Judgment 2: Mercy Read online

  Master Boyden quietly and patiently combed her hair until it was free of tangles and very nearly dry. “Gives me something to hang onto,” he said as he wove the long blonde tresses into a single, fat braid that dangled midway down her back.

  The ache in her sore legs was almost forgotten when he took that hairbrush and gently stroked her bare back with the bristled side. He rasped it softly across her shoulders, caressing down over her breasts and winning another sharp gasp from her lips as the brush pricked across the rapidly stiffening peaks of her nipples.

  She hunched her shoulders, but that was as much as she dared to draw away.

  “New-Comers,” he said, trailing the bristles down over the flat of her belly, “are generally given gentle spankings. Canes, birches and prolonged thrashings are deemed much too severe for young women unaccustomed to having their bare bottoms smacked. But you’re not really a New-Comer to this, now are you?”

  The hairbrush pricked down over her thighs, rasping in soft strokes from her hips to her knees, Mary shivered, something that had—this time—absolutely nothing to do with the cold.

  “Are you?” he murmured against her sensitive ear.

  Mary shook her head once. “No, Master.”

  “Master is a title given to Tane alone, and then to whomever takes you as his own,” Boyden told her. “You will address me as sir.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good girl.” He kissed the shell of her ear, drawing it into his mouth and suckling it even as the prickly brush moved down between her legs and pressed against her newly shaven mons. The wooden head of it was so wide that she could feel the edges pressing against her thighs and the size of it was large enough to cover her trembling sex.

  “Six months,” he said, as he kissed the sensitive hollow of her ear. “Three weeks and five days; far too long for any female to be so neglected and misused. We’ll have to fix that.”

  He wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her back against him, lifting her up off her knees and bringing her back to sit on his. He lightly slapped the acutely tender flesh of her pussy with the prickling bristles, and she felt that smack throughout her entire body. Her hips bucked, brushing upon the large and very solid bulge of his manhood, uncomfortably contained within his pants and pressing up between her naked buttocks.

  “I’m going to give you one stroke for every day you were ignored.” He turned the brush over and slapped her pussy again, this time with the flat, wooden head. Mary stiffened, blindly throwing back her head against his shoulder. She mewed a soft sound of protest as he said, “We’ll round up. Two hundred and fifty is a good number, don’t you think? But not with this.” Wood clattered on tile as he set the implement down. “Hairbrushes are for beloved Personals and tender little New-Comers. Experienced, naturally submissive women like you, mm,” Boyden chuckled, a dark aphrodisiac of sound, in her ear. “You can take a proper thrashing.”

  Mary trembled as he began to lift her. Unable to see, she didn’t fight as he brought her up onto her feet and turned her around. His hands left her briefly, returning seconds later as he gave her a thick strap to hold.

  “You’ve never been whipped until you’ve suffered the kiss of Judgment leather,” Master Boyden said.

  The strap was heavy, at least four inches wide, and her hands could not close all the way around it. She barely breathed as her fingers explored the length of it from the end of the triangular tongue to the wooden handle with its wrapped, slip-resistant grip.

  It had been so long and the count was so high. . .

  When Master Boyden again touched her, his hands settling about her waist as he tried to move her, a shock of belated reluctance had Mary digging in her feet. “W-wait, please. . .”

  “Come now,” he tsked. “None of that. You don’t really want to fight me, and it won’t help you anyway. Bend.”

  Breathing hard, very near to tears, Mary blurted, “But I can’t see!”

  “I don’t require you to.”

  “Please, sir, may the blindfold come off? I could bear it if I could see it coming!”

  “Then you had best learn how to bear it blind, since I intend to light a fire in you that will take days to extinguish. I promise, you’ll feel every stroke far more intensely this way.”

  She shook. “Please, sir—”

  “No.” He placed his hand between her shoulders, applying gentle pressure until she bent down.

