Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

S ophia

I spun around to see that Malleus had come up right behind me in the mere few seconds since his voice had stopped my flight. I shied away from him, but his right hand darted out with a speed that belied the apparent casualness of the movement, as if he had grown so accustomed to manhandling naked young women that he could do it effortlessly.

His grip on my upper arm was like a vice, though. His fingers dug into my flesh with an intensity that bordered on painful. As he marched me back to the interview room, each step he took reverberated through my body. The carpet absorbed the sound, but the movement felt somehow loud inside me, echoing in my limbs and amplifying the terror coiling in my stomach.

The brightly lit little room loomed ahead, its stark, clinical light glaring through the narrow window of the heavy door. With a final, decisive shove, Malleus pushed the door open and propelled me inside. The door clicked shut behind us, the sound slicing through the air with a sense of ominous finality that made my heart pound even harder.

He guided me to the nearest chair positioned in the center of the room. Still holding my arm, he sat down. His sheer physical strength communicated itself to me in every movement. I felt like a fragile, mishandled doll that he might easily break by using just a little too much force as he positioned me.

His eyes, piercing blue and unrelenting, locked onto mine for a moment as he started to pull me down, upending me and guiding me roughly over his knee. I lost sight of his face and the room became a blur for a moment, my balance completely gone as the floor seemed to rush up at me.

I struggled, my arms flailing and my hands curled into fists to try to hit out at him. I kicked. The resistance, however, seemed not only useless but completely irrelevant. My hands made contact with the fabric of his suit, and underneath it I felt muscles upon muscles, so hard that I wondered if Malleus could even feel my attempts at bodily defiance.

My limbs tensed involuntarily when the hard surface of his knee made contact with my abdomen, then my naked lap. I felt the texture of his suit trousers beneath me, my mortifying nudity here in this corporate setting a reminder of his control and my vulnerability.

Malleus hadn't said anything, after telling me I would receive a "reward" for my "passing" his "test" and trying to escape. Somehow, despite a concerted effort to tell myself that I had no idea what he would do, I had known. I had known even as he marched me back down the hall, long before he had wordlessly made the matter completely clear by putting me over his knee this way.

I knew, deep down and in spite of absolutely not wanting to know, what happened at the Ostia Modeling Agency to naked girls who tried to run away. I let out a little sob as I felt his left hand seize my hip and his right hand take hold of my backside to reposition me slightly, raise my bottom, and lower my head. My mind raced, wondering what my first spanking would feel like, the uncertainty of the impending pain mingling with an unwelcome curiosity that I couldn't quite suppress.

"Wait!" I tried. "I… I… won't… I won't try to run away?"

Malleus' voice had a grim certitude in it. "After this reward, columba , I'm pretty sure that's true."

Again with the columba . What the hell was going on here?

His grip on my waist tightened, holding me firmly in place. His right hand had stayed on my butt, and the fingers rubbed a little circle there, as if to emphasize how enormous Malleus' hand was and how little my bottom. I let out a whimper of mingled shame and fear. Under his hand I felt my skin prickle with goosebumps, every nerve ending alight with a heightened sensitivity that bordered on unbearable. The vulnerability of my position—the exposure, the helplessness—stripped away any pretense of composure.

The room seemed to shrink around us, the oppressive brightness of the lights focusing my attention solely on the sensations coursing through my body. My breath came in shallow, rapid gasps, my heart hammering against my ribcage as I tried to brace myself for what was to come.

I could almost feel Malleus' hand hovering above my exposed skin, as if it were a menacing shadow poised to deliver the first punishing strike.

"Consider this your first lesson," Malleus' voice broke through the silence, his tone a blend of severity and something almost akin to compassion. "You're being punished for your defiance—refusing to undress as commanded, and for your futile attempt to escape."

