by Loki Renard
Anastasia was draped around Robert most of the time, which meant Sarah had no other woman to talk to and frankly the notion of joining conversation between Austin and Earnest was more than she could bear. So she remained separate, smiling blandly at odd intervals so they might think she was enjoying herself.
She sat next to Austin as they ate, letting the conversation flow around and over her. Her mind was somewhere else, so much so that she didn’t hear Austin speaking to her until he reached out and tapped her lightly on the knee.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes,” she lied. “Just tired.”
He checked his watch and Sarah saw that it was seven o’clock in the evening. Too late for a nap, far too soon to go to bed. She put another roasted potato in her mouth and sighed inwardly. Anastasia was flirting shamelessly with Robert and Earnest. Both men seemed amused and interested in her playful advances and Sarah was fairly certain that Earnest would not sleep alone that night.
“You’re quiet, Sarah,” Robert eventually observed. “You’re usually far more… disruptive.”
His comment made Sarah bridle inwardly, though she knew he was probably just teasing.
“Would you like me to be disruptive?” She asked the question sweetly, but there was a hint of steel in her eyes as she looked daggers at Robert. He had made himself a target for her frustration and she was glad for it.
“Sarah…” Austin said her name with a note of warning. She ignored it.
“I’d love to be disruptive,” she said, mashing the soft innards of a roast potato onto her fork. “Seeing as you’re clearly so eager to be disrupted…”
Three pairs of unimpressed eyes were focused on her. Anastasia was the only one not wearing a frown. She was hiding a smile behind her hand, her eyes dancing with excitement. It was clear to Sarah that Anastasia had long ago left her days of disobedience behind. Sarah was the only person present who hadn’t entirely bought into a paradigm of total discipline, much to Austin’s increasing chagrin.
Her fork loaded, she made a quick whipping motion with her wrist and sent the white mushy stuff flying over the table toward Robert’s face. He leaned back and it caught him on the collar, smushing against his shirt.
Austin did not say a word. He moved back on his seat, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and hauled her over his lap. What ensued was a very hard, very fast spanking. His palm whacked against the seat of her skirt many dozens of times. When she looked over her shoulder, Sarah realized that her bottom was the only part of her that was visible over the table. To the others she had been transformed into two squirming cheeks being smacked for their entertainment.
It was made all the worse when Austin flipped her skirt up entirely, letting everyone see her pantied bottom.
“Austin! You asshole! Stop it!”
He did not stop it. He did, however, respond by pulling her panties down, baring her bottom to the world. Sarah let out a gasp of horror as she realized that her bare backside had become the centerpiece, her reddened cheeks jiggling for the amusement of all those gathered. It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair at all.
“Rude girls have their bare bottoms spanked,” Austin informed her, driving home the point that she’d lost the privilege of her modesty because she’d sworn at him.
The spanking soon became very uncomfortable and she fervently wished it would stop. Gritting her teeth together so as not to cry out in pain, Sarah tried to be stoic. She didn’t want to cry out or worse still, actually cry.
“Go a little easy on her, Austin,” Robert said. “I did damn near ask for that.”
“Maybe,” Austin said, pausing long enough to conduct conversation. “But she knows better.”
“I don’t think she does,” Anastasia piped up gleefully.
“There’s only one way to learn.” Earnest’s voice was like gravel.
Austin punctuated his friend’s statement with a hard slap to the center of Sarah’s bottom. She was beginning to regret ever having acted so impulsively, but it really wasn’t fair that Robert was able to tease her and she got in trouble for responding more or less in kind.
Sarah squirmed and struggled to get back to a sitting position. Austin let her go, but instead of being grateful for small mercies, she did her best to awkwardly right her clothing while glaring at him.
“Fuck off!” She swore viciously, without an actual target in mind. She was looking at Austin at the time, but actually, they could all fuck off as far as she was concerned.
“Sarah!” The word cracked out of Austin’s mouth as everyone’s mouths turned down in disappointment, as if none of them had ever heard a bad word before.
“What?”
“I told you I expect obedience,” he said grimly. Sarah couldn’t handle seeing the expression of terse sternness on his face. He was the one person who was supposed to be on her side and here he was making her feel as if she’d broken some cardinal rule of life by daring to express herself.
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t expect anything from me,” she said, trying not to cry.
“Go to our cabin and wait for me in the corner,” he said. “I’ll deal with you later.”
She was being sent away. Away from the group. Away from him. Because she wasn’t good enough. Because there were others who were more pleasing, better at being what their partners wanted them to be.
Sarah told herself that she was more than glad to go. It was a relief to be sent from the table and to find some solitude back in the cabin, where she did not put herself into the corner. She’d seen quite enough corners for one day and she was damn tired of being obedient. Maybe Anastasia could play their little games and be their perfect little submissive pet, but Sarah knew she could not.
“Fuck it. Fuck it all.” She muttered the words to herself as she walked through the cabin, to the bathroom where a window looked out onto the forest behind. It had been a long time since she had climbed through a bathroom window, but it was like riding a bike. One never really lost the knack.
