A Lady Pays her Penalties
Ashley Zacharias
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2010 Ashley Zacharias
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Contents
Making a Point about Backgammon
“Why backgammon?”
“Because it has been called a cruel game and I want to play a cruel game.” Leslie smiled at her friend.
“It’s cruel because you’re going to give yourself a penalty for losing?” Craig frowned in return.
“No. The game is cruel in itself.”
“How can backgammon be cruel apart from your self-imposed penalties? It’s just a dice game.”
“It’s cruel because chance has such a large effect on the outcome. There’s a lot of strategy behind backgammon, but if you get bad rolls, you’ll lose even if you play well. The cruel part about that is that it makes you are uncertain about why you lost. That keeps poor players from getting better. They spend their whole lives playing badly and cursing the dice. They don’t even try to learn to play properly.”
“How much does chance matter?”
“It depends. If two people play exactly the same, then the outcome is determined completely by the dice. On the other hand if one player plays really badly and the other really well, then the bad player will almost always lose. But it’s never certain. Sometimes, the dice will be against the better player and it doesn’t matter how brilliantly she plays.”
“Do you think that you play well?”
Leslie smiled. “Yes, I think that I play well. Most of the time, I beat most of the people on the Internet who call themselves ‘experts’”
“But just knowing that you win more often than you lose isn’t enough to satisfy you?”
“No. It’s only interesting if you care about the outcome.”
“And these envelopes will make sure that you care.” Craig nudged the three manila envelopes that were stacked next to the computer.
Leslie’s heart skipped a beat, thinking about the instructions that she had sealed into the envelopes last night. “Yes. I definitely want to win today. I’ll play three matches against strangers on the Internet. If I lose one match, then I’ll suffer the somewhat uncomfortable and humiliating penalty in Envelope One; two matches, the rather painful and decidedly degrading penalty in Envelope Two; and if I lose all three matches? Well, I don’t want even to think about what I put in Envelope Three.”
“And I’ll administer the penalty next Saturday if you lose?”
“Right. If I lose.”
“Why the six-day delay?”
“That will give me ample time to ponder the foolishness of my bet.”
“I’m not sure that I really understand, but, if this is how you want it, then I’ll make it so.”
“Thank-you, Craig. I want you to know how much I appreciate your help. It’s a lot safer to have you administer my penalty than to do it to myself when I’m alone. And I can be a lot more imaginative if I don’t always have to use handcuffs and wait for ice to melt. Not every girl is lucky enough to have someone that she can trust as much as I trust you.”
“I’m glad to help,” he replied dryly. “You know you scared the hell out of me last winter when I found you hanging from that hook in your closet. I though you were dead.”
“I almost was.” She flexed her left hand and massaged it briefly with her right. “I don’t think that I’m ever going to get the full feeling back at the base of my thumb. Who would have guessed that the wet string would to stick to the side of the jar after the ice melted? If you hadn’t broken my back window and let yourself in when you did, I wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”
“I never would have done that if your sister hadn’t phoned me from Phoenix and asked me to look for you. When you disappeared for two days like that, you scared her half to death.”
“I’m so grateful for your understanding.”
“I just want to be sure that that won’t happen again.”
“So let’s play, already.”
She clicked on the Play button on the screen. After a moment, a backgammon board appeared. Her unknown opponent rolled a six. The game had begun; she was committed now. Her gut knotted. It would be awfully hard to win three matches in a row. Odds were that she’d suffer some penalty for losing at least one match. When she clicked on the image of her die, it rolled to show a one. Her anonymous opponent made her bar point. “Bad start. This is going to be tough.” She rolled a five and six and had to leave a blot. The dice were against her. Her heart started beating even faster. She looked at the envelopes lying beside the computer and licked her lips. If she kept rolling like this, Saturday was going to be a long, long day.
She lost the first match, one game to three. Her opponent played as well as her and she simply could not get the numbers that she needed.
“So you lost one. You’ve earned the penalty in Envelope One at least.”
The penalties that she had sealed in the envelopes were no longer theoretical. She would suffer one of them on Saturday. “Yup. Now I have to win to avoid Envelope Two or Three.”
“Guess I’d better not make any other plans for Saturday if I have to be here watching you torture yourself.”
“Yup.” Leslie said curtly. She did not want to discuss it.
She won the first game in the second match, but only played half of the second game in the second match when her opponent left the game. “Coward. I would have won that one. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
Craig looked at her. “What happens now? When the other player gives up before the match is over?”
“That’s your choice. If you think that he quit because he was losing, then it counts as a win for me. Say, for instance, that I’d already won a game and was likely to gammon him. But if you think that he still had a good chance of winning, then you can discount it and I’ll play again.”
“And if I think that you would have lost?”
“Then you can call a rematch, but you can’t call it a loss. I only lose if it says so on the screen.”
“What if you quit?”
“Well, then I lose, of course. But that’s not going to happen. When I start something, I finish it.”
“So what do I do now?”
“Rematch. That was only the second game. I’m pretty sure that I would have beaten him, but I wasn’t going to gammon him and he could have been lucky in the third game.”
“Okay. Rematch it is.” Craig thought for a few seconds. “It hardly seems fair if the players who are losing can bail out early and the good players only have to hang in for as long as they are winning.”
“Yup. It’s stacked against me, all right. But that’s the rules I want.”
“Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”
She glanced at the three envelopes. “I hope that I don’t get worse than I deserve.”
Craig frowned at her. “I don’t think you deserve anything bad.”
She ignored him and rolled the dice. She got a strong start in the second match, gammoning her opponent in the first game, earning two points. But then, in the second game, her opponent doubled her early and she had to accept. Then she played too recklessly, let her men get too spread out, lost three blots to a lucky double three, and got gammoned. Being gammoned on a double game was an automatic loss for the match. She silently berated herself for playing too dangerously.
Craig casually tossed Envelope One to the side. “If I understand your rules correctly, that means two matches lost and Envelope One is off the table. Now you’re playing for two or three.”
“I know,” Leslie whispered, looking at Envelope Three fearfully. When she prepared the contents of that one, she had taken a delicious thrill in making it as extreme as she could imagine. It only had been a fantasy. She thought that she would never have to worry about it becoming a reality. After all, she was a good backgammon player; what were the chances that she would lose three matches in a row? Better than she had guessed, apparently. Now there was an even chance that she was going to have to suffer the agonies contained within Envelope Three.
Her hand was shaking as she reached for the mouse to start the third match. She won the first game, lost the second to a double and was down two games to one to two. She would have to get really lucky to avoid the third envelope. A tear trickled down her cheek. She should have been more careful about what she had put into that envelope.
Craig reached out and wiped the tear away. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Yes I do. And so do you. I finish what I start. I’m going through with this, no matter what.”
She rolled the dice.
The game was touch and go, but she managed to clear her inner table while her opponent still had three men on the board. The score was two up and the next game would decide her fate.
She rolled strong dice and, by the end of the game, was well ahead in bearing off; especially as her opponent still had one man trapped in her inner table. Abruptly, a window appeared on her computer saying that the other player had left the game before it was over.
She looked at Craig, fearful that he would make her play a rematch. “I would have won that game and the match. I was way ahead.”
Craig smiled evilly. “I don’t know about that. It’s pretty hard to bear off without leaving a blot and if he’d hit it, he might have won.”
“I had half my men off. It would have been hard for him to come out ahead even if he’d hit me.” She heard herself pleading with her friend. She watched Envelope Three out of the corner of her eye.
His expression softened. “Well, I guess it’s not your fault that he chickened out when the going got rough. You’ve got the win so Envelope Three is off the table. So, you’re done. You played three matches and lost two. That means that Envelope Two is your final penalty, right?”
Leslie nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak.
Craig picked up the envelope with “Two” written on the outside. He looked at her with compassion. “You know, you don’t to go through with this. I’ll just tear up this envelope without even looking inside if you say the word.”
Her expression hardened. “It’s not fair for you to say that. I don’t want to hear it again. Not ever. I made my decision before you arrived here this afternoon. I don’t welsh on a bet. Not even one that I made with myself. I trust you to do exactly what that envelope says without giving me a chance to chicken out.”
“Okay, then.” He waved the envelope. “Should I read this now?”
“No. Keep it sealed. When you come over on Saturday, bring it with you, still sealed. I’ll let you know when to open it.”
“Okay, I’ll bring it back at noon on Saturday. Should I bring anything else?”
“Nope. I have all the equipment that you’ll need. Except, you might want to bring a novel. It’ll take most of the afternoon for me to serve the penalty. It might get boring for you.”
He smiled. “With your imagination? I don’t think you could arrange anything boring even if you wanted to. Have a good week.”
“Thanks.” But Leslie would not have a good week. There was no joy in that envelope; she had intended that it be a penalty when she wrote it and knew that she had nothing to look forward to but a long, painful, humiliating afternoon.
After Craig left, she slowly tore up Envelope Three and threw it away without looking at the pieces. She never believed that she could lose three matches in a row so she had been excessive when she’d designed the worst penalty. Unrealistic. She had barely managed to win the third match. Next time, she would be a lot more careful about imagining what she could tolerate if she was that unlucky again.
When she finished disposing of the other envelopes, her thoughts turned to the one that Craig had taken with him. Would she be able to bear the pain of the things that she had enclosed there? It did not matter. As long as Craig held up his end, she would pretty much be helpless, unable to stop the penalty until it was complete. On Saturday she would have no choice but to tolerate everything that would happen to her, even if it turned out to be intolerable.
* * *
When Craig arrived just before noon on Saturday, he noticed that all her curtains were closed; no one but Leslie and he would know what happened in her house today. He rang the doorbell. When Leslie answered, she was wearing a sweat suit.
Craig was vaguely disappointed. He had imagined something more exotic; that she would be dressed in leather or rubber or something.
Leslie did not smile. “Hi. Craig. Thanks again for helping me with this.” There was a tremor in her voice; she sounded afraid. She continued, too quickly for him to respond, “Please come in.”
“Thanks.” When he stepped across the threshold, she closed and locked the door behind him.
“Have a seat in the living room.”
When he was seated, he waved the envelope in his hand and asked, “So I open this now?”
“Not yet. I have to go upstairs and get changed. While I’m gone, I’ve got something else for you to read.” She handed him a folded piece of paper. “This is a tricky thing. Please don’t be insulted by it, but it’s something that you have to understand before we can proceed. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
She left the room.
Craig frowned as he unfolded her letter. It was handwritten. Her script was clear and neat. She was a highly organized person.