The words hung heavy in the air, each one driving home the strangeness and the humiliation of my terrifying situation. Before I could fully process them, his palm descended with a sharp, resounding smack. Before my body could fully absorb the sensation, he had raised his hand and brought it down a second time, and then a third. A fiery sting spread across my bottom, drawing a gasp from my lips.

"Ahh!" The sound escaped involuntarily, a mix of shock and pain, reverberating around the sterile brightness of the room.

"That's only the beginning, columba ," he said, his grip on my waist unyielding. "You will learn to obey, and you will learn it thoroughly."

Another spank followed, then another, each one methodical and firm, leaving a searing imprint on my skin. The pain quickly became intense, a relentless barrage that set my senses aflame. Each swat echoed through the room, ringing off the walls despite the deadening effect of wall-to-wall carpet and acoustic tiles.

"Do you understand why you're being punished?" Malleus' voice was steady, unwavering, a stark contrast to the chaotic flurry of emotions within me.

"Yes," I managed to choke out between gasps, my voice trembling.

"Say it," he demanded, punctuating his command with another stinging slap.

"Because I didn't take off my clothes… and I tried to escape," I replied, my words shaky yet earnest, desperation creeping into my tone.

"Good girl," he acknowledged, though there was no warmth in his words. "I'm going to spank you thoroughly enough today that you won't sit comfortably tomorrow. I need a columba who remembers the price of disobedience."

His strikes did not relent, each one harder than the last, driving home the lesson he sought to impart. The rhythm of the spanking became a cruel melody, each note a reminder of my transgressions and the price of disobedience. Tears welled in my eyes. I bit my lip to try to keep myself from crying out, but I failed completely. My whimpers only grew louder.

My legs kicked out reflexively, desperate to escape the fiery punishment, but Malleus was prepared. With a swift movement, he shifted his weight, trapping my legs beneath his own. The sensation of his hard, muscular thigh pinning mine down sent another wave of helplessness crashing over me. Unable to move, I felt utterly exposed, each spank now landing on the sensitive skin of my upper thighs, magnifying the torment.

"Feel each strike, Sophia," he continued, his voice remaining calm, measured. "Let it remind you of your place, of the importance of submission. Your role is crucial in the battle we're fighting."

My sobs echoed through the room, each one an involuntary response to the aching fire ignited in my bottom. My mind raced, attempting to grapple with the chaos of thoughts and sensations. The room seemed to shift, the stark white light filtered through the tears streaming down my face, casting everything in a surreal half-light.

Malleus' strange words lingered in my mind. What did he mean? "We" were fighting a battle?

But the spanking continued, unrelenting in its intensity, driving home the severity of the lesson Malleus clearly meant to convey. Every word he spoke, every spank he delivered, melded together into a whirlwind of sensations and realizations. The pain was excruciating, but beneath it lay an undeniable truth—a part of me had grown curious, and I clung to the strange ideas he seemed to reveal as a sort of guidance through the agony.

My teeth clenched tighter, but the whimpers and sobs escaped despite my efforts. His left hand pressed firmly between my shoulder blades, its weight an unyielding reminder of my submission, while his right continued its assault on my reddening bottom.

"Stop… please…" I gasped, my voice trembling, though deep down, I knew my pleas would go unanswered.

"Do you think the Groupe Synergistique will show you any mercy?" Malleus' words cut through the haze of pain. "They'd use you and discard you without a second thought."

The… the… what? Then, It's French , my brain said. You're great at French . Groupe Synergistique. The… Synergistic Organization? The enemy?

The spanking went on and on, but Malleus had slowed his terrible rhythm. He punctuated each spank with an explanation.

"You, columba, belong to the Order of Ostia. I am a miles of the Pretorian Guard. Together, we fight to restore order—to protect civilization from falling into chaos at the hands of the GS. You must understand the stakes, columba ."

