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Thumper Ch. 01

By: ktmccoll



Note to reader: This series is a sequel to the Incubus series (also available on Lit). Although two of the characters are carried forward to this series, it has less to do with incubi and deals more with relationships, submission, and exploration. If the non-human genre isn't your thing, rest assured that there's more to this incubus than horns and a tail. I hope that you enjoy it. 



Thumper Ch. 01



Eventually abandoning his dreams of creative carnality, George turned Eros. He had obviously misread Abby's unspoken signals and hadn't thought to ask for clarification. George embarked on a campaign of romance. He would stoke the amorous fires in the hope of recapturing the sizzle of their earlier years. Roses sent to the workplace. Schmaltzy poems, in rhyming couplets no less, secreted into Abby's briefcase. Candlelit dinners during which George felt much like an actor, comparing his performance with those of his fellow male diners, trying unsuccessfully to imitate their panache and romantic verve but failing to elicit the desired secret smile and dewy, blissful gaze from his distracted mate. 

While the more accomplished Lotharios could ignore the world, lost in their oases of love and inevitable consummation, George felt increasingly on stage, his weakness and inadequacy obvious to anyone who cared to look.

That Abby dutifully spread her legs after these excursions brought little solace.

Everything he did now smacked of desperation.

Then one day six months ago, Abby returned from work uncharacteristically early, interrupting George's work on a hopeless academic screed that few would read but would, he hoped, count towards his tenure aspirations.

"George, sit down."

"I am sitting."

Abby looked annoyed when she confirmed that he was indeed sitting. "We have to talk."

George's stomach fell. Talking was an activity that had fallen off of late, and its sudden resurrection filled him with foreboding.

"I've had an affair."

No warning. No hints. The little bomb now lay on the floor between them. Ticking.

"It's over now."

It? Wondered George numbly. Their marriage? The affair?

Tick.

"It didn't mean anything. It was a mistake."

Tick, tick.

"I want to work on this. With you. Our marriage. Whatever it takes. I don't know what happened to us, but we need help."

Tick.

No apology, George noted dully. No tearful request for his forgiveness.

"Will you work with me?"

Tick. 

George's hand worked itself into a fist under his desk. She screws around and then she asks me for something, he thought. A little effort. Like it's my fault she's been fucking someone, as though I spread her legs for someone else like a puppet master.

Tick.

In a flash of anger, he imagined his fist making contact with the face that he loved. Of Abby falling. Of her shock. Of Abby's fear of what he might do. 

No, he thought, I will not work with you. "Of course," he said instead, his anger gone.

Abby nodded and left George's study, closing the door softly behind her.

The explosion never came.





Thumper Ch. 02



Previously...

We meet Damian and Abby, and incubus and his mate. Following a visitation, Damian's victim, a woman whose marriage has fallen apart, unexpectedly thanks him. Damian's master is none too pleased.

***

Damian sat in the darkened dormitory room in one of the tri-cities church colleges. On the bed, a girl of nineteen writhed, hair splayed on the pillow and across her face. He hadn't touched her this time, but his very presence caused her hands to scuttle like spiders to her groin. They hitched up her nightgown to her navel and then resumed their journey to the downy nest between her legs.

Her breathing quickened as her fingers worked. 

"Come," whispered Damian after several minutes.

The girl's movements stilled and she swung her legs over the side of the bed. With tentative steps, she approached Damian.

"Help me," whispered the girl. Damian knew that she was not speaking to him. "Please. Save me."

She knelt before him and trembling fingers unfastened Damian's jeans and lowered the zipper.

Damian slipped the jeans from his hips and took the girl's hands. He pulled her towards him until she straddled him.

She lowered a hand to grasp him as her hips descended, her nightgown tenting around their privates like a shroud.

With a muffled cry she impaled herself on his length.

Damian could feel the blood trickling from her.

"I hope you're happy, Asmodeus," he whispered.

***

Silence lay like a heavy blanket over the darkened house. It was well into the witching hour -- the hour when regret, self-reproach and self-recrimination came out to play, when the memories of carefree youth and innocence clashed against the realities of middle age and guilt. 

The woman sat in her darkened office, scrolling through photographs on her laptop. Her husband had long since gone to bed, eschewing the customary good-nights and sleep-wells. She couldn't blame him.

He probably thought she was going over her company's accounts, rather than reviewing the photographic evidence of their lives together. Just as well. She didn't particularly want him to know this maudlin side of her.

She'd arranged the photographs chronologically. She was nothing if not orderly.

There were several photographs of their time at the university, taken by fellow students whose post graduate successes had sent them far afield. She prowled their Facebook profiles and wondered what might have been had her own life's trajectory not been so predictable.

It wasn't as though Britt wasn't successful. She was by any standard. She had the accolades, the money, the car and house. The fact was that she married soon after graduation and settled in the same town where she'd studied. One thing had led to another without those unexpected detours that often provide the fondest of memories. The one ill-considered detour that she had permitted herself had been succumbing to her business partner. 

They'd been working late, putting the finishing touches on a business proposal. It was the culmination of weeks of long hours, of huddling together at the computer, of take-out at their desks after the cleaning staff had left. They were on the cusp of their greatest success. Both felt it. The exhaustion left them giddy. A fleeting moment of contact had evolved into a touch, then an embrace, and finally a headlong rush into lust. Then blessed release.

Then embarrassment.

Finally shame and guilt.

And thus it was that one the eve of her greatest success, she had written her single greatest failure.

And that was why she now looked at photographs, as though these frozen moments of happier times might suggest where things had gone so off the rails.

Wedding pictures. Honeymoon pictures. 

They'd been so young then, though the notion applied more emotionally than chronologically.

She scrolled. The photographs had long since been committed to memory. 

She sensed his presence behind her. After several months, she'd almost convinced herself that she'd imagined that night in the living room, relegating the sensations to the nocturnal imaginings of a needy unconscious. Now she knew it was not so. The hairs on the back of her neck stood and she shivered.

She didn't turn around. Instead, she clicked the mouse button and advanced the picture. 

Just when she thought that perhaps she had imagined the presence, she felt a pressure, light as the tread of a spider, on her shoulders. Her heart raced but something in her welcomed the touch, so reminiscent it was of that night in the office, so needed after the months of physical deprivation.

The sensation moved from her shoulders down her arms and back again, leaving trail of goose pimples in its wake.

She felt a stirring in her loins out of all proportion with the touch that had evoked it.

If the light pressure had been a hint, the weight now on her shoulders was a statement. Her breath hitched and she sat frozen but for a finger that clicked the mouse button.

The pressure -- it felt like hands, had to be hands -- slid from her shoulders to the slope of her breasts. 

Click.

She peeked at the picture. The couple smiling in a bar, their white teeth blazing against tanned faces. Her hand rested delicately on his forearm. They'd gone at it like teenagers that night.

Click.

The hands moved over the curve of her breasts and pressed flat against them. Her nipples tingled under the pressure, and she could feel them hardening. 

She noted with disgust that the hand over the mouse trembled. 

Invisible fingers squeezed her nipples, sending a current to her core.

She couldn't let this happen. Her body had betrayed her once before. Not again.

With a quick movement, she swivelled the chair to face her attacker. Of course, she saw nothing, just like the last time. "What are you?" she demanded, unsettled by the tremor in her voice.

She felt hands on her thighs, spreading them apart. She resisted for a moment and then allowed her legs to part. She cursed herself for her weakness. She closed her eyes and tipped her head forward, hoping to conceal her face behind a curtain of hair. 

* * *

Damian sat in his car for several long minutes upon his return to the farmhouse he shared with Britt. The house had sheltered him and Kat for many years before Britt had entered his life. Now Kat was gone, recovering in Europe among members of an ancient demonic branch. For the first time, these four walls and roof provided more than shelter. They were home.

He struck the steering wheel and whispered a curse as the scene replayed itself in his mind.

Damian had absented himself from his polite suburban victim through the rest of the winter months. He had to admit that he'd been disquieted by her thanks and by Rosier's visit. In answer to the latter, he sought sustenance among the many young and impressionable university students who populated the tri-cities area. Young, sweet, and hormonally compromised, university students never failed to give Damian a satisfying meal. Occasionally, he would claim a girl from one of the church colleges, if only to keep Rosier at bay. 

Britt had been justifiably distressed by Rosier's visit, recognizing in that moment how fragile their lives together were. He'd answered her questions with a calm that belied his own apprehension. Yes, Rosier was a demon, and yes, Asmodeus was his boss, prince of hell and demon of lust. And no, it wasn't a good thing to have come to their attention.

So Damian had redoubled his efforts to be an agent of discord, sowing the seeds of lust among those whose purity and goodness would be the most tainted by it. He hated himself for it, but Rosier had not returned. After a while, the lives of Britt and Damian reverted to a semblance of normalcy.

Several months after Rosier's visit, Damian returned to the wealthy suburb. The woman had been in the back of his mind since then like an unanswered challenge. He decided that he'd gone too easy on her.

He approached the house and noted that the little had changed in the woman's response to his projections. There was still a need, a barely concealed hunger, overlaid with frustration.

He observed her from the door of her home office. The light of the screen played on the attractive geometry of her face. Her intelligent blue eyes betrayed tiredness and the firm set of her full lips indicated something else entirely -- anger tempered by grief. 

Wakefulness presented some problems to the incubus, but potentially greater rewards. The approach had to be careful. Some incubi, Damian knew, went in with guns blazing, whether their victim was asleep or awake. Damian preferred subtleness, insinuating himself by deliberate degrees into the consciousness of his victim. It was the difference between bludgeoning a hapless fish and setting a hook. He preferred the latter. Set the hook and play, letting out line and reeling it in. Granting the illusion of freedom before withdrawing it. The end result was the same, but it was an infinitely more rewarding game.

The waking mind behaved differently. It was more difficult to pass off sensations as dreams, for example. Then again, the waking mind produced a more potent fear. It was a different flavor of helplessness.

Damian entered the office and positioned himself behind her. He watched over her shoulder as the woman's life passed before his eyes. Wedding photographs featuring the woman and her new husband, both beaming. The couple in the Caribbean -- their honeymoon perhaps?

A photograph of the couple at the beach at sunset, leaning against a palm tree, embracing. Damian wondered about the photographer. Did he feel like a voyeur while the couple shared this simple intimacy? The couple certainly seemed oblivious to the photographer's presence.

He placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. Surprisingly, she didn't flinch, raise a hand to touch the spot, or turn around. He marvelled at her self-possession. Her index finger remained poised for a moment over the mouse button and then clicked.

His fingers traced the contours of her body and her flesh responded to his touch. Her breathing quickened and her heart rate increased. He could sense her fear and confusion, and it was good.

When she finally turned to confront him, Damian was almost taken by surprise. She'd allowed his hands free reign, seemingly content with the sensations that they generated. As quickly as arousal had bubbled to the surface, it disappeared.

"What are you?" the woman cried, abruptly turning to face him. Of course, she could see nothing, yet Damian was unnerved by the way she found his eyes. 

For several moments he stood before her. The photograph of the smiling couple appeared over her shoulder. More so because of the photograph than anything else, Damian felt like an intruder.

Damian said nothing, content to play out some line. The woman`s breathing calmed. 

He knelt before her and placed his hands on her thighs. Time to take up some slack. He pushed her legs apart, overcoming some initial resistance as he knew he would.

The woman suddenly rolled back from Damian, the back of the chair hitting the desk. She stood. With quick, agitated movements, the woman undid her slacks, surprising Damian again. "Is this what you want?"

Damian shook his head. There was no fear in the woman now, only anger and despair.

She slipped off her slacks, taking with them her panties. She sat back on the chair, naked from the waist down, breathing heavily. "If you're here to torment me, do it already."

Nothing in Damian's experience prepared him for this. Visitations were typically a game of resistance and surrender, a carefully choreographed dance between the extremes of pleasure and dread. 

She woman moved her hips forward and hitched up her legs, positioning her heels on the edge of the chair and allowing her legs to spread. "Is this what you want?" she asked icily as she presented him her most private parts.

Damian advanced a tentative finger, splitting the labia. 

"Feel good does it, fingering a whore?" 

Whore? With rising anger, Damian realized that he was being played for one. With a violent thrust, he buried three fingers within her, curled them up and pulled her violently towards him, lifting her hips off the chair.

The woman gasped.

Damian drew faint satisfaction from the fear that now blossomed in her.

With his fingers pressing hard against the inside of her pubic bone, her lowered his head and drew her clitoris into his mouth. 

He wanted to break her, this woman who dared to command an incubus. Teach her that she presumed too much. Fuck her and be done with it.

He pressed his teeth together, trapping the woman's tender flesh, and then lifted his head, the tender pearl of her clitoris scraping against his teeth and then springing free.

A pained whimper escaped the woman's lips. "I'm sorry."

Damian fumed. So incensed was he that he broke his cardinal rule. He leaned close to her face, her hair brushing his phantom lips. He spoke with a voice that was felt more than heard. "You dare defy me?" It was little more than a growl. The woman threw her head back, as though struck with a fist. "You will submit."

"No." The voice quavered.

His fingers, slick with her juices, described a small circle within her.

"No." This time, the voice had some steel in it.

He'd heard the word no before, countless times. It was normally a word whispered timorously, uncertainly, even as lust blossomed and the body spoke a different word entirely. Never had the word sounded so much like the slamming of a door.

He probed her mind for even the slightest hint of desire and found none. Even her fear had turned to anger.

Damn this woman. Damian realized that he had failed. He could sedate her as he'd done before, but felt that she would not submit. Not now. Whatever arousal he had hoped to kindle had evaporated, leaving only an unreasoning defiance that would do nothing to sustain him.

The woman squirmed in her chair, seeking to escape the invisible fingers that still impaled her.

