TITHE

BY LOWLIFE
lowlife_@fastmail.fm

[ part 1 ]

Reflections

The tall, languid, and slightly shabby figure of Aubrey Strencaster (correctly pronounced 'Strengster' by the those fortunate enough to join his carefully cultivated circle of contacts and friends) was well-known to the CCTV operators and cabbies who plied for late-night trade at the mainline railway stations along the Euston Road. He was on nodding, if not actually first name, terms with most of the regular Transport Police. Yet if he were seen chatting quietly to some lone youngster in some dim corner of the station, or was noticed shepherding a nervous teenager with a rucksack into a taxi, no alarm bells were rung, no eyebrows were raised.

For Aubrey was not a pervert. He was a saint.

He spent several afternoons and evenings each week, patrolling the draughty caverns of London's railway termini, saving the souls of young runaways.

A long-term volunteer for a well-known Christian charity, he and a small number of colleagues had set themselves the task of identifying and befriending as many as they could of the dozens of young people who had abandoned their past and come to seek a new life in the nation's capital, often with little regard to the practicalities or consequences.

The volunteers claimed modest success, netting one or two a day and persuading them to spend three free nights in 'The Haven', a basic but safe refuge where they could get themselves together, be fed, kip down no-questions-asked in one of the two dormitories, and then decide whether to swallow their pride and return home or continue their quest for a new life in the teeming city. The charity would ensure they were at least appraised of the realities of being a teenager on the streets, the dangers of drugs, the prevalence of pimps.

And Aubrey was the best 'greeter' they had. His relaxed smile, instinctive air of authority and ever-brimming flask of tea rarely failed to win over even the most sceptical and bewildered girl or boy, fresh off the train from the North with a super-saver single ticket and few treasured possessions stuffed into a tatty bag. He had the knack of spotting them: they would hang back after the other passengers had trooped through the barriers, or spend a little too long studying the Tube map. He had to act fast: it was reckoned that less scrupulous watchers nabbed the majority of newcomers within less than two hours of arrival, promising a cheap place to stay and then delivering a life of drug-fuelled prostitution.

So Aubrey's presence was welcomed by the station staff. He was invited to share a cuppa in the canteen in the early hours of the morning. The Transport Police frequently passed kids over to him sometimes and on one occasion had even quietly 'dealt' with an Albanian pimp who had been hassling him in one of the Tube tunnels.

Aubrey was universally trusted.

Having worked his charm on a kid, he would then take them to 'The Haven', passing them into the safe hands of Sister Bridget and her band of well-meaning Ladies. He was a godsend.

Not that his evening vigils were the only charitable acts her performed. He also sat on committees, attended seminars at his own expense, quietly donated to trusts, and even made prison visits. He was an all-round good egg, doing what he could to help not just runaway children but also some of the men who preyed on them - the paedophiles, abusers, nonces. Tackling the problem at both ends. Aubrey's name had more than once been mooted for nomination for an MBE.

It had taken him years to achieve such perfect cover.

Cover for Aubrey's other pastime. The secret one. The one he found much more directly rewarding.

Reconciling his double life was no great problem for his soul - he actually considered himself little different from many members of Christian organisations throughout history, retaining a small share of the assets for himself. Parish priests had supplemented their income for centuries by taking a tenth of the crop from local lands -the tithe. This was surely little different: he was merely updating the tradition.

Except that Aubrey's tithe just happened to be human rather than produce: for once in a while, as he gathered up the lost and vulnerable, he simply kept one by for himself.

Which was why he was now driving his small, dented old van along this East Midlands narrow lane at a little after six o'clock on a bright Sunday morning.

In the back was the most recent occupant of the lower basement of his place near Russell Square, tied, gagged, terrified and trembling beneath a blanket and a sheet of black polythene.

Today, Aubrey had a special delivery to make. It was a day of firsts.

--**--

As he drove to the rendezvous, he passed the time reflecting on his most recent houseguest.

He had certainly enjoyed this little girl.

Kirsty was her name. She had been with him nearly four weeks, which was about average, and with her, he had explored just about every avenue of delicious sexual activity he could imagine. She was extremely small - the smaller the better as far as Aubrey was concerned, and at only twelve, a good two or three years younger than typical runaways. A real treat! But it was her hair that had provided the inspiration for this departure from his normal procedure.

