He walked across the kitchen to the living room, then Sarah was unceremoniously deposited over a beanbag. He rubbed her bottom and she was relieved that her thin cotton panties were remaining in place for the time being.
Expecting the spoon, Sarah yelped in surprise when she felt his hand connecting with her right cheek. The sound resonated through the room, and the sting was fierce even through her underwear. It met her left cheek with equal gusto, and Sarah didn’t know if she could even take five of these solid swats. She shook her head and one of her legs twitched as her right cheek felt Ral’s palm once more. Why did he even bother with the spoon when his hands were so hard? They were so big, too! His palms ensconced her sit-spots and the surrounding globes each time they collided as he relentlessly kept spanking her. Sarah was soon wriggling and trying to crawl away from under his firm hands, but Ral held her down against the beanbag and she couldn’t go anywhere. The burn in her bottom was so hot she thought it must be purple by now, but she couldn’t see because he was pinning her down to stop her getting away. It hurt so much, and each new swat was so startling that she couldn’t cry until he stopped. The moment he did, however, she sobbed her heart out and her face was soon soaked with tears. Before her nose got in on the action and humiliated her further, a tissue appeared before her face.
“Blow,” Ral ordered. Sarah did, then felt herself being walked back to the corner. She didn’t get a chance to escape again, though, because Ral held her wrists in front of her and snapped something around them. She saw a length of leather strapping being tied to a pipe that ran along the wall.
“Please don’t do whatever you’re planning,” Sarah implored him. Ral pressed a rubber ball into her mouth and snapped it in place with a strap that went behind her head. Her heart sank further.
“No more talking. No more anything. I’ve put the ball gag in place so you can keep some of your thoughts in your head for a change.” He went out of view then Sarah heard something that sounded just like a carrot was being peeled, carefully and methodically. Her bottom burned and her stomach started to flutter as she listened to the sound and tried to guess what sort of punishment this was going to be.
“You are getting this punishment because you effectively told me that I was worthless to you. By telling me you didn’t need me, you made me feel like you’d just played along with everything for the free food and shelter. You equated my value with what I did for you. You took away everything that we had done together, and you told me it had all meant nothing to you. That I meant nothing to you. You mean a lot to me, so I’m going to make sure you think twice before saying such things again. That’s why you’re getting such a big punishment today.”
Sarah began to cry again as she contemplated this situation. Before she imagined what he was going to do, Ral bent her over and parted her cheeks. He pushed something into her that seemed to get stuck as it went in, before it found its place inside her. At first, it just felt cold and dense, with a texture that seemed to have fibers in it. However, after barely thirty seconds, the fresh feeling turned to a chilling tingle, like an ice burn, and she found all of her attention was fixed on a small area of her back passage, as she realized that he’d peeled the ginger and inserted it into her bottom.
She looked around at him in horror and instinctively attempted to pull free from where she was tethered. Ral shook his head.
“This is a genetically modified strain of ginger; the original plant is long-extinct now. You see, the ginger as you would have known it had one main issue; it tended to dry up before it had entirely done its work. For culinary purposes, this made fresh ginger useless for any planet that was too far from Earth. Chefs would go to unbelievable lengths to try to acquire this spice, and the cost of it remained prohibitive.” He paused and moved closer, so his face was only inches away from Sarah’s. “Botanists solved the problem by inventing a type of extended-release ginger. It has larger cells, which hold more water and ginger oil, meaning that there’s more potency before the plant is useless. This stuff was designed to not dry out. That makes it the perfect punishment tool, because unlike old-fashioned ginger, which might have lasted twenty minutes in your bottom, this modern, extended-release ginger can last for days.”
Sarah shook her head at the idea of bearing this for so long, and she tried pulling her hands again, in case physics had changed since she last checked if she could escape.
“I’m not going to make it sit inside you for that long. In fact, twenty minutes should more than suffice, for this punishment. Next time you take it into your head to tell someone that you hate them when really you feel the opposite, I want you to remember how this feels, and remember that this punishment can last as long as I want it to.” Ral’s voice was stern and Sarah knew that he would follow through if she did anything similar.
The pain then built up very quickly until she was shrieking into the ball gag and her cheeks were quivering around the ginger. It burned profoundly and got worse with every passing moment. Some of the juices trickled out and soon her pussy and clit were tingling as well. She tried to control her breathing but it was so difficult at that moment. Her ass clenched up, but that filled her with fresh fire, forcing her to relax it against the will of her shaking glutes.
As the burning reached what she only hoped was its crescendo, she remembered an experiment in high school, when the teacher had dropped potassium into a large container of water, and the tiny lump of metal had burned with a purple flame. Now, Sarah knew how the water had felt.
Carefully, afraid of accidentally squeezing the evil plant in her back passage again, she sank down to her knees and laid her face on the floor with her haunches in the air as she cried and screamed muffled apologies through the ball gag. As time went on, however, all her words seemed to desert her, and she only felt pain and sobbed into the floor through her ordeal. Every time it got worse, she kept thinking it couldn’t burn more, but it did, and it kept doing.
