by Jaye Peaches
While Lucilla might be the kind who accepted her fate, Freya wasn’t. Freya’s benevolence stirred in Marco a strange sense of pride, but at the same time, it riled him that she’d not thought to approach him directly.
Lalita, sitting in her office, was furious at Freya’s deception.
“She broke so many rules, governor. She is a jenjin. An inferior alien. She must not assume she can simply order us about. She might have adapted to life in the Volta, but she’s still a prisoner and from what I can see, a potential upstart. The others must witness her punishment.”
“I agree she should be punished. I shall carry it out this evening.” He’d prefer to do it privately, but he sensed Lalita wasn’t going to be obliging.
“I insist I am present, and the overseers and servants. Gellis will be spanked thoroughly too by me.”
“Freya coerced her into this; I don’t think she knew that it was a ploy to reach my office.”
“Nevertheless, Gellis admits to her involvement.”
Marco halted his pacing. He felt calmer; it helped to think of Freya and how he would turn her bottom red. The question was how red and with which implements. He folded his arms. “You want this to be witnessed?”
“Absolutely. She will be bound, too. She must be made an example, sir.” Lalita’s eyes were tiny pinpricks and she exuded a determination that even Marco couldn’t consider countering. The woman had been the favorite of one of the emperors and consequently, she had powerful friends back on Halos.
“What else were you thinking of?” he queried softly.
“Her tight little bum hole. It would be appropriate to punish it, don’t you think?”
Marco sighed. It would and he’d thought many a time on how he would do it if the occasion arose. The fantasy itself often had made his cock hard, but now, faced with the reality, it wasn’t so easy to induce an erotic pleasure. “How?”
“The crushed seeds of the sarne plant.”
Marco shook his head and grimaced. “Even Vendu women struggle to tolerate the burning. Too harsh. She’s my jenjin, remember, and I won’t have her suffer.”
Lalita huffed, but she seemed to be losing the fire in her eyes. Time always quelled anger—Marco relied on that theory a great deal when dealing with difficult situations.
“I would suggest the aylerberry then, sir. The juice of which is less potent.”
He used it before, and its side effects might prove useful. It would do. “Very well. This evening she will be brought back to the Volta and straight to the bondage room. You may bring your witnesses, but Lucilla is not to be among them, understood? I have other plans for her.”
* * *
The guards escorted Freya from her cell, where she’d been contained since the morning, and took her back to the Volta. They had left her wrists unbound, but kept her sandwiched between their beefy figures as they walking in unison.
For the few hours she’d been in the custody block, listening to the shouts of the prisoners held in solitary confinement, she’d fretted that Marco might change his mind and send her down into the canyon. When the soldiers had ordered her out of the bare room, they’d said nothing of her fate, but as they marched across the plaza, their destination was apparent.
Although she knew she was walking to her punishment, she was relieved to be returning to the relative safe haven of the Volta. Pacing her tiny cell, she’d realized she feared being cast aside by Marco more than anything. More than the punishment that awaited her. More than the years of captivity. He’d been angry, and perhaps in hindsight, he’d every right to be. She’d treated him not as a lover in whom she could place her trust, but as a means to unlock Lucilla’s secret—she’d abused her position as his jenjin.
She would be corrected and probably severely. She envisaged the punishment suite with its array of implements and spanking benches, wondering which he’d choose. She gritted her teeth and walked up the steps of the Volta—she would have to dig deep, but with Marco, and him alone, she could accept her fate.
Lalita met them in the atrium. Freya expected harsh words of reproach or some cruel words. However, to Freya’s surprise, Lalita seemed pleased to see her. “You’re safely back here, Freya. It would have been better for you not to breach the rules we put in place for you protection and care, but,” she slowly shook her head in an overt display of disappointment, “what’s done is done.” She spoke to the lead guard. “Take her to the bondage room. That is where she will be punished.”
“Bondage room?” stuttered Freya. She edged backwards and one of the guards snatched her arm, halting her progress.
