Tria Read online

  “You’re on my land now. Whenever you’re on my land, you’ll always be naked.”

  They rode on again, and now she had even less protection against the hard saddle beneath her butt. Luckily, it wasn’t very long before he reined the horse in again and slid down, then set her down in front of him, facing a huge log cabin mansion. She’d never seen a house so big. He busied himself taking care of the horse, removing all its tack and turning it loose in the corral with a generous portion of hay and oats.

  Then he began to walk, and it took Abril just a bit to realize that she should be following him. His strides were so huge that she had to run to catch up, noting with a terrible disconcertion that her breasts bobbed up and down with each step in the most shameless manner, almost as badly as they had on that abominable horse.

  It was the biggest house she’d ever seen, but she didn’t have a chance to drink it all in because she was spending all her time trying to keep up with him. She stepped into the kitchen just after him, almost missing the small, older woman at the wood stove in favor of the table across the room that was set with more food than she’d ever seen in her life – even when the Principal had sat down to gorge himself each night he didn’t have the amount of food that was laid out here.

  Her mouth began to water, but she knew it shouldn’t. Her new owner wasn’t likely to spend much time feeding her, and she certainly wasn’t likely to get a taste of that bounty. There were things on that table that looked absolutely delicious – she recognized fresh, whole strawberries that were almost the size of her fist, a big roast sliced thing with gravy, and that was enough to drive her nearly crazy with hunger.

  Another man appeared, though, and, having forgotten herself over the food, she accidentally looked him in the eye, then immediately brought her eyes to the ground, hoping she wasn’t in for yet another spanking for her slip as she reflexively covered her privates and breasts. She’d expected other women, perhaps, but not another man.

  The older woman came up beside her and practically herded her towards the table as if she was a lost sheep. “Sit down, girl. Have something to eat.”

  Everyone in the room was aware of the completely stunned look on her face. Abril was thinking there were two things wrong with what the woman had said – she could never eat before the males of the household, and she could never sit in a male’s presence, unless invited to do so by the male.

  So, since she didn’t know if the woman was trying to trick her, and she didn’t want to get into any more trouble, Abril stood exactly where she was, quiet as a mouse, hoping no one would notice her, somehow.

  Her new owner addressed her from where he stood like a Sequoia across the room, his voice reverberating off the walls. “Abril, this is Lima. She is to be obeyed as you would - ” he corrected himself grimly, “as you will learn to do me. However, right now we have another matter to attend to.” He turned away, and she scurried behind him down a long hall, not even bothering to peer into the rooms on either side.

  Thomas could hear her behind him, and he was somewhat surprised. She was so small and barely weighed a thing, it was amazing that she made any sound at all when she walked. He led the way into his huge bedroom. It had been an extravagance, especially in today’s currency, but he was a big man, and he hated feeling cramped. The world was smaller now.

  He snorted to himself. The world wasn’t much of a world any more, since the Great Plague that wiped out most of the population of the world, beginning in the States and then being carried very rapidly to the four corners of the world courtesy of Americans’ taste for travel.

  Thomas could remember those days – he’d been in the military, of course. He’d never really not been in the military in his entire life. He’d seen and done some things – even before the panic and the looting and the shooting began as people realized that they were next to bloat up and die with blood oozing from every orifice.

  There were few survivors – and even fewer of those were women – that men had very quickly reverted to type and taken the remaining women completely under their control. Thomas couldn’t say that he disagreed with the idea. The population had dwindled to such a point that the survivors needed to recolonize, badly, and they couldn’t be much concerned about the Equal Rights Amendment or the human race would likely die out. History repeated itself, in the harshest manner possible, for the remaining females, who became little more than chattel and were valued for only two attributes – their purity and their ability to breed.

  Communities with different traditions and customs sprung up all around what had been the U.S., but the common thread was the way women had almost immediately reverted to the status of property, chattel. Valuable, yes, but property nonetheless.

  That was what had drawn him to the Circus in the first place, especially since it had been heavily advertised that Principal Hoffman was to present a girl. He was one of the best breeders in the world – his girls were biddable, well-trained, and completely pure.

  They had also had the most successful pregnancies of almost any breeder in existence, and Thomas wanted a son.

  He didn’t hold with a lot of traditions – old or new. Thomas did what he wanted, plague or not. It had surprised a lot of people who knew him when he went into the military, and amazed them even more when he not only survived it, he thrived in it, becoming a retread officer after about eight years of being Uncle Sam’s eyes, ears, and trigger finger all over the world. Even as an officer, he was still sent out into the field – they couldn’t afford to lose him or his abilities, which had served him extremely well once all hell had broken loose.

  He’d become something of a warlord hereabouts, had created the compound they were now in, and made a tidy sum by hiring himself out. Some parts of the world had fared much better than others after the sickness died down – those that weren’t as developed as before hadn’t had that much to lose, and they were now willing to pay top dollar for a man of Thomas’s talents. Ironically, it was the U.S. that had paid the worst price in the loss people, technology, and infrastructure.

