Chapter Eighteen A Command Fulfilled

Chapter Eighteen

A Command Fulfilled

T he party-turned-family-gathering continued into the night, and through to the following morning. Elizabeth felt newly free: free to be herself, with all her unusual gifts, and free of any worry that August had only married her to be that heroic, chivalrous knight of her Arthurian book. He loved her, not Felicity, and showed it in a thousand ways.

And all their friends and family could see it, which made her feel warm and contented deep inside.

When the guests finally left, and the house cleared, Elizabeth drowsed in bed for hours, occasionally accompanied by her husband, who cuddled her as she slept. They took dinner early, since they’d neglected luncheon altogether, and because August promised some “fun evening plans.”

She was never certain what he meant when he used the word “fun.” It was generally enjoyable but sometimes surprising. Or shocking.

She was willing to play along. After dinner, the summer sun still shone through the first floor windows, but August took her down two flights of stairs to a part of the home she hadn’t known existed until now. The windowless cellar contained a warren of narrow and close-feeling hallways, with irregularly spaced rooms.

She was glad for the lamp he carried; these corridors would be frightening in darkness. “What’s behind these doors?” she asked.

“Ghosts and skeletons,” he answered drily. “But mostly storage and supplies.”

“Why are we down here? Where are we going?”

“Are you hemming and hawing at me?” he asked. “Will you become argumentative ?”

They were the king’s words, and made her laugh in this context, before she felt a few tendrils of dread.

“Truly, August, where are we going?”

“You’ll shortly see.”

He stopped before a door at the end of the hallway and took a key from his pocket, dramatically turning the heavy steel lock by the lamp’s light. The door opened outward on squeaking hinges. August led her inside, closing the door behind him before he raised the lamp to illuminate the space.

It was a low-ceilinged chamber, larger in area than she would have expected. While August lit four ancient-looking sconces on the wall, Elizabeth took in the room’s unusual furniture. Why, there was a sturdy pole with ropes. A waist-high platform with attached leather restraints. Some chains hanging at fixed intervals from the stone ceiling.

“Welcome, my argumentative lady, to the king’s dungeon,” he said. “Well, it’s not precisely the king’s dungeon. It must have belonged to my father or grandfather, or some past resident.”

“Oh my goodness.” The words came out in a whisper. “It’s a dungeon in truth.”

“I discovered it a few years ago,” he said. “And found one very like it at St. Pierre, though I chose not to show you just yet. We were newly married, and I thought you might find it alarming.”

She gasped. “I do find it alarming. My word, August. Were people tortured here?”

But she could sense they were not. A room like this, a vault really, would have held such traumatic echoes for centuries, but she perceived no evil.

“I did promise the king I would punish you, darling,” he said, as she stood gaping in the center of the chamber. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“You didn’t mean it. You were only trying to keep him from spanking me.”

“Yes, because I’m a jealous husband and would rather do it myself.” He shrugged in the face of her outrage. “I did swear. I’m a man of honor.”

“You’re a man of perversity,” she countered.

“You’re probably right. I came down earlier as you slept, with the exalted royal ginger.” He gestured to a pedestal in the corner, where the far-too-healthy piece of ginger from the royal greenhouse rested on a tray beside one of August’s whittling knives. She noticed too some of the punishment implements hung upon the far wall. Whips, paddles, straps, canes, more rope, and sinister looking cuffs.

The array of items looked suspiciously new for such an old and dusty environment. Almost as if he’d outfitted it recently himself.

“I can’t believe you really mean to punish me on the king’s behalf,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He’ll never know if you don’t.”

“He is my sovereign, and yours. If the king should ask me in the future if I kept my word and punished my spirited filly, I would not want to lie.”

“And he probably will ask, that tiresome man.”

“Such disrespect shown to His Majesty, on top of all your hemming and hawing!” He shook his head. “You shall have to be punished severely for these crimes.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together, feeling the familiar rush of alarm and excitement that accompanied these sessions with her husband, where his gentle civility was replaced, temporarily, with voracious hungers and carnal needs.

“Remove your clothing,” he commanded in that voice. “All of it.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered, meeting his stern tone with exaggerated deference. These sessions were more enjoyable when they properly played their parts. But oh, the ginger… Her part was harder to play.

When she was naked, stripped of gown and petticoats and pantalettes, and he nearly naked, in only low-slung trousers, he laid her clothes out of reach and took her arm.

“Come stand here, my naughty subject. Face the wall.”

She watched, wordless, breathless, as he fixed some leather cuffs to two formidable chains hanging down on either side of her. Then he caught her wrists and buckled them in. She was trapped like a butterfly with her wings spread, and only the stone wall before her to stare at. She could not turn, could not escape.

With her thus secured, her husband began preparing the ginger, using his carving skills to craft the largest, thickest fig he’d yet subjected her to. She watched as he added small gouges to its flesh for maximum stinging potential. Infernal royal ginger. It was indeed heartier than any the Augustine kitchen produced.

