Part 23

A maid came and took Amy away early the next morning.

"Sir," I was told, "Mr Townsend expects you for breakfast in thirty minutes."

"I'd rather that Amy stays with me!" I told the woman in the very brief maid's uniform.

"I'm sorry Sir, but those are Mr Townsend's orders, and they apply to all the submissives on the island."

I looked down at Amy, she was servicing me, her rather skilled mouth working diligently toward bringing me off.

Upon awakening I had ordered her to begin sucking me, just to see if her feelings about serving me were still as intact after a night's rest.

Amy didn't hesitate to comply, a small smile on her face and a spark in her eye. She did pause and look up at me when the maid knocked, but one look from me convinced her to keep going.

I watched her now as she still worked, her rear end up and facing the maid, displaying those charms to yet another stranger, her head bobbing up and down in that unmistakable way. She was very aware that the maid could see exactly what she was doing and was blushing furiously, but to her credit she kept on going.

I finally came, gushing into her mouth and Amy managed to swallow without a problem. I took her by the chin and guided her off me into another position, ignoring the maid who waited in the doorway.

Now Amy lay face down across my lap, her buttocks and thighs still showing evidence of the whipping I had given them.

"Hands behind your head." I ordered, and Amy obeyed. "This isn't punishment, just something to keep you focused." I then told her, spanking her hard with my hand ten times.

Amy yelped with each strike and I watched her butt turn a rosy red.

"Go!" I said and she got off me.

"Thank you, Sir." she said with a big smile and padded toward the maid.

"Is my wife also required to go with you?" I ask the maid.

"Yes, Sir."

"When will I see them again?"

"After breakfast, Sir. Mr Townsend has given special orders."

"What orders?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss them, Sir. I'm sorry."

I nodded, but didn't like it. I couldn't wait to get off this island and back to our vacation, especially now that things were changing among the four of us.

I watched the maid lock a set of hand cuffs on Amy and put a leash on her, and the women left.

As I showered I wondered where Laura was and what Ben had done to her, what punishment had she had to endure?

With luck I would be finding out very soon.

Townsend and Ben were already eating when I got to the dining room, along with Townsend's other male guests.

"...when the investigator arrives she'll be able..." Townsend was saying when I came in. He stopped talking and concentrated on his food. I didn't care, I was tired of his company anyway.

I got some food from the buffet and sat down.

Ben and I looked at each other, each mirroring each other's concern for our companions.

"Well?" I asked quietly.

Ben thought for a moment. "I didn't punish her last night."

"You didn't?" I was stunned.

"No. I did take steps to get her attention, we talked about many things. It seems that even the caning you gave her a few days ago wasn't quite enough to give her any real pause."

"So why didn't you punish her?" I asked, noting that the other men at the table were getting interested in our conversation.

"Laura will be punished," he looked over at Townsend, "we have something planned."

I wasn't sure I liked that. "With all due respect to Mr Townsend here, but I don't feel comfortable with him being involved with any punishments due my wife. The two of you may have formed some kind of relationship but I hardly know the man!"

"Don't worry Don, it's not what you think." Ben said slowly. He looked tired, as if sleep had evaded him. Did he and Laura talk all night? Did they fuck?

"Then what is it?"

"Merely an opportunity to do some good, Old Boy!" Townsend said.

"What good?" I asked.

Ben and Townsend glanced at each other. "Just wait," Ben said, "it'll be easier to show you. Trust me."

Trust him.

Yes, I did trust him.

"Okay, but is she alright?"

"She didn't sleep last night. She was a stubborn as a mule but scared as well. She wouldn't tell me why she did what she did at first, but eventually she talked, although I had to persuade her. After that our host and I had a few arrangements to make so sleep for her was impossible. I didn't get much sleep myself to be honest. If you want to know why though, it would be better if you talked to her yourself."

"I think I know why." I answered, remembering Amy's confession.

Ben nodded. "Can I now ask how Amy is doing?"

"You'd have seen for yourself if I had been allowed to bring her." I said with an eye on our host. "But she's fine, and...we did some talking too."

"Did you have sex with her?" Ben asked. Flat out it seemed so base.

"Yes. You?" I replied after a moment.

"Yes." Ben answered.

"Are we cool?"

"Are we?"

After a moment I stood up, Ben did too. There was a tension between us that I didn't like, that shouldn't be there. I extended my hand and after a pause Ben took it. We shook, then pulled each other to ourselves and hugged briefly, the tension now gone.

