A Lady Pays Her Penalties

by Ashley Zacharias

  He wanted to stay until morning to ensure that she remained safe throughout the night, but he could not. He had already worked a long day, it was two hours after his normal bedtime and he was tired to the bone. He would collapse from exhaustion in another hour.

  This was her punishment, not his. He could best help her by getting as much sleep as he could manage tonight and then, in the morning, go to her house, open the next envelope and see what horrors she had programmed for herself for the next part of the weekend.

  * * *

  Sometime in the middle of the night, Leslie was overcome by both a powerful thirst and the need to pee. It always struck her as odd that her body could demand that she drink water at the same time that it was demanding that she get rid of water. But biology is a mysterious science.

  It was easy for her to crack open a bottle of water and drink half of it. It was harder for her to screw the lid back on and put it back without finishing it. She could not to go without drinking until Sunday, but she needed to moderate her consumption to ensure that she did not have to use the bucket any more often than necessary.

  The problem was that the chain that she had looped though the handle of the bucket and anchored to the far corner kept her from moving it near the windows where she would have some small illusion of privacy. She could only use the bucket by going to go to the center of the room and squatting on it in full view of both picture windows. She could not turn off the two lamps with their hundred watt bulbs so, even in the middle of the night, her naked body squatting over the bucket would be clearly visible to anyone on the sidewalk on either side of her house. In fact, she would be perched high enough that the neighbors would be able to see her all the way from their front yards.

  It was one thing to have to take her chances when peeing in the middle of the night; it would be another thing entirely to have to pee in the middle of Saturday afternoon when her neighbors were likely to be raking leaves, carrying groceries into their houses, and walking their dogs. Her neighbors had a hell of a lot of dogs and seemed to spend hours every weekend chatting with each other while holding leashes in one hand and plastic bags of warm dog poo in the other.

  Leslie was going to be damned thirsty by tomorrow afternoon and would have a whole case of water at her fingertips. She would have to exercise rigid discipline to avoid scandalizing her neighbors. And their damned dogs. She was horrified by the image of a neighbor’s dog straining at its leash toward her window and barking at the top of its lungs to alert everyone that something unusual was happening in her living room.

  Now, though, it must be well after midnight and even the dogs with the smallest bladders should be fast asleep in their masters’ beds.

  It was Leslie’s turn to pee.

  She peeked out the front window for a long time, not just examining the street and sidewalks, but straining to see into every single window in the neighbors’ houses, looking for any sign of movement in the darkness, terrified that one of them might be sitting in the dark, having a late night smoke. She saw nothing.

  She repeated the procedure at the other window. Nothing there, either.

  Gathering her courage, she crawled across the floor on her belly, rubbing her naked, brutally pierced and chained nipples against the cold, varnished oak wood. There was no need to increase her risk of being seen by rising any higher than necessary for any longer than necessary.

  When she got to the bucket, she raised her head, took one last look around, then jumped up and squatted over it and peed as quickly as she could. She had provided no paper to wipe herself because she would have been able to use a roll of toilet paper to cover her nakedness, mummy-fashion. Instead, she had to shake the drops of urine from herself as best she could by bouncing up and down vigorously for a few seconds – if any voyeur were looking, he would be getting quite a show – then crawl back to her corner on her belly, keeping her legs spread to let any remaining pee dry in the cold air.

  She didn’t want to spend the next week trying to recover from diaper rash of the pussy.

  She did not intend to use the bucket for any other function during the next two days. She had eaten nothing since breakfast and had used an Ex-lax to purge herself. As she had left no food within reach, she did not expect to have to move her bowels again for the duration of her punishment.

  She already felt like she was starving and would unquestionably suffer excruciating hunger pangs throughout the weekend. But she told herself that she had lost four backgammon matches in a row and deserved no better.

  She had calculated the duration of her punishment based on the ratio of her losses to wins. Before beginning to play last Saturday, she had decided on the sequence of events in her penalty and had decided to give herself three hours in each of the four stages for each loss. Unlike previous games, this one had no maximum severity of penalty. As long as she kept losing more than winning, the penalty duration would keep getting longer.

  She had deliberately designed her penalty that way. If she were losing, the only way that she could limit to the amount that she was risking would be to exercise self-control. In the past, she had been notoriously unable to accept her losses until she had reached some pre-designed end point. This time, there was no safety built in, so everything depended on her self-discipline.

  The first loss gave her twelve hours of penalty time – tedious, but tolerable. She had continued to play, hoping to win the next match and erase her penalty. When she lost the second time, she was committed to spending a total of twenty-four hours in these conditions – a true punishment. She had tried again, hoping to drive her time back down to only twelve hours, but, thanks to a couple of reckless, desperate moves, she had lost again. This third loss increased her penalty to nine hours in each of the four conditions ­– a total of thirty-six hours – which was more punishment than she wanted to endure. Foolishly, she had continued playing, certain that her losing streak could not last and she could drive her penalty back down to twenty-four hours – a single full day. Instead, she had lost the fourth match and accumulated a staggering forty-eight hours of continuous punishment. She dared not play a fifth match because sixty hours would have been dangerous to her health. Instead, she had called Craig and begun preparing her house and herself to endure the marathon of suffering that she had earned with her intemperate play.

