276: Correction And Connection

on August 31, 2008 in Book 10

In Which It’s Curtains For Mackenzie

“Do you really want me here, babe?” Steff asked Amaranth, once the door was closed and we were alone.

“Of course… why wouldn’t I?” Amaranth asked.

“Well, I’ve got plenty of ‘quality time’ with Mack in the last day,” Steff said. “I just thought… you know… you might want to reconnect with her.”

“Oh… hmm.”

Amaranth thought it over, playing with her hair and biting her lip. I stood where I was, not saying anything. Once Amaranth had invoked the specter of punishment, I felt as though I’d lost the power of motion… or maybe the right to it. I was passive, waiting.

“No,” she said, finally. “I want us to connect… not Mack and me, or you and Mack, or you and me. All of us. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Steff said, nodding slowly. “I think so.”

“Will you get the strap, Steff?” Amaranth asked, turning away from me as she spoke. She reached up and took off her glasses, holding them in her hands.

“Got it,” Steff said.

I looked at Amaranth, at the spill of wavy golden hair down her back, her broad hips and curvy ass. Her posture was uncharacteristically stooped a bit, which exaggerated the “poochiness” of her stomach, even from behind. She looked like she was laboring to stand under a great weight. Her goddess’s public disapproval? Her complicity after the fact in the Mercy’s order? Worry over me?

“I want… I want this to mean something, baby,” she said. “I know you need a good, hard spanking anyway… and of course I’d enjoy giving you one any time… but I need this one to count. Do you understand me?”

She turned around as she asked the question, her eyes tiny slits as she squinted across the few feet that separated us.

I wanted to tell her yes, that I did understand her and that I wanted it to “count”, too, but the fact was I had no idea what she actually meant. Very slowly, I shook my head. “No, ma’am,” I said. “I… I’m afraid I don’t.”

She sighed.

“I care so much about you, baby,” she said. “So much… so much more than I would have believed possible. I love going to sleep on top of you. I love waking up next to you. The first time I spanked you, out in front of the fountain… I saw what you needed and I decided to give it to you. That was all it was supposed to be… but as soon as I saw you bent over, your panties stretched out over your cute little butt, I knew it was going to be more than that. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would… because I enjoyed it for myself. Do you understand that, baby?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I think so.”

“I’ve never not enjoyed giving somebody the attention they need,” Amaranth said. “But always, the pleasure has come from knowing that I was fulfilling a need of theirs. I’ve never had anything that I enjoyed for its own sake, for my own sake. Well, maybe rimming… but that doesn’t come up very often and I’ve learned not to offer if the desire isn’t already there. But, that’s beside the point… it doesn’t even begin to compare to the joy and the pleasure I’ve known since you became mine.”

She sure didn’t sound joyful. Everything about her… her face, her voice, her posture… it seemed like she was in mourning. I felt my heart turn to stone and drop down into my stomach, making a big mess of everything down there. Had Mother Khaele contacted her somehow? Was this going to be our last time? Or was this melancholy only in anticipation of such devastating news?

“What I’m trying to say, baby, is that I love to spank you, and I spank you out of love,” she said. “But that isn’t going to be enough right now. You have real problems in your life, and they’re not going to go away. You’ll need to deal with them, with or without me… and, well…” She sighed. “When we started, I told you that as my possession, you needed to take better care of yourself. And… you’ve done a really good job when it comes to hygiene and things like that, and I am proud of how much you’ve improved in some ways… but do you remember what I told you about standing up for yourself?”

I ducked my head in shame. It wasn’t the kind that felt a little bit exciting. I wasn’t even blushing… my cheeks were cold. The tears that rolled down them felt hot.

“Baby?” Amaranth prompted.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, ma’am, I remember,” I said, summoning up the words in my mind.

“What did I tell you?” she asked.

“That if… if I couldn’t stand up for myself, I should remember that I belong to you and I should stand up for that instead,” I said.

“Why didn’t you stand up to Gwynedd, then?”

“I was… well, I was still recovering from Viktor,” I said. “It was easier to just let it happen.”

“Maybe it was, in that case,” Amaranth said. “But I told you that if anybody was giving you trouble, you needed to tell me. Every time. Every time. Viktor was nice enough to hold off on our little conference so you and Steff could get on with your date. But what if he hadn’t? What if we’d gone ahead and had it yesterday? That’s the perfect time to have something like that out with him and Gwynedd, but I would have sat down in front of him with no idea that this was even an issue. I can’t look out for you if I don’t know these things. Do you understand, baby?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“That’s what I want you to take away from this punishment,” she said. “The rule is there for a reason. For… for as long as we’re still together, h-however long that may be… I’m going to protect you as best as I can, but I can’t do that without your help.”

She put her glasses back on, adjusted them, looked at me, shifted them to sit a little bit lower on her nose, and then looked at me over them.

