by Alta Hensley
Once the other progenies had seen what she'd done, they thought it was a wonderful game. It wasn't long before the ceiling—and all of the girls—were smothered in paint, as were a lot of the poppas who'd been doing their best to stop what was happening. Juniper knew that the cameras, which were only allowed in the main activity areas, would have picked up who started it. So she proudly, and defiantly, stood in the middle of the room, trying her best not to laugh, before throwing the very last of the paint at the newly decorated ceiling.
Costello grabbed hold of her arm, then. He looked angry, but she could see the amusement in his eyes, which was what started her laughing. That would have been fine… if she could have stopped before it turned into a mix of real sobs and an insane-sounding giggle. Unfortunately, she couldn't, so she found herself being watched much more carefully than she would have liked as he guided her firmly towards the bathroom.
The bath mistresses were not going to be pleased they had an extra job, but Juniper didn't care. She was going to be punished. For something like that it would probably be a belt spanking, or a paddling at the very least. Then she'd be able to have as many tantrums as she wanted. She could cry and wail to her heart's content to get rid of the emotions piling up on her. She had to go back to being her old self again—a little bratty. And frankly, a good ol' punishment spanking could be the answer. Otherwise she was going to get more looks from Costello, who would feel the need to ask for the truth, even though she hoped he knew better than to do something stupid like that—as her only option would be to lie to him.
"Juniper Mae, you are deep trouble, young lady!" And, just as simple as that, Costello was back in discipline mode. Discipline mode she could handle. Concerned, getting too close mode, she couldn't.
Once they entered the bathroom, he ordered, "Strip your clothes off this instant and go stand in the corner to wait for the bath mistresses."
Juniper crossed her arms and stomped her foot. "No! You can't make me!"
He furrowed his brow and his eyes darkened. "Young lady," he warned. "You won't be sitting for a week if you continue down this road. You are already in enough trouble. Pushing me is not a wise choice."
"Go away! Leave me alone! I hate you!" She saw a flash of pain in his eyes and turned her back to avoid his expression, feeling herself lose control, but at the same time, somehow, feeling more in control than ever.
Not surprisingly, Costello grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to a nearby stool. In a whirl of a second, Juniper found herself over his lap with her panties pulled down to her knees. It happened so fast she couldn't even put up a fight.
SWAT, SWAT, SWAT.
"You will never talk to me with such disrespect," he lectured as he spanked her without even a hint of a warm-up. His hand spanked with the same level of pain as a wooden paddle.
"Ouch! Poppa! Poppa!" She kicked her legs and tried to fight off the spanking. Costello's spankings hurt, but this one was no joke.
SWAT, SWAT, SWAT.
"You are in big trouble, and you are only making this worse for you." He continued to spank even harder, focusing on her sensitive sit-spots. She cried out with each searing slap. "You never say such hurtful things to someone who cares about you."
Tears cascaded down her face as she howled at the top of her lungs. The spanking hurt, but she wanted it more than ever. She needed to let it all out. She needed to scream and shout and have a good excuse for carrying on in such a manner.
She arched her back, meeting her ass to his hand with every punishing swat. She wanted it hard. She wanted the pain. She wanted the sting to take over all other emotions. As the spanking continued, she cried and begged for him to stop… all the while desperately wanting him to spank her even more.
Her pussy throbbed and screamed with need. Every spank and every gyration rubbed her clit against his lap. Her juices flowed as freely as her tears. Her ass was on fire, which only fueled her desire more. She wasn't a six-year-old little girl. She was a twenty-eight-year-old woman who desperately wanted to be fucked. Fucked hard by her Poppa.
To her frustration, Costello stopped the spanking. He didn't stand her up right away like he usually did, but paused. He rubbed her bottom gently in small circles, lowering his hand down to her stinging upper thighs. Unintentionally… or maybe intentionally… his finger dipped between her legs, making contact with her soaking wet pussy. She moaned, biting back the words begging him to take her—take her virginity, take her purity, take her as the woman she so desperately wanted to be.
He quickly removed his finger as if he had been stung, pushed her up to a standing position, and stood himself. "Take a bath," he ordered, as he turned and walked out of the room.
* * * * *
As soon as he left Juniper with the bath mistresses, Costello went back to the playroom. Cleaning it up wasn't going to be much fun, but it was the poppas' job to do, and he wasn't going to leave it to the others when it had been his progeny who started it all.
He was very worried about Juniper. He was certain her behavior was due to the number of girls who'd been chosen for marriage in the last couple of weeks. She was getting closer to her twenty-ninth birthday, so was probably beginning to think it would never be her. Thirty-year-olds were menopaused out and discarded. Her time was ticking. He was afraid she would give away her secret if she kept on like this. And the spanking… it hadn't been just a spanking. It had been erotic. So unbelievably, fucking erotic. She'd been wet, he'd been hard, and it had taken all his power not to punish her pussy rather than the milky-white surface of her ass.
Sighing, he stepped into the room where three of the other poppas had already started cleaning up to the best of their ability. It was obvious the only real way to clean up the mess was with new white paint.