  She could congratulate herself on stopping of her own accord for once.

  But late. Now she was left here helpless, thirsty, hungry, tired, and cold; simultaneously bored and terrified and only halfway through the first of her four pre-programmed stages. It seemed like dawn would never come. Irrationally, she hoped that sunrise was imminent even though she knew that dawn would herald a far worse confinement.

  * * *

  Craig slept only marginally better than Leslie. When dawn finally broke, he could sleep no more and dressed immediately. He would shower when he returned home again. Leslie had now been chained in her living room for nine hours – six since he had last looked in on her – and he had to make sure that she was not in distress. Or rather, that she was not in more distress than she had planned.

  As on the previous night, he left the house without waking his wife and drove the three miles to his friend’s house. Once again, he parked a block away and walked the final distance.

  This time, she was not sleeping. As soon as he approached to within a few doors, he saw her face in the lower corner of her living room window. She waved when she saw him. He hoped that she was not waving for help, but merely in greeting.

  As soon as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside, he said, “Are you all right?”

  “As well as can be expected.”

  He smelled stale urine as he stepped into the doorway to the living room. Leslie was crouched in the corner, hiding from the windows as best as she could. Her hair looked somewhat oily and was hanging in disarray, but other than that, she looked healthy enough. The room was chilly and he saw that she was shivering slightly, probably as much from fatig
ue as from the chill. “Has anything gone wrong?”

  “No. Everything is going exactly as it should.” There was a pause, and then she said, “Are you here for the next envelope?” He heard a quaver of fear in her voice.

  “No. It’s not nine yet. I’ll come back when it’s time.”

  “You can do it now if you don’t want to have to come back later, you know. The times aren’t exact.” He could hear the fear in her voice and knew that she was forcing herself to be brave. She did not want to have to endure whatever was in the next envelope for even a couple of hours longer than necessary, but she would be willing to suffer that in order to save him the inconvenience of a single extra trip to her house.

  “No,” he replied, gallantly, I’m be happy to leave you as you are and come back later to serve your wishes at the proper time.”

  “Thanks,” she replied with a dry note.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied, matching her ironic tone, as he left the house.

  * * *

  Craig returned at the proper time. He felt refreshed by a warm shower and clean clothes and fortified with a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs.

  He knew that Leslie could obtain no such refreshment. She had no way to bathe nor had any food within reach. He knew that she must be acutely hungry after her long night and wondered if the sealed envelope in his hand included any provision for allowing her to feed herself. He doubted it; Leslie was harsh and unforgiving of herself.

  He stepped into the room so that she could watch him open the envelope. The paper inside read:

  Restriction: You will find a perforated plank, padded U-bolts and a wrench on the kitchen table. First, place the plank across my upper back and bolt my arms to it. Then buckle the stirrups about my feet and secure the buckles with the padlocks. They are keyed the same as the lock that chains me to the floor. Once I am secured, please leave quietly and promptly.

  Craig was a little puzzled by the description of planks and U-bolts, but all became clear when he went into the kitchen saw the apparatus. Mostly it was a six-foot length of oak two-by-eight with chains attached by small U-bolts to the ends. The chains had small leather harnesses attached to the distal ends. There was a pile of larger U-bolts, cap nuts, and a wrench beside the plank and chains. As soon as she saw him reenter the living room, Leslie positioned herself facedown on the floor with her arms outstretched. Though her apparatus consisted only of a crossbeam, she looked like she was preparing herself for crucifixion. He wondered for whose sins she might be suffering.

  He knelt by her head and rested the heavy oak plank across her shoulders. He did not know that she had weighed it and had determined that she would be encumbered by slightly more than fifteen pounds of wood. It not a great weight, but enough to pose an on-going challenge when she wanted to change positions and would have only limited leverage to manipulate the plank.

  The ten U-bolts came in a range of sizes that exactly fit through twenty holes that had been drilled in the wood. Each U-bolt was made from a section of quarter-inch threaded rod that had been bent to fit around a different part of her arms. Before bending them she had fitted latex surgical tubing over the center part for padding and, after bending, had screwed a nut on each side to hold it against the plank. To build the equipment for this stage of her punishment, she had purchased a vise, electric drill, pliers and crescent wrench; and had developed some new carpentry skills.

  She was pleased with the result. She appreciated the irony of being pleased with something whose only purpose was to give her many hours of displeasure.