The letter read:
Dear Craig:
We do not have a sexual relationship; we are happy as platonic friends. And I understand that you intend to remain faithful to your wife. I respect your integrity. But I have to be realistic about one thing. In the course of this afternoon, I will make myself helpless and vulnerable. I do not want to be raped; I do not expect to be raped. That is not part of my penalty.
But I have to recognize that you are a man with a normal sexual drive. My vulnerability cannot help but put considerable stress on you. If, despite you best intentions, you find that you are unable to restrain yourself and you exceed my instructions – to be blunt, if you find that you have raped me despite our understanding – then you must realize that there will be no consequences for you. I am taking responsibility for your actions before we begin. It is me who put you in this position and I will never tell anyone, including your wife or my best friend what happens. After all, what could I do about it, anyway? There’s no way that I could ever bring myself to tell anyone that I am such a pervert that I put myself in bondage in your presence.
As a compromise, if you are compelled to relieve yourself and don’t want to penetrate me, you are welcome to do so, either in my presence or privately, I will understand and be grateful for your restraint in not going further. Again, to be blunt enough to ensure that there is no misunderstanding, if you feel compelled to jerk off on me, feel free. I don’t expect it and don’t want it, but if you do, I will not think any less of you. I know that whatever happens will be my fault for having put you in such a hard position (pun intended).
Please take this letter with you and keep it somewhere safe for long enough that you can be assured that there will be no consequence for helping me, no matter what happens.
Your dear friend,
Leslie.
Craig folded the letter thoughtfully and put it in his shirt pocket. He was mildly insulted that Leslie thought that he would fly out of control just because she was likely to be tied up and naked in his presence. Contrary to the assertions of some radical feminists, most men are not beasts and rapists. She should certainly know him well enough to know that he was stronger than that. On the other hand, he had to admit that she was right to write the letter. From her point of view, if she had misjudged him and he did rape her when she was helpless, she had to reassure him that it would not be a problem. Otherwise, there was a risk that he might, in a fit of shame and fear, kill her just to try to hide what he had done. He understood that she had no choice but to give him this letter for her own protection.
Leslie was nothing if not thorough. Still, even though he could understand and agree with her logic in giving him the letter, he could not help but feel the sting of an insult.
A few minutes later, Leslie re-appeared in the doorway. This time she was fully clothed in a knee-length, navy, pleated skirt and white blouse – conservative clothing. Incongruously, she was also wearing black hose and black high heels – probably the highest heels that one would find in a normal shoe store – not so high as to be outrageous, but high enough to be impractical. Craig was sure that Leslie, who normally wore athletic shoes, even to work, would find these stiletto heels decidedly uncomfortable if she had to stand in them for long.
“When I can no longer speak to you, you should open the envelope and follow the instructions inside. I can give you a quick outline now, though. My penalty will be served in three parts. Each part will last about an hour, including the setup time. I should have completed my whole penalty by three o’clock or so. When you do open the envelope, you will find three smaller envelopes inside, marked ‘Part One’, ‘Part Two’, and ‘Part Three’. Obviously the inner envelopes should be opened in order as required. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“We begin in the basement. This way.” She led her friend out of the living room, through a door in the hallway and down to an unfinished basement. She was noticeably unstable on her high heels but did not appear in any danger of stumbling.
On the stairs, he commented, “Down to the dungeon, my lady,” but she ignored his weak quip.
The basement was unfinished. Her house was new, so the basement had high ceilings. First, Craig noticed two ropes attached to leather cuffs dangling from a joist in the middle of the room. Then he noticed another two ropes and attached cuffs laid across the floor. Leslie marched resolutely toward a small table in the corner of the near wall, not far from the stairs. Craig followed.
Assorted items formed a neat line across the table. Leslie immediately picked up the first item, a red ball gag, inserted it in her mouth, and buckled the strap behind her neck beneath her long brown hair. She pulled the end of the strap hard so that it was buckled on the tightest possible hole, the ball forced well past her front teeth and the leather strap stretching the corners of her mouth back into a forced grimace. She was giving herself no mercy.
She could no longer speak. Craig wondered if it was time to open the envelope but it was clear that there were still things that she could to do for herself. Without a pause, she left Craig and walked back to the centre of the room, turned to face him, bent over and buckled a leather cuff around each ankle. These cuffs were attached to ropes secured on opposite walls – ropes that were too short to allow her to move her feet together. As long as her ankles were cuffed, her feet would remain spread at least four feet apart. It was an effort for her to buckle them on herself she looked like she was doing some kind of yoga stretching exercise. The navy skirt pulled halfway up her thigh as she stretched and Craig enjoyed the view of her leg. She had nice legs and Craig, despite being ten years older than her and happily married, did not feel guilt about merely looking at a woman.
When she finished the second ankle and rose upright, she was left her standing in the middle of the room with her feet spread, ball gagged, and two cuffs dangling above her head. She grabbed the rope attached to the cuffs to steady herself because it was difficult for her to maintain her balance on her precarious heels in that spread-legged position. The natural next step was to buckle one cuff about each wrist so that her hands were hanging loosely, just high enough that she could no longer touch her head.