A rage filled him. A small voice in his head told him to desist, that he'd lost. Damn her to hell. He maneuvered himself between her legs and grasped her upper thighs, pinning her to the chair. His cock rose to the space vacated by his fingers, its crown splitting the lips of her pussy. 

Already a foretaste of a bitter meal filled him, but he didn't care. 

Her breath caught at the feel of his cold member against her.

His hands left her thighs and eased behind her back. He pulled her toward him as he thrust, violently impaling her. 

She trembled upon him and her legs opened to him ever so slightly. Damian felt the warmth of her as her defiance evaporated, leaving something entirely different in its wake. Perhaps, he thought, there was hope.

A figure appeared at the door, backlit by the lights in the hallway. Damian could just make out his features. Haggard eyes and creased face. Careworn and old beyond his years.

It was the look of a man gazing upon the promise of endless solitude. Damian recognized it. He'd seen it in himself often enough.

"Abby?"

The woman stiffened at the sound of his voice, closing in on herself.

"Abby? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, George. Nothing."

"Who are you talking to?"

"No one!"

George lingered at the doorway for a moment as though frozen by her icy tone and then silently withdrew. Damian was thankful that the woman's partial nudity had been hidden by the desk and chair. 

Abby. Damian now had a name. Abby and George. Knowing their names made it worse.

Abby buried her face in her hands and a sob racked her frame.

"Go. Please go."

For the first time in eons, Damian had been bested. Hungry and irritated, he left.

He was still hungry, despite the girl at the college. It wasn't the first time that plans had gone awry, nor would it be the last. On the drive home, the look in George's eyes haunted him -- confused, helpless, and alone. It was a look Damian knew well. Of course, for an incubus, solitude was a fact; but for visitations, demons didn't exactly figure prominently in anyone's social calendar. Nor did demons deserve much sympathy, yet Damian reserved some sympathy for the man. Any woman able to spurn a demon as Abby had done would be sheer hell to live with. Damian could imagine the curse of isolation within a marriage.

He quickly undressed and slipped into the bed. Britt lay curled on the edge, naked and blissfully warm. He positioned himself against her, her warmth penetrating him in several ways. He wound his arm around her waist.

Britt stirred and half turned her face to him. She smiled. "Howdy stranger."

In answer, he pressed his lips to the nape of her neck and lingered there, face buried in her hair.

She turned in his arms to face him. "What's wrong?"

"Bad night." He ventured no more information. Britt knew fully what he needed to do to survive and he knew better than to flaunt it.

He pushed his legs between hers and held her more tightly.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Just this. Just this."

* * *

After the presence had left, Abby returned to the marital bed, albeit on the edge, as far from George as possible while still sharing the same space. 

She could tell by his breathing that he pretended to sleep, as did she. It used to be that a hand would reach out to bridge the distance between them, but no more. The time for reaching to each other had passed. Wounded hands could not hold.

Abby was now convinced that she was not going crazy. The presence in the study had been real, and it was impossible to ascribe it to the wild imaginings of a sleeping mind. She'd been awake. She'd felt it. In fact, she still felt the pressure against her breasts and a tingling between her legs. She also felt a stirring within her of something dark, passionate, and unpredictable. For the first time in a long time, she longed to have someone within her. Something alive, warm, insistent. It would be so easy to reach across the bed but her hand remained immobile, frozen by uncertainty and pride. 

It would have been easier to allow herself to be taken. She realized with a shock that she'd welcome it. 

She longed for George to take her. But George wasn't the type to use force, to impose his will on anyone, and Abby wasn't the type to communicate need, even if the end result was what she yearned for. 

And she'd somehow managed to turn away that... whatever it was. 

She cursed her ability to spurn even those who had no cause to obey her. Whatever the cost, release would have been a blessing. 

* * *

"This woman keeps staring at you," said Britt.

"Really? I hadn't noticed." Of course, Damian had noticed. On entering the restaurant, he'd stood momentarily frozen as the woman's eyes had met his. While his eyes may have widened in recognition, hers narrowed. He hadn't a clue as to why the woman would have been able to single him out among all of the other diners. She had never seen him, after all. The recognition unnerved him. 

Britt and Damian were in one of the tonier restaurants in the tri-cities to celebrate their first anniversary. Britt looked ravishing in her form-fitting black dress, cut low on the top and high on the bottom, as a result of which Damian didn't quite know where to look. Seated at the table, he settled on her eyes.

Truth be told, Damian was a little giddy. As an incubus who had been around as long as he had, every day marked some kind of milestone, good and bad. Of course, the passage of time had erased most of these dates from his memory. This date would forever stand out. This was the date on which he'd entered into a real relationship -- or as real a relationship that a demon could share with another. The date on which he'd first received the gift of love, of mutual and unconditional surrender.




Thumper Ch. 02



"Liar." Britt leaned her head on her hands and gazed intently at Damian.

Damian fidgeted under the scrutiny.

"It's as though she recognizes you."

Damian shrugged. 

Britt's eyes became unfocussed.

"Don't," whispered Damian.

"Don't what?"

"You know, damn it. Eavesdrop."

"Who's eavesdropping?"

"You."

"Hey, if people choose to launch their thoughts into the air, what's wrong with me catching a few?" 

"It's wrong. Immoral."

Britt laughed. "You're lecturing me about morality? Now shut up; I can't hear her think."

Damian watched as Britt closed her eyes. It was hard to believe that a year had passed already. It had been a year marked by adjustment -- his to a level of intimacy he'd always thought denied to the likes of a demon, and hers to the awakening of the demon half of her. Being bound to a demon was one thing, having been sired by a demon was another. In her time with Damian, her latent abilities had come to the fore. While Damian appreciated her newfound strength and augmented allure, her ability to 'catch thoughts', as she put it, disconcerted him. 

Damian fidgeted and Britt remained stock-still for several minutes. At length, she blinked and shook her head.

"Well?" prompted Damian.

"I thought you were morally averse to eavesdropping."

"Now that you've gone and done it, you might as well tell me."

"Well, she recognizes you, or thinks she does. On top of that, she's one angry and confused lady. Who is she?"

"Someone I've come across," said Damian evasively. Then, catching Britt's narrowed eyes, admitted, "She's the one I told you about. The one who thanked me."

"Really? You`re not kidding, are you?"

Damian shook his head.

"Has anyone ever recognized you, after the fact?"

"I'm usually not visible. This is a first."

"You were right."

"About what?"

"She does have great legs."

At that moment, the maitre d' led a man to the woman's table. The man and the woman kissed perfunctorily.

"I wonder who that is," said Britt.

"Why don't you catch his thoughts," said Damian peevishly.

"Okay."

Damian leaned forward, curious in spite of himself.

"He's the husband. Let me tell you, these are two hopelessly confused people. It's frustrating."

Tell me about it, thought Damian.

"I think she's going to ask for a trial separation. He's half expecting it. Oh, man."

"What?"

Britt waved her hand, shushing him.

"She's giving up. Of late, she has tasted strength and it's something that intoxicates her, though she hates herself for it."

"Tasted strength?"

"Could have something to do with a certain nocturnal visitor." Britt scowled at him. "At any rate, she realizes that her husband can't provide whatever it is that has aroused her. She thinks now that there's no hope." 

She was never aroused, Damian wanted to say. She bested me. Twice. But he would never admit it aloud. Instead, he said, "Perhaps there isn't any."

"Thanks to you, she's made up her mind."

"What did I do? Whatever cracks there were in their marriage predated my appearance."

"When did you become so heartless? She still loves her husband, you know."

"So what? I'm an incubus, not a marriage counselor. Anyway, if she loves strength so much, perhaps she should learn how to submit to it."

"Maybe she doesn't know how."

Damian scoffed. "Or refuses to. My guess is that she's a strong woman who has beat the strength out of her husband and is suddenly disappointed with the results. Then I come along, disregard her will entirely and she realizes that she likes it -- the surprise, the excitement, the demonic je ne sais quoi. Of course, by now her husband is so afraid of demanding anything from her and she's so afraid of losing power that the marriage is essentially a dead end." 

"Wow, that's cynical."

"It may also be the truth. I've seen this a million times." 

"Right."

"There's no hope for them, Britt. I'm willing to bet my right horn that it's the case."

"You're on."

"What?"

"I accept your bet. I think there is hope."

Damian laughed. "We'll never know."

Britt sat, brow furrowed. "I'm going to talk to her."

"Oh no you won't."

"We have to talk to them if we're going to help them."

"We? We'll be doing no such thing."

"Don't you feel just a little responsible, blundering into their marriage and making a mess of things?"

"It was already a mess; otherwise she wouldn't have responded the way she did." If she was a normal woman, Damian thought, she would have surrendered. This was one ice queen beyond the touch of warmth.

"But you can help them fix it."

"Absolutely not. I'm not in the business of saving marriages."

Britt kicked off a shoe and placed her foot between his legs, rubbing his inner thigh. "Aw, come on."

"No."

"Do it for me."

"Why the interest in these two?" asked Damian, exasperated.

"They're hurting. They deserve happiness. They can learn how to be happy. You've already helped her by showing her a missing part of the puzzle. Consider it a good deed."

"I'm sure Rosier would be impressed."

He regretted the statement immediately. He and Britt had somehow managed to put Rosier's threat behind them. Now Britt blanched at the thought.

"Damian," said Britt quietly. "You've been miserable trying to do Rosier's bidding. I can tell. We can't spend the rest of our lives afraid of what might happen. Besides, I can tell that you're curious about her."

Britt was only half right. True, he was curious. As well, there was a score he wanted to settle with the wife.

"Please?" 

"No."

Britt sat back and crossed her arms, giving Damian a hard look. This evening wasn't working out as he had planned. Damn this Abby woman. Not only had she rebuffed him -- twice -- but now she threatened what promised to be a fine meal with Britt followed by the sweetest of deserts.

"Fine," said Damian. "But we're not going to be doing anything until you -- and I stress you -- get them to agree to work with us."

"They will."

Damian closed his eyes. "You have no idea what it will take to get them back on track. No amount of talking will do it. They need hand-on coaching."

"Okay," said Britt, scarcely believing that Damian was agreeing to her proposal.

"By the way, the guy is your responsibility. The woman is mine."

After Britt and Damian had finished their main course, Britt spied the woman getting up and making her way to the back of the restaurant.

"Be right back."

"Britt, it's not too late to reconsider."

Britt ignored Damian and followed the woman to the restroom and found her leaning against a sink, head bowed.

The woman was beautiful -- of that there was little doubt. But her beauty was marred by the weight of strain and exhaustion. The idea had happened too quickly, and now confronted with the woman, Britt didn't know how to proceed. Britt approached her from behind and the woman looked up, their eyes locking in the mirror.

"Whatever you're about to do, I urge you to reconsider," said Britt.

"What? Who are you?" The woman regarded Britt though red-rimmed eyes, narrowed and suspicious.

"My name's Britt."

"Great. Britt. What the hell are you talking about?"

She should have listened to Damian. She had the feeling that she'd blundered into a minefield with no map.

The woman turned and faced Britt. "Are you some kind of psychic?"

Britt smiled and shook her head. "No. Nothing like that."

"Then you must be some kind of weirdo who accosts strangers in public washrooms."

"I know it looks that way."

The woman regarded Britt with undisguised hostility and a small measure of apprehension.

Britt took a deep breath and plunged on. "Your husband still loves you. As far as everything else goes, there's an explanation for what you've been going through. It's not what it seems. You're not going crazy."

The woman looked momentarily bewildered. "What do you know about that?"

God, this was going badly, thought Britt.

"I'm going to call the police."

"And tell them what?"

The woman stood mute, her mouth working on words that would not come.

"Please, let's talk."

"We have nothing to talk about."

Britt pressed a card into Abby's hand and turned to leave. "Call me. Please. We can help"

"We? Who's we? Ah, I see -- that man with you. I think I've seen him somewhere before."

"Damian?"

"If that's what his name is."

"It's a small town. You've probably seen him around."

"It's not a small town. It's him, isn't it? He's the guy who's been... visiting me, isn't he?"

"He's not just a guy."

"I know that. What is he then, besides being a stalker and rapist? How does he do it?"

Britt should have listened to Damian. This had been a bad idea. 

"You won't see him again. I promise you," said Abby coldly.

Britt caught a brief surge of emotion from the other woman. Regret? Loss? She realized in a flash that the woman was both repelled by and hopelessly attracted to Damian. Whatever had passed between the two of them, Damian had set his hook into her and for a moment Britt pitied her. She shook her head. Following this woman's emotions could give someone whiplash. 

Britt spoke into the silence that had lengthened uncomfortably. "We can help you. You know you want to try. You know Damian and I know that he speaks to something within you. We can help."

Another emotion broke through. Hope. A desperate hope. A grasping at straws. Disbelief. "How?" the woman said quietly.

Britt smiled reassuringly. The ice had broken.

* * *

"You're here. I can feel you."

Damian, standing invisibly in the corner, said nothing. Abby sat in a leather armchair in the darkened living room where he had first met her.

Damian had misgivings about involving himself with this sorry couple. Before he could agree to Britt's proposed plan, he needed to see Abby again, in private. While Britt waited outside in the car, Damian had slipped into the house as he had twice before. 

"You have a pretty wife, if that's what she is to you."

Damian still maintained his silence. He scrutinized her and wondered whether she was worth the effort.

"She'd do anything for you, I can sense that. Does she know you visit me? She must; she didn't flinch when I told her what I suspected. In that case, she's a remarkable woman. Did you know that she promised me you wouldn't return? 

"I'll forgive you. She said that she could help. For the life of me, I don't understand how. We've talked about it with the so-called experts until our throats were raw. 

"I was about to ask George for a trial separation, but this Britt, a stranger, convinced me not to. Can you fathom it -- me being swayed by the words of a stranger? But then, I've also been touched by a spirit, haven't I?

