Sixteen of the Best

by Sarah Veitch

  'I can't, Charlotte.' I couldn't afford to say too much because I was desperately holding back tears.

  'Well, we'll discuss it further. I'll see you.' With a click, she dismissed me.

  I was wearing my new lingerie under my clothes to give myself confidence. I thought of changing into something less provoking (sackcloth and ashes) but realized that I couldn't afford to be late for my fateful appointment.

  Driving to the clubhouse, I clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles. Luckily I arrived first and let myself in. The space no longer felt welcoming.

  There was a sharp knock on the door. When I opened it my heart sank. There stood the entire executive of our club: Charlotte and Keith (who was the President), Bruce (another Master), Eva (a Mistress) and Thomas (a switch). No one was smiling. There were no submissives in sight, even though Eva had two of her own. This was the discipline committee.

  I couldn't look anyone in the eyes. I was tempted to grovel on the floor, but was afraid of being hauled to my feet and slapped for overacting.

  'Emily,' growled Keith, a tall, bearded, muscular man in workmanlike black jeans and a faded grey T-shirt. I was reminded that this was an impromptu, private meeting. 'You know why we're here.'

  Keith's air of forcefulness had made me nervous even before this evening. Not knowing where to rest my eyes, I glanced at the surrounding witnesses. Charlotte looked so sad that my gaze quickly moved on to Bruce, who was standing next to her. He was a short, stout, grey-haired man who could spank women into quivering jelly. He looked angrier than I had ever seen him.

  Plump, blonde Eva usually laughed easily, but now she looked serious. I thought I saw sympathy in her blue eyes, and that gave me hope. I couldn't help noticing the cleavage that showed between the buttons of her tight red blouse, and wondered how many of her teenage students had been distracted by her full breasts. Realizing that I probably looked impudent too, I dropped my eyes.

  Thin young Thomas was at the edge of the group, sullenly rubbing his boots together. As an underling he pushed his luck, and while topping someone (usually another man), he pushed his victim's boundaries. His presence felt iron-cold to me.

  Keith was holding out one hand. Of course, he wanted me to return the money.

  I tried to speak, and burst into tears instead. No one moved. Wetting my face, my sweater and everything in my purse, I dug through the jumble and found three-hundred dollars which I held out to Keith. Charlotte took the money while I continued my search. I came up with six dollars in coins, which I poured into her waiting palm.

  The silence was unbearable. 'That's all I have left,' I blubbered, wiping my eyes. 'But I'm not a thief. You have to believe me. I meant to replace it all as soon as possible.'

  'We believe you,' said Keith, to my surprise. 'But why didn't you say a word to any of us? Or leave a note explaining your intentions?'

  'I... I didn't think you'd find out.' I felt cold sweat at my armpits and hot shame in my heart.

  'You have two choices,' said Keith. 'Return the key, leave here tonight, and we'll report your theft to the police. And you'll be banned from the club.' When I didn't respond to his offer, a look of evil joy flashed across his face. 'Or take your punishment from us and stay in. On probation.'

  I was terrified, grateful and scalded with guilt, all at once. 'I'll take punishment from you, Sir. Sirs. And Madams.' My legs felt so shaky that it was a relief for me to kneel.

  'No safe word, girl,' Keith warned me.

  'I understand, Sir.'

  He reached down to seize my sweater and roughly pull it over my head. Cool air hit my skin as everyone looked at my new lacy black bra.

  'Dressed to impress,' remarked Bruce sarcastically.

  'Take all your clothes off,' Keith ordered. 'You need to be searched first to make sure you're not hiding anything.'

  I stood up awkwardly to unzip my skirt and step out of it. As I stood in my underthings I saw an unmistakable bulge at Thomas's crotch, and Charlotte looked amused. All of them reminded me of hungry cats watching a frightened mouse.

  A feeling of surrender spread through me like hot oil, and settled heavily in my cunt. I had never believed that fear and arousal could coexist in me, but the growing wetness in my panties was a sign of my undeniable excitement. I was afraid that everyone in the room could smell my womanly musk.