"What was wrong with Juniper?" John looked at Costello. "The paint on the ceiling is the sort of thing she'd do, but the falling apart afterwards… do you think she's coming down with something?"
It wouldn't be long before the girls would start being hit by the usual winter colds, so that was a logical explanation, but Costello had another one. "You remember Mary?"
John nodded.
"She was one of Juniper's closest friends, so I think her leaving… you know what it's like for them. They act normal for a little while, until they're doing something that their friend liked doing, and then they do exactly what Juniper did. As she's been here longer than any of the other girls, she has seen more of them leave."
"Maybe they'll go a little gentler on her then. Poor Juniper." John sighed. "I've been here since she first arrived, although I've never been assigned as her poppa. I've seen what she's been through, and it isn't fair. After being here for as long as she has, I can't help thinking that being adopted to be married may not happen for her. Being put on sale might help her chances though, and they normally do that on the girls' birthdays, so hopefully they'll do it for Juniper's next and someone will pick her."
"How low can they go, though?" Costello shrugged. "She's at what, 45,000 now? They might be able to knock 10,000 off, but she's still going to be expensive in comparison to the majority of the girls. I just don't know that it's going to be enough. She's close to menopause…"
Their eyes met. "Being a poppa here really is one of the hardest jobs you can have." John rubbed his bald head, which was covered in little dots of paint. "I wish I could do more for them, but the only thing we're permitted to do is look after them, and even that doesn't seem to be enough at times."
* * * * *
For the first ten minutes, Juniper got the bath to herself. It was heaven. She scrubbed off all the paint without having to deal with any of the other girls, and waited for Mae to come over to wash her hair. Juniper didn't know how she'd cope at bath time if it wasn't for Mae's hair washing, although she didn't have to deal with the frog any longer, as Tuhla was one of the girls chosen. Tuhla, Francesca, and Mary had all been chosen, while Juniper was still there, still pretending to be six. She dunked her head under
the water, wishing she had the courage to end it all, because then she wouldn't have to keep the mask on any longer.
Her life had become the facility. A-21 to be exact, as each facility had a letter and number to identify it. Unlike the rest of the progenies, she actually remembered most of her past, her childhood, her life before she turned eighteen. If she had only known… She came up for air, only to dunk her head again. What? What would she have done if she only knew? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Maybe it was time to stop pretending. Could life really get any worse than it was now? Would they kill her? Would they kill Costello, thinking he knew? The idea of that made her heart stop. How dangerous was facility A-21? Maybe she was playing a dangerous game with her ridiculous bratty antics. Maybe she should start acting like the intelligent woman she was and beat them at their own game. She had done it for ten years, after all. What was a little longer?
When a finger tapped the side of her submerged face, she lifted her head, smiling when she saw Mae. "I hear it was you who started the paint throwing."
Juniper nibbled her bottom lip. "If you want to be technical, it was Leanne who started the paint throwing when she tipped it over Jolene's head." She shrugged. "All I did was throw some orange paint at the ceiling, because I thought it would look pretty, and I was right. They're going to be angry at me now though, aren't they? I made a mess of the playroom and they don't like it when that happens. When I put some patterns on the wall, they took away my pudding for three whole weeks."
"They are going to be angry. I think your punishment is going to be far worse than no pudding." Mae tipped some shampoo into her hand. "The choice you made affected the whole day, Juniper. Once you were done painting, you were going to look at the rabbits, and now you can't because you all have to wash."
"Oh." Even though Juniper sounded sad, she really didn't give a fuck about the damn rabbits. It was a nice distraction, but she could do without it. "I love the rabbits, Mae. Do you think we might have even just a little time to spend with them?"
"No, sweetie, I don't. So next time you go to throw orange paint at the ceiling, it might be worth thinking about how that's going to affect you in the future."
Yes, a future with no rabbits. God forbid.
Chapter Six
Costello went to get Juniper after half an hour, knowing that she wouldn't be permitted to be in the bath any longer than that. By then, she was sitting in her pink heart patterned pajamas, staring at herself in the mirror. Everyone else was playing, so they didn't notice her. But he did, and that was when he became certain—certain that his little June bug was nothing but a full-grown woman.
She noticed him watching her. That would normally be when she'd put on her happy face, acting like the other girls. For the first time since his arrival, however, she didn't bother, staring straight back at him instead, as though she didn't care any longer. Maybe she didn't. How long could someone in her position keep going before they just gave up?
"Come on, Juniper."
She stood, still seeming sad.
"Don't sulk. You know you brought this on yourself. They've told me you're to wait for them in your bedroom. You will be punished for what you did. We're going to have to repaint the ceiling because of you."
"It looks better the way it is now." She sounded depressed, broken, like she had lost the fight.
"Maybe you think so, but they don't. There's word that the Administrator will be punishing you himself. They've had enough of your poor behavior."
"The Administrator?" Fear flashed in her eyes. "Why not you? You're my poppa."
He shook his head, hating to see her afraid, and hating his lack of control to fix it even more. He couldn't help her out of this mess. But he was angry with her as well. Not because of the paint, but because she was putting her safety at risk. Her name was the main topic of conversation in the facility right now, and that meant all eyes were on her. "I don't know what you were thinking. You knew the Administrator would find out." He took hold of her arm and led her in the direction of her room. "Getting paint on the ceiling was naughty. Now you need to be punished. And I have half a mind to spank you again for getting corporate involved."