She stood there for a minute, waiting, and then grunted through the gag. Craig got the hint. It was his turn. He knew that Leslie was exceptionally well organized but she continued to surprise him. She had thought to include a letter opener as the next item on the table. Craig used it to slit the envelope and, as promised, found three smaller envelopes inside. He chose the one marked “Part One” and slit it open. A single sheet of paper slid out.
A heading at the top of the paper read, “Stretching and Stripping”. The rest of the page was a list of numbered instructions.
The first instruction read, “Follow the rope from my wrists to the back wall. Hook the loop on the lowest hook on the wall. Take a few moments to enjoy the view.”
Craig walked behind her, then followed the ropes from her wrists up to the joist. They were threaded through pulleys and continued along the ceiling. Halfway across the room they were joined to a single rope that was threaded through another pulley at the corner of the ceiling and back wall. The rope continued down the back wall along a stud with three steel hooks screwed into it. The hooks had safety catches so that, once on the hook, the rope could not slip off again unless the catch was held open. Currently, the loop was held by the topmost hook. As instructed, Craig unhooked the rope and tugged it downward until he could fit it onto the bottom hook. There was resistance because he was pulling against Leslie’s arms at the other end of the rope, stretching them upward and forcing them apart so that she could no longer reach the buckles on her wrists. She moaned and stretched as best as she could to help him. When he finished, he turned and looked at her. Her arms and legs pulled straight, stretching her into a vertical spread eagle so she was available for close inspection. He approached her and walked slowly around, liking the way that the pleated skirt stretched across her widespread legs. He followed each leg up with his eyes, imagining the magical spot underneath the material where they came together. He looked at the blouse pulled taut across her breasts. She had an averaged-sized bust, but dragged upward by her up-stretched shoulders and arms, they looked smaller than they were. Even so, they were still full enough to push back against the white broadcloth, forming a pair of satisfying mounds. When he looked at her face, she was a slight shade of pink. He could not tell if that was a result of the strain of her position or if she was blushing under his scrutiny.
He returned to the table and consulted the paper for the next instruction. It read, “Take one of the weights from under the table and hook it to the loop in the rope halfway up the wall, then set the timer for 10 minutes. Turn the timer away so that I cannot see the dial.”
Craig looked under the table. There was a pile of barbell weights stacked there. Each had a rope tied through the centre. A steel hook was tied to the other end of each rope. He lifted the first weight. It was heavy – a big number “20” was molded into the side. He carried it back to the far wall and hoisted it up so that he could slip the hook it through a loop that had been tied at eye level in the rope connecting Leslie’s arms. He grunted when he hoisted the weight to hook it on the rope; she groaned when he released it. Twenty pounds was not so much, but, if the pile under the table were any indication of what was in store, it was just the beginning.
He returned to the table and found a pink plastic kitchen timer. He turned the knob so that the dial was pointing to “10 min.” It began ticking loudly. The ticks seemed to echo in the empty room. Leslie moaned softly through her gag at the sound. Though she was not suffering any real distress yet, she knew that she would not get any relief as long as the ticking continued. He turned the dial to face the wall.
He read the next instruction: “Use the scissors to cut away my blouse and discard it. Enjoy your improved view while the timer runs out.” There was a large pair of tailor shears on the table.
Craig carried the shears back to Leslie. She looked resigned. He thrust the shears through his belt like a dagger so that he could use both hands to untuck her blouse and undo the buttons. It was a wasted effort because he was going to have to cut the material to get it off her outstretched arms. The broadcloth had been opaque and he had not been able to detect the color of her bra before he actually saw it. When the front of the blouse was parted, he could see black lace peeking through.
Withdrawing the shears from his belt, he opened them and slid them across Leslie’s collarbone to take the first nip of material. She shivered at the touch of cold steel to her warm skin. One snip at a time, he cut the blouse from the top button across her right shoulder and followed her arm up to the cuff. It fell away on that side, dangling from her left arm and shoulder, revealing a lovely expanse of white skin on her chest, arm, and back. He cut the other side and the shredded blouse fluttered to the floor, ruined beyond repair. He looked at Leslie and she looked back, but the ball gag that she had so savagely pulled into her mouth distorted her face. He could not interpret her expression.
A drop of drool overflowed the corner of her mouth and dribbled down her chin. Craig thrust the shears back into his belt, swept the remnant of the blouse from the floor and used it to wipe the drop from her face. It would not matter in the long run – there was plenty more drool where that came from. He dropped the cloth back to the floor. She grunted irregularly through the gag, but he could not tell if she was trying to form a word or not; could not tell if she was trying to say “Thank-you” or “Don’t bother.” Most likely she was merely trying to swallow some of the saliva that was floating freely around the ball.
Looking closely, he could see the outline of an engorged nipple through the black lace cup of the bra.
The timer dinged.
Craig returned to the table and read the next instruction. “Hang the second weight from my rope. Set the timer for another ten minutes. Cut off my skirt. Enjoy the view.” Craig could see the pattern.
It took him a minute to pull the next weight out from under the table, hoist it up and carry it back across the basement to the rope on the far side. The second weight bumped against the first with a dull clank. Forty pounds and Leslie groaned a little louder.
He started the timer to ticking for another ten minutes.