  Hugging the strap to her chest, she found herself laid over the foot rail of her bed, the thickness of a pillow propping her hips up and softening the pressure of the metal against her pelvis. He wrapped a length of strap through the foot rail’s bars, then looped it around her waist, buckling it at the small of her back and pulling the strap firmly taut. The thick edges of the punishment strap bit into Mary’s fingers and palms as she clutched it, bowing her head to bury her face in the neatly made mattress. There would be no escaping now until he let her go, and she felt a little relieved to have the option of that disobedience taken from her.

  His hand patted the soft inner slope of thighs. “Legs apart.”

  He dropped to one knee behind her, taking hold of her left ankle and bringing it out to the corresponding leg of the bed where he secured it with a leather restraint. He did the same to her right, then adjusted the strap at her waist and tightened it down until Mary could not move her lower body at all.

  Boyden patted her hip, his hand never leaving her skin as he walked around the side of the bed. From her back to her shoulders, his hand then caressed down her arm to take hold of her wrists. She groaned her trepidation into the bedding as he stretched her out, securing her hands together to the head rail via a second set of restraints.

  He caressed her body back down to her thighs, feeling the tension in her limbs and tightening the straps wherever needed. Until Mary could feel the strain in her arms, shoulders and the backs of her thighs. Until she could not move so much as an inch to relieve it.

  She had paid for this. She had come halfway around the world for it.

  Master Boyden had to pry the strap from her tightly clenched fingers.

  “Don’t worry.” He bent to press a kiss to her hip, just above the target he then caressed with his warm palm, stroking the entire surface of her bottom, down the backs of her thighs, up between to cup her intimately. “Every fifty strokes, we’ll pause to give this a bit of attention. After all, we don’t want your bottom to become desensitized to the strap. Where would be the fun in that?”

  He kissed her again, giving her quivering sex a final pat before stepping back from the bed.

  Every mean thought Mary had ever entertained about China and how quickly she had capitulated her screams to Richard’s enjoyment, she took back with that first crack of leather upon the skin of her bare buttocks. It wrapped her in its loving embrace, branding her with a fiery pain that consumed the entire lower portion of her bottom without mercy. The sound of it was sharp and crisp, like a gun shot that echoed impossibly loud in the near-empty barracks room.

  She had forgotten how much it could hurt to be so needed. All those nights, when she’d lain awake wishing it was her bottom that burned and ached, she had forgotten all about the many levels of hell that had to be suffered first before she could be consumed by torment’s almost pleasurable afterglow. Boyden’s strap provided her with a very thorough reminder, and Mary didn’t even try to bear it bravely.

  The first two strokes covered her bottom entirely, the broad width causing them to overlap, with the pointed leather tongue licking around her hip to sink its bite into her tender side. The loud snaps would have left her hopping were she not secured so completely over the foot rail. Every subsequent stroke after that only heightened the fire, deepened the agony, and stole her voice with ragged screams that felt torn from her throat. Though she tried to keep count, the pain had her overwhelmed by the time the tenth stroke seared across the base of the buttocks. How was she ever going to survive two-hundred-and-fifty? Mary began to cry, and the blanket
s beneath her became soaked with her tears and her sweat.

  “You may scream and cry all you want,” Boyden told her as he swung that wicked strap low enough to partially catch the tops of her splayed thighs. “It’s not going to spare you a lick.” He paused to caress her scalded nether cheeks. “My, you are marking up nicely. Twenty more to go with this first set.”

  There was another vicious crack of leather, this time catching her thighs fully, and Mary howled as the agony of it chewed into her.

  “That’s it,” Master Boyden cheered. “Wail like that some more. You’ve got me hard as a rock just listening to you.”

  It felt so much more than fifty before he dropped the strap onto the bed beside her and unfastened the front of his pants. He wasn’t any less punishing as he shoved himself inside her, grinding his hips into her wealed and wounded flesh, winding his hand in her braid and pulling back her head so he could more clearly hear her cries.