Once outside, Sarah proceeded to stomp into the woods, taking some care not to stomp too loudly so she would not be noticed. She needn’t have worried; the only sounds audible in that clearing were the sounds of masculine laughter and Anastasia’s lighter, more feminine tones. Oh, they just loved her, didn’t they, with her stupid obedience and refinement.
Sarah really had no idea why Austin had brought her there. It seemed to her he just wanted to make her feel stupid and silly and not good enough. That was certainly how she felt. She strode boldly and angrily into the woods without a thought for where she was going, only certain that she was going away. Let them have their fun. She would lose herself in the wilds.
The forest around the campsite was thick and wild. It was not the sort of place to go crashing through without any awareness, but Sarah did it all the same because in her heart she knew it didn’t really matter. Who cared if she got lost and was never found again? Austin would probably be better off for it.
After fifteen minutes or so of wandering angrily, Sarah sat at the bottom of a tree and cried her heart out to the wilds. Tears ran down her face as she took deep sobbing breaths that only barely got enough oxygen into her thanks to the snotty liquid clogging her mouth and nose.
This was it. This was what she had suspected would happen all along. Austin would finally realize that she wasn’t what he wanted or needed. He’d see just how unsatisfactory she was, how incomplete and inept. She was not like Sybil or Hannah, women who could fulfill more than one man. She could not make even one happy.
She cried until she had no more tears, until the day began to wane and the shadows began to grow and night started to fall on the forest. Only then did her self-righteous anger start to abate enough for her to worry about where she was and what she was going to do with herself.
Sarah was considering panicking when she heard footsteps coming through the undergrowth.
“Austin?”
“Sarah?” Her name came in return, but not in
Austin’s voice. It was Earnest who had found her. He came toward her, twigs snapping and bushes giving way to the tall bulk of his body.
Sarah cowered, pushing herself back against the tree. As much as she did not want to be lost in the woods for all time, she also did not want to see or speak to anyone, let alone Earnest. He was probably more disgusted with her than Austin, not that she cared. Austin was the only one who mattered, and he was not there. He was probably back at the campsite, glad to be rid of her.
“Sarah, you scared us all,” Earnest said. “What are you doing out here?”
“Leave me alone.”
“I will not.” His tone was firm as he came to stand in front of her, planting his feet wide as he stared down at her. “There are wild animals out here. It’s not safe. Did you forget that?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, as if that would help save her from Earnest and his tongue lashing. “No. I didn’t forget,” she said snippily.
“Did you think perhaps being eaten by a bear was a better fate than facing your master?”
“Maybe.”
Earnest snorted. “Silly girl. Come here.”
Sarah shook her head. She did not want to go anywhere Earnest was going and she certainly didn’t want to go anywhere with him. All her prickly, uncomfortable feelings had reignited at the sight of him and she was feeling more rebellious than ever. She stared up at him, dressed for the forest as he was with his gun at his waist.
In spite of her anger and annoyance, she knew that she was now safe—which meant she was also safe to behave as badly as she liked.
“I don’t want to,” she said miserably. “Leave me out here. This is all I deserve.”
Earnest was not interested in what she thought she deserved. When she did not do as she was told, he reached down, grabbed her wrist, and hauled her up to her feet and thence over his shoulder in one easy movement. Sarah screeched indignantly and demanded to be put down, but he didn’t listen, he just started walking back the way he had come.
Furious at being deprived of the choice to wallow in the wilds, Sarah made a grab for his gun. It was a mistake. No sooner did her fingers brush the grip than Earnest’s free hand slapped her bottom hard enough that the smack sounded like a gunshot. Sarah opened her mouth wide, drawing in a great rushing breath with which to scream, but she was interrupted by yet another swat. He was spanking her with the full strength of his arm, landing blow after blow against her buttocks, which took her breath away and made her bottom ache. This was the sort of spanking after which one did not sit down for a week.
After a dozen of those slaps, Sarah began to beg for clemency. “I’m sorry! Please! Earnest! I’m sorry!”
It was apparently too late for sorries. Earnest reached up over his shoulder, took hold of the waistband of her panties and pulled them down over her bottom. Just like that, she was naked from the waist to the knees, and he kept on spanking, laying hard swat after hard swat to her bottom without anything akin to mercy.
He carried her back into camp with tears streaming down her face, her bare bottom burnished deep red. She thought the worst of her ordeal was over, but when she saw Austin standing with the others, an unmistakable strained look on his handsome face that was echoed in the eyes of Robert and even Anastasia, she knew she had more reckoning coming.
“Found her not far off,” Earnest grunted as he bent down to let Sarah slide off his shoulder and back onto her feet. “Not on the trail though, or anywhere close to it.”
Austin came forward and wrapped her in a tight hug, picking her up off the ground and holding her close against his body. His relief at having found her was quite palpable. She snuggled into his arms, relieved that he was still happy to see her.