“Take off your clothes, Mack,” she said.

“Slowly,” Steff added. She’d been so quiet and still that I’d forgotten she was there. Amaranth nodded, and I began to undress. I started with my shoes, just so they wouldn’t get in the way. I didn’t know how much of a striptease I could pull off in jeans and a t-shirt, but I peeled the shirt off slowly, rolling the hem up over my stomach and up to my shoulders. I pulled one arm out, and then lifted it up off my neck. I flung it to the side off of my other arm. I left my bra on while I undid my jeans and lowered them to the floor, then stepped out of them. I turned in place, standing there in my socks and underwear. After giving both Amaranth and Steff a clear view all around my body, I started to reach in back to undo my bra.

“Panties,” Steff said.

I looked at Amaranth.

“You obey her too, baby,” Amaranth said, and I started to slide my panties off.

“Let’s keep the socks and bra,” Steff said. “Just for… emphasis.”

It seemed like a weird thing to say, but as my panties hit the floor I understood what she meant. Taking off my panties when I was already otherwise naked wasn’t all that huge a deal. As much as the pussy was on a level all its own, nudity was nudity. It was a state that was, in a way, natural, and one that you were expected to be in at certain points during the day.

Going panty-less in particular, though, was a different story. The fact that my feet and chest were still covered just made me feel all the more naked about my middle parts. My ass tingled with anticipation. My girl parts… they crawled with it.

I shivered.

“Cold, baby?” Amaranth purred. “We’ll have to see what we can do to warm that bottom up.”

She took my arms and lead me towards the window. She bent me over, put my hands on the sill, and arranged my legs so that they were spread at the slight angle she desired.

“On the other side of these curtains, there could be any number of cameras,” she said. “There are almost certain to be students coming back from late classes and early suppers. It’s dark enough outside that it would make it be very easy for anybody to see inside the room with the light on. If we opened the curtain, anybody who happened to look up would see you in your bra, bent over in front of the window. They would see you jump and twitch at each stroke,” she said, cupping my ass with both hands. She squeezed. “They’d see your face as you reacted to the pain… they’d see your pleasure as you came. It would be like when we did it at the fountain… with the addition that if you happened to look down, you might see them, too.”

She giggled.

“Amaranth…” I said, my voice constricted to a whisper.

“Oh, don’t worry too much, baby,” she said. “We’ll let you have your curtains, for now. I just wanted to give you something more interesting to picture than the fabric in front of you. Now, I’m going to start off with my hands. As I do it, I want you to tell me exactly what happened with you and Gwynedd. Then, Steff is going to come forward and do you with your strap. After that… well, we’ll see how it goes, I guess. Are you ready?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. Before the second word was finished, her hand fell upon my rear with an almighty crack. I jumped and yelped… I’d been expecting her to start off gently.

“Let’s hear the story, baby,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am!” I said quickly, and started describing the encounter between Gwynedd and me, interrupted about twice a sentence by another hard smack. Once Amaranth was warmed up and satisfied that I wasn’t holding back, she settled down into a more natural rhythm. I stumbled over the telling, as the details had become a bit muddled in my head, but as I spoke I felt the same feelings of shame, disorientation, and helplessness I’d felt at the time… and I felt them draining away out of me.

Their absence cleared the way for the growing sense of intense arousal I always got from Amaranth’s loving attention to my rear, the sensation of warmth and pressure that I had come to understand as sexual. Amaranth brought me up towards the point of orgasm, teasing me with her expert strokes and with the tiniest brushes of her nails against the skin just beneath my crack, driving me to greater heights of excitement and pleasure until I was sure I couldn’t help but burst… and then she slowed, letting the tide recede a bit before she started to bring me again.

I realized how much I’d been missing this kind of attention. Amaranth had spoken of daily discipline, and then life had become so hectic… but busy or not, I still needed this reminder, this reaffirmation, of her loving ownership. I needed the gentle (and not-so-gentle) corrections to keep me on the path of self-improvement she’d set out for me. I needed the invisible mark of ownership her hand left upon me.

She kept me on the edge of coming, but never sent me over. I felt red in the face… and was probably even redder in the ass. Now that I’d had the experience of actual sex with Ian, I could more acutely feel the changes in my nether reaches… the wetness, the feeling of openness, the hardening of my clit… and that sense of awareness made the unfulfilled need all the more frustrating.

I was getting closer and closer again. Amaranth was now teasing between my openings with her fingers more than she was spanking. I was so close I could taste it, and I knew that any moment she was going to pull me back from the brink… I knew it… but just when I thought the inevitable pause had arrived, I heard a familiar swish and tears of joy and relief burst from my eyes in the moment before the impact.