"You've got a great woman there!" I told him.

"We both do." he replied warmly.

Breakfast settled down and Ben mentioned nothing more about the women. I ate quietly, wondering what was in store for my wife. What was she being prepared for?

The maid hadn't lied to me, I did get to see the women after breakfast. In fact I saw the entire population of the island. Every submissive and every worker and guest!

I walked with Ben down to the beach where the crowd had gathered. On one side were all the hired help, Townsend's boat crew and the maintenance workers who kept up this place. On the other side were all the submissives, mostly women but with some men mixed in as well. All of the submissives were nude, the women kneeling on the sand while the men stood behind them. All had their hands behind their backs and it didn't take a leap of logic to figure out they were all restrained that way. Amy was among the women, looking solemn as she knelt.

Between the two groups was what caught my attention though.

A pillory had been set up on a platform, and it was occupied for I could see the naked buttocks of the woman trapped in it.

Even without the stripes on her ass I could see that it was Laura, trapped on display to the entire population.

Ben said, "She's been there most of the night, thinking about what she did to Amy."

"What's going to happen?" I asked.

"I'm going to cane her, publicly. Townsend thought it an opportunity to reinforce discipline among his own people.

A public punishment is psychologically a lot more effective than a private one. Believe me, she'll find it a lot harder to see the erotic side of this, that's been a part of her problem!"

"Yeah I know." I admitted sadly.

"You'd better go talk to her first, then we can get started." Ben said softly.

"Does she...know?" I asked hesitantly.

"Oh yeah, she knows everything that's about to happen to her. I think her anticipation of the moment is worse than the reality."

I took a step forward to my wife, then stopped and turned to Ben. "Ben, I trust you, but remember that she was only caned a few days ago."

Ben nodded, his face stern.

I turned and walked across the sand to where my wife waited on the platform. I could feel the eyes of all those present on me and thought that anticipation was hard on me as well.

As I climbed the platform I could hear Laura crying and my heart went out to her, but I took a moment to compose my features. Were the pleasures of our chosen lifestyle really worth the pain?

I looked closely at her, keeping out of her range of vision for a moment. She was locked into two pillories, bent at the waist at a perfect ninety degree angle. One pillory held her head and hands in the traditional manner, and looked quite snug. The other trapped her ankles, spreading them far apart, revealing her freshly shaved loins to all.

Her breasts hung free and I could see evidence of the same kind of whipping that I had given Amy all over her body.

I moved to where she could see me and saw she was a mess. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face streaked with tears, her golden hair covering most of her features.

She saw me and stifled her crying.

"Donald please!" she said between sobs. "I'm sorry! I wont ever do anything like that again, I swear. You don't have to cane me!"

"I'm not going to cane you, you know that." I told her, attempting to hold my feelings back. I had to act like her Master, not her husband, not at this moment. There would be plenty of time to be her husband after the fact, that's when she would need me the most.

"Well Ben then, dammit!" she said, her anger showing suddenly. I could understand her loosing her grip on her emotions. Having to spend the night out here like this, knowing what you did and what was going to happen to you, would make me testy also.

"Yes...Ben." I repeated calmly.

"Donald, please, he doesn't have to, you can tell him! Please let me out?" Her voice cracked at the end, a questioning, pleading expression on her face.

"Laura, if I let you out right now, then we go straight home as soon as we can make the travel arrangements. Once we get home, I'll take every piece of bondage equipment we own and destroy them. We'll live together as husband and wife, and I'll love you till the day I die, but we will no longer be involved in the lifestyle we both crave to be a part of.

Just say the word, and all that will happen. It's your choice, and it's the last time I will give it to you."

I waited, my heart in my mouth while Laura stared at me. I was aware of everyone watching the two of us, Ben with his cane, Phil and Alicia Townsend standing together hand in hand, Amy with the other submissives watching with tears of her own.

Laura bowed her head. "Master, this slave does not wish to let go of everything we have built together. This slave recognizes that she broke a serious rule and while this slave knows that she did wrong and is sorry for her deed she knows that she needs to be punished." Laura looked up at me. "This slave...begs leniency, but knows such leniency will not be hers. Instead she begs for a quick end to her punishment."

I nodded, not trusting my voice, and walked stiffly to where Ben stood. I had thought of asking her why she did it, but figured after would be a better time.