When he returned to her, he had to examine her skirt for a minute before he found the button on the waistband at the left side and a hidden zipper tucked behind the pleat below it. He undid both. When the skirt gaped, he saw two wide swatches of black lace against the white skin of her hip. He started cutting the skirt from the hem at her left knee. The material could have been acrylic, but he suspected that he was cutting fine-spun wool. He guessed that part of the Leslie’s punishment was to have to buy expensive new clothing just to have it destroyed the first time she wore it. Brushing his fingers against her thigh as he cut upward, he could feel her muscles taut and straining against the ropes that pulled her ankles apart and the weights that pulled her wrists skyward. As he cut upward, he avoided the zipper; there was no sense dulling the expensive shears by trying to cut through any metal parts. When the last bit of cloth at the waistband parted, the ruined skirt fell away to join the remains of the blouse on the floor.
To his delight, Leslie was not wearing pantyhose. Her black stockings were supported by a garter belt. He walked around behind her and noted that the black panties underneath the garter belt were a bikini cut, but not a thong. Her full, round, white cheeks swelled halfway out of the black lace. If he strained, he could make out most of the crack between them. Walking back in front and bending over for a better look, he could see her mound of Venus pressing against the crotch of the panties. There were no stray hairs to be seen – not even stubble – either Leslie had just shaved this morning or she had had a recent bikini wax.
Above the panties, there was a slight gap between the garter belt and the skin on Leslie’s abdomen. She had a slight stomach when she was relaxed, but stretched as she was, her abdomen was pulled taut to the point of being concave between her hip bones.
He looked at her face and saw drool flowing from both corners of her mouth, across her chin and dripping down her chest. Her bra was noticeably wet.
The timer dinged.
The next instruction was, predictably, “Hang the third weight. Set the timer for another ten minutes. Cut off my bra. I hope you enjoy looking at my tits.”
Increasing the weight to sixty pounds made Leslie groan loudly. When Craig returned to her, he found her eyes screwed tight. She was gripping the ropes above the cuffs and pulling with all her might. The tiny biceps and triceps in her arms were clearly defined little knots as she strained to pull the weight with her muscles and take the pressure off the ligaments in her elbows. Her chest was heaving from the effort.
He stood beside her and unclasped the bra at the back with one hand, the better to watch her breasts drop loose within the cups as they lost their support. Because she was stretched by the rope and weights, they did not move as much as he expected. The bra had not been supporting much after her arms were raised almost to the ceiling. He used the shears to snip the shoulder straps, one after the other; the scrap of black lace joined the scraps of white broadcloth and navy wool on the floor.
Her breasts were beautiful, the engorged nipples and areoles a rich rose color against the white curves of flesh. They were heaving with every breath in a most entrancing fashion as Leslie struggled against the heavy ropes that pulled her taut.
She was drooling so much that the saliva flowed around both breasts and began to form drops on their undersides. Just before the timer dinged, a drop let go and a long strand of drool stretched from the bottom of her left breast across the concavity of her abdomen to alight on her left hip.
When he added the last weight, the total increased to eighty pounds, Leslie managed to scream despite the ball gag. Her hands were too tired to keep fighting against the ropes and she had to release them and take all the weight with the ligaments in her shoulders and elbows. She was a slight person, she could not weigh more than one twenty, so when she was trying to hold eighty pounds, she was holding more than two thirds of her body weight.
The instruction said that he was to sever her panties at the sides and put them back on the table. He slid the fingers of his left hand underneath the waistband to grab it while he cut the sides. He could feel hair against the backs of his fingers – she had not shaved herself completely. When the sides of the panties were snipped, they fell away from her crotch and he saw a perfect bikini wax. The skin between the edges of the remaining patch of hair and her groin were tinged red. The waxing had been recent maybe Friday evening, maybe even first thing this morning. Waxing hurts. She had begun suffering her punishment even before he had arrived.
Craig spent the next eight minutes watching Leslie’s face, fascinated. Her head had dropped forward as though the effort required to keep holding it upright was too much for her. Her long brown hair was half covering her face. She had begun to cry. Copious tears overflowed her lids and down her cheeks to mix with the saliva that was flowing freely from her mouth. Clear mucus was flowing from her nose over her upper lip and around the ball gag. She was making a loud, rhythmic singsong sound through the gap between the ball and the corner of her mouth where the leather strap ran.
He watched her breathing carefully, aware that the danger of crucifixion lay in suffocation. Crucifixion could take days, but that assumed that the victim could use his legs to relieve the pressure from his diaphragm for brief periods. Leslie did not have that luxury. The weights on the pulleys kept a constant pressure on her arms and shoulders no matter what she did with her legs. Her breathing was labored, but she seemed to be getting sufficient oxygen. There was no sign of a blue tinge in her fingernails or lips.
The mucus in her nose and saliva in her mouth worried him a little more. She could drown on her own fluids if she inhaled them. It helped that her head was thrown forward because that helped drain her mouth and nose.
He was also worried about the strain on her joints. He did not know how much weight her elbows, shoulders, and wrists could take for how long before they were torn or permanently damaged. He glanced back at the timer but could not see the dial because it was still turned to face the wall. He hoped that it was about to ding and end this phase.
So did Leslie.
It was the longest ten minutes in both their lives.
He walked to the table and read the next instruction. It said to remove the weights when the timer sounded. Then he looked at the dial. Still five minutes left. He casually walked back to Leslie and circled around her. Then waited. And waited.
When the timer finally dinged, he almost ran to the rope and unhooked the weights, one, two, three, four, as quickly as he could. Leslie groaned with relief, her loudest sound since her scream when he had added the last weight.
