“You’re a fucking asshole, sir!”
That does not go down well at all. The spanking intensifies, finds my upper thighs. I am spanked from leg to bottom and my kicking and squirming and swearing does nothing to stop him.
This is a battle of wills, but it is a battle I have no chance of winning. I am battling my own threshold for pain. Tore could do this forever, I am sure, so all I am doing is making it hurt me worse before it stops.
“Please, sir! Stop!”
I scream the words. It stops.
It stops, and I burst into tears, because his stopping has done absolutely nothing to stop the pain. That sears on even in the absence of the spanking, my thighs and ass burning and tingling.
Strong arms wrap around me, pull me up against Tore’s chest. He cradles me, one arm underneath my knees, one around my back and he holds me close, murmuring soft, comforting words to me.
“It’s over now, Trissa,” he murmurs. “It’s done, little girl. You learned your lesson, didn’t you.”
I don’t know if I’ve learned anything. I am tearful and sobbing, and I am afraid. But I still bury my head into the crook of his neck and I let him comfort me, those same hands that whipped me into screaming whimpers now helping to soothe the sting away.
It takes long minutes for my tears to abate. When they do, I find myself cowering in the arms of yet another strange man in a long line of strange men who have laid claim to me only by merit of the fact they are men.
“It hurts,” I whimper.
“I know,” Tore says. “It hurts more than it had to, but remember this, so it doesn’t have to hurt again.”
So all I have to do is whatever they say, and it won’t hurt. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to be obedient. I don’t want to submit to this. I wasn’t raised to submit.
He eases me back from his body so he can look down into my shameful, tear-filled eyes. I can’t meet his. Can’t look at him. Can’t stand to see what he did to me, written on his face.
I bow my head and hide myself from him, and from the others. I can feel their eyes on me, looking at me as I cower. I hate this. I hate how it hurts. I hate how small I feel. I am cracked, beginning to break. If I can’t get control of myself, I might fall apart completely.
This is terrifying. Men are frightening. When I was alone, I used to imagine what being with one would be like. I never considered it would be like this. I never understood how much more powerful they are, how demanding they can be. I never knew how the muscles I used to hunt, to survive, would suddenly feel so inadequate and weak in comparison to theirs. There is no fighting Tore, or any of the others. Pulling, kicking, twisting, none of it worked. He is so much stronger than I am, to the point I may as well not fight at all.
“Did I do too much?” I hear Tore whisper the question to one of the others.
“She’s okay. She’s not hurt. She’s probably never been disciplined before, wild little thing.”
Pharaoh plucks me off Tore’s lap. His large hands slip beneath my arms and he holds me up before him in all my red-bottomed, naked shame.
“That hurt, didn’t it.” It’s a flat statement, but I answer it like a question.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“It will hurt again if you behave that way again. But it does not have to hurt. We are not here to make you feel bad. We are all going to feel very, very good.”
He is painfully handsome. There is a symmetry to his features, a regal elegance that makes me tingle low in my belly, even in this miserable state. His eyes are beautiful, they glow with an amber hue that leaves me weak with something like desire—but how can I feel arousal after that humiliating punishment?
Alexios and Keanau nod in agreement as Pharaoh lays me down, face first on the bed. I offer no resistance. The sting and the ache remind me of what happens when I disobey, and I am done with inflicting pain on myself through rebellion today.
I feel four pairs of large hands begin to rub me, running up my thighs, over my bottom, finding my back and my shoulders. Each of them has a different part of me and slowly, surprisingly, it starts to feel better.
My muscles start to relax. My mind starts to wander, not to any particular thought, but to a comfortable state of relaxation, where it doesn’t matter that I have been punished. All that matters is that I feel better now.
“Spread your legs, Trissa.”
I let my thighs part, and I let their big hands slide over the sensitive inner skin. I let myself feel good. They’re going to make me come. I know it. I can feel their intentions in the way their fingers move with constant reference to my sex.
I won’t resist pleasure, but my orgasm is no guarantee of anything. The sheriff made me come before I killed him, and if these men treat me badly, they will not be any safer.
I should want to kill Tore. But I don’t. And that confuses me too. He hurt me. I should want his blood. But instead, I am lying there, purring like a kitten as I am massaged by these big, brutal men who will oversee my deflowering.