PROLOGUE

 

The girl was utterly terrified. She thought her heart was going to leap right out of her chest before this nightmare was over.

The two men holding her hostage in this cramped, suffocating room, though, couldn't have been any happier or, seemingly, more relaxed. They laughed and joked with each other about her, flipping a coin to "call" who'd do the punishing and who'd do the holding, and once that was settled-"tails" being the winner in this situation-one brought the enormous, fearsome implement of pain and torture into sight just before the other grabbed her wrists and pulled her roughly across the desk until she was almost on tiptoe, her backside vulnerable, at their mercy.

Her mind raced. Should she continue trying to make some sort of deal and talk them out of it? No. She'd been so demoralized and confused she'd actually agreed to undergo this ordeal before knowing everything it'd entail. Especially being restrained like they had her right now. They'd never listen.

Should she scream, hoping somebody outside the door would come to her rescue? Not that either. Nobody in this place, herself included, had ever shown the least mercy to an underdog, and in times past she herself had snorted in quiet contempt at the luckless girls-and boys too-who'd passed through this torture chamber before her. Her bladder spasmed and she gasped, hoping she could hold her water until her punishment was over. What then? Beg for them to make it quick?

"Oh please-oh please-oh please!" she whimpered over and over as the tears coursed freely down her cheeks.

It didn't seem like any more words would come. She almost felt herself floating, dissociating, and when the punisher squeezed and fondled her buttocks and then grabbed her back belt loop and tugged it to make her jeans as taut as he could over her backside she not only sensed it, but actually believed she could see it from above. She struggled to hold onto some sense of reality, knowing if she let herself faint she'd probably make a wet mess all down one side of the desk and onto the floor, to say nothing of her jeans and underwear.

And how they'd laugh outside at her, then. It'd been bad enough already. Her sense of dissociation morphed into a vision of Mademoiselle Renard and her executioner in that late-night movie that had so horrified her and her friends once at a sleepover... oh, God...

The voice behind her rang out loud and clear: "Girl, everybody says yo're too big for yore britches, but from where I stand looks to me like yore ass fills 'em out perfectly." The other, holding her wrists, threw back his head and laughed. "Good'n', Millard!" he chortled.

A crack as loud as a rifle shot reverberated off the walls and pain exploded in the poor girl's bottom, spreading like wildfire throughout her entire pelvis. She shut her eyes tight, let go a high-pitched squeak and then sobbed hoarsely.

And it wouldn't even be over till she'd endured four more strokes.

 

PART ONE: PREPARATION

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

"Sure gonna be a long three weeks," Felicia sighed as she snuggled into her husband's lap.

"You mean a long month and a half, don't you? Or nine weeks?" Joe, her husband, replied with a grunt as he tried to adjust eight-months-plus pregnant Felicia into a position where she wouldn't squash, beyond repair, any vital parts of his anatomy.

Felicia frowned. "Month and a half? What are you talking about? You mean six weeks after the birth, not counting the time we've got left before? Preposterous! Your mother's old State-of-Transylvania wives' tale! I can't believe I let her-and you!-talk me into that when we had C. J.!"

"Mom means well," Joe reminded her, "and after all, she was willing to come stay with us a few weeks before and after C. J. was born so you could get back on your feet, same as your mom wants to do with this one. I think C. J.'s the only thing that could have gotten her out of the Transy hill country and over here to West Memphis for that long a time. So sometimes there's virtue in these old wives-and their tales."

"I know, I know," Felicia grumbled, "but still, just as soon as my good friend and obstetrician Dr. Braxton Hicks lets me know I'm ready for action again, Master, you are gonna get your bones jumped but good!" Her frown morphed into a mischievous grin as she ducked to lick the nape of his neck and bite his earlobe.

"Ack!" gasped Joe as he tried valiantly, and only partially successfully, to deal with the sudden reaction between his legs Felicia's gesture had suddenly given him. "You know if you make that thing bend double it could stay that way? You might make me get Peyronie's disease, and that wouldn't be any fun for me or you either one!" And before he thought better of it, out of habit he gave his wife's maternity pants-clad bottom a sound, reproving spank. He gasped at his own lack of forethought and gently and carefully rubbed the spanked area as if he were afraid he'd broken it. "I'm so sorry," he whispered nervously.

Felicia shut her eyes, licked her lips, moaned softly, and wiggled her backside into a position more accessible for the attentions of Joe's big right hand. "Don't be, please. You didn't hurt one thing, Master, that didn't need to be hurt. Do it again, would you, Sir?" she begged softly. "You can't tell how mischievous I'll get until the baby's born unless I'm disciplined at least occasionally! And after all, you yourself just admitted I've put you in danger for that disease-what is it again? Petronille's?"