He returned to look at her, to make sure that she was all right. He scooped the white broadcloth from the floor and wiped the tears from her face, the saliva from her chest, and then held it to her nose for her to blow.
Then he walked back to the table to read the next instruction. Surely this phase was over.
It was not. The next instruction said that he was to set the timer for twenty minutes and enjoy the view. There was no more stripping. No more weights. Now she was merely standing with her arms up and her legs apart, waiting. No big deal; just boredom.
He picked up his novel, sat in the chair next to the table, and began to read.
But after a few pages, he glanced up at her and realized the subtle cruelty of her new predicament. Her legs were quivering. The four-foot gap between her ankles was a huge distance for a person trying to stand upright. In high heels, it was even more difficult for Leslie to support herself. When she had been fresh, almost an hour ago, it had not been a big problem. She had been able to use her arms to help support herself. And then when he had added the weights, they had taken a substantial amount of the pressure off her legs, sixty and then eighty pounds during the last twenty minutes. Now, though, she had to support her total body weight with her thighs and calves when she had no way to relieve the pressure. The muscles in her arms and shoulders were exhausted from fighting the weights. Her shoulder and elbow joints must be screaming in pain.
As he watched, she tried to pull herself up with her arms, at least to take a little pressure off her thighs, but she screamed quietly behind the ball gag and let her legs take her full weight again.
Her eyes rolled toward the timer, ticking quietly away. Twenty minutes is a long time when you are in pain. Craig looked the dial and saw that only five minutes had passed since he had removed the weights. Fifteen minutes to go.
Craig glanced at the two envelopes that contained instructions for Phase Two and Three of Leslie’s punishment. This was only beginning of her afternoon.
* * *
Leslie’s predicament was less boring than he had thought at first; it was certainly more interesting than his novel. He put his book aside and pulled the chair to the middle of the room, only a few feet from her and sat down to enjoy the show.
As time passed, Leslie’s legs quivered more violently and she became less stable on her high heels. They were wiggling and twitching against the floor. The right heel slipped out from under her foot and her calf bunched when she had to support herself on the ball of her foot. She screamed through the ball gag. The heel tapped a staccato beat against the concrete as she fought to get the shoe back into position. Just as she succeeded, the other heel slipped and she screamed again. She fought against the ropes and cuffs that held her ankles apart, trying to get her feet even another inch closer to give her that little bit more support, but the ropes were relentless. They were climbing ropes – strong as hell and no stretch at all to them. Leslie had invested in top quality across the board for today’s sport.
She was not crying any longer; her face showed more frustration and anger than anything else. She had options – pull with her arms, push with her legs, remain still, struggle to get a bit of slack, twist her hip to put one foot or the other in a stronger position – but every option was bad. Improving one foot or one arm only put more strain on the other foot or thigh in response. Every action that she tried caused a painful reaction somewhere else. No matter what she did, she suffered all the more.
But she had to keep doing something to give each part of her some relief when the strain grew too great.
Craig was enthralled. Her breasts heaved, her buttocks clenched, her crotch quivered. Her involuntary dance was better than any girly show. Stretched and stripped indeed. Leslie had turned herself into a stretched, stripped dancer with every part of her available for Craig’s viewing pleasure.
The timer finally dinged, but Craig spent a leisurely minute more enjoying the show. Leslie begged for release with her eyes and unintelligible gargles. Slowly, he rose from his chair and returned to the table to read the last instruction.
“Unbuckle the ankle cuffs and remove the ball gag. Let me stand and catch my breath for a couple of minutes. Leave my hands cuffed. I’ll tell you what to do next.”
He unbuckled the ankle cuffs first. The black stocking beneath the cuff was picked and pulled in places from the friction of her struggles. Leslie immediately drew her legs together to take the strain off her legs and arms. Even with that, there was not enough slack in the ropes at her wrists for her to put her hands together and release herself. She drew a slow, deep breath through her nose and around the ball gag. To give himself easy access to the buckle, he pulled her long hair into a sheaf and then laid it over her shoulder and down her chest. She groaned when the ball was finally pulled clear of her teeth, swallowed a couple of times to clear the excess saliva and tossed her head to throw her hair off the front of her shoulder and down her back. Finally, she commented, “I hope you appreciate how uncomfortable a ball gag can be. This one was slightly oversized. It put just enough pressure on my jaw to be uncomfortable at the beginning and really painful by the end of the hour.”
Craig smiled slightly. That was Leslie. She always wanted to make sure that people appreciated just how thorough she was. It was one of her less endearing traits, but Craig catered to it, anyway. “And the shoes?”
“One size too small, of course. My feet are aching something awful and my toes feel like they’re being crushed by a red-hot vise. But they aren’t coming off yet.”
Another expensive item of clothing that she would discard as soon as her punishment was over, he thought. “As you wish,” he said.
“I wish to blow my nose again.” Craig held the remnants of the blouse to her face while she blew three times. For just a second, he felt like one of his daughters had grown young again and he was taking care of her. He wiped the mucus and saliva from her face and chest before dropping the blouse back to the floor.
When her nose was clear and her face was dry, she said, “I guess the sooner we start the next phase, the sooner it will all be over. It starts here, but moves upstairs right away. You can start following the instructions in the second envelope now.”