Ben looked concerned. "Is she ready?" he asked me softly.

Again I nodded, and turned to face the upturned buttocks of my wife.

Ben made his way onto the platform and I watched as he stepped up along side of her.

"Ladies, gentleman, submissives," he began, his voice booming but his manner reserved, "we're here this morning to witness the caning of this slave. Her crime was that of deliberate mutilation with a knife, something forbidden to her. This slave deliberately used a knife on my own submissive, to create a set of injuries that would cause my submissive to be in great pain every time she had sex.

Because this slave was whipped once already just a few days ago, I will not give her the ten heavy strikes I had promised her. Instead she will receive five now and five in one weeks time. Be assured the state of her ass right now will make the five I give her seem like ten."

I heard a sob from the crowd and saw it was Amy. It looked like it was affecting her like it was affecting me.

A lot of the other submissives also looked concerned, and not a few of them glanced over at the stern faces of their own Master and Mistress who stood nearby.

Ben took up his position and without warning gave Laura the first stroke.

Laura hadn't been gagged and her cry as the thin cane impacted her already sore buttocks made a lot of people jump, including myself.

Ben waited a few seconds and struck again, building a tempo he followed to the end.

Each strike made Laura cry out and when the fifth came her sobbing could be heard all over the beach. I thought Ben was going to hit her one more time, but he put down the cane, said something I couldn't hear to Laura, and then left the platform.

I began to move toward Laura but Alicia was faster. She took the stage quickly.

"I hope this lesson will be remembered for a while!" she said to the group of submissives, and I saw on their faces that a lot of them would indeed remember this. "Dismissed!"

People began to move in all directions and again I began to walk to my wife but Ben took my arm. "Let her be for a little while." he said grimly.

I nodded and sank down on the sand where I was. I watched him go over to Amy who had stayed kneeling on the sand while the other submissives left, and saw her crying too.

Ben sat with her and comforted her and I waited until the four of us were the only people left on the beach.

When eventually I did step once more on the platform I found my wife with her head bowed in the stocks. She heard me come up and lifted her face, but instead of looking me in the eye instead she focused on my crotch, one of the acceptable Total Slave focal points.

"Master, this slave is sorry." she said.

I stepped forward and took her face in both hands. "I know." I said simply, and kissed her.

Ben and I sat alone at a table on the terrace. Ben puffed on his pipe while in front of me sat a very large scotch.

Together Ben, Amy and I had gotten Laura out of the pillory that had held her all night, and half carried her to our room.

She was crying, Amy was crying and I was half in tears myself.

I had expected to stay there with Laura but Amy, in the politest way possible, tossed us men out saying that right now Laura needed the care and sympathy of someone who knew intimately what she was going through. Ben and I would have to wait.

My last glimpse of my wife was of her lying face down on the bed, her ass a multicolored palette.

So we retreated outside, glad to be alone with our thoughts.

I stared at the drink for a while, but so far I had only taken a sip. I felt broken down, tired. It was a terrible thing to see someone you love being deliberately hurt like that.

I mean we play with pain sometimes, but this was far beyond play. The image of the cane in Ben's hand sinking into the soft flesh of my wife was very clear in my mind, as was the cry of pain she gave.

What the hell were we doing?

"Would you mind if I asked you something, Don?" Ben said slowly, still puffing on his pipe.

"Sure, go ahead." I said without looking at him.

Ben said nothing for a moment, staring out to sea as if trying to figure out what to say. Eventually he did.

"You know a lot about our history, Don. How Amy and I met, what kind of shape we were both in. Back then a drink like the one you have in front of you now wouldn't have lasted me more than a few minutes, and Amy probably would have had it down faster.

Looking at it now I can still remember what it tastes like, how it feels as it pours down my throat, the way it burns all the way down. It's all very clear to me.

It's a part of my past, and a part of Amy's past too, except that in Amy's case you can add the horrors of a deep drug dependency.

You know the story already, about how we cleaned ourselves up. At the time I met Amy I didn't think there was anyone in worse shape than I was, and I didn't really care. Drink truly made the pain go away and that my life at the time was total shit didn't matter in the slightest.

Yet when Amy stepped into my life I saw someone in a lot worse shape than I was. She was so frail, a skeleton practically. Tracks up and down her arms and even on her legs. She could barely walk and only did so to find another fix. But when I saw her I knew I had to help her. I still didn't give a damn about myself but something inside me wouldn't let me leave her alone...to die, for that was where she was heading.