  “Cry for me,” he grunted, battering her womb with the force of his thrusts. “Scream and wail. You are as wet as a fountain. Your body remembers the hurt. It likes it.”

  And he must have been right, because Mary’s orgasm was so powerful that it left her weeping, and he had only just begun to pump in and out when it overwhelmed her. The leather restraints groaned as she strained against them, her entire body devoured by a pleasure that seemed to come from out of nowhere.

  “God damn, you are tight!” Boyden growled. He swatted her hips twice as he rode her, and made her come again before he was through, pushing hard and deep before withdrawing from her body to spill his seed on her battered flanks.

  He took his time rubbing the milky fluid into her burning skin before picking up the strap again. When he touched the length of it to Mary’s trembling lips, she kissed it.

  Then he took her back to Hell all over again.

  Chapter Three

  The air was brisk, but not unbearably cold as Mary took her third lap around the exercise tracks. Though snow blanketed the rocks of the mountain walls that surrounded the field, the track itself had been shoveled bare and salted to reduce the danger of slipping, turned ankles, or broken legs.

  She was naked but for her running shoes and a light jacket to protect her from the chilling bite of the intermittent wind. Despite the cold, she loved this part of the day. She loved to run. The exercise was almost relaxing and it was one of the rare few times when she actually got to be alone. The wide scattering of footprints beyond the track, however, betrayed the illusion. The other mountain inhabitants, the Product, had been brought up to the bowl at the top of Judgment for their daily exercise much earlier that morning. In the five weeks since her arrival, Mary had yet to see one of them in person. Sometimes she could hear the muted echoes of their voices ricocheting off the dark stones of the cavern-like halls, their cries of pain accompanying the whucks of distant rods. But face-to-face, Mary saw only the guards and masters, and Master Boyden in particular.

  From the door across the field, a sharp whistle split the quiet. Mary glanced over her shoulder to see Boyden at the shower’s entrance waving her in. Her time was up.

  She turned immediately, jogging to the edge of the track before slowing to a walk. She knew better than to run in the snow. Not long ago, a turned ankle had laid her up for almost a week, and four blistering welts from Boyden’s cane had taught her the benefits of caution where her physical well-being was concerned. She might not be Product, but her body still belonged to Tane until he decided otherwise. Damaging a master’s property was a major offense, and not one that was easily forgiven.

  Mary walked but quickly back to the shower’s entrance, only once daring a quick glance to the right when she heard whispers from the privately fenced garden and aviary nook a good distance away. If there was one thing to be said of Judgment, the stone walls carried sound exceedingly well.

  Figures in hooded, fur-lined parkas ducked behind snow-covered bushes too late to avoid being seen. The Personals, the favorites of the masters, cloistered in their private rooms, a harem of willing submissives whose only purpose for existence was to please.

  Mary paused at the shower’s threshold, her breath steaming the air. Sometimes she envied them.

  Holding the door for her, Master Boyden said as she drew closer, “Come on, Blonde. It’s cold out here.”

  Ducking her head, not wanting to be caught staring where she shouldn’t, she hurried on inside.

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice what direction your eyes were wandering,” Boyden said as he let the door close behind her. “You know better.”

  “I’m sorry, M-master Boyden.” While outside, after the first half lap, Mary had stopped feeling the cold. But now, as the warmth of the shower room enfolded her, she found herself struggling to get her suddenly uncooperative fingers coordinated enough to unzip the windbreaker and hang it back on the peg. She stomped her feet up and down. Her toes she could feel just fine, but there was an unnerving lack of sensation between her hips and her ankles.

  “You know better than that, too,” he growled. He slapped the switch he always seemed to carry these days against his leg. “You’re not sorry until I make you so. Get in the shower and this time I want to see steam!”

  This was the worst part about coming in from the cold. The track’s shower was set three steps down in a square bowl large enough to entertain an entire barracks of Product, or Lessers as they were called by the masters. The shower heads grew up from the tile floor like a forest of stark pipes, each having only a small basket for soap, shampoo and conditioner.

