Chapter Fifteen Punishment
Chapter Fifteen
Punishment
Selena
The air was heavy with the smell of wood smoke, so thick she could almost taste it. The sound of bubbling, murmuring water was somewhere nearby. Bright light. Soft breeze.
“Selena,” the voice said, inside her head, yet not.
She was still sleeping, she knew that. It was vital that she get up immediately, preferably at first light. But it was so peaceful lying there.
Just a little bit longer. A few more minutes.
“Selena,” the voice said again, much louder this time. Deeper.
Malcolm!
Her eyes flew open. His face, the eyes dark and flinty, the jaw tight, was directly above her—yet it was upside down.
He was not happy, not in the least.
“You’ve got a lot to explain to me, human.”
She rolled instantly, heart frantically pounding, and scrambled to her feet. It was pure instinct, even though she knew it was utterly futile.
As she sprinted for the edge of the clearing, her legs felt hopelessly stuck in wet concrete.
He caught her by the hair in a handful of steps, his great feet pounding the loam just behind her. He hauled her up short and she screeched, the hair at her scalp protesting at the hot pain of his fist twisting deeper into her locks.
Spinning her around, he held her by those same locks as he brought his face almost nose to nose with hers. “How could you do this? This is my valley. It’s sacred to me. It’s… my home.”
“Malcolm, I was just trying to sig—”
“You started a fire. Here!” Then his expression grew pinched, his jaw twitching. “And you tried to run—again. After I told you how dangerous it was.”
Oh, shit, he’s pissed.
And yet, inside part of her—maybe all of her—knew he had every right to be angry with her.
“I didn’t know! How could I know? I—!”
“Quiet. I can see going easy on you was a mistake.” He hauled her behind him, still gripping her by the hair as she stumbled along in the dirt. “I think I’ll rectify that right now.”
“What’s—damn—what’s the problem with fire? We have them all the time on Terra!” She grunted, pulling on his wrist where he grasped her by the hair. It was like trying to move a mountain.
“This isn’t Terra.”
Stopping under a large, expansive tree, its thick, stout branches reaching out in all directions, he pulled her under one of them. Letting go of her hair and ripping a hanging vine from the branch, he pointed at her.
“Hold up your hands.”
“Why?”
“Do it now. You’re already in enough trouble. Don’t make this any worse than it has to be.”
Already beginning to tremble, she obeyed, her mind playing over the things he’d already done to her. Dreading—and shockingly, fascinated at—what he might do to her next.
Looping the vine over her wrists repeatedly, he cinched it tight, binding them together. Then he threw the other end over the branch, hauling on it until her arms were raised over her head.
“What are you…?”
Pulling harder, he lifted her clear of the ground, and she wriggled and swung her legs wildly.
Oh, my God!
The worst though was the fact that her legs slipped together easily, slickened as they were by her juices slickening her inner thighs.
What is wrong with you!
Tying off the vine around the broad trunk, he stood before her, where she hung several feet off the ground, her head just above level with his.
“You’ve proven that you need a firmer hand. That’s my fault for not recognizing that until now. So, you’re going to get it, from here on out, little human.”
“I… please don’t do this.”
She wasn’t even sure what this was—but she was certain she wasn’t going to like it in the least.
Then how come your pussy is practically a raging waterfall?
He held out a hand, palm up—and she had to shake her head, utterly disbelieving of what she’d just seen.
The branch above her—the same one she hung from like a trussed-up goose—produced several lithe switches, complete with tiny little buds along their lengths. Five or six in all, they grew from the main branch right before her eyes, then dropped neatly into his hand.
“We are doing this—and we’ll do this every single time you disobey me, Selena. You have only yourself to blame.”
“You… you don’t have to do this. I’m… I’m sorry!”
She didn’t know what she was saying sorry for—that she’d been caught or that she’d unintentionally defiled his ‘sacred’ valley.
He wrapped more vines around the base of the bundle of switches, then held it up for her.
“This will teach you, little human.”
As he walked around behind her, she tried to follow him, as if keeping him in sight might stave off the inevitable. In an instant, the garlands draped over her hips were ripped away.
“What are you…?”
The first swish of the switches took her by surprise, both with its swiftness and with the instant itchy, stingy heat it left across her skin. She grunted, pin-wheeling her legs, trying to twist around toward him.
He began a regular, methodic switching of her ass, and down the entirety of the backs of her thighs. At first, after the shock of the first blow had worn off, the stinging seemed almost manageable, but it took a mere dozen or so before the heat was rising.