Despite the overwhelming pain, I forced myself to focus on his words. Each revelation seemed like a key turning in a lock, opening a door to a world I hadn't fully grasped. The Order of Ostia, the Pretorian Guard. They sounded mythical, but Malleus' firm hand on my aching bottom seemed to prove they were real—and somehow it seemed their battle with GS— the Groupe Synergistique now involved me.

"As a columba, your role is crucial," Malleus emphasized, his voice unwavering as he delivered another stinging blow. "The Order's columbae serve on the front lines of this battle."

He paused, his right hand resting on my bottom. Then I cried out, not with the pain of another spank, but with the sharp, unexpected pleasure of the gentle squeeze his fingers gave, the rub that followed.

"Shh, columba, " Malleus said. "Try to quiet yourself. Your ability to self-calm is something we must develop together. Above all, we must develop it when you are as needy as you are now."

"Wh-what?" I choked out. "I'm not…"

Malleus raised his hand and brought it down hard on my bottom once, twice, three times. I screamed in pain at the renewal of the punishment. Then, instantly, the hand returned, gently rubbing a circle in the very center.

I moaned: despite everything I tried to keep it back, the humiliating noise came out. Malleus' middle two fingers pushed further, between my thighs, entering me just a millimeter or two.

"Oh… oh, no," I whimpered, my hips trying to jerk backward, trying to impale myself on those teasing digits. "No… please…"

"Call me miles ," Malleus said, sternly, taking his hand away.

"Oh, God," I whispered, my mind whirling and my body crying out for attention. " Miles , please… please…"

"It's very difficult, isn't it?" Malleus asked, putting his hand back on my bottom, but not his fingers in my pussy. I couldn't help it: I tried to move my hips again, wriggling as if I were impatient for his degrading attentions.

"No, columba . You're not going to come right now. You're going to learn to calm yourself as you listen to me."

My lower lip between my teeth, I let out another mortifying whimper. My bottom wanted to push up into his hand, but somehow, though I still had no idea what Malleus was talking about, the idea of self-restraint seemed appealing in its own right. I managed to keep myself from making the embarrassing movement.

"Well done, columba ," Malleus said, as if he could read my mind.

A surge of crazy pride rose into my chest. What the hell was wrong with me that it would make me happy for this apparently insane man to praise me?

"You have a great deal to learn and only a short time to learn it before you, too, go into the field. All I wish you to understand today, though, is that you are here because we—the Pretorian Guard—have determined with extreme precision that you belong with us, as an initiate in the Order of Ostia whose members serve the Guard as sexual servants and as elite field operatives and analysts in our battle to save civilization from the forces of greed and disorder. The Groupe Synergistique is, right now, the most important of those forces."

His hands on my body, on my back and on my bottom, seemed at the same time to weigh me down with their restraint and to impart a kind of warmth. You belong with us.

"As I told you, we don't need your consent. That's not because we intend to force you to do anything, or undergo anything, against your will. It's because we know you so well that we're certain we can uncover your own need to play your part in this struggle."

Short breaths came and went in rough pants between my open lips. Arousal, fear, defiance, and—yes, I couldn't deny it—fascination waged its own war inside my mind.

"How?" I whispered. Heat blossomed in my face as I felt Malleus' huge hand give my bottom a warning squeeze. "How, miles ? How do you know that?"

Malleus started to help me rise from his lap.

"Don't ask useless questions," he told me, emphasizing each word as if the command represented a sort of proverb.

I blinked, stung by the refusal, and felt tears trickle out of the corners of my eyes as I regained my feet, my gaze fixed on his enormous hands as he laid them in his lap.

Malleus spoke again. "I'll let the doctor tell you more about why you belong here. Let's get you to your exam."

He had answered my question, but the chastening command not to pose it, or any other "useless" question, lingered in my mind. The idea that I must wait for my miles to tell me those things he wanted me to know, and I must remain silent otherwise, rankled. I knew myself to be a very intelligent young woman. At the same time, though… I bit my lip at the little jolt of need it had called forth between my thighs.