"Peyronie's," groaned Joe as he adjusted his pelvis under Felicia and flexed his palm over the part of her anatomy she offered him, "and I've got to watch myself! The baby might think I'm knocking on the door and want to come out and meet me too soon!"

"Oh, phooey!" retorted Felicia irritably. "This makes the second time now you've started treating me like a wax doll a lot earlier than you should have! I can stand more impact than you think! Come on, just a couple more hard swats to get the blood circulating in my rump, if nothing else? Please, Master? I've been so naughty..." She batted her eyes at him seductively.

"All right, but I still worry," retorted Joe as he tried to oblige-a great deal too carefully to suit his submissive pain-pet wife. Submissive in name, anyway; like many professed subs she was inclined to Top from the bottom, as the saying went, and Joe often wondered if he didn't indulge her too much in the practice. If only she didn't make it so much fun.

"Just wait," she pouted as she crossed her arms, "Callie and Desmond are back home now, she's gonna be bringing Kedishia by this afternoon for her first play date with C. J., and I'll just bet dollars to doughnuts she'll ask you to take her out to the office for a workout with one of our floggers and you'll be all gentlemanly and obliging and agree to it. You two'll have a grand old time while I'm in here watching the kids, all uncared-for and ignored!"

"Hon, that's not fair. She doesn't get a subby impulse that often and likely won't today even, and when she does Desmond's still afraid he'll hurt her seriously if he tries to take matters in hand himself. That and his being such a thorough submissive to her." Desmond was a former pro wrestler turned security guard and private investigator, a behemoth who, besides knowing his way around a fight with any potential opponent no matter how big and strong, was also utterly subservient to Callie, his wife, whom he'd met when she and Felicia were professional Dominatrices working together across the Mississippi in Memphis.

"But rather than see you hurt by something like that happening," Joe continued, "if she asks, I'll tell her I've got a sore shoulder or something-"

"No, no," sighed Felicia unhappily again, "I love Callie and I don't begrudge you being her supply Top, or supply Dom or whatever she calls you when she gets a subby impulse. Besides, you're the only one Desmond trusts to take care of her in that way and if he trusts you, why shouldn't I? And I guess you need to stay in practice some way. I'm just gonna miss our usual activities for what looks to be a long, long time."

Joe began to pat, rub, and lightly pinch Felicia's bottom through her thin pants. "I'll try to make it up to you," he promised. "Maybe tonight I can give you a nice session with the neurological pinwheel..."

"Ooo! Prickly, like I'm wiggling around on top of a cactus!" Felicia giggled, her mood already improving. "Of course there's acupuncture for that too, if I get lucky enough to talk you into it! You know, I might be coming down with sciatica and that'd be good for it..."

"We've got a few sterile acupuncture needles left but we're out of alcohol preps. I'm sorry. I'll buy some of both at Filgrave on Monday after work. But there's that little battery-powered travel iron that's perfect for running across the seat of these pants so you can fantasize that I'm branding your tattoos onto your butt as a sign of my ownership of said butt... or lacking that, I should have a good prickly five-o'clock shadow by evening and I could give you a bearding all over your cheeks... followed up by kisses all over the area I've bearded..."

Felicia's breath quickened as she licked her lips again. After a quick glance at C. J., sitting on the floor and rapt by an exchange between Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street, she leaned over to whisper as quietly as she could in Joe's ear. "You're making me wet," she told him, "and what are you gonna do about it, stud muffin?"

"I might have myself some dinner at the Y-that is, unless you think there could be some danger of me giving you a UTI or pelvic infection..." he whispered back.

"There goes my worrywart Master again!" Felicia hissed irritably. "What am I ever gonna do with you? Listen, here's another idea..." now she spoke as absolutely, utterly quietly as she could right into his ear.

Joe looked at her and arched a wild, bristly black eyebrow. "But hon," he protested, "what if the baby thinks I'm knocking on the back door instead of the front-hey, ow! You're not supposed to rap your knuckles on your Dom's head!"

"Maybe that was Lady Antonia disciplining Eoj instead! But if it was Felicia, then spank my naughty butt for it!" Felicia shot back quietly, with another quick glance to C. J. He loved Sesame Street but if he were to look around and see Felicia in Joe's lap he'd be apt to get jealous and let them know it in no uncertain terms. Then her tone softened again. "Tell you what. Let's compromise. While C. J.'s watching Bert and Ernie, come back with me to the bedroom and you put that new butt plug-oh, crap, there's the door." Suddenly she hopped off Joe's lap and stretched her legs and back while Joe himself tried to make his manhood act the part of a gentleman and back down. After a moment he could manage it but for safety's sake he let Felicia answer the doorbell on her own.

"Plugs," he mused quietly. "We'll drive each other crazy at this rate. But why should today be any different?"