  I unhooked my garters, rolled my stockings off, and continued taking off every stitch until I was completely naked. I knew without looking that my sensitive pink nipples were puckered to hardness.

  'Go face the wall,' ordered Keith, 'and hold on to the hooks. Don't move until I tell you to.'

  A pair of rusty metal clothes hooks stuck out of the back wall; apparently this room had once been someone's bedroom. I had to stretch my arms to reach up and grab both hooks. I knew this pose would be hard to maintain for long, but I didn't dare complain.

  Calloused, knowing hands ran down my sides and familiarly over my buttocks, making me squirm. I jerked when a hard male belly and a harder cock pressed into my back as a different pair of hands squeezed my breasts and fed each of them into a pair of tight nipple clips. I gasped. 'These will hold your attention, girl,' snickered Bruce.

  A man's long fingers spread my lower lips apart and deliberately stroked my wetness as if to test my arousal. Then three hard fingers thrust into me, stretching the skin at my opening until it stung. Large fingertips (Keith's?) probed my cervix and rubbed my inner walls. I felt completely explored, known and taken.

  'Come for me, little thief,' purred Keith, surprising me with his generosity. 'We'll see if you like what comes next.' This threat sent me into a crashing, uncontrollable orgasm. I danced on Keith's fingers while he continued to fuck me with them.

  The witnesses began to clap in time. Clap! Clap! Clap!

  I couldn't help thinking of the punishment to come, as they surely intended. I came twice more, feeling almost hysterical. My possessor withdrew, but the search wasn't over. A slippery, greased finger invaded my ass, burrowing deeply into me as my muscles tried to expel the invader.

  'Relax if you don't want it to hurt, Emily,' said Charlotte. I felt humiliated to the core, but I concentrated on obeying her. Before long she had two fingers in me. She seemed to be reaching up into my guts to discover my most secret desires.

  Without warning someone pulled both clips off my nipples and I came again from the shock.

  Just when I thought the ache in my arms would force me to lower them without permission, Keith said, 'You may lower your arms and turn around.'

  Having to look at the whole committee was almost worse than hanging from hooks. For better or worse, the next phase of my punishment was a lecture.

  'Emily,' Keith started, much gentler than I expected, 'you've disappointed all of us, but we're sure you've disappointed yourself more. You know you could go to jail for what you've done. To satisfy your conscience, I'm going to make it hard for you to sit down for a while. Remember that we're doing this for your own good. If the consequences didn't suit the crime, you'd despise yourself for a long time. We're going to help you end it.'

  'Thank you, Sir.' Tears were flowing from my eyes again.

  'Bend over and hold your ankles.'

  I did as I was told. Through my hair I could see the women in front of me, while the men gathered behind my upraised ass.

  Whack! The pain was like fire in my flesh but I remained silent. Whack! Whack! I guessed that Keith was using his belt. By the time he finished I was sobbing and suspected that he had raised blisters.

  'Stand up.'

  I straightened up slowly, aching in all my muscles. 'Oh, Sir, it hurts.'

  'It's supposed to,' he told me calmly. 'Bruce and Thomas, hold her.'

  The two men leered at me as they held me upright by the shoulders. This time Keith used a cane on me. I screamed and bucked at the first stroke. The second released hot liquid from a cut across my ass, and I knew he had broken the skin. I learned later that he gave me seven strokes, one f
or each of the unrepaid hundred-dollar bills. By the time he finished, I was almost fainting.

  Cool ointment was stroked onto my burning skin, but the gentlest touch renewed my agony. 'You'll heal, bad girl,' promised Eva, 'and then you can earn the money back. You'll practice with us.'

  Through the roaring in my ears I heard Charlotte explain that I had been traded to Frank and Joe to pay for their work; it was all arranged. I was going to be their kinky whore for an evening, and they had promised to keep it a secret.

  I guessed that I would have to please the executive committee with my mouth and my cunt, but the worst of my punishment was over. My shame would not be made public, and I knew I would be a better person from then on. Like something else I had heard about in church, being forgiven felt more precious than rubies.