It was naturally very pale blonde, long and straight, and made her look so deliciously young and innocent. Which of course, she had been in any case! It was icing on the cake.

Even before he had slipped her in through the back door of his large townhouse and sat her in his kitchen with a large mug of steaming and heavily drugged soup, the idea had been forming in his mind. Kirsty was earmarked for special treatment.

The admirable, tireless, Aubrey was also a prison visitor, representing another of his charities. At any time, he had perhaps a dozen 'clients', all of whom were usually avoided by the other visitors. For Aubrey visited sex offenders - the unspeakable underclass. Whatever motives were assumed by others ('how on earth can you spend time with such monsters, Aubrey?'), his underlying purpose was in fact to seek inspiration and make potential contacts. He had been doing it for several years and the man he was driving to meet this morning had been one of his first 'regulars'. At the time, the man had been serving a long sentence for the abduction and repeated, violent rape of two small girls and the Press had made great play of their looks: angelic cherubs with long, blonde hair. At least they had looked angelic before the convicted man had started on them.

Aubrey had taken an almost immediate shine to the chap. And he knew exactly what to say.

"It was disgusting the way they treated you," Aubrey had whispered to him on an early visit. "I studied your case and it was obvious the devious little cunts were asking for it. You simply gave them what they deserved. Bloody ridiculous they even went for a prosecution, let alone..."

Aubrey's meticulous records had retained the man's release date, and had kept tabs on his new location outside, his new name. Aubrey had sent him Christmas cards. And hardly had the comatose Kirsty been carried downstairs and been strapped to the bench in the lower basement, before Aubrey was flicking through his papers, researching her potential sale to him.

After he had himself finished with her, naturally. Oh yes, this would be a rather interesting exercise, for a change.

Ironically, he invariably disposed of his girls after enjoying them to two of the very pimps who targeted the same source of young flesh as he – the runaways. At least Kirsty would escape that fate.

Aubrey didn't need the money, of course. He had the house and the rental from the apartments on the upper floors, plus the small profit from his rare books shop near the British Museum gave him more than enough income. A lifelong bachelor, he would probably have been an evangelical minister in an earlier age, but Aubrey's calling, his entire raison d'être, was the exquisite pleasure to be had in capturing, conquering and dominating very young, defenceless and naïve little girls. If they were dumb enough to run away to London, they deserved what he gave them. After all, he reasoned, most of them would still end up locked in a dirty room in King's Cross, having twenty grunting strangers fuck them every day in return for a pizza and a fix from their pimp, so what was the big issue in getting a piece of the action first?

Aubrey had no qualms about skimming off his personal quota.

And Kirsty had been no exception. In fact he had really enjoyed her. By the third week, she had successfully been reduced to the hollow-eyed wanton little slut he expected, submitting herself to any indignity he demanded in return for food and a few hours without pain.

Almost a pity to dispose of her, but business was business and he had made a deal.

He pulled into the farmyard.

This was such fun. This was something very different. For once, he didn't really know what was going to happen to the girl under her new owner.

Aubrey had become increasingly curious ever since the man had finally overcome his understandable scepticism and shown a serious interest in making a purchase. He could not suppress his desire to see what the fellow intended to do to her so renegotiated the conditions of the sale. Instead of handing her over at some neutral location, he would spend a short while afterwards, watching Kirsty's new owner enjoy his new acquisition.

He parked the van in the deserted yard. The traffic had been remarkably light and so he had made good time.

Aubrey excitement was growing and that, coupled with the earliness of the hour, had blessed him with the most rigid of hard-ons, and he was obliged several times to re-arrange matters within the confines of his cavalry twills.

The whole business was a bit of a thrill because of the added risk. Normally, the pimps collected the girls from his van on the edge of some industrial estate to the west of London, spiriting them away into the night and they were soon dismissed from his memory.

But this sale was a complete unknown, however, and so he had arrived early, to check out the location, ensure it was safe. He was to meet the man here, confirm the handover and pocket the balance of his money (just a few hundred - a token sum) and then the two of them would take her to a second spot, have a little fun with her together, before Aubrey headed back to London, leaving her to her fate. That too was a first - Aubrey had always made it a rule to indulge in his hobby alone.