And she knew that before he was finished, she was going to be one very sorry girl indeed.
Soon enough, the burning was such that she would jerk and twist her hips each time the slender switches bit in.
“Stay still. Let the switches do their work.”
Several more blows, in rapid succession, sliced into her naked bottom, this time drawing a yelp from her as they marked her, the pain sinking in like white-hot fire now.
This was much worse than a mere spanking.
“Please just let me down. I’ll obey, I’ll—”
Another stroke cut low across her ass, forcing a tight yelp from her lips. Tremendous boiling heat was growing just under her skin, the switches causing an itch-burn with each strike. He took up harder strokes, growling out the words amongst her anguished cries.
“The next time—”
Schlack!
“—you feel—”
Schlack!
“—like defiling my home—”
Schlack! Schlack!
She cried out then, kicking again, the pain clawing into her bottom. “No!”
“—you’ll remember this whipping—”
Three harsh blows followed, and she pulled up on her bonds, screeching like a scalded cat. The pain was so hot, so difficult to endure, all she wanted was to get away from it.
But all she could do was hang there and suffer.
And a part of her knew that was her just desserts—but not for setting the fire. No, there was a little, solemn voice in her mind, whispering to her that she should never have run, that it was here—and only here—where she truly belonged.
He didn’t give her time to chew over the gravity of such a notion, smoothing a palm over her bottom, left and right, then back again. Placing the bundle against one cheek, as if to carefully measure his aim, he slashed in another blow, pain tearing through her.
Then another, and another, each methodically placed, Malcolm utterly silent as he did so.
“One more, I think.” The bundle pressed up under the overhang of both buttocks, then pulled away. She tensed, suspended in time, awaiting her doom, the moment seeming to go on forever.
It sliced into her finally, the burn and throb so deep it shocked her for an instant.
Then she let out a hoarse shriek and burst into tears.
It was too much. She couldn’t resist it, the pain impossible to cope with, and she hung limp, the hot tears coursing down her cheeks, tickling her as they dripped between her heaving breasts.
Standing before her, he lifted the bundle of switches up. “Kiss it.”
“W-what?”
“From now on, you’ll kiss every instrument used to discipline you.”
Her belly clenched at his words, her face heating, but she complied, kissing them gently.
“Good, just like that.” He touched her face, taking firm hold of her chin. “But we’re not done yet. You’ve got another lesson to learn.”
Sniffling, she tried to wipe her tears away against her inner arms. “L-lesson? What…?”
Taking hold of her ankles, he drew them together, until he held both of her feet in his palm. He wrapped another vine thickly around and around her ankles, until they were securely trussed. She struggled against it, trying to pull her feet apart. But it was useless. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Without saying a word, he pulled her feet up, higher and higher, jackknifing her body until he was able to bind her ankles to the very same vines which imprisoned her wrists. Hanging utterly helpless, she swayed slightly in the warm breeze as Malcolm’s gaze coursed up and down her trussed-up form.
The lowest part of her body was her hips—and her seething, burning bottom—the flesh there seeming to throb in perfect time with her pounding pulse.
“You—you can’t just leave me here like this!”
“Oh, yes, I can—but leaving you is the last thing I intend to do. Though you’ll probably wish I had by the time I’m done with you.”
No.
Her body spun ever so slowly as he walked over to one of the rocks along the riverbank. Stooping, he laid a palm upon the rock, stroking it. Then he appeared to draw something directly from the stone.
Oh, dear God, no.
It appeared to be a slender, phallus-shaped piece of stone, perfectly smooth.
“What are you doing with that?”
But she knew already.
“You can wait here for me, can’t you?” He gave her a wink as he walked past her in the opposite direction, toward the edge of the clearing.
She watched him, heart pounding as he appeared to search for something, stopping at a bush festooned with brilliant, maroon-colored flowers.
He rubbed the phallus in several of the flowers in turn, then finally returned.
Her mouth went dry when she noticed the stone glistening.
“What did you put on that?”
“This”—he held up the phallus—“is the nectar of the fhirulae bush. It should work nicely for my purposes.”
“What purpose?” She struggled against her bindings, feeling more vulnerable than she ever had in her life. “Don’t come near me with that!”
“You’re staying up there just as long as I want you to.” He stepped close, his palm caressing the stinging back of her thigh. “The marks are already fading. What a shame.”