by Ava Sinclair
“Quiet!” Dr. Adler’s tone was quiet but commanding, and garnered instant obedience from the two frightened young women. “You brought this on yourself. Bebe, you know better. When I tell you to do something, you are to obey. I had sound reasons for asking you to stay out of sight in the barn. As for you, Billy, you should be especially ashamed. Your papa is doing everything he can to keep you safe, and you go running out in the open. And might I add that disregarding my orders after I’ve opened my home to you is exceptionally rude and does not reflect well on your papa.” He paused, allowing the criticism to sink in. “For shame…”
Billy hadn’t thought about it that way. Now she turned apologetic eyes toward Gage, but the stare he was giving her was no less than withering. There wasn’t an ounce of compassion in his eyes, and she realized then why he was so angry. There were people out there—bad people—who wanted to kill her. Gage had taken pains to disguise her, to disguise himself. What if they’d still been tailed? What if a gunman had been watching the house? How easy would it have been to pick her off with one shot and leave her body lying there on the prairie behind the house? How could she have been so incredibly foolish? Her stupid pride—it had put her at risk, and it had made her papa look bad. She wanted to fall through the floor and hide from his view.
The men walked over now, Dr. Adler taking his position at Bebe’s side, and Gage taking his position on hers, so that the men were facing one another across their littles’ bent backs. There was no further lecture when the hand spankings started, but none was needed. Words could not have been heard anyway above the yelps and cries of both Billy and Bebe as Gage and Dr. Adler began to lay heavy wallops against their bare bottoms.
Both young women were near hysterics by the time the hand spankings stopped.
“That, my dears, was just the warm-up,” Dr. Adler informed them, and Billy found herself pulled up and away from the desk. For a moment, she entertained the ridiculous hope that maybe, for her, it was over. But that fleeing hope was dashed when Gage planted her solidly in the center of the room behind her partner-in-crime, and leaned down to speak into her ear.
“You have no idea how disappointed I am with you, Billy. I want you to think about that while you’re standing here. You think about that while you watch everything that happens to Bebe, because after you watch Bebe’s papa punish her, you’re going to be punished the same way by me. Do you understand?”
When she didn’t answer, Gage smacked her bottom so hard she stumbled several paces forward. She howled her answer as she rubbed her burning cheeks. “Y-y-yes!”
Gage took hold of her chin and turned her face toward Bebe. “Good, and I do not want to see you look away, understand?”
Billy forced her eyes to take in the scene before her. She’d been stripped and bent over the desk first, so she’d not seen Bebe naked. The girl before her had an entirely different build than she did. Where Billy’s hips were narrow, Bebe’s flared in generous curves. Where Billy’s bottom was pert and high, Bebe’s was full and shapely, the waist above it very small by comparison. Billy could see how the redhead’s pale breasts bulged out from where they were pressed against the desk. She dragged her eyes back to the girl’s bottom. It was red, so red, and she imagined that it already throbbed with hurt as her own did.
It took all her effort not to turn away now as Dr. Adler picked up a thick strap and slapped it hard against his palm. The sound of it made Bebe jump, and her plump, red bottom jiggled like an apple on a shaky branch.
Dr. Adler looked at Billy and Gage before raising the strap and bringing it down with excruciating precision on the tender crease between Bebe’s plump bottom and shapely thighs. The crack of the strap was followed by a scream, and Bebe’s bottom wagged back and forth.
Billy was beginning to shake with fear and empathy by the second stroke, which overlapped the first puffing welt. Six more followed, traveling up the girl’s bottom, until the lower half was pillowed with red imprints of the strap, and she was stomping her bare feet on the floor in a dance of agony.
But Roman Adler seemed impervious to her cries and pleas for mercy as he picked up the next implement. The switch made a whistling noise as he sliced it through the air. Billy shuddered and looked up at Gage, whose mouth remained set in a stoic line. He darted his eyes toward Bebe in a silent suggestion that she do the same.