  When the virulent strain finally died out, there were small enclaves dotting the landscape, but not much more than that. Most of the Northern cities were abandoned in favor of not having to deal with all that snow. He knew that they were on the northern boarder of Kentucky and Indiana – not that that mattered any more, really, except that he had specifically chosen a place that was less likely to be of interest to everyone else.

  He wanted – and needed – his space, and generally he got it, except from the occasional idiot who took it into his head that he wanted to challenge Thomas, either for his abundant acquisitions or to sully his reputation somehow.

  So far, Thomas had always come out on top.

  He turned on the light provided by one of the many generators he’d acquired, then crossed the room and opened a door, holding it open for her to precede him into the smallish room. The door at the other end was locked, he’d made sure of that before he’d left, figuring that they would end up here relatively soon after they’d come home. He knew she was well schooled in the art of submission, but he also knew that she wouldn’t know his ways and would inevitably do something that would earn her a disciplinary session – and a date with this room.

  He certainly hadn’t expected her to shy away from him onstage, but he was eternally grateful for it. Her misbehavior had given him the chance to pull her close to him, and tuck her under his arm for the punishment. It was when he’d felt her sore red nipple poking into his palm that his desire for her had solidified.

  And now, here she was, in a room he’d designed for exactly this purpose as he’d built this house from the ground up with lumber from the forest that surrounded it. She was his to do with as he pleased.

  And he pleased to hear her cry.

  Abril followed him through a large bedroom that should have given her insight into where she’d end up: it was floor to ceiling mirrors, everywhere she looked, even on the ceiling. The only thing that ob
structed her view of herself as she trailed after him was the occasional piece of heavy oak furniture. But he led the way into a smaller room, kind of like a small bedroom, that had doors at either end – and the farthest door had a mirror on it, so that she could watch herself in it as she approached. But it wasn’t the doors that she paid attention to, really. It was the row upon row of implements that were hanging from the walls – each one looking more evil than the last. There were paddles of every size, shape, and make, crops and canes and belts and rulers and yardsticks. There was a bright red bag with a white hose, and shelves that lined the walls with strange looking things that were small at one end, but thicker at the other, then pinched off at the end into a flange of some sort, and they were all different colors – beautiful colors she’d never seen before. There were straps and harness type things like the ones she’d seen on horses, as well as the occasional brightly colored scarf or two.

  It looked like Downstairs. But even when one was strapped over a horse or a table down there, one couldn’t see all of the possible things that might be used on one, nor could one see one’s reaction as they were being used, which was rapidly becoming the worst of all.

  Mirrors weren’t allowed in the Principal’s house. He had a small one with which he shaved, but he kept it under lock and key. He didn’t like his females to become vain. Besides, what she looked like didn’t have any bearing on what she would become.

  But nothing had prepared her for what she was seeing, especially since the man behind her was wasting absolutely no time in arranging her to his liking, pulling a padded horse type of thing out of the wall and arranging it sideways, where she noted to her disgust that there were also mirrors that showed her more than she’d ever wanted to see of herself, and what he was going to do to her.

  She could see everything – there were even mirrors built into the bottom of the horse, so that she couldn’t hide from herself and her reactions even when she hung her head down - and somehow that made it all just that much worse. Even if he just gave her a few taps, which was highly unlikely, seeing his strokes and watching the paddle – or whatever implement he chose – come crashing down onto her own bottom would be a horrendous torture, almost worse than the spanking itself.

  She could already see her own frightened expression, and it was feeding on itself – the more she looked at it, and thus saw the reflection of both herself and what he was doing behind her – the more scare she became.

  He’d selected a longish ruler from the wall and was thwacking it loudly against his palm, as if testing its mettle. Abril tugged at her bonds and found them more than adequate to keep her right where he wanted her. He didn’t give her much time to come to grips with her position, though, after standing next to her for just a few seconds, gazing at the tableau in the mirrors, he brought that awful thing across the very tip top of her bottom, almost where the small of her back began, drawing his arm all the way back and laying into her hard.

  There was nothing around to soundproof the room, so the ruler connecting with her backside sounded like a gunshot. Even though she was in the middle of an indrawn breath, she could see for herself the livid weal his efforts had produced, and somehow that only made it a million times worse.

  And she knew she was in for a lifetime of punishments just like this. This was what he had chosen to do to punish her for her small hesitancy about getting onto the horse. What would he do if she ever actively disobeyed him – by omission or commission? Abril shuddered to think, and then shuddered again when she saw him drawing that massive arm of his back again.

  Nothing she could do could truly brace her for the blows, though. Nothing could prepare her for what she was seeing, or what was being done to her. She’d been punished before – and well, she’d thought. But that was nothing to what she was experiencing now. Perhaps it had to do with a certain level of comfort achieved through familiarity, Abril didn’t know. She didn’t care. She just wanted to make it through however long he decided to create a basket weave pattern in red and white – mostly red - on her rounded bottom.