Several million years might have passed, then Sarah felt Ral touch the ginger. Even the slight movement from his fingers grasping the base made her want to beg him to leave her alone to her suffering, but then she felt that he was pulling on it. She couldn’t believe it was possible for the pain to get worse, but it did. The wider part of the root was squeezed against her bottom hole, releasing more of the ginger oil, and fresh agony radiated through her nerves. Then it was gone, and she was quivering on the floor as the residual ginger oil gnawed at her and reminded her to never misbehave again.
Ral unfastened the ball gag, then bundled Sarah up in a soft towel and carried her to her bed, where he stroked her hair and shushed her. At some point, she stopped crying, but she only realized when she opened her eyes and wasn’t looking out through tears any more. Her bottom still burned inside and out. She didn’t want to speak to Ral, even if thousands of words were on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to tell him how much she hated him, but another part of her knew that she didn’t hate him at all. Then she wanted to tell him that she loved him, but part of her was worried that he couldn’t possibly feel the same way if he had been able to do what he’d just done to her. She felt like she ought to be fuming, she definitely felt violated by the malevolent vegetable, but she couldn’t be angry at Ral. He had done nothing but protect her and try to gradually introduce her to the world she had awakened in, and she had responded by making him feel unwanted and worthless. Then, she wanted to apologize. Except the words stuck in her throat and when she tried to get them back, she forgot what she wanted to say. He sat with her the whole time, still caressing her hair gently, as she gripped the towel and tried to figure out which of the big cloud of emotions she was feeling the most.
“I didn’t like that,” she whispered at length.
“If you did, it wouldn’t be much of a punishment, little one.” Ral kept stroking her hair.
“It was mean,” she added. Ral sighed.
“As mean as what you did?”
“Prob’ly. Daddy? Can I have a drink, please?�
� Sarah’s voice was hoarse.
“Of course, little one.”
She felt a keen sense of separation the whole time he was gone, but when he returned, it was with a sippy cup. When she took a mouthful, she nearly choked in surprise.
“Strawberry!”
“I bought some strawberry juice for you before I left. Never got a chance to give it to you.”
She swallowed all the drink as quickly as she could, and her voice felt less scratchy.
“I’m really sorry, Daddy. Will you ever forgive me?” All she wanted was for everything to be okay between them again.
“Of course I forgive you, little one! You were punished, and now it’s over.”
“Oh, good. Does that mean we can have sex again now?”
“Did you get turned on during your punishment?” Ral’s voice was filled with disbelief.
“Little bit.” She felt her face flush hotly as she admitted it. It was the worst punishment of her entire existence and somehow it still made her dripping wet. Maybe it was a reflex, like not being able to sneeze with her eyes open.
He put his hand to her pussy then tutted in disapproval.
“Not this time, little one. This was a very serious punishment. Instead, I’d like you to get your new tablet out of its box, synch it up with your spare hard drive, and show me your Innovation Suite designs.”
She sighed as she contemplated the needy tingles coursing through her body, then she dragged her attention to the last thing he’d said. Never in a million years had she ever thought he might be interested in her Innovation Suite designs. “Do… do you really want to see them?”
“Definitely. We’ll go into the living room, have some hot chocolate, and you can tell me all about them.”
Sarah smiled to herself as she went to find her tablet. Maybe Ral would relent and let her come after she’d shown him her work.
Chapter Nineteen
“Daddy? I’m struggling to visualize this idea. Someone wants all of these things, look.” Sarah held out her tablet for Ral to look at, hoping he could help. He read down the list.
“They’ve been very… specific, haven’t they? Would it help if you made a model out of cardboard?” Ral had suggested it before, but Sarah found it hard to do that. Cardboard wouldn’t do many of the things that she’d designed on a tablet.
“I don’t know if I can. Aside from my nonexistent art skills—”
“You realize you’ve been designing Innovation Suite items for six weeks now, for paying customers? You can’t keep falling back on the fact you failed high school art. You’ve clearly learned a lot since then.”
“Well, aside from that, it’ll take me forever, and cardboard doesn’t defy the laws of physics. Innovation Suite programs can do that.”
“Yes, that’s definitely a limitation. You could really do with an Innovation Suite of your own to test this stuff out, couldn’t you?”
“I was going to suggest booking one in a hotel again,” Sarah replied. “I mean, it’s not like we can just buy one. Right?”
“Actually, there’s a company that would install one, we just don’t have the space. I’ve been pondering the lack of space in our home for a while. I think it’s high time we go apartment hunting for a bigger place, so I can ensure you have everything you need to keep making Innovation Suite designs. If that’s what you want to do?”
Sarah nodded fervently. “I really like doing it.”
“Will you get bored?”
“Of changing the colors of tables and wallpaper? Definitely. But there’s billions of other things to do with Innovation Suites. For example, no one’s tried to apply AI to make roleplays, yet. Aren’t they super expensive, though?”
“I think we can stretch our budget to accommodate this. Let me worry about the cost; you have other commissions, don’t you? You should keep working on those. I’ll talk to a realtor this afternoon and see if they can fit us in.”
