Chapter 20

Later that evening, Dana cooked dinner for the two of them, fresh pasta that was close to expiring, in a simple pan sauce of peppery olive oil emulsified with a little of the salted pasta water, and root vegetables that she cubed and roasted. Valerie watched rapt from a bar stool opposite the expansive kitchen island.

“What do you like to eat, anyway?” Dana asked, as she plated the meal for the two of them.

“You.. don’t already know?” Valerie seemed surprised by the question. The woman seemed to know more about her than she herself did.

“I don’t think I ever saw you eat anything that wasn’t frozen or fast food.”

Valerie blushed with shame. She tried to think of a counter-example from the past couple months, but couldn’t come up with anything. She didn’t really cook, and had never learned. She had burned ramen once, when she tried to prepare it, got distracted, and the pot boiled dry.

“I-” she couldn’t really keep her distress from even the single syllable.

“I don’t mean to judge. You had a lot going on.”

“I like soup..” Valerie replied, her voice small. She felt judged, despite Dana’s reassurance. “Tomato soup?”

“We’ll order groceries tomorrow.” She gestured at the kitchen behind her. “I’ve been a bit busy lately, and the pantry is a little bare. I’ll make sure we have the ingredients for tomato soup.”

Valerie nibbled at the pasta; it tasted better than anything she had eaten in the last several months. She wasn’t sure what to say; she had no idea what went in tomato soup, aside from— she presumed— tomatoes.

She was saved from the awkward silence by Samus, who at the sound of clinking dishes had appeared in the kitchen and begun loudly demanding her own dinner.

“Her food is in the back of the pantry, on the left. You are responsible for feeding her,” Dana told the girl; Valerie heard the tone of command in this, and continued to wonder at how Dana could simply do that.

“…and cleaning her litter box. I’ve cleaned enough cat boxes for one lifetime.”

It was five or six days later— Valerie found she had lost track; she had no work to do, no meetings to attend, no calendar to which she was beholden. She also had no phone or other digital devices to help pass the time, or even track how much time passed.

Dana walked in on Valerie lounging in front of a window, watching the sun set over the city in the distance.

“I’m bored,” Dana announced, a fiendish edge to her voice that set Valerie’s heart thrumming.

Valerie jumped to her feet, turning to face Dana and fixing her gaze on a spot on the floor just in front of the woman’s feet; the response, and the position, was one of the new protocols that Dana had introduced over the past few days.

“Um…” Valerie started to speak, deeply uncertain. “O-okay?”

“I think you need more training. Come with me.” Her voice was sterner than Valerie had heard before; and the girl hurried to follow. She was unsteady in the three-inch heel stilettos locked on her feet. Valerie had never really worn heels, and she was still getting used to even that modest height. She winced as she almost turned an ankle in her rush.

She followed Dana downstairs towards the play room, as Dana had taken to calling it. She couldn’t quite keep up, especially descending the stairs, compared to the taller woman’s long strides.

“Tsk.”

Dana stood on the other side of the open door; Valerie couldn’t tell if the impatience on the woman’s face was real or feigned, but she didn’t think it was a good sign for her, either way. Dana was holding a long, slender, leather-wrapped cane in one hand, gently tapping the end of it against her knee.

“Strip.”

Valerie was wearing very little, already- a thin silk robe, without even a tie, that left her feeling more naked than if she had been in fact totally unclothed. The second Protocol that Dana had given her, after that first day, was that Valerie would wear exactly what she was given to wear each day; and not a thread more or less. She let the robe drop from her shoulders, carefully folded it, and placed it on a low shelf in the hallway just outside. She could not remove the locked-on heels, and hoped Dana would not view this as disobedience.

“First position.”

Valerie hurried to kneel, trying to move her body into the correct shape. Dana had instructed her on these positions only the previous day, and though she had been ordered to practice, she thought she would have more time before she had to perform.