Billy obediently dragged her gaze back to the other couple, wishing she could shut out the sounds, even if she couldn’t close her eyes. Bebe was begging for mercy now, repeating, “No, papa!” over and over as Dr. Adler stood back and tapped the switch on the bare skin just above the staggered layer of welts. When the first blow of the switch fell, it was delivered by a practiced snap of the doctor’s hand. This time, Bebe stood and howled, rubbing her cheeks. But her papa immediately grabbed her by the arm and laid five rapid stripes across her thighs.
“Back in position, young lady,” he ordered, and she dropped forward, begging incoherently through her sobs.
Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!
There were five more, each leaving a thin red line in its wake. The paddle followed; the doctor delivered ten blows to the already well-punished backside of his little one. By the time he was finished, Bebe was having a hard time standing, and when he pulled her up and turned her so he could walk her to the center of the room, Billy noticed that she looked dazed from the pain, and the green eyes that had mocked her earlier were now puffy and red-rimmed from sobbing.
“I’m sorry, Billy,” the penitent redhead said as she passed, and somehow her sympathy frightened Billy more than her scorn had offended her. Bebe was in obvious agony, but even so, there was an unmistakable tang in the air, and as Billy turned to look back at Bebe one last time, she noted the tell-tale slickness on the plump white thighs.
However, she had no time to process it before Gage was hauling her forward and bending her over the spot on the desk that Bebe had just vacated. Billy wanted to fight, but she was far too afraid. The images of the correction Bebe had just received played in her mind in a horrible loop. Could Gage really be so severe?
She quickly found out that he could. Billy tried to steel herself when her papa picked up the strap.
“Oh, please don’t,” she said, looking back at him. “I’m so sorry.” And she was, especially because she wasn’t feeling the arousal she often felt before a punishment, the arousal that blunted the pain. This, she knew, would be actual pain, and she wasn’t ready. She tried to tell Gage, but he had his hand at the small of her back now and then she felt the strap, a burning blast of heat and deep sting that penetrated deep into her skin.
Billy let out a scream that ended in a babyish, open-mouthed wail that was still ongoing when the second blow fell. Like Dr. Adler, Gage was precise in his blows, although he’d started across the middle of her bottom rather than across the crease, and aimed his blows in a crisscross pattern.
She wasn’t even aware that he’d picked up the switch until she felt the sting. These he aimed at the crease, laying on five stripes across the bottom of each cheek. By this point, it had become necessary for him to sit on the edge of the desk and take her across his lap.
Billy was helpless, completely and utterly helpless. Gage was so strong, and she had wronged him and was now paying the price of forced submission to the most intense correction she’d ever known. And then, when the first blow of the paddle fell, there it was, the stirrings of arousal as she fell into that space of complete acceptance—acceptance of the pain, his power, his justice, his judgment. She was his, and he cared enough to protect her, even if it meant protecting her from herself. And then, in spite of herself, in spite of the hurt, she felt the familiar clenching in her core and the corresponding gush of wetness, the waves of pleasure through the haze of pain.
“Now that is a well-punished bottom.” The words were Dr. Adler’s, and she wasn’t sure whose hand now roamed her bottom, causing her to hiss in agony. “But see how wet she is, how engorged her clit. She’s sopping.
But that’s no reason to stop the lesson.”
Gage raised her to standing and Billy found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with Bebe. They were both crying softly and rubbing their bottoms. Dr. Adler was quietly observing them from where he was leaning against the desk, his long legs crossed at the ankles.
“Stop blubbering,” he said not unkindly after a moment, then paused. “We aren’t finished yet. Are you aware, Bebe, that I went to the kitchen earlier?”
“Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no…” Bebe was saying, and Billy suddenly remembered what Nurse Ida had said earlier, about Dr. Adler having been to see the cook. But what could he mean?
Dr. Adler was reaching into his pocket now. He slipped something to Gage and then palmed an item in his own hand before reaching for Bebe’s arm.
