Could it have been this one?
Regina
By: Malasfan
It had been a great Friday, and it would be an even better weekend Regina thought, as she parked her yellow VW in front of the boarding house. She had just earned an A in history and tomorrow would be spent on the beach in her new bikini. With her slim, shapely figure, and blonde shoulder-length hair, she would attract every male on the beach and be the envy of the females. The thought made her smile. As she stepped onto the curb, she looked up at the imposing three-story structure and the smile faded. She didn't like living there--the floor matron was strict--and the owner, Madame Petrushka, even stricter, but the price was right and her mother had thought it would do her some good to get out on her own. Her mother had lived here when she was in school and had felt it would strike the right balance of independence and discipline.
Her room was on the first floor, right down the hall from Madame Petrushka's office, and she always walked quietly when she passed the closed door. Regina knew that some of the other girls had been in trouble from time to time and been sent in the see Madame Petrushka, but nobody ever said what transpired in there. Seldom did a girl have to be sent in there twice.
Madame Petrushka was already out of Regina's mind when she placed the key in her door and found it was unlocked. Must have forgot to lock it, she thought as she opened the door to find the floor matron, Elsa, sitting on her bed. In her hand was Regina's new bikini.
"What is this?" Elsa demanded as she held the skimpy garment up for Regina to see.
"A bikini. What does it look like?" Regina was angry to see Elsa in her room with her property.
"I know what it is!" Elsa stood up suddenly, towering over Regina. "You know the rules concerning clothing. Impertinence will only get you in more trouble than you are now."
"I...Yes, ma'am," said Regina. She did know the rules, and a bikini broke most of them. Damn. She shouldn't have left it on top of her dresser that morning.
"We'll have to see Madame Petrushka about this." Elsa held the bikini out toward Regina, who took it and started to put it away. "Put it on."
"Please don't tell Madame Petrushka. I'll keep it in my car from now on."
"It's too late for that. Put it on."
"Do you have to stand there?"
"Do as I say, young lady, or else it will be worse for you."
"Yes, ma'am." Regina slowly took off her clothes, feeling distinctly uncomfortable as she stood naked in front of Elsa. She put on the bikini, which helped a little, but not much. It was a black one with a strapless top. When she looked at Elsa, she saw there were a pair of handcuffs in Elsa's hand.
"Turn around and put your hands behind you."
"What in hell are those for?" said Regina. The nervousness from her impending meeting with Madame Petrushka, coupled with her self-consciousness from being nearly naked, turned to fear.
"For impertinent young ladies. Madame Petrushka demands that her girls be restrained while facing disciplinary action."
Slowly, Regina turned around and let Elsa slip the cold steel cuffs around her wrists and lock them in place with a ratcheting sound. She tested them to see if she could slip her hands out, but they were securely fastened and held tight together by the short chain. Elsa took Regina by the arm and led her out of the room; when they reached Madame Petrushka's office, Elsa knocked three times. What had been a good day was turning bad rapidly.
"Come in," said the muffled voice behind the door. Elsa opened the door and pushed the captive Regina in before her.
"My, my. What have we got here?" said Madame Petrushka. She was certainly a strange woman. Of indeterminate age, she wore bright red clothing and tons of gold jewelry that clanked whenever she moved. But the most noticeable feature was her red inch-long fingernails, perfectly manicured and filed to sharp points. Her voice was always calm, but in contrast her fingers were always animated, red nails constantly drumming in an ever-changing pattern on the desktop.
"What on earth is that garment you've got on, Miss Regina?"
"A bikini, Madame Petrushka." Regina was holding her head down in embarrassment from having been caught, forced to appear in the garment, and being restrained.
"I'm shocked to see you in this. You've always followed the rules quite well."
"I wasn't wearing it until Elsa made me put it on."
"Do not talk back to me, Miss Regina. You're in no position to quibble over unimportant details." Madame Petrushka came from around the desk and stood next to Regina. "Do you have your notepad ready, Elsa?"
"As always, Madame Petrushka."
"Good. There are so many violations here, I want you to write them down as I read them out." She took a leather-bound book from her desk, opened it to a well-worn section, and used her index fingernail to run down the page. "Yes, Yes, here we are."
"Violation one: Clothing shall not reveal a young ladies back." As she said it, she ran a nail ever so lightly up Regina's spine, causing her to twitch involuntarily. "Violation two: All garments shall end below the knee." This time, she ran a nail down the back of her leg. Again Regina flinched as if an ant was walking on her thigh. Elsa was furiously writing in her notebook. "Violation three: Bare midriff," she said she ran several nails across Regina's stomach, which made her giggle briefly. "Do you think this is funny, young lady?"
"No, Madame Petrushka."
"I certainly hope not....Violations four and five: Shoulders are completely bare, and exposed cleavage," she continued as she slowly and sensuously traced across Regina's chest at the top of her bikini, dipping into her cleavage along the way. Regina tried to step back, but Elsa held her shoulders to prevent it. Goose bumps formed on her chest. "That's five violations. At twenty minutes of punishment apiece, that means one hour and forty minutes."