  Even though she couldn’t move a muscle, he’d put his big hand on the small of her back, and somehow that made her feel even that much more vulnerable, when it was the other hand, the one that held the stick, that she should have been worried about. But he was touching her – yet again – in a place where no one ever had before. Punishment sessions with her Principal were fairly ritualized and almost sterile. The majority of the contact was between her forcibly vulnerable self and the implement. He’d sometimes stood a good distance away from her, depending on the length of the implement.

  But not here. She could feel two sets of heat on her backside – one from the contents of his right hand, and the other from the warmth of his left, his thumb resting in the depression just where her cheeks began and split.

  Abril pulled and tugged and squirmed, but got nowhere. She was trying to hold back her grunts and groans and the downright screams she wanted to emit, knowing there were others in the house and not wanting to disgrace him – or herself.

  As he delivered blow after blow without so much as breaking a sweat and she hadn’t made much more than a peep, a thought struck Thomas and he threw out almost casually without missing a beat, “You can scream as loud as you like, darlin’. Lima and Rook won’t hear you. This room is sound proof.”

  Almost as soon as he said it, she became absolutely unable to stifle the groans and squeals, especially as he began to add a second layer of swats over the first, and began to speak to her as he punished. “You’ll learn. If I have to do this – and a lot worse – twice a day for the rest of your life, you’ll learn. When I tell you to do something, you do it. You are not in this world to think. That’s what I’m here for. You’re here to obey me – quickly and completely.”

  When her entire bottom had been roasted to a shade of neon red, he stopped, but he didn’t look like he was done. He crouched down behind her and pulled apart those sore cheeks like he meant business, and he did. “Have you ever been touched here?”

  Unused to being interrogated after a punishment, and barely beginning to recover from this most recent one, Abril answered hesitantly, “On my bottom?”

  “In your bottom.”

  Her eyes flared just at the absurdity of the question. Why would he be asking her a question like that? Wouldn’t the answer be obvious? “Uh, no?”

  Thomas didn’t like the way she answered. “Aren’t you sure? And you are to address me at all times as ‘Sir’.”

  “Yes, Sir,” she said quickly. “And I’m sure, Sir.” She wanted to say more, but didn’t want to be accused of thinking too much.

  “Well, you’re about to be.”

  Chapter Four

  Thomas looked at his new woman, spread out before him. He wasn’t going to pamper her – not in this way, anyway. From the looks of her, and his knowledge of Hoffman’s tightwad ways, she hadn’t gotten a lot to eat – just enough to keep her from looking emaciated. He liked a little meat on his bones, and even if he didn’t, he earned enough in food barter that they didn’t need to worry about shortages any time soon. He’d have to fatten her up a little.

  But that would happen gradually. Right now, she was standing in front of him with a newly reddened bottom, and a beautiful little flower that wanted its first plucking. He intended to give her something that would remind her that he expected instantaneous obedience, and this would do it with every move she made. As he was thinking, he was moving and adjusting her over the horse, tugging her forwards some after he’d raised her legs so that she was squatting some, and thrusting her bottom out most enticingly, as if she was asking for what she was about to receive.

  He looked at his huge selection of plugs and took his time in the selection. When the plague had first hit, the losses of population had been so quick and rife that it hadn’t taken long for rag tag survivors – some of whom would also go on to die of the disease; it just took a little longer to get to them – to begin looting for
what they needed, or just wanted. Some people hit electronic stores and grocery stores. He’d done some of that. But the first place he’d looted was an adult store, and he’d hit every other one he could find after that. As a result, he had a massive collection of toys and implements – a literally unending one. And what he couldn’t find, he could make, if need be, although he’d never found a lack.

  Thomas had had women here before. None that he’d spent as much time or attention on as he’d spent on this one, but women he’d bought. They weren’t a dime a dozen, though, and they were far from virgins. He’d paid their owners for the use of them in blocks of a couple of weeks or months at a time, then had turned them back to their rightful owners, usually better fed, quieter, and he dared say happier than when they’d arrived – if a bit abraded in various intimate areas.

  This one – this one was special. She would be here permanently, and he could take his time with her. There was no need to rush into anything – not that he was going to be able to keep his genitals in line for very long, but he didn’t have a “return by” date on an invoice staring him in the face. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  He chose the plug carefully. He had no doubt – from her previous owner’s reputation as well as his own inspection of the area – that she was completely virginal in every sense of the word. He didn’t want to damage her in any way. What he would do to her might result in bruises and welts and angry red wheals, but it would never cause broken bones or do any sort of permanent harm.

  So what he decided on was one of the smallest he owned, a pretty blue in color that would match her eyes – he chuckled at the idea of her eyes and her bottom matching. It was barely as thick as his pinky finger at the larger end, and had a small flange that almost resembled a flower. His mind reeled at the idea of having that winking at him from between her tight red cheeks all day . . .