The instruction sheet in the Phase Two envelope was titled, “Fun with Leslie’s Little Tits”.
In Craig’s opinion, Leslie’s breasts could hardly be called “little”. She was no Dolly Parton, but her breasts were big enough and nicely rounded. He considered them the best part of her figure. Too many women have the strange idea that if they aren’t endowed with freakishly huge sagging udders then their breasts are too small. They could not be more wrong.
The first instruction was the longest and most detailed so far. It read, “I’m leaving it to you to gag me because I don’t think I could do this is something that I could do to myself. Roll the panties that you cut off me into a ball, making sure that the ends are tucked well inside so they don’t end up down my throat. Give me a good long chance to smell them so that I can really appreciate their rich flavor. I’ve been wearing them since yesterday morning and I haven’t been wiping myself after I’ve been peeing. After you are sure that I have truly appreciated their vintage to the fullest, stuff them in my mouth. You may have to hold my nose closed if I’m reluctant to open up. When the panties are completely inside, tape my lips closed with the adhesive tape. Paint a cute happy smile on the tape with the lipstick.”
Craig could not resist smelling the panties when he picked them up from the table. They were certainly ripe with a variety of human odors, but he thought that there was a greater smell of sweat and vaginal fluid than urine. He rolled it into a ball, as instructed, making sure that the crotch was on the outside bottom of the resulting ball. No sense doing this if he wasn’t going to do it right. Because they were bikini panties rather than a thong, they made a reasonably large ball. They would fill her mouth completely.
When he held it up to Leslie’s nose, he made sure that the crotch part of the ball was right in front of her nostrils. She sniffed shallowly, and then turned her head away from him. “No, you don’t weasel out of this, dear.” He grabbed a big handful of hair at the back of her head and turned her face back to the panties.
“Ow. That hurts,” she complained.
He took advantage of her open mouth to shove the ball half inside. There was no reason to waste an opportunity. If she were going to talk, she was going to be gagged. Because of the way he was holding the ball, only a small rotation was necessary to force the crotch part against her tongue. She gagged on the taste and that gave him an opportunity to force the panties all the way inside.
The roll of adhesive tape was back on the table. He had to walk back to get it. As soon as he turned his back, she spit the panties out of her mouth and onto the floor.
When he returned, he said, “That wasn’t wise at all. Now you’ve got dirt on your gag.” He picked up the panties and rolled it back into a ball, again with the crotch on the outside. “Let’s see if we can wipe some of that old dirt off, shall we?” he forced the panties between her legs and slowly rubbed it deep into her crotch. “There. Now it’s all nice and fresh. But I’m warning you, you spit it out again and I’ll wipe your ass with it before I put it in your mouth. You want that?”
Leslie shook her head.
Craig put the panties back underneath her nose. “See, nice and fresh. You like that?”
She shook her head again, but did not open her mouth to speak. She was a fast learner.
“Okay. Open up wide.”
She shook her head a third time, so Craig grabbed her nose and squeezed it shut. Leslie made the classic mistake of trying to hold her breath. After thirty seconds or so, she had to gasp for air and opened her mouth wide. Craig slipped the panties back into her mouth and released her nose. “Remember, leave it inside or I’ll wipe your ass with it. In fact, I’ll wipe my ass with it and that’ll really stink. Understand?” She nodded submissively.
He wasted no time tearing a strip of adhesive tape from the roll and sealing her lips. He smoothed one strip along the length of her mouth, two short strips vertically to secure that one, then three more long horizontal strips to cover the whole area around her mouth from her nose to halfway down her chin. It was probably overkill, but he was absolutely certain that the panties were securely sealed inside when he was finished.
As instructed, he drew a lovely cupid-shaped mouth over the adhesive tape with the scarlet lipstick that he found on the table. It was a new tube. Pristine. Leslie did not wear such a bright hue in real life. He gave the corners of the drawn lips a nice upturn so that they were smiling. He knew that Leslie’s real lips underneath the tape had no such smile on them.
The next instruction read, “Handcuffs behind my back. Don’t let me rip out the gag.”
Craig frowned, and then carried the handcuffs over to her. “Look, we better review our deal here. You’re asking too much. Originally, the deal was that I watch over you while you restrain yourself. Fair enough. I was just your spotter. Then it escalated to me applying some of the restraints when you can’t manage. That’s no biggie, either. But now you’re asking me to physically subdue you. That’s not going to happen. If I get into a fight with you, there’s too much chance that someone will get hurt. I’m going to release your hands. If you want to pull off the gag, that’s your business. I’m not going to grab you or twist your arms or anything like that. And I’m not going to replace your gag if you pull it off. It’s up to you to decide how you want to proceed. Understand?”
Leslie lowered her eyes and nodded submissively.
Craig tried to unbuckle the cuffs from her wrists, but he could not he could not see what he was doing when he tried to reach that high. He released the loop from the hook on the back wall so that she could lower her hands. She immediately unbuckled her own wrists, lowered her hands to her sides and stood waiting for him.
When Craig walked back to face her, she looked down at her shoes, and then tentatively touched the corner of the tape that was gagging her. He waited impassively. She closed her eyes, lowered her hands, turned around, crossed her wrists behind her back, and waited for him to snap the handcuffs closed.
He liked it better when she was behaving herself.
“Okay. We continue. What’s next?”