“Yes. It’s a bigger space.”
“Bigger?” Her stomach churned, just as it had done when Marco had confronted her in his office. “Why not the punishment room?”
“Witnesses are required. You will be punished in the presence of the overseers, maids, and a select representation of jenjins.”
Freya’s legs nearly buckled. Marco had agreed to this? What about his promise to be the only one to discipline her? “No,” she whispered, then louder. “No. I won’t go. I won’t let you—”
“Guards,” said Lalita, raising her voice. “Escort this jenjin to the bondage room now.”
The two men hooked their arms under her armpits and lifted Freya off the floor. Her feet flapped uselessly between them as they dragged her along. She cursed them in numerous languages, but had the wits not to use Vendian. The double doors of the bondage room swung open and she was thrust before the small crowd, which had shaped itself around the perimeter of the room. She recognized the stern faces of the overseers, the maids, including Tanara, and the chosen jenjins with their bowed heads and demure postures. Thankfully, Lucilla wasn’t present—Freya couldn’t bear it if her friend witnessed this, knowing Lucilla would blame herself for Freya’s foolish undertaking.
There was no sign of Marco. Freya hung her head and ceased struggling. The guards planted her back on her feet.
She wasn’t alone in her punishment. Gellis was bent over a spanking bench and the tips of her long hair were brushing the floor. Poor Gellis. Her situation was all Freya’s fault and she wished that she could make amends, but how when there was nothing she could give her maid?
Lalita read out the charges facing the maid—a long list of protocols breached, mostly relating to her time alone with Puto, who must have admitted to touching her during Marco’s promised reprimand. If Freya hadn’t have left her alone with him, Gellis’s punishment would have been lesser.
Lalita picked up a long rod and swept it back before striking her across both buttocks. Gellis jerked and pulled on her bindings, but emitted no sound. This wasn’t the first time she’d been caned, Freya guessed. She blinked away tears of guilt. Nobody in the room spoke as Lalita applied the cane again and again, creating thin red lines stacked in neat rows. Freya wanted to dash over and release her maid. She hadn’t had an opportunity to apologize and the first opportunity she had, she would beg Gellis’s forgiveness and hope they could stay friends.
After ten whacks, Gellis began to make noises. Freya tore her eyes away and focused on a spot on the wall opposite. While her lips trembled, she imagined how she would be soon bent over and punished.
Where was Marco? Why had he abandoned her to this? Had he decided to return her to the Volta but also give up his claim to her? Leave her for any man to take and use? That idea horrified her. She’d rather face her fate in the canyon.
The final stroke cracked and Gellis cried out. It signified the end of the punishment. Another overseer released her from her bonds and helped her to her feet. When Gellis turned to face Freya, she expected a glare of hatred; instead Gellis lowered her tear-clogged eyes. Whatever animosity she felt toward Freya, she left hidden behind a stony face.
Freya’s trembling worsened. It was her turn. The bench was dragged away and a different one took center stage in the middle of the room. Unlike the simple version of a sawhorse, this bench had a long plinth on which she would rest her tor
so and head, while her legs would be spread and bound to the legs.
“Strip her,” Lalita ordered.
Freya expected an overseer to carry out the instruction, but it was one of the guards who tore the dress from her shoulders. For some reason, the infringement of her last shred of dignity caused Freya to snap. She resisted by folding her arms across her chest. He in return was forced to tear her dress into ribbons. Eventually, his comrade joined in and pulled her arms to her sides. The remains of her dress lay in tatters by her feet and as the guards kicked it aside, she pushed her chin up, desperate to regain a morsel of dignity while inside she battled to stay calm.
Naked and feeling alone in a room full of people, she decided she would do everything she was capable of doing to fight back. Clenching her fists, she would show them she wasn’t a weakling.
The door behind her opened and she shot a glance over her shoulder. Marco.