Yes indeed, this made a most interesting change.

Having satisfied himself the place was OK, and adjusted his trousers once more, he sat behind the wheel and unscrewed the cap of his trusty flask. The sweet tea warmed him and to his astonishment he found himself smiling. Yes, Kirsty had been such a little treasure. A pleasure to entertain in his guest rooms, he told himself.

From the first time he saw her, on the platform at Euston, he had been captivated by her.

Wide-eyed, furtive, almost inaudible and so skinny in her cheap, thin anorak and jeans, she had just about lost her nerve by the time he approached her on the station concourse. Had he been working for the charity that night, rather than looking out for himself, he would almost certainly have succeeded in doing the right thing and persuading her to return to her worried foster family on the next train back to Glasgow.

But that was not to be: he had found his quarry and his charm soon had her agreeing to go with him.

Gosh, she was so damned cute, and with her lovely long blonde hair, and soft Scots lisp. So striking in fact that she stood out from the crowd and so might be remembered by a passer-by. He therefore made her wear her hood up as he hailed the cab and ushered her from the public world and into a new altogether more scary one.

Aubrey sipped his tea. He was enjoying the memory immensely.

Her reaction to the first night had been just peachy.

There was a set routine for new arrivals. Actually Aubrey was almost obsessive in his rituals and each girl underwent some very specific treatment in his basement during her stay. He knew what he liked, and once a girl was securely hidden away under his house, he liked to take plenty of time to prepare her.

Time was immaterial, for the girl had to all intents and purposes vanished into thin air. Aubrey liked to pace himself; enjoy every moment.

All the tall Regency and Victorian houses thereabouts had cellars. However his house, which he had inherited many years earlier, together with the adjoining properties, was most unusual in that it they shared a second level, beneath the first. It had been created during the last War as a gas decontamination centre and comprised several interconnecting rooms, lined with white ceramic tiles. It was fitted out with plumbing, sanitation and lighting and followed the standard layout: two sides (men and women) astride a central boiler room, with three rooms per side - a 'dirty' room, shower room, and 'clean' room, where people would have been issued with replacement contamination-free clothes.

After the War, the external stairs leading from street level down into the centre had been removed and Aubrey's father had broken through the ceiling and installed his own steps. He had bricked up some of the internal doorways to divvy up the place between the three houses, gaining a total of four rooms (including the boiler room) in the process. Now the only access to these was through a concealed door in Aubrey's 'normal' basement.

Hardly a better dungeon could be imagined for the incarceration of his young guests.

The current fixtures and fittings were his. To his own design and built by his own inventive hands. Refined and improved with experience over several years.

In pride of place in the centre of the main chamber was a bench, built from a sturdy door, and able to rotate horizontally about a central axis and vertically, so that a young captive secured to it could lie flat or be held completely upright, or in fact at any angle between. The flat surface could itself be inverted so that instead a narrow leather saddle was uppermost and this he found was an especially useful device upon which to strap a girl the first time he sodomised her.

Or used the electric prod to probe and terrorise.

All the girls spent many hours on the saddle during their stay. Straining at the straps as Aubrey worked on them. Tantalisingly slowly, teasing and taunting, stretching and probing and savouring the sounds of their pleading, their squeaks and grunts.

And waiting for the moment their body stopped resisting and he had free rein to pump hard inside and explode deep within.

For the first night, the bench was enhanced by the stocks, a feature of which Aubrey was especially fond. These comprised a thick plywood board, suitably shaped, that was bolted across the bench about three-quarters of the way up, so that the occupant's neck and wrists could be clamped within it. Other straps further down the bench could be used to secure them about the waist, or legs, as necessary, but the wickedest thing about Aubrey's stocks is that the subject was then unable to see what was being done to her own body.

And as was regularly apparent as he entertained his young ladies, the imagination can be as powerful an instrument of torture as many of the devices stored in the tall wall cupboard. After a couple of sessions in the first week, the slightest of unseen touches down below the stocks could have a girl sweating and panting in terror as she waited in dread, unable to predict what was about to be applied to her captive body.

Wee Kirsty still had all that to come that first night, Aubrey mused, swigging back the dregs of his tea in the van. He closed his eyes and remembered, a hint of smile shaping his thin lips.

