Page 36 of Brave
She bent down, laying her cheek to the wood floor before him and elevating her ass up. He liked that pose too, but the answer was the same.
“No, honey.”
She turned her face to the floor, but not before he saw her bite her bottom lip, worrying even as she reached back and spread her buttocks with both hands.
She was killing him.
“No, baby.” He ruffled her hair, softening his rejection with a smile. “Not that I won’t someday take you up on that invite, but I’m thinking today deserves a real punishment. Also, the first time I slide my cock up your ass, I’d really rather that be for both our enjoyment, and no one’s punishment.”
She sat up when he stood. He could feel the worry of her gaze following him around the desk where he opened a lower drawer and pulled out a white, spiral notebook and a black gel pen.
“F-for me?” she asked, stunned when he brought them to her.
“It’s not a dozen roses,” he returned, hiding his smile. Not that he wouldn’t someday now also love to give her flowers, especially after a response like that. One would think she’d never received a gift before, by the near reverent way she took it from him. That became one more thing that, as her dom, he looked forward to changing.
She traced her fingers over the cover. “Can I open it?”
“Unless you want to make your punishment worse, I suggest you do.”
Hers was at once the most hopeful, touched, and yet slightly apprehensive look as she bowed her head and opened the cover. On the first inside page in bright blue glitter ink he’d written, ‘Puppy’s Naughty Book of Lines’.
She looked up at him.
“The sparkles remind me of your eyes on the rare few occasions that I’ve actually seen you smile,” he said gently. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a glitter pen in brown ink.”
Face softening, she briefly hugged the book to her chest and then looked down at it again. “I don’t understand. What do you want me to write, a journal of what I do wrong?”
“Nope. We’re going to fill that book up with all the things you’ve forgotten. If, like tonight, you make a mistake, I’m going to give you a reminder and you’re going to write it down in this book. You can start with the reminder you earned tonight. Your first phrase is: I’m not stupid or broken, I’m brave. I want you to write that in your book one thousand times, and I expect you to have it done next Friday before I pick you up. Got it?”
She nodded, hugging the book to her chest again, blinking rapidly against the shimmer of a fresh wave of tears. “I can do that,” she hiccupped, trying hard not to let him see her cry.
“Do you think you can finish your sandwich now, or do you want another punishment?”
“No, Sir. I’ll even eat my corn.”
“Not if I replace it with applesauce first,” he growled, but they were both smiling as he let her redress, then led the way back to the table where their unfinished supper and the negotiation contract were waiting.
Chapter 10
The Greyhound pulled into the penitentiary parking lot and half the passengers got off. Pulling her coat in close around her, Puppy cast a frown at the gray skies and shivered. The forecast had been calling for snow anywhere from here on up through the weekend. She believed it, too. The air hurt it was so cold. Slipping her hands into her coat pockets, she fell into silent step behind Pony, who wove her way through the parked cars to the front steps of the building, and then into the prison. She kept her head held high and her back straight, as regal now as ever she had been on any given play night at Black Light. Looking at her though, it was hard for Puppy to see anything but the harness wounds she’d dressed that morning and the boniness of the ribs she’d counted as she did it.
She looked gaunt. Even her skin looked too thin, too pale, showing the blue roadmap of veins just underneath. Earlier that morning, standing in front of their bathroom mirror as she’d washed her face and brushed her hair, Puppy had tried to see herself as that thin too. But she wasn’t. Carlson and his three-meals-per-day-or-else regimen had seen to that. Oh, she was still thin, but where Pony’s face seemed downright skeletal, Puppy was now just… angular. Her cheekbones were a little too sharp, but her face didn’t look too hollow. Not like Pony’s did.
Puppy stifled a sigh as she put her name on the registry of visitors. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to know what Carlson would say if he knew she’d come here, even though she told herself over and over it was only to keep Pony from getting hurt. She really didn’t want to hear what Ethen would say about all the times she’d left the house without Pony, or about how much weight she’d put on, how she now looked fat, how she was cheating, how every single thing she did piled up on this mountain of disobedience that she had built since he’d gone to prison, and how Pony should now be punished for it.
And Pony would do it. Because Pony was an idiot.
Following Pony to two chairs set within easy reach of where the line would form as soon as they were called, Puppy sat down beside her feeling horrible. Guilt for just thinking such a traitorous thing gnawed at her. Knowing it would make her feel better, she opened her backpack, pulled out the notebook Carlson had given her, and started writing. She’d had it almost a week now and she loved it. Writing lines might be a punishment, but it felt soothing. It hurt her fingers, depending on how long she did it, but it was a way of feeling close to Carlson when she couldn’t be with him physically. It had very quickly become an outlet, a way to shut out the overwhelming stress of whatever situation she was currently in and just focus on making her Dom happy.
I am not stupid or broken. I’m brave.
She was fourteen pages in so far. One sentence per line, thirty-three lines per page, two sides to every page. One thousand lines was a lot, but she was almost done. She had only a page left to go… for this sentence. Which was good, since she’d already earned a second sentence: One orgasm per day is not an option, it’s an order. It was now also two orgasms per day until she got her lines done and she couldn’t even start on them until she finished the first set.
She squirmed in her seat, the awful heat of a guilty blush burning at her face as she tried not to think about all the mornings this week when she’d hidden under her blankets for the sole, forbidden purpose of touching herself. It was a hard thing to come without making a sound. It was even harder to enjoy it when she was terrified of waking Pony, who would surely tell on her, inviting another punishment and making Puppy feel worse, and starting the whole vicious cycle all over again until all sense of pleasure died and her need to pick at something itched so desperately inside her skin that it was all she could do to keeping lying there. Touching herself. Trying to make the impossible happen.
So far, it had only happened once. Carlson didn’t punish her for not being able to succeed. So far, he’d only punished her for the one morning she’d been too reluctant and embarrassed to try.
For some reason, thinking about that here, as she sat writing her lines, made the pit of her stomach warm, spawning that by now familiar thump and throb between her clenched legs. She squirmed again, although now for a totally different reason.