Freya’s heart skipped a beat. It had been pummeling her against her breastbone throughout Gellis’s caning, but the sight of Marco changed the speedy palpitations from beats of regret and anger, to relief and for some unknown reason, excitement. He’d come—she hadn’t been forgotten by him.
He circled her and as he did, the guards released their grip on her flailing arms and gave her space. She stilled and altered her aggressive stance to one more befitting his presence. She bowed her head and dropped her arms to her sides.
He pinched her chin between his finger and thumb and lifted her face. She stared directly into his dark eyes and they pierced her, crushing the rebellion that she threatened to unleash. He displayed not only his sternest expression—straight lips and narrowing eyes—but also his heart-melting good looks, which always seemed to sharpen when in close proximity. She had nothing to say, no words to explain how she felt inside. The conflict of emotions—dread, anticipation, longing—was too difficult to describe.
“I’m so disappointed,” he said softly, but not in Vendian. He spoke in his heavily accented, but accurate English. “I thought I could trust you and that you trusted me. Instead, you conducted a covert activity behind my back, dragged along your maid, and tricked my assistant. I don’t care that you believed you were doing a good deed; this is not how you respect me, Freya.” He removed his hand.
His words hurt, probably more than the cane that would soon strike her ass. “You lied, too. You said you wouldn’t let anyone else punish me, yet here we are—”
“I will be the one punishing you. However, I never said it would be in private. Don’t be angry with me, Freya. I’m doing exactly what is necessary to show you how much I care for you. Isn’t that what you want from me?”
Her needs went far further than he’d offered her to date. She wanted him to tell her he loved her. How would he demonstrate that to her when he refused to speak of it? She furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t understand how this is caring for me.”
“I will show you how to trust again. You will trust me to punish you appropriately and within your limits of endurance, and in doing so, I will accept you back. If you want me, as much I want, need you, Freya, you’ll do this.”
Submit without a fight? She’d prepared herself for a battle, and now he expected her to bend over without resisting. Was she ready to do that for him?
“Please,” she pleaded. “Don’t do this. I can’t bear to be spanked in public.”
“It’s not in public. It’s a private audience and none of these women will respect you less if you obey me and do as you’re told.” He waited for her response and she doubted she’d much time to decide between rebelling or submitting.
“The guards—” She cocked her head at one of the young men.
“Will be dismissed. Or would you like them to force you over the bench?”
Freya licked her dry lips. “No. Sir.”
There was no way out. She’d given herself no choice but to comply because to fight off the guards in front of Marco would not only undermine his authority, but reinforce his opinion that she didn’t trust him.
“Very well,” Marco nodded and switched to Vendian. “You two, wait outside,” he commanded. The guards about-faced and marched out of the room.
Walking toward the bench, her legs shook. What awaited her was more than a thorough spanking. Something more fundamental was happening—she was so conscious of the eyes watching her every move. With her wary gaze flitting about the room, unsure of what the others thought of her punishment and whether she deserved it or not, she shuffled forward and bent.
The cool surface met her bosom and she hugged the thin support and clasped her hands together underneath the padded beam. Lalita bound her wrists together, but left her arms free to dangle beneath. However, a link chain tightly cuffed each of her ankles to a leg of the bench. She rattled it against the metal legs of the bench and managed to balance on her tiptoes.
With bottom raised and her sex on display, Freya concentrated on her breathing. Beside her, Lalita read out the list of rules she’d broken. Some she couldn’t deny—trickery, leaving the Volta under false pretenses, coercing her maid into deceiving Puto. Others, she considered excessive—dressing in clothes without permission seemed a trivial matter. What surprised her was there was no mention of her accessing Marco’s console. The reason for adventure was left out and to the observer; it must seem she simply went to find Marco for no particular reason.
Naturally, no questions were raised and the audience listened in silence.
“The punishment is the rod—ten hard strokes on her bottom. This will be done in conjunction with the application of aylerberry juice around her anus and with the insertion of a butt plug, inside her bottom.”