“Okay. I’ll try to finish other things in the meantime.” Sarah skipped back to her beanbag and flopped down, before getting back to making the painstaking tweaks that would completely change the appearance of the holographic objects in the Innovation Suite. “By the way, did you ever look through the data I downloaded from your assistant’s tablet?”
“I sure did. He gave the papers I found on Luna to someone else… someone who was giving him orders.”
“Who was it? Did you get the papers back?” Sarah was looking forward to finding out more about what happened to her. Above all else, she was curious about why she’d been frozen instead of killed. It seemed like a lot of effort to go to.
“‘Fraid not, little one. They seem to have disappeared off the face of the planet.”
“That’s a shame.” Sarah was starting to feel like she’d never have the full facts.
“Don’t worry, I ensured Vartuk can’t bother us anymore. Since he was working with gangsters, I suspected that he’d been avoiding tax, so I reported him to Tax Enforcement. Didn’t I say? I read in the news yesterday that he’d been sentenced to ten years in a Nidian tax jail.”
“Huh. So, when someone commits a crime… they can get away with it unless their tax records have discrepancies?”
“Pretty much.”
That afternoon, a realtor showed them around some properties. The first one was really unremarkable and overpriced, and Sarah thought it was barefaced cheekiness that the sellers expected anywhere near the asking price for their boring, small apartment in much need of repairs. The second place was a house, on the outskirts of the city. The idea of not living in walking distance of her friends and school (even if she did take a flying car most days) was horrifying, so although the house was really nice, and a good bargain, Sarah asked Ral if they could see someplace else.
“This property has just come onto the market, and it’s priced for a fast sale as the current owners are relocating to Anassia for their work,” the realtor said as they stood at the entrance to a second apartment building, and Sarah stared down the street, feeling like it was familiar. There were trees floating in giant containers, attached to the sides of buildings like gigantic hanging baskets. Her eyes fell on the DD sign for Dagon’s Drinks, about two hundred yards away, and she raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“This must be literally five minutes’ walk from the academy,” she said to Ral. He nodded. This was the part of the street that they never walked down, as their apartment had been in the opposite direction from the school.
“This living room is a good size,” Sarah remarked.
“This is the entrance hall. The sitting room is through that first door on your left.” The realtor walked past Sarah and showed them into the main room of the apartment. Sarah was amazed. The room was enormous, much larger than Ral’s living room and kitchen put together. The open plan kitchen was airy and the cupboards had all been painted a lovely blue color. Sarah thought the whole place looked very homey.
“The kitchen needs remodeling,” Ral said doubtfully. To Sarah’s surprise, the realtor nodded.
“You could probably put in a lower offer based on that. The fittings are all a little dated. It’s in a prime location, however, and you won’t get this much space for the price anywhere nearby.”
Sarah decided to keep it to herself that she liked the kitchen as they looked around the rest of the apartment. The bathroom had all the same features as Ral’s, with one very important addition.
“There’s a gigantic tub!” Sarah exclaimed. “Look, Daddy, I could swim in it!”
Ral inspected the bathtub. It wasn’t quite big enough for Sarah to swim in, but at ten feet square, it was certainly large enough for them both to take a bath at once. “It’s one of the modern ones with the rapid water-filling device. That means it will fill with water in about thirty seconds.”
“The master bedroom is through here; it has its own balcony outside.” The realtor showed them a gigantic main bedroom, which was made even better by the double doors that opened onto an outdoor space tha
t was less of a balcony and more of a roof terrace. Sarah was instantly in love. The other two bedrooms were also reasonably sized, and by the end of the viewing, Sarah was looking imploringly at Ral.
“We’ll make an offer,” he promised her, as they went home in a flying car.
“What about your beautiful rainbow floor?” Sarah asked, suddenly realizing it wouldn’t be able to go with them—it was cemented to the ground in Ral’s current apartment.
“We can do another one, together. Or choose a new flooring scheme. It depends on what we prefer. Let’s see if the offer gets accepted before we start renovating an apartment we don’t own.” He chuckled affectionately.
The offer was accepted by the end of the day. Sarah was amazed by how quickly major financial transactions took place in the future, and that evening, Ral had informed his landlord that he was moving out.
It was only a week later that they moved all their belongings to the new apartment, and Sarah was slightly dazed by the rapid change, as two contractors appeared at the door one morning, barely ten days after Sarah had first stepped inside the new apartment. The contractors spent the day installing an Innovation Suite in one of the bedrooms.
“Y’gonna test it out, lady?” one of them asked. Sarah nodded. She loaded up her Barbie Dreamhouse program, which she’d previously only experienced on her computer tablet, and gasped in amazement as everything appeared. She was standing in a life-sized pink Dreamhouse, complete with pink fittings and furniture. She stepped into the little elevator to one side of the kitchen, and pressed the button. It felt like she was really moving in an elevator, as the house’s first floor slid away under her feet and the second floor seemed to align with the ground. Sarah turned around and walked out of the room.
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