"So, spirit, what can you do for me? Can you reconstruct a marriage out of this wreckage?"

Damian observed her from his place by the window. She looked small in the chair. Yet there was a defiant set to her lips. 

"I didn't think so. It was nice to think of the possibility though."

Damian finally spoke, a gravelly voice that rose from the depths. "What are you willing to pay?"

Abby's eyes widened momentarily in surprise and fear. "Ah, so you are there. I was beginning to think I was speaking to myself. Please show yourself." A tremor in her voice belied the boldness of her words.

Damian materialized only partially in his demon form, his horned silhouette visible against the window.

A sharp intake of breath betrayed sudden fear. 

"So you're...."

"An incubus."

Abby only nodded, struck mute.

"I'm willing to help you as a favor to my... wife." 

"A deal with the devil?"

"If you will."

"You asked what I'm willing to pay. You have me at a disadvantage; I haven't dealt with many devils before -- not the genuine article, at least. What's the customary currency? My soul?"

"I'm not interested in your soul," said Damian. "Consider this pro bono."

Abby laughed nervously. "An altruistic demon. Who would have thought?"

Damian felt his anger rising. With respect to this woman, there was little altruism in him. It was all he could do to not take her by the throat. 

He decided. He would agree to Britt's proposal. He would enjoy breaking this woman.

"If you fail?" she asked.

"I won't fail. I have no stake in this game. It's your risk and potentially your reward. If you and your husband are up to the challenge, Britt and I can help you recast your relationship. Your failure is guaranteed if you don't accept the challenge, and only possible if you do. It's up to you."

"I accept."

Damian approached her then. He placed his hand beneath her jaw, cupping her face tightly. He kissed her on the forehead. "I'll enjoy working with you."

* * *

"Thanks for agreeing to help them." Britt wrapped her arms around Damian's neck and kissed him.

"Your thanks might be premature. They may well curse this day for the rest of their lives."

Damian disengaged and undid the buttons of Britt's blouse.

"It'll take more than talk to help these people," he said as he slipped the blouse over her shoulders, revealing the fullness of her breasts and the gleaming nipple rings, presents from Damian and the departed Kat. Presents marking her as having been bound by demons. 

"You've said that before. What do you mean?"

Before he answered, he toyed with the rings that impaled the tender tissue of her nipples. She felt them hardening, and a shiver ran down her spine. The rings had no beginning and no end. Britt had given up figuring out how they had been affixed, nor had she asked for them to be removed. They were now a part of her. He deftly removed Britt's skirt and panties. Britt shivered in the coolness of their bedroom.

Damian retrieved something from beneath the bed. A length of rope.

"Give me your hand."

Britt complied with a quizzical look and Damian tied one end to her wrist.

"What are you doing?"

"Demonstrating to you what it will take. To see whether you still have the stomach for helping them."

He looped the rope around her other wrist and tied them together, leaving a length of rope to dangle.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Of course."

Damian smiled. There had been no hesitation from Britt. 

"Good. Kneel in the center of the bed, facing the headboard." Britt complied after hesitating for a moment.

Damian tied the remaining length of rope to the headboard, forcing Britt to her elbows and knees.

"Don't move."

"I can't. I'm paralysed with expectation," Britt quipped, but not without a note of uncertainty.

Damian laughed. "Beautiful position to be paralyzed in."

Britt's forearms lay flat on the bed and she felt her nipples kissing the satin sheets. Her narrow waist flared into shapely hips and a firm, round buttocks. Damian trailed his hand behind him as he walked around her, pausing to stroke the folds of her pussy.

She shivered.

He left her to rummage in the closet. On his return, he displayed a flogger with long black leather fells. Britt's eyes widened.

"Um... Damian?"

He splayed the fells of the flogger between Britt's shoulder blades and drew them down to cascade over the curve of her exposed ass.

"Are you going to hit me with that thing?"

"I might. And if I did?"

"I... I don't know."

"Because it depends on the context, doesn't it?"

"I suppose." For the life of her, she couldn't get her head around the context. She was tied up and he wielded a wicked-looking flogger. What other context could there be?

Damian played the fells over her back while stroking her ass. The flogger felt like a thousand feather-light fingers on her now hyper-sensitive skin. Goose pimples rose in the wake of the fells. She shivered as much in pleasure as anticipation. 

Britt twisted her hands and grasped the rope in her fingers.

"It depends on any number of things -- whether you trust me, whether I'm attuned to you and what my objective is. Floggers, whips, or canes are just tools; their significance depends on the person who wields them and the one on whom they are used."

Britt's awareness of her body intensified and she closed her eyes. It was as though she could feel each length of leather and the sinuous path that it traced on her flesh. She sensed Damian behind her, felt the fells as they sluiced in the cleft of her cheeks and trailed lightly past her anus.

"Do you feel vulnerable?"

"Yes."

"Afraid?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I trust you. You won't hurt me."

"Are you sure?"

She was sure, yet... The potential for pain was certainly there. 

The flogger thudded against her ass, its bark worse than its bite. After the initial jolt of surprise, Britt relaxed.

"If we leave the symbolism aside for a moment, we have an object, not unlike any other, with which to stimulate..."

Thud. 

"...not unlike a hand..."

Thud.

"...or a cock."

The flogger landed again, more intensely this time. She felt the concussion compressing the flesh of her ass, then traveling down the length of her body like a wave. She felt the vibration in the walls of her pussy. 

Another blow. That one would leave marks. Britt bit her lip, but couldn't prevent a moan from escaping.

"It's little more than the extension of the hand that would caress you."

Damian placed a hand on the warmth of her ass. Never had his touch felt so intense, so intimate. She felt it beyond the thin layer of skin.

"Mmm."

"Are you okay?"

"Uh huh." Don't stop. Please don't stop. The thought surprised her.

Damian swung the flogger underhanded, allowing her inner thighs to direct the fells to the tender flesh between her legs where they thudded gently with dozens of soft, insistent fingers.

"Another tool to explore these bodies of ours..."

He flicked his wrist, sending the fells between her legs again, but this time with more power.

A thousand sensations exploded in her head.

"...to stimulate flesh that would otherwise atrophy under the mundane."

Britt was no longer listening. Her senses were attuned to the play of leather on her flesh -- the delicious anticipation, the whisper of leather passing through the air, the cadence of the blows, the shock of impact.

At length the blows ceased and Britt could feel the bed taking Damian's weight behind her. Hands explored the now tender flesh of her ass, the ring of her anus and the moist cleft between her legs. She felt the length and weight of his cock cradled between the twin mounds of her ass. As always, it felt cold as was the nature of incubi. It didn't matter; she had warmth to spare. 

She arched her back, tilting her pelvis in invitation.

She felt his hardness cleaving the lips of her pussy. He entered her slowly, by delicious increments, until his cock could go no further. She tightened herself around him in the only embrace she could offer him now and smiled at the low moan that the action elicited.

She described a slow circle with her hips, feeling the movement translated deep within her.

He knelt still behind her, hands lightly bracketing her waist, allowing her to rock on her knees back and forth against him.

Bound as she was to him -- and by him -- there was no connection more profound than when he inhabited her. She opened herself to him fully, thrilling at his insistent thrusts. 

He flipped her onto her back, her wrists still tied together. 

Even after a year together, she felt a momentary thrill at seeing him in demon form. Obsidian horns rose from a mussed nest of dark hair. His eyes glowed orange and a powerful tail whipped behind him.

He placed his hands beneath her breasts, cradling them between his thumb and forefinger. She opened her legs wide for him, willing him into her with her heels on his ass. His tail insinuated itself to the crown of her cunt, burrowing its tip into the tender folds that surrounded the pink pearl of her clitoris. The sensation sent an electrical thrill through her body. 




Thumper Ch. 02



"Fuck me."

Needing no further encouragement, he thrust himself violently into her, pounding against flesh that had grown tender from the taste of leather.

She strained against the rope, wanting to grab his ass, run bloody furrows into the flesh of his back with her fingernails.

"Harder!"

He pounded into her mercilessly as she tightened around him, squealing with every thrust that breached the rings of muscle within her.

Though the veil of sensation that gripped her, she glimpsed him, tracing the coiling muscles of his arms to his broad shoulders, his full chest and the play of his abdominal muscles as he worked himself like a piston within her.

They came as one, her muscles dancing around him as he spurted his essence. She strained against the rope and the headboard creaked. 

She tightened her legs around him, unwilling to let him vacate that space he had filled so completely.

When he pulsed no more and their breathing returned to normal, she whispered, "Untie me." 

He leaned over her and she smelled him, this otherworldly man. Her man.

Soon her hands were free and they flew to his horns, grasping them and pulling his face violently to hers.

Her tongue hungrily twined with his.

They lay on their sides, facing each other in bed, languorous hands exploring terrain each now knew well.

"Did it diminish you?" Damian asked.

"No."

"Did you like it?"

"It was different." Then Britt added, sheepishly, "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I trust you."

Damian smiled. 

"As fun as it was, what was the point of this exercise?" asked Britt.

"It's our job to get Abby and Damian from where they are to here."



Thumper Ch. 03



Previously...

With their marriage on the rocks, Abby and George turn to a most unlikely source for help. Unbeknownst to George, Abby has agreed to let the incubus, Damian, and his mate, Britt, act as marriage counsellors. 

****

George drove his rusted pickup past the university campus where he'd been chasing tenure for the last several years. It was Friday evening and students wandered the lamp lit paths, hurrying to their dorms or to some club or another.

As for George, he had a date.

No, he reminded himself, not a date. A session. A session with a marriage counsellor. A solo session with a female marriage counsellor. An attractive, buxom marriage counsellor who made his heart race and tied his tongue like a pretzel.

Stop it, he chided himself guiltily. It's a session, nothing more, nothing less.

Better concentrate on driving, he decided, as his truck groaned around a corner.

The truck had been a concession to Abby's unreasoning distrust of anything that couldn't stand up by itself without support. Ten years ago, George had been mooning about motorcycles. Hogs. Softtails. Never mind that he'd never ridden a motorcycle before, but by God, he was born to be wild and he could take a course at the community college to teach him how. In the end, Abby had quietly approved of a truck, but one with a quad cab in case they ever decided to have kids. The truck would give George's depleting testosterone room to float about in. Free range hormones. He'd made a great show of reluctantly sacrificing his dreams of roaring down the wide open road to a Steppenwolf soundtrack. The bike was out, the truck was in. Abby had chosen red, which was okay with George. She'd called it his sexy, sexy red truck. Of course, the finance company had owned half of its sexiness at the time, but his testosterone, what there was of it, was all his own.

The truck was now rattling its way to the converted warehouse that housed the office of the counsellors. Abby had insisted on giving therapy one more chance. She'd said that these counsellors were recommended, that they often succeeded where all others had failed. If this doesn't work out, she'd said, at least we'll know that we tried everything. Please, she'd said. She'd practically begged. 

George had grudgingly agreed.

He and Abby had met the counsellors two weeks ago, in a meeting that left more questions than answers. As he rolled through town, he replayed that first meeting in his mind.

They'd pulled up in front of an old factory that had been converted to office lofts. The name of the defunct company peeled from the crown of the building.

"Doesn't look like much, does it?" said George.

Abby shrugged and stepped out of the car.

The lobby was spacious and richly appointed, in contrast to the building's shabby exterior. A chandelier hung from the high ceiling, and light gleamed in the polished marble, burnished metal, and dark hardwood. An office directory featured a dozen buttons, but only a few were labelled. "We want unit four," said Abby, checking a slip of paper.

"What's this business called?" asked George, noting that unit four was unnamed.

"I don't know. All I have is a person's name and address."

George shrugged and pressed the button. For a minute, nothing happened. George glanced around, noticing a closed circuit camera affixed to the ceiling.

"George and Abigail Masterson?" came a disembodied voice.

"Yes," answered George.

"Take the elevator to the top floor. First door on the right."

A buzzer sounded and George hurried to open the door.

At the door stood a man dressed in an exquisitely tailored grey suit. George judged him to be a shade taller than six feet, which was several inches taller than he was. The man had a lean, chiselled face, strong jaw, and body that appeared to be no stranger to physical exertion, which was unlike George on all counts. His dark, wavy hair revealed a hint of grey at the temples, George noted. George himself had almost no grey, for which he was happy, but his hair was thinning. The man was tanned, bespeaking a disdain for the conventional wisdom about UV rays. His face was rugged and weathered, but not unattractively, with a network of lines that radiated out from his eyes. Deep creases bracketed a firm mouth. He was handsome and George immediately disliked him. He preferred his old counsellor, who had the look of an unassuming accountant.

"I'm Damian," said the man. They shook hands all around and Damian ushered them inside the office.

Tall windows overlooked a busy commercial street, but no sound penetrated. The room was dominated by a heavy oak desk set against the backdrop of bookcases. A laptop occupied the desk, but otherwise its surface was uncluttered. Off to one side sat a meeting table with four leather chairs, on the other a low leather couch and coffee table.

From the moment he first stepped into their office, something told George that this foray into marital rescue would be different. The walls of the office were adorned with provocative artwork, striking after the nondescript and consciously neutral office decor of the counsellors he and Abby had visited in the past. One painting was of a woman's hand against a dark red background, palm upraised, fingers slightly curled, caught either in the moment of release or of making a fist. Another was of a woman, done in the style of Caravaggio, bound to a column, light playing dramatically against her lowered head and the folds of white cloth draped loosely around her torso. A sculpture of two stylized figures impossibly entwined stood on the credenza.

So absorbed was George with the decor that he failed to notice the entrance of a woman into the office.

"Sorry I'm late. I was tied up," she said.

"Ah, Britt. We were just getting acquainted," said Damian.