  Hard Times

  Sarah Veitch

  CONSTANCE shivered as the warden led her towards the governor's office. 'Don't dawdle, or it'll be all the worse for your backside,' he said with a malicious grin. Constance knew that he hated her more than most because she was of good breeding, had education and sophistication on her side.

  The warden knocked and the Governor called an abrupt, 'Come in.'

  Constance pulled herself up to her full five foot three and tried to look imperious. How she wished she wasn't wearing this hateful prison dress, an ankle-length slate grey. Once she'd have turned heads with her fashionable leather shoes and calfskin booties, but now her feet were unpedicured and bare.

  'What brings you here?' the Governor asked when she reached his desk.

  'To prison?' Her father had died leaving gambling debts so she'd stolen repeatedly to continue living as a lady. A five year term in this London gaol was the end result.

  'No - what crimes have you committed since?'

  'None,' Constance said haughtily.

  'Failure to work,' said the warden. 'She's been here a week and already ignored her laundering duties twice.'

  The older man looked her up and down. 'Prisoners have to work to pay for their keep. What have you to say for yourself?'

  'I was tired, sir. I needed respite.' Couldn't he see that her soft, manicured hands couldn't cope with clouds of steam and rough lye soap?

  'Your soft hide shan't earn respite from the birch,' the Governor replied. He wrote something in the ledger before him then looked intently at his employee. 'Give her twenty lashes now and the same next Friday, Warden Neath.'

  As Constance watched the men exchanged satisfied smiles, then the warden gave her a little push towards the doorway. Soon she found herself stumbling through a maze of hallways until they reached a large square room with a stout woman lounging by the door.

  'Fetch the prison doctor, Matron - I'm about to make this girl sing for her supper,' Warden Neath called out.

  'Not before time if you ask me,' the woman replied, staring at Constance. 'Thrash out some of her la de da ways.' She glanced at her colleague. 'D'you want to get her stripped and spread out nice and wide, love? Me and the surgeon will be back in five.'

  'My pleasure,' Warden Neath said. He watched Matron leave then turned to Constance. 'Right, poppet, let's get you bared for the birch.'

  Constance hesitated, but he was stronger and heavier than she and could call for back up. Best to act proud and indifferent, she told herself, refuse to let him see that you're afraid.

  'As you wish,' she said haughtily, and pulled off the faded garment. Using all of her willpower, she kept her hands at her sides though she was desperate to cover some of her nakedness.

  'Your titties will bounce nice and high when you're flinching under the lash,' the warden murmured, his eyes feasting on her flesh.

  What were titties? As usual, he used language that Constance hadn't previously heard. She'd been educated at her father's knee throughout the 1870s, but doubted if this man - who, at around thirty, was more than ten years her senior - had been educated at all.

  'Present your bottom for the birch,' he continued, pointing at the heavy metal frame which dominated the room. The nineteen year old stared confusedly at the contraption. 'Not used to it, obviously,' he continued, almost as if talking to himself. 'Well, all that's about to change.'

  She shivered as he grasped her right wrist and led her to the frame. 'Your feet go here.' Constance followed his instructions, sliding her bare feet into shoes which were fixed to the stone floor. He immediately tightened them so that they held her motionless. 'Now you bend over here.' He pushed her over the thickest metal bar as he spoke. 'Then we hold your wilful little wrists together and attach them to this.' He clipped her wrists together with iron fetters then attached the fetters to a bar in front of her that was about one foot from the floor. Now the top half of her body was bent forward and held firmly, her bare buttocks obscenely presented for the birch.

  The teenage thief quivered with anticipation and shame as the female warden and a well-dressed man - obviously the prison doctor - entered the punishment room.

  'What's she here for?' the doctor asked casually.

  'Twenty on her arse today and the same next Friday,' Warden Neath replied.

  Constance shivered anew as she felt a surprisingly rough hand stroking and palpating her helpless fundament, examining the swell of her rear cheeks and the silken slope of her thighs. 'Such a small, round bottom will mark up mighty prettily,' the doctor said when he finally finished exploring her proffered hemispheres. 'And she'll be kicking like a mule when you thrash her again in a week.'