So I took her in, cleaned her up as much as I could, and tried to help her kick her various habits. At first she really didn't want the help, she ate my food and shared my home, but when ever the subject of her problems came up she would scream and yell and leave me, sometimes for days at a time. When I found her she would be filthy and doped up and I would take her home to start again.

It was after one of those times when I figured out that if I was to help her, I first needed to help myself, or I would never be able to keep up with her.

How could I give her control when I had none of my own?

So I quit the booze, cold turkey. Went through a terrible case of the shakes and never really lost the craving, but I was sober, more in control than I had been for years, and finally able to take charge of my life.

So I did.

The next time I brought Amy home I locked her in our bedroom and kept her there while she was supposed to go through her own withdrawal. But it never happened. Somewhere in there she had a stash. So I pulled everything out of the room, every item that wasn't nailed down including the bed itself and locked her in naked.

Man did she scream.

As the screaming and crying got louder I knew then that she was going through withdrawal. I kept her fed and watered, bathed her during her quiet moments, and held her whenever I could.

At times she would grow violent though, and would try to hurt me or herself, or even try to escape. One time she got past me to the front door and would have run out buck naked probably in search of that next fix. But I persevered and learned how to tie her down during those violent moments.

Eventually the shakes stopped, and from the wreck that was Amy began to shine something special. That was when I began to love her.

Still, the work wasn't over yet.

As she began to get better I let her reclaim her human privileges. She could dress, she wasn't tied down anymore, and the furniture that had crouded my small living room went back into the bedroom where they belonged. But the animal inside Amy was still there, still wrestling to come out.

Only this time Amy was fighting it to.

Whenever she slipped and the animal began to win, I pushed my will on her, imposing discipline. Physical punishment became the only real way to keep her focused on her recovery as reason and love often didn't work.

When I first brought home the cane I saw fear in the animal's eyes for the first time, and when I had to use it afterward I saw that I may have truly cowed the animal.

Amy became a lot more active in her own recovery, and in my own, for her setbacks were my setbacks and it became awfully tempting to have just one drink when things were bad. But I knew that if I did I would loose the fine control over Amy that I had and with it most probably her life.

So, slowly we got clean, got our act together, began to make headway in our lives.

Shortly after she had first come clean we had begun sleeping together, but I always felt that she was just going through the motions to please me. But after a while, as she got fitter, she began to find the pleasure in the act herself.

She liked it best when I took charge and I liked it better that way as well. After a couple of years those games grew to form the beginning of the d/s relationship we have now, though at the time neither of us realized it had a name.

I guess we were both innocents about stuff like that although once we got on the net we learned quickly.

The discipline was kept up though, and Amy began to live by the rules of the cane. She didn't mind, it kept her focused, it kept her on the right path and above all it kept her clean.

My being dry helped us greatly. I got a job at a Gems market and learned the ways and means of trading in that valuable field. I got lucky a few times and built a considerable stake of my own and left with Amy by my side to start my own business. Now I trade Gold and other metals in million dollar deals and we're set for life.

Keeping Amy under discipline helped me maintain a discipline of my own. For us it was a necessary evil, but one we both embraced and still believe to be the only real way we can survive.

But now I ask you, Don. You and Laura have never had the same problems, yet you seek the same level of discipline Amy and I have been developing for years.

Why?"

All through this long speech that was so unlike the Ben I knew, I sat quietly and watched my drink. His question wasn't really surprising, but I didn't have a ready answer for him, and that's what I told him.

"Well," he said after a pause, "until you do know, you'll never find it easy...no that's the wrong word...you'll never find it acceptable to punish Laura the way I punish Amy. You'll suffer through it like you are now each and every time you use that cane on her and in the end you'll stop rather than hurt her anymore."

"It wasn't this bad last time." I said.

"Last time you didn't punish her, you just tickled her. Why the hell did you think she'd want to make love to you right after? That woman is a bigger masochist than Amy ever was!

Believe me, Pal, there's no way she's thinking about sex right now!"

A uniformed maid came onto the terrace, she walked up to Ben and respectfully handed him a note. He read it and dismissed the woman.

"The boat's ready." he said with a small smile.

My smile was bigger, it was the first good news I had heard that day!

End of Part 23