"What kind of punishment, Madame Petrushka?" Regina asked fearfully. This seemed like punishment enough, but then Madame Petrushka obviously felt differently.
"There was also some impertinence," said Elsa.
"Two hours then."
"What punishment?" Regina repeated. "Look, just let me go and I'll move out now. You can forget about any punishment."
"You don't understand, Miss Regina. When you signed the rental agreement, you also agreed to abide by the rules. You have broken the rules and will be punished accordingly, at the conclusion of which you will be free to go....By the way, that is another impertinence which will bring the total to two-and-a-half hours."
Just then somebody knocked on the door. "Open it, Elsa," said Madame Petrushka.
My God, thought Regina. Somebody else was going to see her like this! But when Elsa opened the door, Regina saw that she was saved.
It was her mother!
"Regina! Why...why...." Completely at a loss for words, her mother could only shake her
head. "Mother, tell them to let me go. Look what they've done." She turned around to show her mother the handcuffs.
"You were right to call me, Madame Petrushka. This is indeed shocking."
"But, mother--"
"Don't 'but, mother' me, young lady. It's about time you were accountable for the way you dress. What is her punishment?"
"Two-and-half hours."
"Make it three. She's a stubborn girl."
"As you wish, Mrs. Smith."
Elsa easily pushed a bookcase sideways to expose a hidden door which she unlocked and opened. Then she again took Regina by the arm and led her inside. Regina looked pleadingly over her bare shoulder at her mother as Elsa dragged her inside. Madame Petrushka and Mrs. Smith followed behind them. When she saw the device in the middle of the room, Regina gasped and tried to get away from Elsa who held her tightly.
It was a tall wooden frame with what looked like stocks with several holes parallel with the floor. Higher up was a similar pair of stocks, only with a series of various-sized smaller holes. "No, you're not going to put me in that. Mother, please don't let them do this to me."
"I'm sorry, Regina," her mother said with genuine sympathy, "but you've got to learn."
Elsa dragged her over to the device and set her legs inside the pair of holes that best fit Regina's slender ankles. Madame Petrushka close the hinged portion and locked it in place with a heavy padlock. Regina tried to pull free but it was useless. She felt Elsa unlock her handcuffs, grasp her forearms, and lift them over her head so Madame Petrushka could lock them in place also. Then Elsa turned a crank set into the floor and the stocks holding Regina's hands moved higher until her heels left the floor. At least the holes were padded with leather. "Down a little, Elsa," said Madame Petrushka, who watched her heels touch down again. "There, that's perfect."
Regina's mother quietly watched her miserable, nearly nude daughter be stretched out, then went over to her and gently touched her face. "You poor, poor dear."
"How could you? I'm your daughter."
"Yes, and this is only because I love you. Someday you'll thank me for it." Then she turned and left Regina to her fate.
Never before had Regina felt so scared and alone. With her body 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."
Regina understood that when Madame Petrushka said "we," she meant her nails. Then Regina fathomed the true meaning of terror when she felt Madame Petrushka move past her bikini bottom and place her nails on her abdomen. "No," she pleaded, but before she could say anything else, laughter erupted from the bottom of her soul as all ten nails suddenly rippled from her belly button to her sides, then back again. She screamed and thrashed and arched her back to escape, but there was no mercy. After a minute, the torture abated until Madame Petrushka was only using one nail from each hand along her ribs. Between giggles, Regina said, "That tickles." The understatement of the year, she realized as soon as she said it.
"Of course it does, Miss Regina," Madame Petrushka said kindly. "Of course it does." Then she rippled all five nails up and down her ribs, poking and prodding, never repeating the same pattern. This went on for several minutes until Regina's struggles and screams were growing weak. Then only two nails quietly worked until Regina's breathing slowed down. But Madame Petrushka never stopped entirely. She would keep it up just enough to ensure that Regina was always giggling, if just a little.
Madame Petrushka reached up to where Regina's hands were clamped tight, and for a moment she thought she would be released. But that was not to be. The nails, with their insidious rippling motion, began working from her trapped wrists down her forearms.
Regina moaned with anguish as she realized what was going to happen. As the nails reached the inside of her elbow, she knew that her torturer was indeed an expert and was going to draw this out; Madame Petrushka fully understood what was going through Regina's mind. Down the inside of her biceps, the nails traveled, rippling and moving back and forth in a random pattern, but moving steadily downward just the same. Her entire body tensed against the coming onslaught, but right before the nails reached her exposed underarms, they moved to her shoulders instead, and down her back.