Damian made the requisite introductions, but George scarcely heard. Britt walked towards them with feline grace and shook hands. She led them to the meeting table and sat next to George, opposite Damian. She and Damian exchanged a brief, inscrutable look. Britt smiled at George and idly twirled the stands of her ponytail between slender and expertly manicured fingers. Her hair was light brown and her bangs neatly framed expressive and beguiling green eyes. She wore little makeup, as her clear and healthy complexion would scarcely have benefited from it. Rimless glasses sat on a delicate nose. Her lips curved in a gentle smile as she addressed Abby and George. "I hope I haven't missed anything."

She wore a simple, white blouse. The top buttons were undone, revealing a crucifix nestled in the cleft of her cleavage. A thick leather belt cinched the narrow circumference of her waist, and she wore a short leather skirt. Completing the ensemble were shiny black boots that sheathed her legs to the tops of her calves. Seated and without the advantage of four inch heels, she no longer appeared as tall as she had on her entrance. She crossed her legs and her skirt rode up, revealing an expanse of toned thigh, stockings, and a garter strap. George's eyes widened. She was young enough to have been a grad student, thought George. He hoped that she wasn't; any professor would have been mightily distracted by her presence. 

"We were just getting started," said Damian. "I was just about to explain to Abby and George that we are not counsellors or therapists in the traditional sense of the word."

No shit, thought George, sneaking a peek at Britt.

"For certain couples," continued Damian, "therapy works well. It reveals hidden motivations and all that blessedly interesting stuff. But for some couples, those who have undergone, like you, therapy two..."

"Three," offered George.

"...or three times, sometimes a different approach is needed. An approach that is less orthodox."

Damian poured water from a pitcher into four glasses.

"The key, of course, is whether both of you are still committed to each other, and what you're willing to sacrifice to return your marriage to that matrimonial bliss that you promised each other at the altar."

Damian smiled, waiting for an answer.

"We wouldn't be here if we weren't committed," said Abby. 

"I agree," said George with as much conviction as he could muster.

"Wonderful. Although Britt and I borrow heavily from standard practices, we do not, in this context, regard ourselves as therapists or marriage counsellors. Rather, we consider ourselves to be coaches."

"Just so you understand," said Britt, picking up the theme, "we observe no doctor - patient relationship in the conventional or regulatory sense. For one thing, we're not doctors, and Damian and I get involved with our clients."

The way she spoke the word involved made George's heart lurch. "Involved? How?" asked George.

"Suffice it to say that we take a more hands-on approach than our colleagues do. More, certainly, than is commonly accepted by our peers," said Damian.

"Hands on?" blurted George.

Damian ignored the question. "But I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. Just so that Britt and I are clear on whether we can help you, and whether we want to take you on as clients, we would like you to complete a questionnaire. This will help us determine whether our methods are suited to you, and, more importantly, whether you might be receptive to our methods and our rules."

Britt pulled two forms out of a folder and pushed them towards George and Abby. "In the interest of privacy, I'll ask George to move to the desk and complete the form there. Okay?"

Abby and George nodded.

With that, Britt and Damian left the room.

"They're an interesting pair," said George from the desk.

"Uh-huh," said Abby, scanning the questionnaire.

George turned his attention to the page before him. There were twenty-five statements, each with a rating scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). It looked like the course evaluation forms he gave to his students at the end of term. George rolled his eyes and quickly glanced to Abby to see whether she'd noticed. She hadn't. George sighed and picked up a pencil.

George scanned the first questions and dutifully circled the numbers. The next got his attention.

"I defer to my partner. "

George tapped the pencil against the desk and Abby shot him an angry look. The tapping stopped. The myth during his undergraduate years was that the worse you treated a girl, the more she felt drawn to you. George had seen the theory borne out in practice, but had never put the theory into practice himself, having been raised to be sensitive to the needs of others. He tried to recall if he'd ever had to put his foot down, to impose his will on Abby or anyone else for that matter. He couldn't remember the last time. Abby and he had often agreed on things and those they did not agree on were too trivial to fret about. All in all, he supposed, he was a pretty undemanding guy, attuned to the needs of his spouse. Or so it seemed, he reminded himself, until someone else satisfied her needs. He circled the four.

"Anything goes between consenting adults." 

George prided himself on a healthy libertarianism. Live and let live. Or as Pierre Eliot Trudeau put it, the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Five.

"I communicate my fantasies to my partner. "

George closed his eyes. There was a big difference between communicating fantasies and having them acted upon. True, he hadn't exactly communicated his fantasies in words, but that naughty French maid outfit he'd bought years ago was certainly emphatic enough. Whatever happened to that? Two.

"I characterize my love life as creative and exciting."

George, suddenly depressed, circled one. 

After Abby and George had completed their questionnaires, Britt collected them and sat at the desk to review them.

"While Britt is looking over your answers, perhaps you can tell me what brought you here."

George looked at his shoes. He noted that they needed polishing. Fortunately, Abby spoke before he could evaluate his cuffs.

"I was unfaithful." There. It was said. The big transgression.

"That's irrelevant."

George's head perked up. This was typically where the therapist would adopt a look of concern and ask a question. A statement, and a blunt one at that, was wholly unexpected. 

"I hardly think it's irrelevant," said George. "It's pretty relevant to me. Not to mention that she still works with the guy."

"I'm not surprised that that should unnerve you," said Damian.

"So what is relevant?" asked Abby.

Damian's eyes bored into hers. "Obviously what's relevant is what brought you to the point of infidelity. What's also relevant is why you have failed with three other marriage counsellors."

George watched Abby's reaction to the word failed. She never failed at anything, and the way her face hardened gave George a perverse thrill.

"We found them incompatible with us," said Abby tightly. "They weren't working for us."

"Either that, or you sent them packing if they didn't agree with you. Either of you. Or perhaps you were disappointed when they couldn't wave their magic wands and make everything better. A lot of couples would have given up."

"I don't give up."

Damian smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "Good," he said. "Perhaps you are ready for a different approach. I hope your questionnaires will shed some light on that subject."

Britt returned to the group with her notes in hand. Her cheerful smile contrasted with the tension at the table.

"Did you learn anything interesting?" asked Abby testily.

"Absolutely. I've reviewed your responses and they appear to fall within a common client profile."

"Oh, goody," said George.

Britt flipped though her notebook and took a deep breath. "From reviewing your questionnaires, I can see that your relationship is suffering from ennui, which isn't all that unusual in longer term relationships."

"I could have told you that," said Abby.

"What's more revealing are the roles you have adopted in your relationship. For example, George indicates that he defers to Abby. Abby's response was similar." 

"So?" asked George.

"So it's also evident from the responses that no one is effectively in charge. George defers to Abby and Abby defers to George. What's missing is a desire to lead, an embracing of that responsibility, and the desire of one party to submit to the leader. Ordinarily, it's the man who has the authority and directs the relationship."

Abby sat up in her chair, brow furrowing. 

"Before you get your feminist hackles up," said Damian, smiling, facing Abby, "Britt is only suggesting that this is the most common model."

"Right," said Britt. "As it stands now, your relationship follows the opposite model, to an extent. George has effectively surrendered a leadership role to Abby. That's fine as far as it goes. However, what I sense from George's responses is that he feels emasculated, due partly to a lack of intimate engagement. As a result of his powerlessness, Abby treats George treated with indifference, which serves only to further emasculate him. In the meantime, the woman feels deprived of the masculine strength that she desires. Abby wants to be led."

Britt took a breath. "Are you with me?"

George and Abby were speechless. In a few sentences, Britt had neatly encapsulated their relationship.

"You can also look at it another way. Abby's infidelity is a misdirected response to the powerlessness of her husband. It's a symptom of the fundamental erosion of the roles you've been unwilling or unable to play in each other's lives. Women have a hard-wired attraction to strong men, particularly those who combine strength with compassion, tenderness, and consideration. In the absence of these characteristics, well, you know what happens.

"So it's no surprise that your relationship has stagnated and suffers from a lack of imagination and creativity."

Britt smiled brightly into the silence, a sunniness in sharp contrast to the gloom that had settled over Abby and George. "Aw, come on, it's not so bad. It happens all the time. Surely you've heard this before."

George replied gloomily. "Never in the space of five minutes. Usually we're hundreds of dollars in the hole before the psychological bafflegab comes out."

George directed his next question to Damian. "Now that we've established our pathetic credentials, what next?"

"We proceed, provided, of course, you're willing to be our clients and you agree to our terms."

George sat back. "Would those be financial terms?"

"Partly that," said Britt. "More importantly, you have to agree to a set of rules."

"As I suggested earlier," said Damian, "Britt and I are considerably more hands-on than our peers. This is for the simple fact that deeds speak louder than words, and leading by example tends to be more effective than idle chat. Britt and I will lead you through various scenarios that will serve to press the reset button on your relationship. The process requires you to be open minded, to trust us completely, and to leave your inhibitions and preconceptions behind.

"It's important that you agree to treat our sessions as guilt- and recrimination-free," added Britt. "A lot of the couples we deal with have constructed the most elaborate barriers to intimacy. Breaking down these barriers will require you complete a series of exercises you might feel uncomfortable with. We'll be challenging you to act outside of your comfort zone. You'll be doing things with us and with each other that might be seen as licentious, possibly immoral."

"What kind of things?" George squeaked. He was perturbed. This meeting had taken an altogether unexpected direction. Not to mention the fact that Britt's leg rested against his. He didn't dare to move away, for fear that she would move closer and demonstrate that their contact was not accidental and not entirely chaste.

"Damian and I need to discuss a strategy, to determine which barriers need to be broken down and how best to do it."

"You said something earlier about your unorthodox methods and rules. What exactly are you talking about?" Abby asked.

Damian glanced at Britt at the desk. She gave a slight nod. "Yes," said Damian. He leaned back, but did not take his eyes off Abby as he recited them, ticking them off on his fingers. "One: There will be no recrimination about what occurs during our sessions. What happens during our sessions stays there. Two: You will not speak of your sessions without our consent to each other or anyone else. Three: Britt and I have carte blanche. You will grant us blanket consent to do what we see fit. Four: You can stop a session whenever you want, but there will be a penalty, usually forfeiture of your deposit and the termination of our relationship."

"Why should we trust you?" asked Abby, anger and fear flashing in her eyes. "It sounds to me that all you want to do is take advantage of desperate people."

"Unlike the divorce lawyers you'd be facing otherwise?" asked Damian sharply. He added more softly, "Think of it as a challenge. At this point, you have nothing to lose."

"Except for my self-respect."

Damian stared hard at Abby. "Both of you have the choice of taking advantage of what Britt and I have to teach you. I won't deny that it'll require a huge leap of faith -- perhaps one you're unwilling to make -- but you know that our methods get results. You have nothing to lose except for your marriage, after all, and if for a moment you feel the process to be humiliating, you've clearly never been taken apart and exposed by a divorce attorney." 

That was the beginning. Then yesterday, he'd gotten a call from Britt. Would he come to the office, alone? Would seven in the evening be okay? 

"Of course," George had said, thinking anew about how Britt had mouthed the word involved and wondering what exactly that meant.




Thumper Ch. 03



* * *

I don't want to lose her," said George. He was seated on the couch in the office where the four had met weeks ago. The lights in the office were dim. The artwork on the walls looked even more suggestive in the half-light. If it weren't a session with a counsellor, George would have thought the lighting to be intimate.

There was slight tremor in his voice as he spoke the words. It wasn't so much the prospect of failure that weakened him, but rather his discomfiture at Britt's presence. He wasn't one to be unnerved by attractive women -- God knew many of his students could distract a man -- but there was something about Britt that both frightened and aroused him. It wasn't so much her suggestive attire, but the way she held herself and the way in which his barriers fell before her gaze. 

Britt smiled sympathetically. "Sorry to break it to you, but you already have." 

Britt's bluntness left George momentarily speechless. This certainly wasn't the style he was used to from other counsellors.

"What I mean to say is that you've lost her once. You have to ask yourself what you're willing to do to win her back."

Britt moved to the front of the desk and perched a hip on the corner, her short skirt riding up, revealing garters and the top of her stockings. The woman certainly loved her garters, George thought. Then again, so did he.

George tried hard to keep his eyes averted from the exquisite expanse of leg swinging seductively inches away. "I used to think that I could win her back. Now I'm not so sure. For all of the counselling we've been through, nothing much has changed. Or rather, our positions are more entrenched. So I don't know."

"Okay, let's say you could reconstruct the marriage, but better than before, would you be willing to make the effort?"

"Absolutely." 

"Good. Let's take it as a given that the old model didn't work, or you wouldn't be here," Britt continued. "After all, the old model chased her into the arms of another man. You have to come up with another model. That's what I'm going to help you with."

A new model? George was confused.

Britt smiled and leaned forward, revealing a disconcerting amount of cleavage. A veritable and dangerous chasm of cleavage, in fact. "Right. Out with the old George, in with the new. When we're finished, you won't recognize yourself."

Britt moved from the desk and settled next to him on the couch. She tucked one leg under the other and leaned toward him. He caught the scent of her perfume. 

"If you were to characterize the last years of your marriage, what words would you use?"

George thought for a moment. "Ennui, indifference, frustration."

"Alright. Let's start with ennui. What do you think caused it?"

"Perhaps a decrease in the level of intimacy over time."

"Right. Do you remember the days you used to play as a kid? Spin the bottle? Truth or dare? Do you remember how, over time, the games became increasingly more creative, increasingly intimate, always testing the line before retreating?"

Damian nodded. "Okay."

"And then comes the lucky day when the angels smile on you and you get to fuck someone. The holy grail. You've made it. You're a man now and you've reached your goal. If you're lucky enough to have a steady partner, you try all of the variations in short order. Tab A into slot A, B, or C. And pretty soon, that's the end of it. You spend the rest of your life repeating the same themes, or spelunking the same caves, if you prefer, and pretty soon everyone involved gets bored."