“Are you alright?” Austin looked down at her. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“I didn’t hurt myself,” she said, “but he hit me!” She pointed an accusatory finger at Earnest.
Austin nodded. “Good.”
“What!?”
“You had us all worried half to death,” Anastasia broke in. “You can’t run around in these woods, Sarah, you need men with guns. Or ladies with guns. Or guns with guns. Point is, you need guns.”
“And she tried to snatch mine,” Earnest said. Sarah could feel him looming behind her, a great dark cloud of a man.
Austin’s eyes narrowed a fraction more. “She did what?”
“Oh, God, I didn’t do anything and nothing happened, now leave me alone, all of you!”
She stamped past them all and into the cabin she and Austin were sharing, slamming the door behind her hard enough to make the whole thing rattle.
A minute later, Austin came in and shut the door behind himself a lot more carefully. “Sarah, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but this is serious. You cannot run off. You cannot…”
“Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do!” She screeched the words at him at the top of her voice. She had lost her temper again and with it, her last shred of self-control. She began flailing wildly, throwing bedding and bits of clothing and anything she could get her hands on across the room, squealing and shouting the whole time.
Austin watched for about three seconds before intervening. He grabbed her, tossed her face down on the bed, and covered her body with his so she could not move. When she continued to curse and wail, he bit her on the back of her neck, his teeth pinning her in place with undeniable dominance.
She could not move. She could not rage. She could not do anything, and when Austin let out a low growl, she felt a shiver of long lost submission ripple through her. He kept her there for several minutes, until the tension drained out of her body and she became soft and pliable under him. Only then did he release his grip and move over slightly so she was still held in place, but unable to throw another tantrum.
“What is all of this about?” He asked the question softly. “I can tell you’re very upset. I don’t entirely understand why.”
“Because you don’t want me,” Sarah sniffed. “Because I’m not good, or obedient, or…”
“What the hell do you mean I don’t want you?” Austin interrupted. “I love you. I love you more than my own life, Sarah. Of course I want you.”
“I saw how you looked at me,” she sniffed. “I saw what you think about me in your eyes.”
“You didn’t see any such thing,” Austin corrected her. “You imagined it. You got in trouble and instead of taking it for what it was, you decided it meant I didn’t like you.”
Maybe that was what had happened. Sarah didn’t know. All she knew was that she felt more hopelessly lost than ever before.
Austin wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to his chest, enveloping her with his body and his love. “Sarah,” he said. “You’re perfect. I don’t want anyone else other than you, I don’t care how badly behaved you are. That I can fix. What I can’t fix is if you get yourself torn to shreds or hurt because you decide you don’t matter to me.” He patted her bottom and she let out a yelp.
“What’s wrong?”
“Earnest destroyed my ass,” she whimpered.
“Let me see…” Austin pulled down her panties and looked at her bottom, nodding as the faintly bruised skin of her backside came into view. She had certainly been spanked, and spanked hard.
“He hates me,” Sarah sniffed.
“You do realize you scared him.”
“What?”
“When he realized you weren’t here, he was just as worried as I was,” Austin said. “You don’t know how many people care about you. You’re going to apologize to everyone, but most of all, to him.”
“Okay,” she agreed in a small voice. She did not much want to, but she was tired of fighting and she was tired of telling herself nobody cared. Maybe they did care a little. Earnest had found her, after all.
So it was that she allowed herself to be taken back out to the gathering of people in front of whom she had already made a complete and utter ass of herself. She stopped in front of Ear
nest, and mumbled her apologies.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at his feet under lowered lashes.
Earnest took hold of her chin between thumb and forefinger and tipped her head up. “What are you sorry for?”
“I’m sorry for troubling you,” she said, trying to avoid his eyes.
“Troubling me?”
He wasn’t going to let her get away with things so easily. He was going to make her say precisely what was on her mind.
“Making you worry. And… touching your gun.”
“Do you know who you belong to?”
The question came out of left field and confused her for a moment.
“Austin?”
“Yes, but you also belong to all of us,” Earnest said. “We are family. You are as much mine as you are his. You are Robert’s too. And none of us will stand for one of our girls running away.”
A slow, unpleasant gnawing sensation began in Sarah’s stomach. “Does that mean…”
“That means Robert has to deal with you too,” Earnest said, glancing over at the judge, who looked even less impressed than Earnest and Austin, and that was saying a lot.
Sarah looked into Robert’s face and flashed back years, to a time where she had stood before him when he also looked this solemn and judgmental. He had such a mild way about him most of the time; it was truly amazing how he transformed when a miscreant was put in front of him. It was in his eyes, Sarah thought, the steady gaze he bestowed upon her that gave her absolutely nowhere to hide. The man had a force of personality that would have made anyone quiver, let alone a submissive pet who had already been disciplined twice.
“At least you can’t put me in jail this time,” she quipped, hoping to lighten the situation.
“No, but I can confine you to your cabin for the next three days, and I can make sure you are disciplined on each and every one of those days.”