dungeons to play with on their kinky lovers.

It's just a job. I don't 'get off' on whipping anyone, much less defenseless women. Really, I don't. In fact, it's pretty revolting. As far as I'm concerned men who batter women are cowards and there's a special level in Hell reserved for the men who abuse women for fun. Call me old-fashioned, but the bigger the man, the greater his responsibility to defend the weak, which includes women as there are few women who can single-handedly defend themselves from a fit man. It's just a job, and I'm just a mercenary.

But this situation isn't quite so simple. First - and this will sound crazy - but the girls at Leo's signed up for it. They know what's going on and they not only strip and get up on that stage anyway, but most come back again and again. Second, I don't think I have to tell you that my tools can do a lot of damage. I don't even want to think about letting a roomful of Leo's Yahoo clients get their hands on one of these whips to use on some poor girl with practically no restraint. Apparently, Leo doesn't either or else he wouldn't hire us to do the demos and compel his guests, who normally would be participating, to be spectators instead. Don't get me wrong, a few of Leo's attendees are almost good enough to be Pros, but the rest... Man, they'd cheer a sack of potatoes getting flogged if it'd writhe and shriek and bleed enough. It'd be damned irresponsible to let them anywhere near my tools. Like giving a loaded .45 to a toddler. They either don't have the sense to know what they're doing (or when to stop) or they simply don't care. Either way, the lucky girls whose skin wasn't flailed away completely would be scarred for life instead, and I mean that literally as well as psychologically. You might think I'm crazy to say this or that I'm rationalizing my sins (and who knows - maybe I am), but those girls would get flogged anyway - the only question is "who's going to do the deed?" - so in a very real sense, Jerry and I are actually doing them a favor.

Most of the time the girls are already naked and secured in position when we arrive, but sometimes Leo lets them watch us arrive, and afterward, leads them over to where they're secured. They know exactly what's coming next, and not one has ever bolted. You've got to respect those girls; I've never understood why so many of Leo's attendees don't.