"I'm still with you."

"So why is it that creativity so often stops when you reach the big goal? We have these beautiful bodies and intelligence and imagination, and we spend much of it doing exactly the same thing time after time. Have you noticed how creativity often has an inverse relationship with availability? Before you know it, we've lost our imagination and willingness to play. Ennui sets in, and as a result, a lack of intimacy."

"There's some truth to what you say," George conceded.

"I'm glad you agree. I had a feeling you would. It's remarkable, really, how many people think the same thing, but fail to do anything about it."

"Remarkable," parroted George dumbly, for at that moment, Britt had placed a finely manicured hand on his forearm.

"Why would that be?"

"Laziness?"

"I've always thought it was fear."

"Yes. Quite possibly."

"So play is the key. Play with ever changing dynamics and complexity. Always testing the line. Keeping things interesting." Britt leaned towards him and her bosom threatened to spill out of her tight blouse.

"I see your point."

"I'm so glad to hear you say that."

"Really? Why?"

"Because now, I want you to play with me."

George was flummoxed. "You want me to play with you?" he stammered.

"Absolutely."

"You don't mean chess, do you?"

Britt laughed.

His mind whirled. This can't be happening. Unlike some of his colleagues at the university, he'd thankfully never been hit upon by a student, not even to secure a pass or a better grade. Not that he wouldn't have welcomed the advance, the male ego being what it is, before gently declining the offer. 

"When you say play, you mean..."

"I sense that you're a pretty creative guy, and it's only your choice of playmate, or rather her unwillingness to play with you, that has held you back."

George was about to protest when Britt asked, "Do you remember that Marvell poem?"

"To his Coy Mistress."

"Right!"

"Had we but world enough, and time/This coyness, lady, were no crime."

"Exactly. We have world enough and time, and I'm not at all coy."

Where is this going? thought George, heart pounding alarmingly in his chest. It had grown hot in the office. Had he and Abby landed themselves in some weird escort relationship? God knew the fee alone was more than enough to cover such an arrangement. Were these people who they claimed to be? Could they be trusted? Their methods, if George understood Britt's insinuation, were so off the map that George questioned the wisdom of retaining them. 

"Play with you?"

Britt smiled demurely and nodded, a twinkle in her eye.

"I don't think that's a good idea. I don't know how that would help anything."

"But I know. I'm the expert, remember? You're a married man, albeit not happily. You've got carte blanche to do whatever you want, signed by both you and Abby. Perhaps you feel that playing with another woman threatens your sense of fidelity. I understand. I really do.

"But here`s the thing: I`m not asking you to do anything that`s not covered by consent. You've got permission and we`ve established that play is a crucial component to a marriage. I'm concerned that you're out of practice. You may think it's like riding a bike, but it's not. 

"You could refuse, I suppose. Perhaps you're happier in the role of the long-suffering, cuckolded husband. It's a role you're used to playing, after all."

The smile died on George's face.

"Perhaps you don't care what Abby and Damian are up to at this moment."

Abby. George had forgotten about her. If he was being seduced, what was Abby doing? Was she willingly doing it, whatever it was, or was she being cajoled?

He imagined her with Damian. George took a deep breath. "You said something about play?"

"Yes. Doctor's orders."

"You're not a doctor."

"No, but I play doctor every day."

* * *

Britt held George's hand and led him to the elevator. She pressed the button for the basement.

"Where are we going?"

Britt smirked. "Damian and I have a workshop downstairs." 

The elevator doors opened on a corridor constructed of painted cinderblocks. Steel doors appeared at regular intervals. Britt took George's hand and walked to the third door on the right.

George's hand tingled in Britt's. 

Britt turned on the light and revealed a fully furnished bedroom. A four-poster bed complete with a billowy white canopy and red satin sheets occupied one wall. A dark credenza with impressive scrollwork occupied another. Erotic art covered the walls and oriental rugs lay on the floor. There were no windows.

Britt ushered George into the room and locked the door behind them. She turned to him and placed her hands on her hips. "Surprised?"

George nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"We have several rooms down here, but this is my favourite."

George's mouth was dry. He suppressed a strong desire to flee. He was clearly out of his element. 

Britt approached him slowly, studying him, her green eyes boring into his. His knees grew weak and he silently berated himself. Be a man, he told himself.

Britt placed a hand on his shoulder. "I have a challenge for you."

"Okay." She was so close that he could feel the heat of her and smell her perfume. 

She stepped forward and pressed her body against his. "Are you up for it?"

If he wasn't, he soon would be. "I... I think so."

Britt studied him. "Using anything above your waist and any tools in this room, I want you to make me come."

A paralysis descended over George. Had he understood correctly? 

"And you have fifteen minutes to do it."

He was sure that he had misheard. He reviewed his situation. He was in a basement bedroom with an impossibly beautiful woman and she had asked him to make her come. And this clearly was no dream, otherwise he would be awake already with cold and sticky goo on the sheets.

Britt ran the long red nail of her index finger down George's chest. "A man who can bring his woman to orgasm easily is a man who wields some power over her. She is your instrument. Play her. Enjoy your mastery." Britt's purr stroked him like a lover, low and seductive.

George's throat was dry. "I wouldn't know where to begin," he croaked.

"Then you're in more need of help than I thought."

Britt pulled him to the credenza and opened the doors. Arrayed in neat rows on the back wall were an assortment of instruments, from leather cuffs of various sizes, ropes and chains, floggers, paddles, and riding crops.

Absently, George opened one of the drawers and spied a rubber bag and hose.

"That's an enema bag," offered Britt.

"Oh, shit!" exclaimed George, quickly dropping his hand. George shook his head. "Listen, I can't. I'm a married guy. I appreciate the offer, though. More than you know. Believe me. Thank you. Really. Thanks. You've made my day."

"You are a married guy, I agree. An almost formerly-married guy who has agreed with his almost former-wife to throw caution to the wind, without possibility of recrimination, as a means to saving their marriage."

"Well yes, but..."

"You do want to save your marriage, don't you?"

"Sure. But this is so unorthodox."

"You agreed to unorthodox."

"But this...." George turned his back on Britt and studied the chrome, latex, and leather displayed in the credenza. His heart tripped and his mouth was dry. He felt trapped between these vibrating gizmos and what appeared to be a lunatic nymphomaniac.

When he turned to ask for a glass of water, his heart almost stopped. There was Britt, a goddess in lace. She had untied her hair, and now the tresses cascaded over her shoulders, lingering in an erotic chiaroscuro against the creamy skin of her breasts, displayed to advantage with a red shelf bra with black lace accents. Her nipples gleamed with a pair of thick golden rings. Ouch, he thought, and was momentarily overcome with a desire to kiss them better.

His eyes tore themselves away and stroked down her lean torso to a matching garter that crowned a nicely coiffed pussy, a neat exclamation mark of hair rising above a ring that pierced the base of the clitoral hood. Her muscular legs, encased in black stockings, ended in a pair of black stilettos better suited to pointing at the ceiling than walking.

"God," stammered George.

"Come." Britt gestured.

Like an automaton, George approached. Britt grasped his head and drew it to her breasts, burying his face in the enveloping warmth of her bosom. Her scent, the yielding softness of her flesh, almost overwhelmed him.

When Britt released him, his face was flushed.

"I'm starting the clock in one minute."

George shook his head. This was too unbelievable. "Wait." He sat next to her on the bed and snuck a peak to ensure that she was still real.

"What is it you want me to do?" he asked, stalling for time.

Britt grinned. "Make me come. Anything goes, anything in the credenza, anything above your waist. Thirty seconds."

* * *

George studied the contents of the credenza like a starving man at a buffet. Where to begin?

Finally, he selected a pair of handcuffs.

He returned to the bed where Britt sat. She regarded him quizzically and smiled when he grasped her wrists and fastened the handcuffs. Her arms neatly framed her breasts, pressing them together. The sight of her restrained like this made him dizzy, a fantasy come to life.

Now what? he thought.

George tentatively grazed her nipples with the tips of his fingers. Her nipples hardened instantly and Britt closed her eyes and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

George knelt between her legs and pulled her chest to his mouth. He licked the soft circumference of each breast, spiralling in to each puckered nipple. Areola pressed between his teeth, he ran his tongue back and forth across the nipple. Britt's head tipped back as a faint moan escaped from between her lips.

Having heard few such moans in the last few years, he was grateful, even if Britt was faking.

He gently laid her back on the bed, arm under her back. He ran his fingertips, feather-light, from her bare throat to her chest, leaving a trail of goose pimples in their wake.

He admired the feminine geography before him. Britt's head was turned to the side, mahogany hair caressing her face and cascading over the bed. Her breasts sat full and proud on a rib cage over which lightly tanned skin stretched taut. The vulnerable well of her abdomen rose gently to the pubic bone. With the merest touch he spread her legs, displaying the delicate folds her labia that blossomed from the smooth, silken surrounding tissue.

What am I doing? he thought. 

George lowered his head. Gently and patiently despite his time limit, he touched the tip of his tongue to her, eliciting a purr of pleasure. The taste of her intoxicated him and gave him courage. His tongue played on the ripples of her sex and he forgot the time limit, losing himself to her taste and aroma and the feeling of her yielding, warm smoothness on his tongue. 

He drew her labia between his lips, pulling gently, running his tongue back and forth across the soft flesh. He thrust his tongue deeply into her, tasting her, and then drew it up to tease her clitoris out of the tissue that enveloped it.

He inserted his thumbs and spread her lips apart. He ran his tongue slowly from her opening up to her crown, lapping her juices and teasing her clitoris before retracing his path. 

The increased cadence of her breathing and occasional whimper encouraged him.

He inserted his middle finger, gently hooking it and pressing upward within her. He ran the tip of his tongue in a circular motion over her clitoris while the finger within her mirrored the motion. 

"Mmm."

His other hand fondled her ass and she drew up her legs to grant him better access. Her stilettos dug painfully into George's shoulders, but he continued his efforts unabated.

He pressed the thumb of his free hand on her perineum, noting the wetness there and tracing its path to her anus. He spread her lubrication over its surface and pressed, feeling the muscles yield.

His tongue worked her clitoris as one finger massaged her G-spot and his thumb slipped shallowly in and out of her anus. George could feel Britt's bound wrists on his head, pressing it into her.

"That's it," she gasped. "Faster."

George's tongue danced on and around her clitoris, alternately probing and then pausing to lap up her juices before returning. His finger and thumb were now firmly embedded in her. He drew her into his mouth as he would a nipple and sucked.

Britt's breathing quickened and the first tremors wracked her body. Her hips swivelled and rocked and a low, guttural purr escaped from parted lips, rising in volume.

Britt came suddenly in a back-arching orgasm in which she bore down and pressed hard on George's hand, pressing his fingers deep into her cunt and ass. She gave a strangled cry and spread her legs wide, affording George a better taste of that which he had worked hard to release.

She was not quickly spent. Her release intensified and crashed anew under George's ministrations, to the point where the subtlest flick of the tongue or pressure of his fingers would unleash another series of tremors.

When it appeared that Britt was spent, George pushed her legs to her chest, exposing her glistening folds. He lowered his head and thrust his tongue into its pungent warmth, savouring Britt's flavour. 

"You're full of surprises," whispered Britt when George had had his fill.

"I've had some time to think about it."

* * *

George unlocked the cuffs and climbed into the bed and lay beside Britt. 

"You weren't faking, were you?"

"I don't fake."

"No, I guess not."

Britt propped herself up on her elbow and regarded George, pausing briefly at the erection that tented his trousers.

"Is it my turn?" asked George hopefully, hungrily.

"You? Ah, I get it. I've had my fun, huh?"

George smiled. Britt placed a hand on the front of his trousers and gave a gentle squeeze.

"You'll have to negotiate that with Abby. Go home to your wife. Take her. She's yours."

George felt a moment of crushing disappointment.

"Just so you understand, I'm not doing this as a surrogate for your wife. I'll guide you, but all paths lead to her. Only her. Do you feel cheated?"

"A little," George admitted. 

"If it's any consolation, I'm not easily pleased. You did amazingly well. You need to show Abby what a treasure she has."

George shook his head, but was pleased.

"If you want me to, I can tell her."

"God no!"

"Then you will have to show her."

Britt placed a hand on his chest. "You realize this isn't about turning Abby into some kind of obedient plaything to satisfy your selfish urges," said Britt.

"I wouldn't," George protested.

"I know, but it has to be said. At the same time, if you place her satisfaction above yours, as you did with me, she may well accede to becoming a willing partner in play. Your power comes from being uniquely able to satisfy her. Go home now. Take her."



Thumper Ch. 04



Previously...

With their marriage on the rocks, Abby and George turn to a most unlikely source for help. Unbeknownst to George, Abby has agreed to let the incubus, Damian, and his mate, Britt, act as marriage counsellors. Little does Abby realize how unorthodox their methods are.

***

The doorbell rang at six o'clock exactly. Abby was alone, George having left the university directly for his appointment with Britt. Abby had puttered around the house since returning home from work, looking at the clock every five minutes like some adolescent on the eve of her first date.

Damian stood at the doorstep in all of his sartorial magnificence. He brushed a kiss on her cheek and she quickly ushered him inside. Her heart fell when the neighbour across the street raised a hand in salute.

"Damn," she whispered to herself as she closed the door.

"Are you ready for our big night?" Damian leaned casually against the railing to the stairs leading to the upper floor. His eyes raked over her body, sizing her up. Nothing in his face betrayed his feelings. 

No, thought Abby. "Of course," she said.

"You're nervous," observed Damian.

"Perhaps a little."

"You can trust me."

"I don't have to trust anyone. Besides, trust is earned."

Damian smiled. "You demonstrated your trust when you retained Britt and me."