He recalled the thrill of those initial few hours: the heart-stopping joy as he sliced off her clothes with the surgical shears and first gazed at her slim, hard, smooth young body.

Pale, soft-skinned and untouched. Her chest was almost flat, her hips and thighs yet to pad out with puberty, and her vulva was a neat cleft, unencumbered by more than just a faint hint of the blondest, finest down, rising in a glorious little mound at the top of her legs.

It was easier to undress them whilst they were knocked out by the overdose of sleeping pills. Then they could be placed on the bench and in the stocks and sleep it off.

It gave him time to go though their clothes and belongings and catalogue the details, note the sizes, check out names and addresses, switch off mobiles. First thing the next day, he would add the girl's details to routine lists in the charity's head office and see if they came up on any reports when cross-referred to the various databases to which the office had access, for he didn't want his latest charge to be a 'celebrity misper', in other words one that had attracted the attention of the press or authorities in anything other than the usual routine recording of runaway kids.

Kirsty had been 'clean'. She was nothing more than a headstrong lassie, who had fallen out with her foster parents and taken the train South. Incredibly, she was only two months past her twelfth birthday, under the average weight and size for her age, and in sound health. Aubrey made sure of that as soon as she woke.

He had flicked through the record cards, each covered in his miniscule, even handwriting. Yes - she had been the youngest ever, by a long way – most unusual.

She had proved a revelation. Nodding in contemplation, Aubrey had decided he would make a special effort to pick up an even younger one again next time, if the opportunity arose, for he was keen to find out if other little ones would prove as satisfying as Kirsty.

Goodness, she had looked so magnificent, lying there that first night!

As with all the girls, she came round with a ball gag in her mouth, a thick head and a frightened stream of indignant questions and pleas that she was unable to express. In the dim light, she could see white walls and a flaky ceiling and the coolness of the basement made her soon realise to her horror that she was entirely naked.

And she couldn't move at all, apart from turning her head a bit each way, but that told her nothing. Then she sensed movement at the other end of the bench and felt hands on her body and screeched into the gag.

Aubrey smiled and continued measuring and noting her dimensions. In great detail. He liked to photograph and catalogue their firm young bodies on arrival. Then wash them, using liquid soap and a soft toothbrush, scrubbing meticulously from toes to chest, and all without them at that stage having an inkling what was happening. Oh it was such a wheeze, those first few hours. Especially when they peed themselves. That usually happened soon after they woke up and you could hear the angry humiliation in their grunting as the piss spurted out between their legs and pooled on the plastic sheet beneath them.

These days all carefully recorded via digital video. Aubrey liked to keep up with technology.

But he still kept his handwritten notes. It was fun browsing through them in the weeks between 'guests', when the cellar was unoccupied.

Pressing back into the driver's seat, Aubrey sipped the tea. The light was strengthening but he still had a few more minutes to reflect a while longer on Kirsty's memorable first night.

Easing her labia apart and revealing the delights of her sweet young pussy, he had noted with satisfaction that she was 'virgo intacto'. Her clitoris was small yet later proved to be extremely sensitive. He devoted it much attention over the weeks in the cellar.

He took another swig of tea and smiled: she had been such a satisfying fuck, and he had probably done so more times than usual, not least to enjoy the sight of her pale face reddening and frowning beneath him as he used her.

She had been horrified at the prospect of taking him in her mouth. And so of course then he made her perform fellatio at least daily and beat her if the smallest drop of semen escaped her mouth and throat.

Her hips were still quite narrow, her thighs childishly slender. Her breasts barely protruded from her chest but were crowned with soft, tiny yet prominent nipples and he licked his lips, for girls on the cusp of puberty were his ultimate favourites, he had at last decided. One could do so much with such young nipples, preparing and teasing and tormenting them for hours on end, until they were so sensitive the girl would almost scream from the lightest touch of a feather.

The younger ones had such a delightful naivety yet their bodies could still satisfy him most adequately. And they were such fun with which to play his endless mind games.

He had a wide repertoire of mental tortures, some subtle, some not, and his young guests were never allowed to settle. They never knew what was going to happen in the next hour, let alone the future. He kept them wondering constantly whether they were actually going to end their days in that hard, echoing series of chambers, or be released if they proved acquiescent. One moment he would scoff that their families had been told of their demise and see the hope evaporate, yet the next time he would be chatting amicably about their friends and hinting they soon they would be reunited with them.