  As soon as he laid the plank across her shoulder blades, she bent her back and pushed herself off the floor slightly on her outstretched hands so that he could more easily slip the two largest U-bolts around her upper arms next to her shoulders and push them though the matching holes in the plank. She relaxed and lowered herself back to the floor while he fitted the nuts to the protruding ends of the bolts and wrenched them tight. He admired her attention to detail. The U-bolts were exactly the right length and she had provided cap nuts to fit over the ends. If she flipped onto her back, the smooth rounded protuberances would do less damage to her hardwood floors than the ragged sawed-off ends of the bolts that would be exposed by normal hex nuts.

  She lifted herself again and he firmly fastened the middle of her upper arms and elbows to the plank with the appropriate U-bolts. Once it was attached securely to her upper arms, she glanced out the window to ensure that no one was passing by at the moment and then drew her knees under her and pushed herself into a kneeling position so that he could more easily affix her forearms, and wrists.

  When he had tightened the last bolt, her arms were held completely outstretched. The U-bolts were not tight against her arms – there was ample room for good circulation – but were absolutely unforgiving. The only motion available in her upper limbs was the ability to flap her hands forward at the wrists. The plank extended an inch beyond her fingertips so she could not flap them backwards.

  As soon as the last nut was in place, Leslie ducked over to put her face near the floor. She had been completely exposed for a couple of minutes and was desperate to avoid being seen by her neighbors.

  Craig was concerned that there was no mechanism for quick release from the plank. In an emergency, it would take some minutes to undo all the nuts required to free her arms. On the other hand, the plank was not affixed to anything, so, in case of fire or some other disaster, Leslie could be evacuated from the building with the plank still fastened in place. That humiliation would be almost as agonizing for her as being burned to death.

  The instructions had said to “buckle the stirrups about her ankles.” The meaning of that instruction was obvious at this point. Lengths of chrome chain were bolted to the plank just beyond the point where her fingertips now twitched helplessly. Little leather harnesses were attached to the ends of the chains where they dangled to the floor a short distance from either foot. These harnesses consisted of three short straps connected by chrome loops. The straps would fit around her arch, instep, and ankle to hold her foot firmly at the end of the chain once the chrome loops had a padlock buckled through them. The chains were short, but her body was folded at the waist and knees, giving him sufficient slack to fasten her feet in the stirrups without needing her to move her legs apart. When he finished, there was a small amount of slack in the chains, but not much. He estimated that, if she were to try to stand, the chains would be short enough to keep her from straightening her legs completely. She would probably be able to keep her legs together and straighten her knees by bending at the waist as far as she was able but her back would be strained as much as if she were touching her toes.

  The real cruelty of her self-imposed restriction came from having her ankles attached to a point beyond her outstretched arms. When her back was straight, the more she unbent her knees, the more the chains would pull her legs apart. She could not stay kneeling for the next day and a half. Yet, to straighten her legs completely, she would have to either bend far forward at the waist or spread her legs painfully wide. She would not be able to keep her back bent far enough to straighten her legs completely for more than a minute. She would need her knees to be partially unbent to allow the blood to circulate through her legs easily so she would have to spend the bulk of the next day and a half with her legs spread obscenely wide.

  In that position, she would look like she was waiting to be fucked.

  When her inevitable suffering was properly ensured, in accord with her wishes, it was time for Craig to leave her alone. The last line of her instructions made it clear that, as part of her punishment, he was to leave immediately. He was not to relieve even a bit her boredom with any moment of unnecessary conversation.

  Just as he opened the door, though, he heard her call out to him. “One thing you should know, Craig. You do not have to come back here to follow the instructions in the next envelope. You can open it at home this afternoon.”

  He took note of her caution, b
ut did not give her the satisfaction of a reply.

  He would come back to check on her at various times during the day, regardless, but he was curious to know what he would be asked to do by the next envelope. Surely it contained instructions for him that would increase her suffering somehow. But how could he make her suffer more if he was not physically present?

  * * *

  As soon as she heard the door close, Leslie began testing the limits of her new restraint. After she had built it, she had not been able to bolt it to herself so she could not be certain how it would work in practice. She had thought it through as thoroughly as possible and had tested it as best as she could by holding it in position with her hands, but nothing was quite like the real thing.

  Her knees were already beginning to ache from kneeling on them. Worse, she was exposed to public view in this completely bent position. If someone were to walk by on the sidewalk, they would probably be able to see her upper back through her window. Not only would they see that she was naked, they would see the bondage apparatus that kept her arms outstretched. She pushed forward and lowered herself onto her stomach. As she expected, she could not straighten her legs, no matter how wide she spread them. And when she tried too hard, she pulled the plank downward so that the U-bolts dug painfully into her arms at the shoulder. If she kept this up, she would have terrific bruises by the end of her period of restraint.

  She could not remain face down for too long because keeping her knees bent kept her ass stuck up in the air and her spread legs opened her pussy to public exposure if anyone were to get close to her window. Worst of all, her face was pushed hard against the floor and her cheek was already beginning to ache. Her hands were no longer available to take the weight of her torso.