Abby shook her head. "I demonstrated foolishness and gullibility."

Foolishness and gullibility indeed. Here stood her nocturnal visitor in the flesh. The man -- no, the demon -- who had insinuated himself into her life unasked, who had taken liberties with her. Denying him as she had so many weeks ago had been an act of unthinking desperation. She had denied him then, only to consciously invite him into her life now. What had she been thinking, agreeing to this arrangement? Not to mention placing George into the hands of his partner. 

"Be that as it may, I'm taking you out for dinner tonight. It's a place you probably know well, so if you have any issues being seen with me, you had better speak up now."

Damian waited.

"That's fine."

"Good. Just so you know, I bet Britt that you wouldn't be up to this. You might think that you're a strong woman. You might even think that you're flexible and daring. I doubt it. Britt seems to think that you'll rise to the challenge." Damian shrugged. "Personally, I think you're probably a stick in the mud and you bored poor George into indifference and took up with your business partner to prove to yourself that you still had some life in you, but that's a discussion for another time."

Abby's mouth was set in a firm line and she felt her face flushing. Damian had hit the mark. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to cause offense."

Like hell you didn't, Abby thought. "You said something about a challenge?"

Damien threw Abby a bag. "Put these on. The pantsuit might cut it for Hillary Clinton, but it won't do for you."

Abby glared at Damien and wondered whether she despised this man. She stomped upstairs and locked herself into the ensuite.

When she was sure the door was locked, she peered into the bag. She blanched at what she saw. She was about to march back out and tell Damian in no uncertain terms where he could shove this collection of slut fashion when she hesitated. 

The bastard knew her better that she would have thought. She'd never been one to back away from a challenge. What have I done? she asked herself.

Damian lay on the bed, leafing through one of Abby's romance novels. Abby snatched it from his hands. "How dare you come into my bedroom?"

He ignored the question. "You seem to have exotic tastes. A bit Victorian, perhaps, but exotic. Mound of Venus? Throbbing manroots? I'm all a-tingle."

Abby blushed again at having her one guilty pleasure revealed to this man.

"By the way, you look pretty hot."

"I look like a slut."

"Maybe, but it's a good look. It works for you."

She could have hit him. God, she wanted to hit him. Instead, she took a deep, steadying breath. "You have to help me with this." said Abby, turning to indicate the lacing of the corset she wore. 

"It has always fascinated me what women fantasize about. Kidnapping, ritualized rape, bondage. Why is it that they can be so accepting of kink in theory and so prudish in practice?" 

"Perhaps we read about it so that we don't have to find our very own pirates to ravish us."

Damian laughed. "You've got me there." He swung his legs to the floor and motioned Abby over.

As she stood between his splayed legs, he tightened the laces of the corset, asking Abby to exhale. "Too tight?"

"I won't be running any marathons in this getup."

"This thing does wonders for your figure. Not that your figure needs that much help."

Abby, who had been sneaking peaks at herself in a wall mirror while Damian busied himself behind her, grudgingly had to concur. The gold paisley of the corset suited the light tan of her chest. Black lace ruffles adorned the top and bottom edges and matched the crushed taffeta, knee-length skirt Damian had brought. 

"Exhale once more," Damian commanded, whereupon he further tightened the laces.

"Enough," cried Abby. 

"How do you feel?"

"Like an over-stuffed sausage. Self-conscious."

"And perhaps a little sexy."

"Perhaps a little."

"Good." Damian approached and placed his hands on Abby's hips. He gazed intently at her. Abby thought that he might kiss her, but he did not. Instead, he reached behind her head and removed the clip that held her hair in a pony tail.

As her hair unfurled, Damian said, "Much better."

Abby shook her head. "Regular cougar, huh?"

* * *

Abby finished applying her makeup in the bathroom. Although it was entirely out of character for her, the outfit did wonders. Her breasts swelled voluptuously out of the top of the corset and her waist narrowed considerably. She cringed at the thought of appearing in public like this. She emerged from the bathroom self-consciously. 

"You look great," said Damian from the bed.

"I look like a whore."

Damien shrugged. "One more thing."

"This isn't enough?"

Damian didn't reply.

"What then?" asked Abby.

"Take off your underwear."

"Absolutely not."

"Absolutely not," mimicked Damian. "I asked you to put on what was in the bag. Not put on what was not in the bag."

"What kind of counselling is this?"

Damian shrugged again. "I told you that I'm not a counsellor. Tell you what, you can call it off and I'll leave right now."

"And let you win your bet? I don't think so."

Damian smiled. 

"And dropping my underwear is supposed to prove something?"

"Don't knock it till you try it. Who knows? You might find it immensely therapeutic."

"You're a bastard, you know that?"

"I've been called worse."

"I should tell you that you're dangerously close to crossing the line."

"If that's the case, perhaps we should call this off now. I'd love to win the bet, particularly since Britt is a much better judge of character than I. Just so you know, I'm not even within sight of the line. I wonder if George is close to his." 

Abby reached under her skirt, careful to not expose herself, and shimmied until her panties lay on the floor.

"There. Happy now?"

"Good God woman," exclaimed Damian, horrified. "You need to do some shopping, or did you borrow those things from your mother?"

"They're perfectly sensible!" protested Abby.

"For a nun. Throw them out. Or burn them."

Damian swung his legs from the bed and stood. "Oh, I almost forgot."

"What now?"

"I need to get closer to the line. Maybe even cross it. Unless, of course, you have reservations." Damian smirked.

Abby glared at him. "Just do it already."

Damian moved quickly and pinned Abby against the dresser, grasping both wrists in one hand behind her back and pressing one leg insistently between hers. He was strong and his hands held her arms together like a vise. She struggled against his grasp and the weight of him that trapped her. There was no fighting him now. No escape.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Shh," whispered Damian.

He slid his hand between her legs and worked his fingers up until they brushed the folds of her pussy. Her body recognized the touch and wavered between hunger and flight. Abby's breath caught in her throat and she grew still. Between the outfit, her bare pussy, and his insistent fingers, she knew that her body would betray her. His fingers teased her opening and she silently cursed her traitorous body for the slick warmth that greeted him.

"And I was worried that you were frigid," he whispered into her ear.

Abby clenched her eyes shut but didn't struggle. Damian reached into his pocket and withdrew an object. He used his leg to spread hers wider and worked his hand up again.

Abby felt his hand and a smooth object rubbing against the lips of her pussy. Abby gave a little cry as he inserted it without warning and pushed it home.

"There. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Abby shook stood against the dresser, quaking.

"Now we can go," he said with a grin and took her hand in his.

* * *

Abby followed Damian from the house and locked the door. Her neighbour wasn't there, but she could feel the unseen eyes studying her. To hell with them, she told herself.

Damian opened the passenger door of a gleaming black Porsche 911.

"Lease?" asked Abby without thinking.

"No, it's mine. I don't believe in leasing, or owing for that matter."

He held her hand as she eased into the low leather seat and then reached across to buckle her in.

"Business must be good," said Abby as the engine rumbled to life.

Damian smiled. "I can't complain."

They drove through the quiet suburban streets in silence for a few minutes. Abby tried but couldn't completely ignore the foreignness of the egg nestled firmly in her vagina, pressing insistently against her g-spot. Though she tried to will it away, she could feel the warmth there and the slickness of her arousal.

"I had it modified," said Damian.

"It's very nice."

"I meant the egg."

"Oh," said Abby, who'd been thinking about the car. "That's nice too."

"Commercial eggs are fine, but don't pack much bang for the buck."

"I see," said Abby. She had no idea what Damien was talking about but didn't want to admit it. "Is the object of this exercise to make me feel like a hen?"

Damian laughed as he turned onto a brightly-lit boulevard. He placed a hand on her bare leg.

"Are you and Britt a couple?" asked Abby, to get her mind off his hand.

"In a manner of speaking."

"And she has no qualms about what you are doing?" 

"She knows what I am. Besides, she's likely doing something as well."

George. Abby had been so wrapped up in her experience that she'd forgotten entirely about George's appointment with Britt. She felt a sudden, unexpected pang of jealousy.

Damian removed his hand from Abby's thigh and pressed a button on a small, black device. The egg began vibrating.

Oh, my, thought Abby.

"That's the first setting. The others are increasingly intense."

"Uh-huh." The sensation was mild but entirely enjoyable, perhaps more so because of her bareness down there. Abby spread her legs slightly, hoping that Damian did not notice. The air from the car's ventilation system eddied in her short skirt, caressing her bare pussy. 

They left Abby's subdivision and merged onto the highway. "We need a safeword," said Damian.

"A what?"

"A safeword. We might be doing something together and you'll say 'no'. I need to know that no means no and not yes or maybe or more. Are you with me? So a safeword is something other than no that indicates, in no uncertain terms, that you want me to stop."

"Believe me, if I want you to stop, you'll know it."

"You're absolutely right. Yet much to my surprise, here you are, dressed as you are, and you haven't told me to go stop yet. I just don't want any misunderstanding. I'd like you to think of a word that signifies that you want me to stop whatever I'm doing. Normally, the safeword signifies that you have hit your limit. In our case, I'd like it to also signify that you want to halt to our entire agreement."

"Fine."

Damian smiled. "So what's your safeword."

Abby thought for a moment. "Thumper," she said finally.

"I like it! Thumper it is."

The car quickly gobbled up the miles. Too quickly, Abby thought, for soon she would allow herself to be seen in public in this impossible outfit with a man who wasn't her husband. She squirmed in her seat to try to dislodge the egg from a particularly sensitive spot. A few weeks ago, the notion that she would find herself in this position would have strained credulity. A few weeks ago, she'd been completing a questionnaire, completely oblivious that what she had started then would lead to this.

She remembered one of the questions: "There's nothing I won't try at least once." 

There were no examples. Skydiving? Perhaps. A threesome? Um. Anal sex with a midget? Gross, and unlikely. She'd circled the number two, indicating that experimentation was very unlikely. Yet here she was... 

"Equality between partners is the key to successful relationships." 

Her pencil had hovered over the four. She briefly pictured her mother, beautiful, university educated and wickedly smart, frittering away the best years of her life as a traditional housewife in a nondescript, cookie-cutter suburb, selflessly supporting her husband on his slow climb up the corporate ladder and raising a pair of ungrateful kids. Abby couldn't imagine the sacrifice. She'd vowed, even as a young girl, never to sacrifice her potential for anyone. She'd circled the five.

"I act on my fantasies." 

Abby assumed the question related to sex. She had plenty of fantasies about success, about the next big deal that would put her over the top, but she doubted dreams of a bigger office and faster car was what Damian and Britt had in mind. Trouble was, Abby could not remember when she had last fantasized about sex. Hell, she didn't even know whether mature adults did fantasize. Had she known about the question, she might have asked someone. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Maybe she worked too hard. Maybe she was too busy to engage in fantasies. Maybe you should answer the question, she told herself. She'd circled the one.

"I characterize my love life as creative and exciting." 

Abby had circled two, adding a point by virtue of an exciting but regrettable fling. The question did not, after all, specify with whom.

* * *

Abby had to admit that Damian was devilishly handsome. As they were led to their table, many of the female diners paused to trace his progress between the tables, much as the males, she noticed self-consciously, traced hers. Abby felt conspicuous in her corset, though a small part of her revelled in the heady, old-school femininity of it. To her surprise, she was stimulated rather than uncomfortable at her lack of underwear. It was an erotic secret she and Damian shared. 

They were seated in a secluded and dimly-lit corner and Damian soon dispatched the waitress with their food and wine selection.

The glow of the candle excluded all else.

"Tell me about your affair."

Abby suppressed a flash of shame and annoyance that Damian would bring it up now. "It wasn't planned. One thing just led to another. He took me and I let myself be taken."

"You didn't resist?"

Abby forced herself to meet Damian's gaze. "I can't say I did. I'm not making excuses, but by the time Steve and I got together, intimacy with George had dwindled to the kind of obligatory screw that you do to avoid becoming your parents."

"And why is that?"

"If you hadn't stuffed a vibrating egg up my pussy, I could almost believe that you were a therapist."

Damian goosed the control and Abby gasped.

"I asked you a question," said Damian, turning the device off.

Quietly, Abby said, "I thought that's what happened to couples. There comes a time in every relationship when the symphony packs up and goes home, the angels fly back to heaven, and you're faced with an endless vista of domestic mundanity."

Damian grimaced. "You don't think that's sad? Lazy?"

"Sad, yes. Lazy? Perhaps you're right. Truth is, the business has taken so much of my time and energy that at the end of the day, there's very little of either left."

"But enough for Steve?" asked Damian.

"We were working closely together. Hell, I've spent more time with Steve than I have with almost anyone. We were responding to a request for proposal. This was the big deal, the deal that would make our company and secure it for years to come. The stress, the exhaustion, the availability -- all roads led to what we did."

The waitress returned with the salads and directed an ingratiating smile to Damian.

Damian pushed the plate away as though he had suddenly lost his appetite.

"It doesn't sound like you regret it."

Abby lowered her eyes.

"Then why go through all of this? The counselling? Why invest so much in a relationship you were so willing to sacrifice?" asked Damian.

Abby's eyes flashed. "Because I've never failed at anything, okay?" She angrily stabbed her fork at the salad. "Losing George would be a failure."

"It's all about you, isn't it?" Damian shook his head. "Have you ever refused George?"

Abby hesitated. "Maybe a few times."

"I'd wager more than a few. Why?"

"The usual suspects. Tiredness, disinterest, familiarity."

"Yet when your business partner takes you, you let yourself be taken."

"Listen," said Abby angrily. "I'm not saying that what I did was right, but it was good. Do you understand? I can't bring myself to apologize for it."

An intense punishing vibration erupted in her loins. More pain than pleasure this time. Her fork clattered against the plate and she gripped the edge of the table. She squeezed her thighs together, hoping to dampen the noise she was convinced everyone could hear. Her breath hissed out from between clenched teeth. 