He could be a gentle uncle or a masked and slobbering sadist, changing at will, and keeping a girl perpetually confused and ill at ease.

And for such tender girls, this, combined with the solitude and relentless diet of pain, discomfort and forced sexual activity, it first disorientated them, then gradually ate away at their hopes, destroyed their resolve, and ultimately, usually at around the twenty day point, had reduced them to almost monosyllabic, cowering little sluts, willing him to use them in any way in return for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep and some decent food. And praying that all his dreadful ropes and toys and instruments would remain firmly locked away in the cupboard and out of use.

Aubrey drained his tea and chuckled. The man was due any time now.

Just a few more minutes to recollect the end of Kirsty's induction. It had been one of the highlights of her stay, after all.

Her face was scarlet and her eyes wild and bulging, and he had to pick his moment so that she would hear his first softly-spoken words. The first he had said directly to her in a day and a half. The chilling greeting that seized her attention more effectively than any of the physical shocks and abuses that had occupied her since she came round the first time.

"Kirsty? Welcome to your new life."

Now fully conscious, she was screaming hysterically into the ball gag and thrashing about in vain as the stocks and straps held her firm, her thin arms and legs flexing wildly yet she could do nothing to stop it.

Only when the futility of struggling, coupled with total exhaustion, had drained her did she lie still once more, quaking in terror and chilled from the copious volume of cold water with which he had hosed her down after the enema.

He tried to imagine how she would have felt at that moment, how she would have described it, for it was so very important to consider a torment from the girl’s perspective.

She could hear the swish of a broom below her but could not see the dark figure sluicing the last of the water down the drain. And she flinched at the touch of the towel dabbing her legs and crotch.

The Man had said nothing in response to her yelling. He hadn't said a word since she got here. She didn't understand anything. The Man was supposed to be a nice man. He had been so kind and nice at the station and promised her everything would be all right. She had felt so relieved, so safe, huddled over the soup at his kitchen table.

But then she didn't remember anything else. Not until she had opened her eyes and it was bright and she felt chilly but she couldn't move her body. Then he was there. The Man. Only he wasn't the same. He kept looking at her and she hated the way his watery blue eyes twinkled at her. He was different now.

She didn't understand why he was being so horrible. What had she ever done to him? She cried. She missed her family. She hurt all over. Inside and out.

She was so relieved to be out of the darkness, where she had lain curled up and filthy and terrified for what seemed like days.

Her head was swimming still. Nothing made any sense.

The Man had lifted her out and carried her over to the bench and she had been able to lie flat and her muscles had stretched and hurt but that was miles better then being in there. And although her body was still awash with pain and every square centimetre of skin had its own identifiable throb, she grabbed his arm and held it, trembling, as she sucked gratefully on the teat of the water bottle, and the cold liquid bathed her throat and washed away the nastiness in her mouth and for just those few seconds, she dared to fancy it was all going to be OK, that she had endured whatever it was had happened to her and now she would wake up.

But then he had bent her into the stocks and put that nasty thing in her bottom (in her bottom!!!) and filled her with the warm, soapy stuff and she had tried to stop him but she couldn't see him most of the time. Just felt his hands down there, doing things and making her feel like she was going to burst. Her eyes were itchy with tiredness and dried tears and she was very aware of her own smell and she lapsed into sporadic sobbing as she wished beyond measure that she hadn't been so stupid as to run away.

She couldn't imagine how things could get any worse, or more painful. But when he grinned his welcome, and brushed a sweaty strand of hair from her cheek, she was certain they would.

Aubrey paused his reminiscing – and nodded to himself – yes, if Kirsty had felt like that, so disorientated and battered and scared out of her wits, then it would have been a great success.

He peered through the windscreen, looking for any indication that the other fellow had arrived to collect his purchase. No sign yet. Aubrey rubbed his eyes. They were tired and gritty. He stretched and yawned and his mind slipped back to the cellar, and the scared, shaking little girl he was just beginning to enjoy.

He always enjoyed 'tenderising' them on the first night. Physically and mentally.

It was an essential part of the conditioning routine and the one which, if the girl had any doubts left at all, confirmed her very worst fears.