Regina let out her breath, not knowing until then she had been holding it. Her head sank and her eyes closed as the tension left. She had been spared the worst torture of all. But one small part of her felt disappointed. What would it have been like to have those nails?--"
She screeched and opened her eyes when Madame Petrushka grasped her left shoulder with one hand, and touched her bare underarm with one nail from the other. The tension came back as she waited for the nail to move, to torture her, to be joined by the others. She looked into Madame Petrushka's eyes and saw understanding. The nail lifted and stroked from the top of her underarm to the bottom. Regina squealed and tried to pull her hands free. The nail returned to its resting place in the center of her underarm.
"Yes," cooed Madame Petrushka. Then she stroked downward again, and again Regina tried to pull her arms down. More slowly Madame Petrushka repeated the maneuver, causing Regina to laugh and attempt to twist away from the torturing nail. "Just one little nail, Miss Regina. It's just one nail, and you know what's coming, don't you?"
"Yes, Madame Petrushka," she giggled, although she didn't see any humor in it.
Like lightning, all five nails went to work on her bare underarm, then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Regina laughed for several seconds after it had stopped and the one nail had returned to its spot.
"Tell me, young lady, what do you want right now more than anything in the world?"
"To have my arms released."
"Wrong answer," and the nails attacked again for longer this time. The screaming and laughing was deafening. After the torture stopped, Madame Petrushka repeated the question.
"For you to stop torturing me."
"Wrong again." With that, Madame Petrushka went to the other underarm and worked for several minutes. During the ordeal, Regina tried to give a different answer, but was unable to finish a sentence without screaming.
When it finally stopped, Regina whispered, "I want to put on some clothes."
"That's the correct answer. You're learning at last. But we're not finished yet."
"Please, Madame Petrushka, I've learned my lesson. Please don't torture me any more."
"Don't beg, girl. Have some pride." She placed the tips of five nails on each of Regina's underarms.
"Please," Regina moaned weakly. This was the worst day of her life. She wished more than anything to be set free, to put on some clothes, to be anywhere other than clamped in this damned torture device in a little bikini with her arms over her head and ten red nails resting in her underarms, unable to bring her arms down or protect herself in any way. The nails remained in place, drawing out the inevitable, ten sharp points just waiting in their assigned place. Regina moaned as she waited for it to begin.
"Hold your head up, young lady."
Slowly, Regina lifted her head and looked Madame Petrushka straight in the eyes. She had a newfound respect for her mother, who had undergone far worse torture so long ago. Defiance came into her eyes, despite the fearsome nails resting in her underarms. "Okay, Madame Petrushka. Give me your best."
And she did, and this time there was no respite. The nails worked up and down her sides, across her stomach, back up her sides, and even across her chest. Regina screamed, yowled, laughed, tittered, and fought every second. She tried to pull free, arching her back and thrashing and wiggling back and forth, but there was no escape, no mercy. Her entire being became aware of only the nails on her stretched, bikini-clad body. There had never been anything else, no school, no childhood--nothing but her and Madame Petrushka alone in this room. Time did not exist any more. She became aware that she made different sounds as the nails worked on different parts of her body. It was always different, but still somehow the same. She did not beg anymore either, for one did not beg when there was no other reality. The nails had been skittering up her ribs when from far away, Regina heard a voice other than her own.
The nails stopped.
Regina saw through her blurred vision that two other people were in the room. As she focused, she saw they were Elsa and her mother. Her mother was wearing a strapless sundress, something that Regina found strange under the circumstances. In fact, she couldn't remember seeing her mother in anything like that before in public. Her mother came over and unlocked Regina's feet; if she had unlocked her hands first, then she would certainly have fallen and hurt her ankles.
"Can you stand, dear?"
"I think so."
Then her mother reached up and freed Regina's hands. Her arms mercifully came down as her mother held her, stroking her damp hair.
"There, there, it's over now."
"For her, at least," said Madame Petrushka.
Mrs. Smith let go of her daughter and stepped over to the device, placing her feet in the holes.
Madame Petrushka handed Regina one of the padlocks. "Lock her in place."
"What? I--I can't do that."
"Do it," commanded her mother. "It's part of the contract."
"What contract?"
Madame Petrushka explained. "When a young lady's mother agrees for her daughter to be punished, it's with the understanding that she will also submit herself to it. That way we can be sure that the desire for her daughter to undergo corrective action is only out of the deepest love."
"I only want what's best for you, Regina, even if it means...this."
Regina bent down and locked her mother's feet in place. When her mother lifted her arms, Regina locked them in place also.
"Stretch her out," said Madame Petrushka.
Regina turned the crank until her mother's feet lifted slightly, then down again--just like it had been done to her.
Regina looked at her mother and noted how lovely she still was, how youthful. And how helpless she was, stretched out in her strapless dress as Regina had been just moments before. "I love you, Mother."
Madame Petrushka placed a blanket around Regina's shoulders and told Elsa to take her away. As she was led toward the door, she turned around and saw Madame Petrushka reaching toward her mother's bare underarms. The hysterics had already started as she reached the door, then became muffled as Elsa closed it behind her.
END