She shook her head. "I don't need to be punished for making the ceiling pretty. They want to punish me for doing it, because they're mean and hate anything that they don't like." She tried to tug her arm out of Costello's grip, but he was stronger than she was. "Why don't they like their ceiling being pretty? I like it being pretty. Now I could look up at it and see all the different colors."
He was in no mood for her childish behavior right now. He wanted her to act like the adult she was and see what danger she'd walked into.
"Yes, you could, but it's meant to be white, like the rest of the facility. Now they're going to have to pay to get someone in to paint it overnight. Juniper, you need to think before you do things. By forcing them to paint the ceiling, you're costing them money." He hoped he was getting through to her. "Remember when your parents left you here?"
She nodded.
"Everything you eat, everything you drink, everything you use costs them money. By forcing them to paint the ceiling when it wouldn't have needed to be done for another couple of years, you're costing them well over 5000 cubic gems—at the very least."
* * * * *
She didn't say anything until they stepped into her room and then she looked at him. "Everything I do puts up my price, doesn't it? I don't know why I did something so foolish. I should have thought of that, but I didn't, and all I cared about was doing something that meant I could let some of these emotions out without it seeming like I was acting out, or just plain—"
"Tired?" he interrupted. "Tired of acting? Tired of pretending to be what you aren't?" His eyes softened and he rubbed her arm gently.
Her heart stopped. "You know?"
He nodded.
Sighing, Juniper looked deep into his knowing eyes. "When did you figure it out?"
"I started suspecting not long after I first met you. There was something different about you. All of the other girls are clearly progenies, but sometimes you'd look at me and I could see the age in your eyes." Costello smiled. "You can trust me with your secret."
She nodded, and tears filled her eyes. "I don't think I can do this anymore. I'm so exhausted."
He grabbed both of her arms, pulling her close to him. "You have to. This isn't an option. If corporate finds out, they'll most certainly discard you. You're too old for them to invest in reprograming you again." When she looked down at the ground in defeat, Costello grabbed her chin and forced her to look back up into his eyes. "I don't know how yet, but I'll figure something out to help you. Trust that I won't let anything bad happen. But you need to do as I say. Can you trust me?"
She paused to think about what he said. She did trust Costello more than anything. He was all she had. "Yes, Pop… Costello. I'll do whatever you ask."
"We don't have long before the Administrator comes to punish you, but once he does, you're not going to be permitted to leave your room again until morning. It's important that you act like a good little girl. He'll go easier on you if you act sorry."
"Is he going to… to spank me?"
Costello stroked her hair softly. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but most likely."
"Bare? Will he bare my bottom?"
"I don't know the answer." He paused, as if realizing what she was worried about. "Just keep your legs closed to hide your wetness and think about other things—like how bad you want out of here."
She felt the heat wash over her face. He had noticed her sexual juices each and every time, just as she'd feared. "Can't it be you? Can't you ask to be the one to spank me? Please?"
Costello nodded. "I'll try. But I don't have control of that decision. Trust me, I don't want to see another man touch you in any way. But I also don't want to risk getting fired and leaving you in here by yourself."
Juniper brushed a hand through her hair. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have put you
in this situation. I was a brat."
"That doesn't matter now. What matters is that you don't do it again, because it's already unlikely that someone will buy you. You'll probably reach 50,000 cubic gems by the end of the week."
The news surprised her. "How come I cost that much?"
"You've been here a long time, Juniper, and that means they need to recuperate more from you than they do from the others. They might put you on sale for your birthday, but even then you're going to cost too much for the average person to buy."
"Will I hit menopause and be discarded?" Panic set in, and she could barely breathe.
"I won't let that happen." He stroked the side of her face with his fingertips. "We don't have a lot of time before they get here. Later, we'll discuss this, but for now, we need to go back to normal." He walked over to her vanity table and grabbed a pink bow. As he applied it to her hair, he said, "I have to wait for corporate in my room. Sit on the bed, sulk, and make certain they don't suspect anything, okay?"
"Yes, sir." As he walked toward the door, she added, "Costello?" He turned and looked over his shoulder. "I'm scared."
He marched over, wrapped her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. "We'll work something out. I promise. Just take your spanking like a good little girl, and know that it will be the last time anyone—besides me—touches you again." His protective embrace and his declaration sent a small shiver through her. Costello would protect her. How she knew that, she wasn't sure. But she just knew.
When he left the room, she swallowed back the sob threatening to escape. Blinking away tears, she sat down on her bed directly in front of the mirror and put on her best sulking face, knowing that she needed to return to her normal six-year-old self by the time corporate showed up. It was harder than it would have been if she hadn't just learned that her chances of being adopted to be married were very unlikely. She'd had no idea she cost so much. Fortunately, she managed to get back in her 'little' mode just as she heard a knock on Costello's door signaling the arrival of someone from corporate. Her belly flipped with the knowledge of what was to come.