“Not very graceful,” Dana critiqued as the girl shifted, trying to remember the exact angles. The day before, Dana had gently coaxed each of her limbs into position, making the teaching feel almost like a kindness, and certainly an intimacy. Now, she paced imperious circles around the girl, scattering judgments behind in her footsteps.

“Reach more in the back.” Dana taps the cane against Valerie’s arms, each bent ninety degrees, her hands straining to grasp the opposite elbow.

“Back straight. Chest out.” The tip of the cane taps against the girl’s spine.

“Did you practice?”

Valerie let her head drop down as shame crept up to color her cheeks. She didn’t want to reply, and admit out loud that she had meant to— later.

“Eyes straight. Answer me. Did you practice?” Dana’s usually silken tones instead sliced across her like the steel edge of a knife.

“N-no..” Valerie’s voice quavered. She raised her head to look forward— it was part of the position. She felt something like fear start to gnaw at her from inside, mingled with.. she thought it was a kind of despair that she had disappointed — was disappointing — Dana.

“No, mistress.” Dana corrected her. Valerie was struggling to learn when the title was expected and when it wasn’t. Dana usually seemed to prefer to talk to her like a normal person, but Valerie was discovering how much more strict the domme in her could be at times like these.

“No, mistress,” Valerie replied quickly. The sense of shame and disappointment surprised her with its intensity, heat rising in her neck and face. She didn’t think the emotions were quite visible in her voice.

“Stand.” Dana unceremoniously hooked a finger through the steel ring at the front of Valerie’s collar, and encouraged her to standing; then led her over to one of the pieces of furniture that now lived in the room- an arrangement of steel angle iron welded into something like an over-built sawhorse. Two pairs of legs, each pair arranged like a letter A, and a top about for inches wide connecting them, padded and wrapped in exquisitely rich crimson leather. It was heavy enough on its own that Valerie and Dana together had barely managed to move it; but it was additionally fixed to recessed bolts set in the concrete floor.

Valerie stood facing the horse, so that the padded top ran side to side in front of her, like a runner’s hurdle. Dana positioned her with taps of the cane, spreading her legs until her feet were as far apart as the legs of the sawhorse. Dana slipped padlocks through the same ankle cuffs that locked Valerie’s feet in the stilettos she wore. Each click of the small padlocks closing sent a shiver up Valerie’s spine; two clicks and she was effectively immobilized.

Dana bent her forward at the waist over the sawhorse; most of the girl’s weight still rested on her aching feet, but the wide padded top helped stabilize her as she bent almost double. Dana secured the girl’s wrists in wide leather cuffs, locked on to her wrists and locked, in turn, to anchor points built in to the legs of the horse.

Valerie tugged experimentally at the cuffs; she had some latitude for movement, but the leather was sturdy and the bolted-down steel sawhorse was utterly immovable. The treatment of her so far, and her submission, even the mingled emotions warring in her breast, turned her on immensely; she could feel her arousal pressing awkwardly against one of the steel cross-members, and her cheeks glowed bright red as she watched a single droplet, evidence of that ardor, splatter against the concrete beneath her.

“Five for getting the position wrong,” Dana stated. “And five for disobeying my order to practice. Five more for making me ask twice. I am not going to keep count; I would suggest you do so.”

Before Valerie could fully process the Dana’s words, the woman had landed the first blow, perfectly aimed precisely on the crease between thigh and butt. This was not the first time Valerie had engaged in impact play- a playful swat here and there, even an entire spanking scene at a kink party she had attended once, shyly, years ago.

These experiences did not prepare her for the line of fire that Dana’s cane burned across her tender thighs; this was not a cute swat, nor even the tentative hand-slaps of an impact top playing with a newbie. Valerie’s pained cry was wholly involuntary, on her part; the half-yelp, half-moan seemingly driven out of her by the mere force of the blow.

Dana, herself, admired the perfect line of red that spanned across both of the girl’s thighs. She felt especially proud of the traces of purple bruise that started to rise within seconds.