  'She'll not kick with her legs pinioned,' the warden answered with some satisfaction. 'Nor lash out with her arms when they're so nicely fettered to the frame.'

  'Aye, she's not going anywhere,' Matron cut in, beginning to walk towards a large container in the corner that held two hateful-looking birches and other punitive implements. 'Let's put these twigs to work and make her backside dance a jig.'

  'Don't be too hasty my love,' Warden Neath said, and Constance could hear the expectancy in his voice. 'I've got me something different from my brother in The Americas. They use it in the prisons there and it's guaranteed to make grown men beg.'

  'This beauty with the leather blade?' the woman asked, pulling a punisher with a two-foot-long handle from the jar.

  'Ah-hah. It's called a paddle. Slap it against your thigh and see how it stings.'

  The woman did, then winced and examined the implement further before handing it to the warden. 'My, that will certainly show an uppity bitch who's boss.'

  Constance stared at the hellish punisher and wondered how it would feel on her nubile extremities. As the others disappeared behind her, she realised she was about to find out.

  'Stroke one,' the jailer said, and Constance felt the air currents shift as he drew back the hateful paddle. Seconds later an explosion of heat radiated through her raised bottom and she cried out and writhed in her bonds. She was still trying to get her breath back when she heard the words 'stroke two' and her backside radiated wildly again.

  'Stroke three.' She tensed up her bottom the little she could then squirmed as the paddle bit into her flesh. 'Stroke four.' This time her wriggling was more protracted, each movement grinding her naked tummy into the metal bar.

  'She's pink already. She'll be glowing like a hot coal by twenty,' the doctor murmured.

  'A sizzling coal,' Warden Neath clarified in a gloating voice.

  The pain was bearable but was clearly going to intensify. Maybe she should give the impression that it was too much for her and they'd halt or lessen the punishment? Constance prepared to give the performance of her life.

  'Stroke five.' She screamed when they laid it on and pulled impotently at the wristlets.

  'Stroke six.' Her impassioned wails echoed around the punishment room.

  'I see we have an actress in our midst,' the doctor murmured.

  'Not for much longer. I've been building her up gradually but now I'll really give her something to cry about,' the warden said.

  Constance held her breath then let it
out in a genuine wail as the paddle exploded across her upturned bottom. God, that had hurt far more than the previous strokes.

  'Stroke eight.' Another thick streak of fire raced across her tethered hemispheres.

  Crying out, she tried - and failed - to pull her feet from the special shoes which held her so cruelly in situ. She'd longed for shoes from the moment she arrived here last week, but now she yearned to be walking barefoot down the corridors, to the laundry - anywhere.

  'I'll work,' she cried out desperately.

  'Aye, but you'll work with a tenderised arse,' Warden Neath countered in his coarse East End accent. She sensed that he was admiring her hot bare bottom. 'Reckon my brother was right about using this to liven up the ladies,' he continued, obviously addressing the room in general. 'This one's already jerking harder than most old lags do under the birch.'

  'Aye, she's wriggling like a new-caught eel,' murmured Matron.

  'And gasping like a landed fish,' the doctor said.

  She wouldn't wriggle or gasp again, Constance told herself as she tried to regain her composure, she just wouldn't. She'd bear the rest with dignity, even aplomb. But, even as she thought the thought, her backside twitched of its own volition and she heard the Matron laugh.

  'Who'd have thought a peach could turn such a pretty crimson?' Warden Neath murmured.

  'Or beg so nicely,' Matron said.

  'Stroke nine coming up. Oh sweetheart, you're not going to be acting when you taste this one.' He wasn't kidding. Constance cried out loudly as the paddle slapped mercilessly at her proffered expanse. Her belly was now pushed so hard against the bar that it felt like she was being dissected. How had someone like herself, a lady of the parish, been reduced to this?

  'Stroke ten.' She shook her bottom from side to side the little she could, but it was obvious that it wasn't going anywhere. Her piteous groans echoed around the room and she gasped again and again that she'd do as she was told.