The metal studs struck my tenderized flesh with all the speed and force that Steff could muster, and I broke completely. I shattered into a million tiny little pieces. That was the end of me, there was nothing left for any subsequent blow to strike… and yet they came again and again.

And so did I.

I couldn’t hold myself up… my knees and elbows both buckled, and I fell to the floor. Amaranth crouched down and lifted me up. She sat down on Two’s chair and bent me over her lap, holding me while Steff continued to unload on my ass with the studded paddle. She never struck another blow as hard as the first one, but she never used the flat side, either. I wasn’t coming any more, exactly, but I was feeling good. Everything was kind of blurring together into one big glowing ball.

I could see Steff’s face in my mind. In my imagination, the look on her face was one of pure, serene bliss. She was in her element hurting me. I was in mine taking it. Amaranth was in hers holding me.

It was a cycle, a chain. Steff gave me pain. Amaranth took it away.

I think Steff might have gone on forever like that, but then Amaranth pulled out a small object and held it out in front of me, where we could both see it. It was a foil-packed ring. The paddling stopped at once. Amaranth tore the packet open with her nails and slipped it on my finger, then stood up, guiding me to my feet. She put my arms on the chair for support, then disappeared behind me for a few seconds.

She reappeared in time to steady me as I was about to collapse, pushing the chair away and taking me in her arms. She pressed her chest to mine and nuzzled my face as Steff grabbed me by the hips. Her dick rubbed against my much-abused ass cheek, and then slid into the crack. She slid it up and down, teasing against the opening, grinding herself against me several times before she pulled back. A slick finger probed me while Amaranth kissed me. I jumped at the feeling of the cold lubricant on Steff’s digit, and Amaranth giggled and pulled me in close.

“I love you,” she whispered. “So much.”

“I love you, too,” I said. “Both of you.”

“I love you,” Steff said. She moved her finger around inside me a little more, then pulled out. “And I’m about to love you some more.”

I nodded.

“Before we do this…” Amaranth said, putting her nose right up against mine. “I just want you to know, baby, that if I ever leave you…”

“Don’t,” I said. “Please, don’t.”

“It won’t be because I don’t love you,” she said. She was smiling when she said this. It only seemed a little forced. “And if it does happen, you won’t be alone. You’ll still have Steff and Ian… and Two, and the others, in their way. And maybe even me… even if you can’t be mine any more.”

“We don’t have to talk about this,” Steff said. She put her dick up right against my loosened and lubed hole. “We can…”

“And even if you don’t belong to me any more, I want you to remember how much I love you,” she said. “When you’re picked on… when you’re attacked. If you can’t stand up for yourself on your own behalf, do it on mine, in honor of the love I’ll always have for you, baby, even if I can’t show it.”

“Amaranth…”

“Oh, fuck this,” Steff said… and she did.

She plunged in without hesitation or gentleness, pounding my ass in this way with the same ferocity and abandon that she’d shown in using the paddle. It was somehow even better… more intense… than our time the night before had been.

Amaranth’s presence, her breasts in my face alternating her lips on mine, her hand down around the outside of my pussy, her finger tips moving over my clit… oh, fuck, her finger tips moving over my clit… well, her presence probably didn’t hurt, but I don’t think that was the only reason it was better. The massive foreplay represented by the spanking wasn’t it, either. We’d had our “first time” and had nothing left to prove to ourselves. Steff was taking me like it was no big deal, and that made it a very big deal.

But through it all, through the waves of pleasure, pressure, and relief, Amaranth’s words stayed with me. She hadn’t been forced to give me up yet, but it was obvious she thought that was coming. She was handling that the best way that she could, trying to prepare me for it and making the most of what we had. I felt a simmering sliver of resentment inside me. Would she just lie down and meekly take it if Mother Khaele laid down the law? She was willing to argue with the goddess on other points…

But of course, those arguments had never got her anywhere and probably never would. She knew that. It was her own stubborn optimism that kept her at it… maybe that was enough when she was chasing the pipe dream of the few thrills forbidden to nymphs. This was something different, something larger and more important. Pretending she could persuade Nature Herself to change her mind…

Well, it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe it wouldn’t happen at all. Amaranth had been wrong before, after all.

Maybe.

Until we knew for sure, the only thing we could do was cling to each other and enjoy the ride.


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3 Responses to “276: Correction And Connection”

  1. pedestrian says:

    an economy of words to display a wealth of experience

    Current score: 2
  2. Arkeus says:

    Once again, a ‘punishment’ that only registers as a reward for Mack. It seems that it’s an inherent restrictions of nymphs, being unable to not reward.

    Current score: 0
    • Grant says:

      That “only” registers as a reward? No, not even remotely true. The shame and pain of disobeying and hurting Amaranth was quite clear and well described. If you think the feelings of disappointment and heartache wasn’t a punishment, you haven’t been paying attention.

      Current score: 10