Like all her predecessors, Kirsty was treated to her first whipping, before being allowed to contemplate her situation on her own. Aubrey did love that first, exciting stage.

The little Glaswegian girl had somehow found the strength to struggle when he strung her up after he had finished examining her on the bench. But she was scrawny and light and Aubrey had no difficulty in suspending her wrists from the ceiling straps. He cranked the straps higher until her delicate toes took her weight and the balls of her feet no longer touched the cold, rough concrete.

She was so white in the stark glare of the fluorescent tubes and her pale skin glistened as he used the anonymous spray bottle to coat her in his own special mixture.

Girls looked good like that, with the wetness accentuating those subtle little curves and furrows.

Made from trichlorophenol and witch hazel, Aubrey's mixture served three purposes: initially to provide a gentle stinging across the surface of her skin - to heighten her perception as he administered the strokes; secondly to counteract some of the effects of the whipping, ameliorating any damage and bruising; and lastly to act as an irritant afterwards, particularly where the lash had bit into her flesh or formed a weal. Aubrey sprayed her suspended body several times throughout her first flogging session, so that by the time he deposited her limp frame in the box, every square centimetre burnt and boiled and overwhelmed her with the inescapable pain.

As was the intention, he said nothing, offered no explanation or warning. Kirsty dangled from the straps, wet from the spray, scared, bewildered and quite rightly expecting something unpleasant to take place.

Aubrey loved to see the look of utter incomprehension that always resulted from the first caress of the flogger. He always made the first one firm but not too vicious, snapping across the tautness of the girl's young bottom. Just enough to provoke the reaction he was seeking.

Little Kirsty had been no exception.

He had dashed around to watch her face, to see the pain register, rising up and sweeping aside the constant tingle that had been engulfing her since the mixture had coated her lilywhite skin. Seeing her eyes pop, her jaw drop and even the colour visibly drain from her cheeks, then as she stared in disbelief at him, the first shriek bubble up and escape from between her quivering lips.

The incomprehension that she was being beaten. The terror and frustration that she was powerless to prevent it.

He left the gag off for as long as he could stand the shrillness echoing around the ceramic walls.

It was such a deliciously satisfying cacophony - squeals, pleading, wails and long, mournful moans of self-pity. Punctuated every minute by the briefest swish of air and dull snap as a dozen supple laces of leather landed across some part of her helpless young body, spreading the red lattice of welts and prompting another writhing dance of agony.

Her skin felt as if would burst into flames and her lungs rasped and her throat was raw. And no sooner had the last stroke bitten in and the flash of pain flooded her brain, than the fiery sizzle of the wetness on her skin began work on the new tenderness, eating into each mark, setting it throbbing and sizzling.

And still he continued.

Circling round her like a vulture, flicking and lashing the tiny girl.

Until the redness and the stripes of the welts were distributed right across her skinny young body, from neck to calf and even on her upper arms. The extra darkness and purple blush of bruise swelling on each buttock showed that even the meticulous Aubrey had a particular favourite spot.

Kirsty was hanging limply, her wrists gripped by the leather cuffs. The muscles of her scrawny arms strained beneath her aching flesh. A drool of saliva dripped from her slack, exhausted little mouth and her lower face was slick with mucus and tears.

Behind her, Aubrey's erection could no longer be contained. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and gathered his breath. He had teased and flogged her for a solid hour.

Silently, he stood close to her back and if she was aware of him moving behind her, and of the tickle of something warm and sticky splattering over her fiery bottom, then she was too tired, too drained, to react.

Or care.

After being prepared, like all the girls before her, Kirsty had then been left for the next 24 hours to stew in total darkness, deprived of all sensory stimulation, to reflect on her incessant pain and descend into complete, lonely misery.

He let her down and carried her moaning, semi-conscious body and lowered her inside.

Into the 'cooler' - a plain thick-walled plywood box, about a cubic yard in volume yet too small in any dimension to permit any straightening of limb or spine. Trying desperately to find the least painful position and constantly thwarted by the pressing of her super-sensitised and aching body against the cold, unyielding sides and gritty, urine-soaked base.

Whilst Aubrey returned upstairs for a long bath and plate of salad and a well-deserved glass or two of chilled Chablis.