“Now, now,” he said as she continued to protest, and the doctor’s voice was gentle, almost solicitous as he sat down and guided the plump redhead over his lap. He tipped Bebe forward until she was forced to brace herself with her hands, and her legs splayed open to provide some balance. Billy could see between her gaping legs. Bebe was shaved bare, and her outer pussy lips were a pale pink, the inner folds so engorged that they looked like the petals of a nearly purple flower. Above her taint, the dented dusty pucker of her anus was drawn tight with fear.
And now Dr. Adler revealed what he had in his hand. “Do you know what this is, little Billy?” he asked, adopting the tone of a kindly professor. Billy shook her head.
“It’s a ginger root,” he said. “In the Orient, it’s used in medicine, and the dear Scottish woman who gave me the recipe in the tonic you had with breakfast swears by the medicinal benefits of this remarkable plant.” He examined the piece of root. It was cylindrical in shape, about four inches long, and appeared to have been peeled like a potato.
“It’s good for all manner of ailments,” the doctor continued. “Including digestive. But I also find it is wonderfully effective as a disciplinary aid. And in extreme cases when it becomes necessary to discourage a particular behavior, I have found that nothing deters like a bit of this stuck in the miscreant’s bottom. The practice is called ‘figging,’ and I highly recommend it for the correction of young ladies.”
Billy stood there, knowing she was staring stupidly but unable to understand how a piece of root smaller than a medium plug could be a deterrent. But then Dr. Adler began to work the root into Bebe’s bottom and after a few moments, the redhead began to whimper and then to gasp, and then to writhe over her papa’s lap. Dr. Adler was working to restrain her with one arm while holding her cheeks together with the other to keep her from expelling the root.
“It burns! It burns! It burns!” Bebe cried, looking back. She was a sobbing mess, with tears coursing down her cheeks and dripping off the end of her runny nose. She was bucking against her papa’s knee now and Billy shook her head, unwilling to believe that Gage would do such a thing to her. She tried to turn and bury her face in his chest, but Gage would not let her look away, and Billy was forced to watch for several more long minutes until Dr. Adler finally removed the root from his little one’s bottom. When he released Bebe, she all but sprung from his lap, dancing around and writhing as if she could work away the pain through motion.
Billy didn’t know what was more terrifying: the invasion of something that obviously burned into her bottom or a level of pain that could make someone like Bebe lose control. As she hopped around the room, it was apparent that the redhead was completely oblivious to everyone else until Nurse Ida grasped her arm and ordered her to calm down.
“Get a hold of yourself, girl,” she said. “The burn will stop soon enough, but the more you move the worse it will be!”
Bebe was still trying to gain control of herself when Gage took a seat in the chair Roman Adler had vacated and pulled Billy over his knee. Because she was shorter, Gage was forced to tip his charge forward even farther, forcing Billy to spread her legs even wider.
Her bottom was still so sore, the aching throb of the paddle and strap and itching hurt of the switching only overridden by the sensation of apprehension of what was to come. Gage was gripping her tighter than he ever had, and a part of Billy knew it was because he expected her to fight.
She told herself she would resist the urge, that she would lie there and take it. Perhaps Bebe had just been being dramatic, or trying to scare her, or…
Then Gage was inserting the root. She’d been so lost in her panicked thoughts that she’d not realized it until she felt the piece of ginger breach her sphincter. At first it wasn’t so bad. If anything, it felt cool, and Billy began to feel as if she’d been duped. Had they been playing a joke on her, to scare her?
Then she felt it. It started as a tingle that spread and then increased to a slow burn that built and built. She began to writhe, as if she could crawl away from the growing irritation, but she only got a few inches forward on Gage’s lap before he pulled her back. And when she continued to fight, he began to spank her, his hand occasionally hitting the edge of the root and driving it in deeper.
Billy was sorry, so sorry. She’d never known anything could be so uncomfortable. Her bottom burned from the inside out, and she sobbed until her will to resist even a little evaporated like a mist and she hung slumped and sobbing over Gage’s lap, clutching his leg as if clinging to a life raft in a storm of her own pain.