“It’s this and a sound strapping for you,” he said, bringing the ginger to hold before her eyes. “Perhaps a few strokes of the cane.”

“Have I been so spirited,” she pleaded, “to deserve this?”

“You have hemmed and hawed to extremity, my spirited filly.”

She swallowed a wild laugh. It turned to a moan as he pressed the fresh, slippery ginger at the entrance to her clenching bottom.

“Let it in,” he said. “It’s going in one way or another.”

“It burns!”

“As it’s meant to.”

She tried to relax enough to let it slide in and was rewarded with immediate discomfort and an uncomfortably full feeling in her bottom. Of course, the ginger’s burn would only grow worse if she clenched upon it. For now, she tried to remain still. She tested the chains, but they were stronger than anything. She was helpless, powerless, in her husband’s hands.

“You’re to manage your behavior as you’re punished,” he said, going for the strap. “No flailing around.”

“That’s easier said than done, my lord.”

“Even so. Stick out your backside for me.”

She complied, regretfully.

“There, just right.” He tapped her lightly with the long, thick strap, pressing the edge of the protruding ginger fig. She could picture his fingers curved about the stout handle. “Hold that position until I inform you that we’re through.”

The first blow came, loud and fiery upon her skin. It hurt but was bearable. At least the servants would not hear, not all the way down here. The second blow was harder. He was warming her up, preparing her for greater torture. Yes, torture. Oww.

The third stroke had her on her toes, squeezing the ginger in her backside. It smarted terribly and made her groan. The fourth was the hardest yet.

“Keep the position,” he ordered.

She tried, oh, she tried, but by the fifth swinging stroke, her bottom felt aflame. The inside burned relentlessly from the ginger, while her cheeks felt raw from the wide strap’s impact. He gave her ten altogether, each one a bit harder, and made her stick her bottom out to receive each indignity, to be totally sure she felt every bit of hurt.

After that, he let her rest a moment. “The king would have spanked you harder, you know.”

“I doubt that.” Her voice trembled as she shifted on her feet. If only she could massage some of the pain from her molten buttocks. “Well, perhaps.”

“But a few strokes of the cane will finish you off nicely. Teach you the dangers of irritating your monarch.”

“Please, not too hard,” she begged as he took up the severe implement. “You shall make me cry.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” He paused a moment, placing a breathy kiss at her nape. “Nor the last, unfortunately for you.”

He stood back and she braced for the first cane stroke. It came whistling, landing like a line of horror. She let out a wail.

“Position, darling.”

How could she be expected to offer up her backside for such agony? It was all she could do to keep her feet, so she wasn’t hanging limply from the stone ceiling.

“How many?” she asked. “How many exactly?”

“As many as I like.”

Another stroke, painful and fiery. Another. She jumped and squirmed and begged. “I cannot, I cannot! Please!”

He stopped, tapping the cane upon the stone floor. “You may submit to your caning, darling, or you can submit to a buggering. I’ll allow you to choose.”

“A…a what?”

“My cock in your naughty little arsehole.”

She swallowed hard. She knew they’d been building up to that. It had begun with the occasional insertion of one or two fingers, then graduated to wooden shafts carved expressly to stretch her bottom hole open.

But none of those came close to his actual size.

“You… You might hurt me,” she said in a trembling voice. “You’ll never fit.”

“You said that about your pussy, remember? Now you ride my cock at any opportunity. I concede this might be slightly less comfortable, but you are being punished.” He turned the cane over in his hands, then tapped it against his palm. “Will it be more of the cane, or will you take your chances with a buggering?”

What a choice. The cane was terrible, but his cock in her little, tight bum hole…? It would be humiliating, and he might injure her.

“I don’t think…” She opened and closed her hands, trapped by the tight cuffs. “I’m afraid to be buggered.”

“All right, then.”

The next cane stroke caught her right under her arse cheeks, such searing pain that her breath left in a gasp.

“No, no! All right. I’ve changed my mind. I will take…the other.”

“Say it properly. Use real words. I will take a buggering, sir. ”

“I will take a buggering, sir. But please—”

“You’ll survive it,” he said, tracing the cane stripes on her bottom. “You’ve had things up there before.”

“Not things like…” Like your very large thing.

He took the ginger from her bottom gently, carefully, as if he was not planning to plunder her there afterward. She still wasn’t sure it was possible. He put the ginger back on the tray and returned with more things to frighten her. The first was a pair of metal clips that met in a tight grip. He opened and closed them before her gaze.

“If I apply these to your nipples, naughty girl, they will distract you from…other pain. They will help you open to it.”

“Truly?” Her nipples were very sensitive to his pinching and squeezing.

“You must trust me. Hold your breath.”

“Why?”

“So you will not scream.”

He applied the first one as he said it. And she did not scream, only gasped and writhed at the sudden pressure and pain. He attached the other, and as she processed that application with short, huffing breaths, he took up a pot of slippery unguent that was not unfamiliar to her.