The waitress hurried over. "Is everything alright?" she asked Damian.

"Yes. Perfect. Thank you."

The waitress flashed her over-white teeth to Damian before hurrying off.

Little did she realize, thought Abby, that she was smiling at a wolf in Armani.

"Stop," she whispered.

Damian leaned back and regarded her closely for several moments.

Her eyes pleaded. If he was enjoying her discomfiture, she couldn't tell. Damian's face was inscrutable.

"Where did Thumper come from?"

"Huh? Oh. A stuffed bunny. When I was young girl. I couldn't pronounce 'th', so it came out as humper. Seemed appropriate."

The egg stilled, leaving behind a tingling after-echo.

"Thank you," Abby whispered.

Damian pulled his salad towards him and speared an arugula leaf.

"Do you like being in charge all the time?"

"It's what I've worked for." Abby's voice was faint.

"But you're not in charge of your marriage. For that matter, neither is George."

"To tell you the truth, when I get home from work, I'm tired of being in charge."

Damian nodded. "I can imagine," he said with more than a hint of irony. 

The waitress removed their salad plates and soon delivered the main course. Damian sipped his wine.

"Tell me about your family, your parents."

"Not much to tell. Dad was an engineer, mom stayed at home to raise the kids, despite having been university educated." Abby shook her head. "Kind of a waste when you think of it."

The egg hummed softly, as if to quietly announce its presence.

"Did your mother feel that it was a waste?"

"Not in so many words. No, that's not right. She didn't."

"And your father?"

"A good man, hard-working. The quintessential strong, silent type."

"And they were happy?"

Abby squirmed in her seat. "They'll be celebrating their golden anniversary this year, so yes, they were happy." 




Thumper Ch. 04



"Can you picture yourself in that kind of relationship?"

Britt snorted. "Me? A Stepford wife?"

"Is that what your mother was?"

"No."

The egg vibrated with greater intensity and pressed insistently against the inside of Abby's pubic bone. Afraid that it was going to vibrate out, Abby clenched her muscles.

"It's interesting how you equate a traditional female role with submission and docility. Was your mother either?"

Abby squirmed. "No."

"I bet you she was strong and supportive."

"Yes."

"Was she less of a woman because of it?"

"No."

The egg, aided by Abby's subtle movements, had manoeuvred itself into a particularly sensitive spot. Abby closed her eyes as a warmth spread across her loins. She felt an unmistakable dampness. 

"It is possible to have a career and a strong marriage," said Damian.

When Abby didn't respond, he continued, "It's also possible to have a strong marriage in which you're not in charge."

Abby recognized the familiar sense of slowly tipping over the edge, of releasing the mind and succumbing wholly to the body. She was close to coming.

"Submission isn't weakness."

God, if Abby submitted now, the entire restaurant would think she had Tourettes. She fought the oncoming release like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill.

Damian increased the level of stimulation.

Bad analogy, thought Abby. Sisyphus ultimately lost.

Stop! she implored, and wasn't sure whether she'd spoken aloud.

"It requires a special kind of strength..."

"Okay," she gasped.

"...to willingly submit to someone."

"Uh-huh."

"So you'd be willing to pass the reins to George?"

"Stop," she hissed. She was too close.

"Answer me."

"Yes."

The vibration stopped, leaving a sudden void around which pinpricks of sensation whirled like stars.

"Yes," repeated Abby.

"You understand what you've agreed to?"

Abby took several deep shuddering breaths. She'd won. She'd maintained control, yet part of her longed for what had been so close. 

Damian repeated himself.

Abby looked doubtful. "I suppose. She paused. "Given the proper circumstances."

"That's what we're working on."

* * *

"Home sweet home."

Abby looked out of the car window and noticed the light on in the bedroom window. George was home.

"You did well tonight," said Damian.

Abby didn't respond. Had she done well? The night had passed in a flash, a heady and arousing blink of an eye. Now she was home and the last few hours already felt like a dream.

Doing well had always meant achieving something. What had she achieved tonight? She'd submitted to a stranger. She'd allowed herself to be taken advantage of. Some achievement. 

Damian would be leaving her to return to Britt. Would they laugh at the fun they'd had at her expense? Abby could almost imagine it. What a fool she was for thinking that anything good could come of putting herself in these people's hands. 

This wasn't her. This corseted, wanton slut wasn't who she was. 

"Don't I get a goodnight kiss?" asked Damian.

Abby leaned over to Damian and wound a hand around the back of his neck and drew him towards her. Their lips met and she thrust her tongue into his mouth. She felt his hand burying itself in her hair. Their tongues danced and she withdrew slightly, drawing his lower lip between her teeth.

Then she bit. Hard.

Damian jerked away. "Bitch!"

Abby observed with horror the drop of blood that appeared on his lip. 

"We're done," said Damian with a voice like ice.

The drop of blood ran down towards his chin.

"No," whispered Abby.

Damian looked hard at her, his eyes betraying a rage so intense that she shrank away from him. 

Her voice shook. "No. Please. I'm sorry."

He wiped the blood away with the back of his hand and looked at the smear in disbelief. He shook his head and laughed. "I guess I had it coming."

The breath she had been holding shuddered out of her lungs. 

"I'm not going to ask you to kiss it better. God knows you're liable to bite it right off. I will give you this, though." In his palm, he held the remote control. He pressed a button and an explosion of sensation rocked her. He dropped the remote control into her purse and snapped it shut. He leaned over, kissed her on the cheek, and opened the passenger door. "Good night."

Abby could dimly hear the whirring of the device within her. She stepped out of the car and closed the door without a word, catching herself as her knees buckled. She tottered up the walkway, unsteady on her heels as the vibrations punished her from the inside. She wanted nothing more than to reach into her purse to turn the diabolical device off, but she didn't want to give Damian the satisfaction. 

She fumbled with the keys, missing the lock several times before shoving the key home.

As soon as she closed the door behind her, she reached between her legs and pulled the device out of her. She bit her lip to restrain the cry as it fell into her palm. It rested there, glistening with her juices, alive and buzzing like an angry bee. She retrieved the remote control and pressed buttons until the device fell quiet. 

She leaned against the door taking deep breaths, feeling the absence of the device.

* * *

George lay in bed, trying to read. After scanning the same lines repeatedly, he lay the book on his chest and closed his eyes. Even though he'd showered on his return home, Britt's perfume clung to him, as did the taste of her in on his tongue. He tried desperately not to feel guilty, to convince himself that he hadn't been unfaithful, that what he had done had been agreed upon. He came to realize that the guilt didn't derive from the act, but from his enjoyment of it. That giving a woman pleasure had emboldened him.

His mind alternated between thoughts of what he had done with Britt and what Abby was possibly doing. 

He heard the front door unlock and close, followed eventually by the soft pad of Abby's tread up the stairs. She appeared in the doorway, backlit by the light in the hall. George's eyes widened as he took her in -- the way her breasts bloomed out of the corset, the hourglass figure, the legs sheathed in stockings.

"Abby?"

Whatever magic Damian had worked, Abby was transformed and barely recognizable.

She approached the bed tentatively and stood beside it. George reached and grasped her hand. They regarded each other but George could not hope to read her. 

Abby reached down and pulled back the covers, exposing him. 

"Abby? Are you okay?" he asked.

She traced the outline of his rapidly thickening member and pulled down his briefs. Then, without a word, she hitched up her skirt and straddled him.

His cock rose to meet her and soon touched her. 

She closed her eyes and lowered herself onto him. Her pelvis soon moved in a rocking motion, hips undulating, abdomen coiling and stretching. He held her waist, feeling the boning of her corset beneath his fingers. Her head hung down and her face was hidden behind a swaying curtain of hair.

George thought he heard a sob but couldn't be sure.



Thumper Ch. 05



Note: This story veers into BDSM territory. Fun as it might be for some, it's not to everyone's taste. 

***

Previously...

With their marriage on the rocks, Abby and George turn to a most unlikely source for help. Unbeknownst to George, Abby has agreed to let the incubus, Damian, and his mate, Britt, act as marriage counsellors. 

Their first session has broken down some barriers. The next session promises to be even more challenging.

***

"I made you an omelette. Just the way you like it."

Abby stood at the entrance to the kitchen, hugging herself. He can't possibly be doing this. He can't possibly be making breakfast as he used to before. 

George stood at the stove, smiling tentatively. George, so eager to please. "There's coffee too," he said.

"I don't know what to say."

"You could say thank you."

Abby did so and choked down half of the omelette. This easy domesticity wasn't right. Did he think that everything could go back to normal? Nothing had changed, not really. She pushed the plate away. "I have to go to work."

"It's Saturday," George protested.

"I know, George. I just need some time. Please."

At least they were talking to each other, thought Abby as she drove to the office. Mundane things, but the bitterness was gone, or perhaps just better concealed.

Over the next weeks, they started sharing their bed again and doing the things that married couples do -- shopping, going for walks, occasionally eating out. It felt like play-acting, a couple of amateurs engaged in a drama that was beyond their emotional reach. 

Britt had called on the Monday to see how things were coming along. Then nothing for over a week. Abby wondered, not for the first time, whether Britt and Damian had been for real.

Then came the day Damian called her at work. "Are you ready for the next session?"

She rose from her desk and closed the door to her office.

"I don't know. The last one was pretty humiliating."

"I see. Did you enjoy it?"

Abby had been asking herself exactly that question for the last couple of weeks, wondering about the method behind the madness. She hadn't enjoyed it, not all of it. At first, she'd felt used and diminished. But as the days wore on and she thought back to her night with Damian, she realized that she had felt oddly liberated. It was refreshing to have been along for the ride, rather than driving.

"Not at the time. Now, perhaps," she answered tentatively.

"I'll take perhaps over an unconditional no," he said. 

"It depends on what you have planned."

"I can't tell you that. You have to trust me. Remember, you can stop at any time."

There was that word again: trust. "I'm okay with it if George is," she said finally.

"George is already okay with it. I've talked to him. This is a courtesy call." The next meeting was scheduled for the weekend. Damian gave Abby the address of a farm far north of the city, and had instructed them to pack an overnight bag. 

"I have plans."

"Change them. I expect you there by seven in the morning," he said, simply, and hung up. 

* * *

The farm was located an hour north of the city.

After Damian had ended their last conversation, Abby had fumed at Damian's arrogance and at her mute compliance. Now on the highway, having left the sleeping city behind them, she was filled with apprehension and curiosity. The sun peeked over the horizon on the right, illuminating ruler-straight rows of newly-planted corn.

Still flushed from the success of recent weeks, George chatted happily, occasionally placing a hand on her thigh. Abby was grateful for this unconscious contact, but was not so unabashedly optimistic as George. Yes, she and George had made the first tentative steps to rekindling their intimacy, but there was, she knew, a long way to go.

Besides which, her last session with Damian had shaken her, much more so than her outward reaction had indicated. She`d been played. Her will had been skilfully short-circuited. When she reviewed the evening and thought of Damian`s fingers on and in her most private parts, she felt not so much violated as bewildered, for as much as she recoiled at the memory, there was an unmistakable exhilaration. Abby still had difficulty reconciling the two.

Setting aside the initial violation, the session had been subtle. It had reawakened something in Abby, had started a process of thaw. Though she had yet to share these feelings with George, it felt like the first warm spring day after a long and cold winter. It was now possible to shed a layer.

Abby wondered absently what this weekend had in store. Plans had been made that involved her. She was along for the ride again, as on a rollercoaster, on track for a headlong rush into the first stomach-churning descent. She could finally put a name to the emotion -- anticipation.

George still had his hand on her thigh. She placed hers on top of his and squeezed. 

George smiled, unaware that she had squeezed his hand less out of affection, but more for reassurance.

* * *

They drove for miles along a gravel road until the GPS announced that they were at their destination. George slowed and then stopped in the middle of the road. The dust settled around them. He peered at the GPS.

"There's nothing here."

Indeed, the empty road stretched ruler-straight before them, with a dense forest on the right and fields of corn on the left, until it disappeared over a hill in the distance.

"There's a track over there," suggested Abby.

George reversed until he drew abreast to the track. "This must be it."

He swung Abby's BMW onto the gravel path. The trees overhead formed a tunnel into which few stray beams of light broke through. After a hundred yards, the path emerged onto an opening. A gravel drive ran in a loop to the front door of a farmhouse. 

The farmhouse appeared to be well over one hundred years old. It was built of stone, and a covered porch ran the length of the building's face. Dark red shutters flanked the windows on the ground and upper floors, and two small windows peeked out from just below the apex of the tin roof on either side of the stone chimneys.

To the left of the house stood a barn and a large shed, to the right a well-tended garden. 

George parked the car beside Damian's Porsche. Damian, dressed in a tattered t-shirt, old jeans, and clunky work boots, emerged from the barn, wiping his hands on a rag. Britt, incongruously wearing an apron, appeared at the front door and waved. Both George and Abby were taken aback by these rustic apparitions.

"Welcome to our home," said Damian.

"It's beautiful," said Abby, surveying her surroundings.

A pair of horses trotted to the cedar rail fence. Beyond the farm, a field of grass stretched over undulating hills until meeting a band of forest far in the distance.

Damian collected their bags and ushered them into the farmhouse, which was filled with the aroma of baking. George's stomach grumbled. "We'll set you up in the guestroom upstairs and have breakfast."

"Sounds great," said Abby.

"And then we begin," said Damian, grinning.

Something in Damian's look suggested that he wasn't talking about chores.

* * *

After breakfast, Damian and Abby strolled to the barn. The shadows of passing clouds ran before them.

"George thinks that everything is okay now and that you and Britt are geniuses," said Abby.

"You don't think so?"