A gasp went up around the room. What the hell was aylerberry juice? A berry bush wouldn’t be native to Tagra, so it must be something in one of those bottles in the punishment room.
“Governor, please proceed as you wish.” Lalita stepped away from the bench.
She heard noises behind her, but couldn’t see what he was doing. Only when something icy cold rested between her bottom cheeks did she understand what was about to happen. Was he really going to insert a plug into her tight hole without preparation?
She whimpered and rattled her ankle bindings.
“Do you wish her gagged?” Lalita asked Marco in hushed tones.
“No,” Marco swiftly replied.
The tip of the plug—she’d no idea of its size—nudged against her puckered bud. He smeared something along the furrow, using the smooth surface of the plug to spread the odorless concoction.
She held her breath, wondering what nasty sensation would torment her. All she felt was the cold metal tracking up and down her cleft. He rested his spare hand on the top of her ass. The warmth of his skin contrasted with the icy plug.
“Freya,” he said softly. “You need to relax or else this is going hurt more than you’d want it to. I’m going to ask you to breathe in deeply, then I’m going to insert the plug. Now. Breathe.”
He pressed the hard bulge of the plug into her bottom hole and she whistled in a lungful through gritted teeth. The burning sensation as he pushed the bulbous plug inside was intense, almost too much. She struggled to relax her sphincter muscles. She cried out and her buttocks instinctively clenched around the plug, resisting its entry.
Marco continued to penetrate her tight hole without pausing and it came as a relief when he announced it was fully inserted. She exhaled and tried not to imagine the scene—bent over with her bottom plugged and on display.
Mortified, unable to do anything, she flopped onto the bench, and in doing so, she realized she’d been too tense. The loosening of taut muscles eased the discomfort and gradually, she accepted the sensation of fullness, of being stretched wide.
A minute or so past and nothing else happened. What was Marco waiting for? Why hadn’t he used the rod on her poor ass?
It began with prickles. Loads of tiny pinpricks danced along the groove between her buttocks and the tingles were especially inten
se on her anus. She flexed around the plug’s neck, which held the object in place. It reminded her of nettle stings and the discomfort, although unpleasant, wasn’t terrible.
He smacked her bottom with his hand. The use of his hand surprised her, as did the imprint of pain it left behind. Rather than bombard her with spanks, he switched between each cheek in a leisurely, almost ponderous fashion; however, the hardness of the slaps was greater than he’d ever used before.
Alongside the prickles came the heat of a spanking. The addition of the ball buried deep inside her created a medley of sensations. She gasped repeatedly with each of his smacks and at the same time tried to assimilate what the aylerberry was doing to her.
Prickles turned to stings, then a subtle burning as if a spice had been placed inside her passage. She tried to rock her hips from side to side, but with her legs splayed wide, there was little room for maneuvering.
“Ow,” she whimpered, unable to contain her protests.
Marco stopped spanking her bottom. “The rod, please.”
Under the bench, Freya clenched her hands together. She closed her eyes and blotted everything out—the gathering and shuffles of restless feet on the floor.
She heard a swoosh, but when she tensed, expecting the first strike, nothing arrived. He was practicing, she assumed. A few more swishes, then she felt the cane tap against her hot ass.
He focused his taps on a patch just above the crease. She braced, and when the swoosh came this time, so did the sting of the cane landing on her bottom. A bee sting might have hurt less than the rigid length of the rod cracking against her behind. Its inflexible form offered no mercy. She opened her mouth to cry out, but too stunned, not a sound left her lips. With her legs tethered, she had no ability to escape the flight of the rod or even kick out in an open act of resistance.
Marco called out the first number. “One.”
She immediately expected the next and every muscle in her legs and belly locked rigid. She squeezed her buttocks together and clamped down on the plug buried in her bottom. The prickles intensified, as the aylerberry liquid, which was coated on the plug, heightened its effect.