“As you know, this makes it easier for things to fit inside you.”

He seemed to hold his own breath as he introduced a finger full of the oily stuff, then two, up her backside. Her husband put his fingers in her bottom with some regularity, and it had shocked her in the beginning, until she’d learned to relax and let him have his way.

But…this…

“Are you going to release me…before you…?”

“Put my cock in your arsehole? No. I think not.”

“Oh.” She gritted her teeth against the pain at her nipples. Pulling at her restraints did nothing to ease it. The metal clips shone at the tips of her breasts, taunting her, for she had no way to yank the hurting things off.

She heard him remove his trousers, knew without looking that his cock would be hard and stiff and scary looking as he sidled up behind her. She moaned as one of his hands gripped her hip. The other pressed his cock’s tip to her arsehole, just as he’d done with the ginger earlier.

He stopped and added more unguent, as if there would ever be enough.

“You must relax if I’m to get in without hurting you,” he said. “You must let it happen. Think of my power, and your pain.”

Those were all she could think of. He tried again to press inside her and this time, she screwed up her courage and pressed back. The tip of him went in, a strange, thick invasion.

“Yes,” he breathed, and flicked each of the clips on her nipples. “Just like that. It will only hurt a moment or two. Relax and let me in.”

The renewed torment from the clips blended with the painful pressure at her arsehole. He could not…it wasn’t possible…but then he was sliding deeper inside, and her body was letting him. He went slowly, so slowly, massaging her hip as he entered her inch by terrifying inch. At last, the acute pain subsided, replaced with a fullness she could never have described. He was so much inside her, so deep inside her, she could hardly bear it.

Yet, suddenly, she wished he would push deeper.

She moved back against him, arching her hips. Her buttocks were sore, inflamed from the strap and cane where they contacted his hardness, but she didn’t care. He let out a hoarse gasp as if he’d been holding his breath, and only now let it go. The hand that held her hips dipped lower, clamped over her pussy, grasped her hard between her legs. A searching finger soon landed upon that spot, that glorious button he’d trained to his skillful touch.

She choked out a cry, shocked by the melding excitement of his deepness and the heat he created between her legs. He withdrew and pressed back in, grasping her so she couldn’t move one iota without his guidance. In, out, slow, deep, hot, hard, sliding with leisurely, masterful strokes until she felt delirious with unexpected pleasure.

This is better than caning, she thought. I chose correctly.

But she pretended to feel punished, because she knew he liked it. She moaned and moved her hips beneath his fingers, squeezing upon him now and again as if she could not bear to have him deeper, but he’d go deeper, and she’d secretly rejoice.

By the end—when he flicked her nipples, her pussy’s button, all of it at once when he drove inside her—she could not pretend to feel punished anymore. She cried out in a reckless climax of sensation, her body squeezing him in delirium as she jerked wildly at the chains, rattling them over the sound of his rasping breath.

“My God,” he said. “Elizabeth.”

He growled and thrust so deeply she was practically lifted from her feet, and she lost her wits again. They reached their pleasure together, her for a second time.

Afterward, August gasped as if he’d just run a long distance, his breath hot on her shoulder. He bit her there, not hard enough to injure her. She made a small, complaining sound, but she didn’t really mind.

“Be still a moment,” he said. “Be still long enough for me to collect myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

She waited obediently, trembling somewhat, until his grip upon her loosened, and he began to soften within her. He pulled out of her, then rested his hands upon her shoulders and massaged her, as if searching for tension.

There was none. She was absolutely spent.

“That’s what happens to spirited young ladies who hem and haw at the king,” he whispered in her ear, as he relieved her nipples of their painful clips.

“Ouch. Oh. If only I’d known.”

He grasped her breasts as the blood rushed back to her sore nipples. She welcomed the discomfort even though it made her shudder.

“Are you ready to be released?” he asked, caressing her neck and shoulders. “Or shall we finish what I started with the cane?”

“No. Please!”

She pretended to be alarmed, but she knew he jested. He pushed her outside her comfort zone more each time as their intimate familiarity progressed, but he had not yet pushed her too far. That was why she trusted him to do such scandalous things.

He released her wrists from the cuffs and massaged the feeling back into her arms, then helped her dress so they could retire upstairs and clean themselves up in a more civilized and well-furnished area of the house. Her bottom was still hot from the spanking, sore from the lightest contact of her pantalettes.

“I don’t know if I can make it up two flights of stairs,” she said, as he extinguished the sconces.

“I’ll carry you, if you’ll carry the lamp.”

He swept her up in his arms just as he’d lifted her in the king’s chamber, when she’d pretended to be exhausted. She was truly and completely exhausted now. And yes, a bit sore on her backside, but it felt lovely to be clasped against his powerful chest, in his strong, muscular embrace.

As they exited, she took a last look around the dank chamber. No doubt she’d see it soon again, now that he’d introduced her to its wonders. Or horrors.

She smiled to herself, thinking how August’s ravenous, insatiable lovemaking was somehow a combination of both.