She walked over to the table. As he followed her, he noticed that she was walking more gingerly than before; the time she had spent in an awkward stance in too tight shoes with the too high heels was taking its toll. It was harder for her to balance when her feet hurt and her legs were exhausted. She had to be careful because she knew that if she stumbled with her hands cuffed behind her back, she would not be able to break her fall. Craig made sure that his hand was free if he needed to catch her, but expected that he would not be able to react in time if she fell.
The next instruction said, “Take me up to the spare bedroom on the second floor.”
Craig held her arm protectively as he guided her up the two flights of stairs from the basement to the top floor. Her arm was slick with sweat under his hand. His friend was having a hard day. And two-thirds of it remained.
He had never been in her house before, but it was easy to guess that the room with the big bed was the master bedroom and the other one that was empty, but for two tables and a chair, was the spare bedroom. It helped that assorted leather straps and chains were laid out neatly on the smaller table in that room.
When she entered, Leslie minced directly to the big table in the middle of the room, bent over it, lifted a knee up, and began to wriggle and squirm onto it. It was difficult with her hands cuffed behind her, but Craig appreciated the view. After a couple of minutes, she managed to get herself completely on the table. Once up there, she lay on her stomach and drew her legs underneath her so that her ass was sticking high in the air. She rocked backward until she was kneeling upright.
Craig read the next instruction. “Help me get up on the table and into a kneeling position.”
Too late to help her kneel on the table she had already managed that part by herself. He guessed that she was determined to do as much by herself as possible to keep to the spirit of their agreement.
The next instruction said, “Buckle the belt around my waist and buckle my ankles to the short chains.” He looked at the table of toys. They were arranged in a line again. Assuming that the order was from left to right, the first object was a wide, heavy leather belt with a short chain and leather ankle cuff attached to each side. Its function was clear. When Leslie was wearing the belt around her waist with her ankles cuffed to it, they would be held tight against her butt. She would be forced to remain in a kneeling position.
She raised her cuffed wrists so that he would have free access to her waist. She was being completely cooperative. After her ankle cuffs were buckled, she tried to rise, but the chains stopped her before her buttocks were clear of her heels. Craig did not know if she was testing the limits of her bonds for her own sake or if she was demonstrating the consequences of the arrangement to him. He hoped that she was doing it for her own sake because the idea that she might think that she needed to demonstrate the consequences of having her ankles attached to her waist by short chains was a little insulting to his intelligence.
The next instruction was more complex. It said, “Uncuff my hands. Slide one leather harness over each arm up to my shoulders, cuffs to the back. Buckle the opposite wrist to each shoulder. Don’t force anything. This is dislocated shoulder territory if my arms are forced too far.”
The reference to “dislocated shoulder” frightened Craig. He told Leslie, “I’m not sure that I understand exactly what you mean, here.”
Leslie squeaked through her gag and held her wrists toward him. Craig understood the first part of the instruction easily enough. He unlocked the handcuffs with the key that was on the table. Leslie reached her right hand toward the table and made a grabbing motion. He picked up one of the two peculiar little leather harnesses lying there and handed it to her. She slid it up her arm to her shoulder and then turned it so that a short strap and cuff were hanging halfway across her back. Then she gestured for the next one, a mirror image of the first. When he handed it to her, she slid it up the other arm. As soon as they were both in place, she crossed her hands behind her back in a double hammerlock position. Her wrists were positioned near the two cuffs. Craig berated himself. This wasn’t so complex; he should have figured it out without her help.
As he buckled the first cuff around Leslie’s wrist, he examined the harness. It was cut a little unevenly and stitched by hand with irregular stitches. Leslie had probably cut and stitched it herself from her own design. She was a resourceful little thing when it came to torturing herself.
The second cuff was more difficult. It was easy for her to put her first arm in position by twisting her torso. Once in place, though, the second wrist did not reach its cuff completely. She jerked her hand in the direction of the cuff, signaling him to buckle her up, but he remembered the “dislocated shoulder phrase” in the instructions. He picked up her wrist in one hand and the cuff in the other. She nodded encouragement to him. Gingerly, he pulled the wrist toward the cuff. She arched her shoulders back as far as she could to reduce the distance that he had to pull. He found that he could move her hand to the cuff, but he could not buckle it because he did not have a third hand. He told her, “I don’t think that I can do this.”
She snorted through her nose. Then she pulled her free hand out of his grasp and tipped herself over so that she was lying on her side, her legs still fastened in their kneeling position. Once on her side, she put her free hand back in position. This time, though, she could use her body weight to press her elbow against the surface of the table and move her own hand into position. Craig had no difficulty fastening the cuff now. When he was finished, he lifted her back upright. She was sure working hard to ensure that she would be tortured in exactly the way she wanted. She was not a person to compromise on anything.
Now her bonds forced her to remain in a kneeling position with both hands pinned behind in a double hammerlock. She was forced to hold her shoulders as far back as possible to ease the tension on her shoulders. Her naked breasts were thrust straight out by her rigid posture a perfect position for buckets of “Fun with Tits”.
After all the exertion, her hair had fallen forward over her face. He gathered it together and draped it down her back, out of the way, so that he would have a clear view of her expression.
Then he returned to the table to read the next instruction. “One at a time, clip a clothespin to each nipple.” There were two spring-operated wooden clothespins on the table.