The burn only increased when he finally removed it, but Gage spared her the humiliation of doing the dance of agony around the room, not that she could find the strength. Instead, he picked her up and said a few words to Dr. Adler before carrying her upstairs. In their room, he wordlessly laid her over the edge of the bed and pushed into her dripping pussy. In spite of everything, she came right away.
Chapter Fourteen
Billy didn’t wake up in bed with Gage. Instead, she awoke in a small, barred bed in a room with bright yellow wallpaper. She looked around as she blinked the sleep from her eyes, trying to reconstruct the events from the night before. Then she felt the ache in her bottom and reached under her gown. Her skin felt slightly greasy and numb, despite the residual pain.
“Don’t rub your ointment off.” Nurse Ida was sitting in a nearby chair.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“In the nursery where some of our little patients stay when they are here,” she said. “Your papa thought it best if you slept here where I could apply cream to your bottom.” She paused. “I trust you’ll follow the rules now.”
“Yes.” The answer was sincere as she watched the nurse rise and go to a cabinet. When she returned, she had a bottle.
“Drink this,” Nurse Ida ordered.
This time, Billy didn’t argue. She lay back, happy to have something in a mouth that felt slightly dry. Once she was finished, Nurse Ida took the bottle and reached down to help her from the bed. The large woman lifted her easily.
“Your papa is downstairs waiting for you to come have lunch.”
“Where’s Bebe?” Billy asked.
Nurse Ida frowned. “I’m surprised you want to know. But she’s already downstairs with her papa and yours. Let’s get you dressed so you can join them.”
Billy was soon clad in a simple white frock with a pink sash, long white socks and white shoes. Her hair was left loose, and adorned with a ridiculously large bow.
“Oh, your papa said to give you this. He figured you’d missed it.”
“My dolly!” The sight of it brought tears to Billy’s eyes. For a moment, she’d been worried that being put in the nursery meant that Gage didn’t want to spend time with her. But the dolly confirmed he’d been thinking of her.
Downstairs, the three of them were sitting at the table in the atrium. Bebe wasn’t wearing her cowboy costume today, but a light green dress with dark green piping. She looked decidedly more subdued than she had the day before. As for their papas, they looked concerned.
Nurse Ida led her to the chair. Lunch was a tender roast, baby carrots, and potatoes. Hers had already been
cut into bite-sized pieces.
As she sat down, Billy realized that Gage was holding a telegram.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He looked at her and she could tell the smile he gave her was forced.
“I may need to go away for a few days,” he said.
“What do you mean? Why?”
“I’ve gotten a telegram from Celeste Dupree,” he said. “A man showed up at her place not long after we left. He didn’t say anything to her, but apparently questioned one of her girls about whether a young lady fitting your description had been around. Somehow, Simon Holloway’s men tracked you that far. Celeste overheard the conversation and stopped her girl before she could go any further, but not before the girls spilled the beans that we were heading this way.”
Billy felt herself grow cold with fear. “Do they know we’re here, at this house?”
“No. He only knows we got as far as this town. But I need to go head them off. The man left by horse, and there’s just one route here and…”
“No.” Billy’s tone was resolute. She was dependent on Gage, but when necessary, she knew she had to advise him if she could.
“Simon never works alone,” she said as the others looked on in concern. “If he sent one man, he’s got three or four more. Did Celeste describe the man who came around?”
“Big,” Gage said. “Stocky. She described him as not having a neck.”
“Dirk,” Billy said. “He never travels alone. I’m sure he already has men in this very town, waiting on his word. They’ll be everywhere.” She paused. “I can’t stay here. I won’t stay here and put Dr. Adler and Bebe in danger.”
It was a sobering moment as they all pondered the situation.
“It’s been my experience that the beautiful thing about you little ones is that you have the ability to put your little self to bed inside of you and bring out the adult for these kinds of situations,” Roman Adler said. “I’ve seen it with my Bebe, and now I see it with you, Billy. But know you have a place here with me.”