She delivered the next four stripes in rapid succession, perfectly spaced parallel lines of red and purple marching down the back of Valerie’s thighs. Valerie barely had time to yelp between each one, and without any awareness of it starting, found she was openly crying when Dana paused momentarily.

“How many is that?” Dana asked her. She stroked one open palm across the girl’s lower back, down across a buttock, and across the five stripes across her thighs, feeling the warmth emanating from the marks.

“F- five,” Valerie choked out between sobs. She was pulling at her wrist and ankle cuffs in a completely pointless attempt to try and get away from Dana’s cane. The small girldick hanging between her legs twitched, belying the part of her that was even more deeply aroused by the punishment.

“Five, mistress,” Dana admonished her. “That’s one more.”

“Fi— five, m— mistress,” Valerie’s words were comprehensible, but barely. Her cries mixed with whimpering sobs at the thought of even one more, much less than eleven she knew awaited her.

Dana delivered the next five marching up over the girl’s butt; she paused just long enough between each stroke to give Valerie time to cry out, enjoying each strangled sob as it issued out of the struggling girl. The flesh there was more yielding, and somewhat less sensitive than her upper thighs, but that only meant Dana could put more force into each blow.

“How many?” Dana asked.

“Ttt— ten,” Valerie was able to report, after several seconds of unmanageable sobbing. “M— m— mistress,” she hastened to add, desperate not to add a single stroke to the six more she was still owed.

Dana stepped around to the front of the bound girl, and crouched next to her.

“Such a good toy for me,” she cooed into the girl’s ear. She stroked the soft hairs at the nape of Valerie’s neck, gently kneading the muscle and tendon that ran beneath. “You’re almost there, baby, just a few more. You’ll be okay.”

Her voice had softened, then, losing its steel edge, a purring mixture of pride and arousal. Despite the softness, Valerie saw no sign of mercy or relent; and Dana stood and took her position again.

Dana delivered another five strokes to the girl’s lower thighs, and then admired the fifteen parallel lines evenly spaced down nearly a third of the girl’s body. These five came in rapid succession, again, with a gap only as long as it took Dana to draw her arm back and take aim. For Valerie, it was an explosion of pain and fire, and she screamed raggedly, her sobs redoubling.

“How many?” Dana asked.

It was close to a full minute of sobbing before Valerie could collect enough breath to answer. She had, in truth, lost count; she knew well that it was a third set, and hoped for even the small mercy that the extra stroke had been included; or perhaps was simply desperate enough to believe that Dana truly was not keeping count.

“Si— sixteen, mi— mistress?” the uncertainty in her tone was evident.

“Mmmm.” Dana responded, her tone reproving. “No, I don’t think so. I told you to keep count; that’s one more stroke. Try again.”

“Please…” Valerie pleaded, through the sobs, but did not count on Dana going back on her word. “Fiv- fifteen, mistress.” She revised her guess downward, but she was still not truly certain.

“That’s a good toy,” Dana confirmed to her warmly. “You’re so close now, my darling.”

She repositioned again, aiming very carefully. She delivered one stroke each to both of Valerie’s cheeks, cutting diagonally across each block of five purple stripes from the second set. Valerie found that each of these last two was almost as bad as all fifteen that had come before them.

Valerie didn’t quite pass out, but she couldn’t afterward recall how she ended up laying, unbound, with her head held in Dana’s lap. The woman was alternately softly petting her hair and pressing soft kisses against her temple.

“I’m so proud of you, baby,” Dana’s silky voice whispered in her ear, a soothing balm of milk and honey. Valerie sniffled, still trembling.

Valerie wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that. She wanted to stay there in Dana’s arms, feeling the warm glow of her care and approval for as long as she could. Nevertheless, eventually Dana bent down, nudged Valerie’s head over, kissed her deeply, and told her it was time for dinner; she had made tomato soup.