  Her partially numb hands fumbled with the faucets to turn on the water. She knew by experience now how far to turn the knobs of hot and cold, and though she knew the temperature wasn’t anywhere near as scalding as it felt, she still had to brace herself to step in under the hard spray. As the water hit the icy skin of her chest, Mary shrieked as though she were being boiled by it and grabbed onto the pipe to keep from twisting away.

  “I don’t see steam!” Boyden shouted over her cries. Standing in the sunken shower’s open doorway, he slapped the switch against his leg again.

  Clenching her teeth, Mary turned up the flow of the hot water until she saw wisps of vapor beginning to rise from the shower head. By now, her chest was warming and the water didn’t hurt near as much as it first had. But her back and buttocks still felt very cold, and the occasion rivulet of hot water that spilled back over her shoulders, felt like searing knife points slicing down her skin.

  “Turn around,” Boyden drawled. “I want to see pink skin when you come out of there.”

  Knowing how much this would hurt, Mary clenched her teeth. She took a deep breath and made herself turn. Her cry of pain was more a guttural growl as the heat of the water washed mercilessly over her. Though she knew it only lasted a moment, the sensation of being scalded went on forever before her body heated enough to register the heat as the comfortable temperature that it was.

  Panting, Mary closed her eyes. She tipped her head back under the spray and ran her fingers through her hair in relief.

  Boyden checked his watch. “Two more minutes, Blonde. Move it now. Let’s go.”

  She washed herself quickly, careful not to miss any part, especially while pinned so under Boyden’s hawk-sharp eyes.

  “Ten. . .” he called out. “Nine. . .eight. . .”

  Mary shut off the water.

  “Seven. . .”

  She grabbed her long hair and squeezed a hand down the length before wringing the excess water from the wet tresses.

  “Six. . .five. . .”

  She grabbed a towel and hastily scrubbed at her skin, wrapping it tight around her as she hurried to the door.

  “Four. . .three. . .two. . .”

  Her feet slipped on the wet tiles and she cracked her toes against the steps as she scampered up them.

  “One!” Boyden announced and, as she flew past him, the switch hissed through the air and snapped a line of fire across the tops of her thighs ju
st below the hem of the towel.

  “AH!” Mary grabbed the back of her leg with one hand, but dared not stop to rub either her throbbing legs or her aching toes.

  The normal procedure was for her to stand at attention at the shower’s exit, ready for him to led her back to the barracks, but when she ducked past him to do this, he froze her in her tracks with a sharply called out, “Hold it! You know better.”

  Clutching her towel closed in front with one hand and the back of one leg with the other, feeling the welt rising into being between her fingers, Mary came to a reluctant stop. She should have been at the door before he counted to one. Perhaps had that been her only mistake, he might have let it slide. But when she turned around, the look on his face said clearly that Boyden was in a mood to forgive her of anything.

  “Assume the position,” he said, using the switch to indicate the Lessers’ changing bench against one wall.

  Bare feet padding softly over the tile, Mary approached the bench reluctantly. She let the towel fall to the floor as she bent at the waist, took hold of the unadorned wooden plank, and pushed back her hips to offer herself to him. As hard as it was, she made herself relax.

  “Repent your sins,” Boyden said as he came up behind her.

  Lately, that had become his favorite thing to say, especially when he was preparing to be severe. After five weeks alone under his tutelage, she had grown very good at judging his moods.

  Staring straight down at the floor, Mary swallowed hard. “This one looked upon the Personals, sir.”

  “Is that ever permitted for one such as you?”

  Her thighs tightened as she felt the light touch of the switch settle across the center of her bottom, but she forced herself not to clench. Experience had long since taught her that clenching would not only earn more licks from Boyden, but it would make each cut of the switch hurt more. On a bottom as tender as hers constantly seemed to be these days, the last thing she wanted was for a whipping to hurt more.