"No." Abby smiled. "To either one."

Damian placed a hand on his heart. "Madam, you wound me."

Abby laughed nervously. 

"But you're right. You're wise to recognize it. The journey has only begun and new challenges await. Are you up for it?"

"I think so."

"I can assure you that this won't be pleasant for you."

"Then let's do something else," suggested Abby as they entered the barn. "Ride the horses, for example."

"No." Damian closed and bolted the door behind them. 

The barn was a large wooden structure with a dusty floor and stables running up one side. All of the stalls were empty but one, where a large horse nickered gently. Ropes, chains, and pulleys hung from the rafters and tools hung from hooks on the wall opposite the stables. A not unpleasant aroma of hay and animals permeated the atmosphere.

Abby walked to the center of the barn and turned to face Damian.

He approached. "I'm afraid you've had it pretty easy so far," he said.

Abby didn't trust herself to speak.

"I have a bit of a test for you." 

"A test?"

Damian nodded. "It won't be easy. You don't have to go through with it."

"Will it hurt?"

"Maybe."

"And if I don't want to go through with it?"

"Then you and George go back home. You'll never see Britt and me again."

Abby thought for a moment. There was a challenge in Damian's last statement that she could not ignore. Part of her wanted to throw in the towel, spare herself whatever humiliation Damian had in mind and preserve what remained of her dignity. Another part of her, the louder one, remembered the heady thrill of her last session with Damian and desperately wanted to know what he had in mind this time. Finally, she was a strong woman and felt that she could easily deal with whatever he threw at her. "Let's do it then."

Damian nodded again. "Last question, then I don't want to hear anything from you until I'm done or you say your safe word, whichever comes first."

"Okay."

"Do you want to see what I'm doing or do you want me to blindfold you?"

Blindfold? Abby's heart raced. What did he have in mind? What had she let herself in for?

She raised her chin and said with more confidence than she felt, "I want to see."

"Very well." Damian led Abby to the far end of the barn. On the floor lay a small platform constructed of rough timber, four feet square and about eight inches in height. The platform featured eye bolts at regular intervals and several mitred holes. "Strip to your underwear and step up," Damian commanded.

Abby hesitated at exposing herself to this man. Who was he anyway, to command her so? It wasn't too late to call it off. Her hands rose to the top of her blouse. What was she thinking, to even consider such a request from a man she scarcely knew? She could return home with George, cobble together some semblance of a normal marriage, and congratulate herself for having dodged a bullet. 

She undid the first two buttons of her blouse and her heart rate accelerated. Stop, shouted part of her. You don't have to do this. 

But hadn't she promised George that she would do whatever it took?

Suddenly, she was outside herself, looking on in horror, as she mutely shed her clothes. Clad only in her underwear, she stepped onto the stage. She was now committed.

Damian stood in front of Abby, studying her. She wore a black bra and matching thong. "I see you took my advice to heart," he said.

Abby nodded and bit her lip. She shifted self-consciously from foot to foot, hands loosely held in front of her.

Damian smiled wickedly and walked to the work bench. He returned with a large canvas bag. "Tools of the trade."

He retrieved a length of rope from a bag and dropped it on the floor. He stepped behind Abby and gathered her wrists behind her back and set about tying them together. Abby's knees almost buckled. Her breath came in gasps. Idiot, she said to herself. Idiot. It became a mantra as Damian looped the rope repeatedly around her wrists and tied it off. The rope was tight but not uncomfortable.

Damian placed a hand on her bare shoulder and Abby flinched. "Relax," he whispered into her ear.

Damian rummaged in the bag again and withdrew a pony bit, a rubber rod held in place by heavy metal rings and leather straps. He held the bit to Abby's mouth. "Open," he commanded.

She closed her eyes and complied. He inserted the bit, moved behind her and fastened the strap. 

He faced her again. "Too tight?"

Abby shook her head. She opened her eyes again. If she should see herself, she was sure she would recognize fear. 

Damian busied himself next with Abby`s ankles. He wound rope around each, and then pushed her legs apart. He tied each ankle to an eye bolt and Abby struggled to maintain her balance.

"Looks like you need something to steady yourself." Damian grinned.

From above Abby's head, Damian pulled down a hook that dangled on a thick rope from a pulley high up in the rafters. He showed Abby the hook and moved behind her. Abby felt some tugging on her arms. Damian walked to the wall where the other end of the rope was tied and slowly pulled. When the slack was taken up, Abby's arms gradually rose behind her, forcing her body to bend forward.

"This technique is called 'strappado' or, to use a more recent term, 'Palestinian hanging'. It's a torture technique dating back to the 1500s where the torturer binds the victim's arms and pulls them up until the victim is hanging. Often, the arms become dislocated and all kinds of nasty nerve damage can occur."

Damian pulled the rope and Abby's arms rose another few inches."We don't want that, of course." 

Another few inches. Abby was forced to stand on the balls of her feet and she whimpered. "But then, we don't want this to be too easy."

Damian held the end of the rope loosely in his hand. "Enough?" he asked.

Abby nodded frantically. 

Damian smiled and tied off the rope on a cleat on the wall. 

He approached Abby. "Rest assured that I don't want to damage you."

He ran his fingertips lightly down her arms and along her sides until they rested on her ass. His touch thrilled her. "That being said, people usually feel some discomfort in short order. This position begs for the use of floggers and whips. You'll notice that your ass is already presenting itself nicely. Of course, one can also choose to take the bound party from behind. Nothing much to stop it, after all. Personally, I find this position irresistible." He rubbed her ass once again and ran his fingers from Abby's crotch down the insides of her spread legs.

He smacked her hard on the buttocks. "Do you like it?"

Abby was only now realizing how vulnerable she was.

* * *

In the kitchen of the ancient farmhouse, George related the events of the past few weeks to Britt.

"That's great," said Britt. "I'm glad that things are getting better. But we're not done though. Not nearly."

"No?"

"No. One weekend of intimacy changes nothing. Let me ask you this. If you and Abby were to fill out the questionnaires now, would your answers be different?"

George thought for a moment and his face fell. "No," he admitted.

Britt nodded. 

They sipped coffee for several minutes. Britt gazed at the barn from time to time. Finally, she stood and removed her apron. "Today we're going to cover how to properly hit a woman."

George nearly coughed up his coffee. "How to what?" he sputtered.

"Hit a woman. Oh, I forgot that you were a squeamish one, a sensitive guy. Let's call it impact play then. Happy?"

"I don't hit anyone, let alone women."

Britt rolled her eyes. "You're a lover, not a fighter, right?"

George was incredulous. "Did you miss that day in grade school when they taught you that it's never okay to hit? Buffing your stilettos?"

Britt moved around the table and stood in front of George with her arms crossed. "Have you ever patted Abby's ass?"

"Of course."

"Ever given her more than a pat?"

"Perhaps. You know, in the throes."

"In the throes. That's funny. If that's the case, then you've hit her."

"Come on, there's a big difference between smacking her on the bum and assaulting her."

"Bingo! I knew my faith in you was not misplaced. Somewhere between a caress and a beating is a line both parties must negotiate."

George was exasperated. "But I don't want to negotiate anything. What are we talking about anyway? Spanking?"

"Sure. That's one option."

"Oh God." George was genuinely horrified. "I don't want to talk about options. It's wrong. Besides which, there's a symbolism to subjecting women to violence, even play violence, that I can't stomach."

"Symbolism is for pickle-faced harpies who fret about such things and wonder why life's not much fun."

"I can't believe we're having this discussion!"

"If I told you that Abby wanted us to have this discussion, would that make it okay?

"She what?"

"Let's say, hypothetically, that she isn't averse to a little spanking from time to time. You know, smacking her on the bum. Possibly even a little discipline."

George pictured Abby drawn across his knee. He shook his head. Abby was a strong, confident, and proud woman, and would never allow herself to adopt that position, to subjugate herself in such a way to any man. "My Abby?"

Britt nodded earnestly. "Your Abby. Would that make it okay?"

George thought about it. Britt was right, of course. It was all about lines. Even if the line was drawn on the far end of spanking and even if Abby allowed it, could George do it? He remembered the burning desire to hit Abby when he discovered that she had been unfaithful. If fact, he'd wanted to pummel her, but his nature and a lifetime of conditioning had rendered his hand impotent. But if Abby wanted something milder, and it was within an intimate or perhaps erotic context, could he strike her? He conceded reluctantly that he could, and noted, at the same time, that the mental picture of Abby's bare ass under his hand did arouse him. 

"I guess," he said finally.

* * *

A dull ache grew in Abby's shoulders and her calves knotted with the effort of relieving the strain on her arms. She concentrated on maintaining her balance, as any failure to do so only increased her discomfort. 

Self-recrimination at allowing herself to be trussed up like this faded into the background. There would be time enough for that later. Now she was focussed entirely on her predicament.

"I bet that right now, you're asking yourself why you ever agreed to this."

A thread of saliva ran down Abby's chin as her teeth gritted against the bit. She glared at Damian, refusing to respond.

"So strong, yet you've never been so helpless, have you?"

Again, Abby didn't respond. 

Damian clapped once and rubbed his hands together. He reached into the bag and removed a large silver hook with a metal ball on the point and an eyelet at the top. "Do you know what this is?" asked Damian.

Abby shook her head.

"It's called an anal hook."

Damian smiled as Abby's eyes widened. "As you've probably guessed, it's not for fishing. It's inserted into the rectum and tied off. Given that you have such a nice head of hair, I'll use that."

Abby shook her head and tried to speak from around the bit in her mouth.

Damian stopped. "Was that your safe word? Thumper?"

Abby took a deep breath of resignation and shook her head.

"I thought not."

Damian tied Abby's hair in a ponytail and then moved behind her. He applied lubricant to the ball at the end of the hook and ran it in circles around her anus. Abby arched her back and whimpered. He pressed it against her anus. "It'll go easier if you relax."

Relax. The notion of relaxing while someone threaded a hook in your ass was laughable. She couldn't see Damian. She was desperately conscious of her vulnerability. Bent over as she was, legs spread and tied, he was painfully helpless and exposed.

The ball pressed once more, insistent, and finally violated her anus. Abby gasped. She could feel her sphincter closing over the ball and its slow passage up her rectum.

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Damian placed himself in front of Abby. She could feel the heat coming off him and smell the faint aroma of cologne.

"Doing okay so far?"

Arrogant bastard, though Abby. She nodded.

"Good. I have great expectations for you."

Roughly, he pulled her head back so that she was looking directly up at him. He tied off the rope on her ponytail. Every movement of her head now translated itself to her ass.




Thumper Ch. 05



"Beautiful," said Damian. "You should see yourself."

* * *

"These are the tools of the trade," said Britt, pointing to an array of canes, crops, and floggers.

They were in the attic, accessed by an ancient set of stairs that Britt had pulled down from the ceiling. The attic was starkly white with black baseboards and a rich hardwood floor. It ran the length of the house and was illuminated by two skylights. George gauged the peak of the ceiling to be nine feet high. Several steamer trunks lined the floor where the short walls met the sloped ceiling. The ends of the attic featured two dark wooden cabinets, one of which was open and before which they stood. 

"What trade? Piloting a slave galley?" asked George apprehensively.

"Ha ha. You're a funny guy. Drop your pants."

"What?"

"You heard me. Drop your pants. You're not going to lay so much as a blade of grass on me until you know how it feels."

George hesitated. "I don't want to lay anything on anyone."

"I said drop them!" Britt picked up a crop and smacked it against the wall.

George's pants fell to the floor.

Britt placed a sturdy wooden chair in the center of the floor. "What shall we start with?"

"Nothing," suggested George.

"Don't be a sissy."

"Why are we doing this? I've thought about it again. I have no intention of hitting a woman."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot that you're a sensitive guy. Bend over. Let's see how sensitive you are."

"No."

Britt threw her hands up. "I can't believe that you are giving me trouble! Me! What the fuck? Did you grow a pair all of a sudden?"

She studied him, hands on hips, booted toe tapping, and then sighed. "Okay. Let's skip the lesson. We'll do something else."

She wandered around the room. "Let's do a trust exercise then. Would that suit your sensitive disposition? Close your eyes and put out your hands."

Reluctantly, George did so. Before he could react, Britt closed a pair of handcuffs over his wrists. His eyes shot open. 

Britt grinned. "Gotcha."

She pulled him to the chair by the chain of the handcuffs. With his pants pooled around his feet, George shuffled quickly lest he fall. At the chair, she pressed her hand to the back of his head, bending him forward. What was the point of resisting? George thought grimly.

"Are you going to stay there, or do I have to tie you down?"

"I'll stay."

Britt wandered behind him, swiping the flogger against her leg. "The first thing you should know is that flogging is not necessarily about inflicting pain or enforcing discipline. It can be, and often is, but doesn't have to be. It can also be used to stimulate the skin, and the severity of the flogging is dictated largely by the degree to which the subject is stimulated by pain. Got it?"

"I'm stimulated by mild breezes."

"Then you should like this." Britt limp-wristed a blow that landed against George's buttocks with barely a sound.

George breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay. That I can handle."

"Good, that was level one. Here comes level two."

By level three, Britt introduced a rhythm to her strokes in which she struck both sides of his buttocks, alternating both the direction and target of the stroke. The flesh grew warm and tingled. George grew curiously relaxed. 

By level six, Britt had abandoned the rhythm. George squirmed, twisting his body to avoid the blows but uncertain as to which of his tender bits he should sacrifice.

By seven he was grimacing and struggling not to cry out.

Nine made him gasp.

He gritted his teeth against ten.

"Here it comes," warned Britt in a singsong voice.

Ten was a gentle hand against his butt, the gentlest of taps.

"Had you going, huh?" 

George nodded. 

"Let's move on to the cane."

"The cane is most commonly associated with discipline and is usually applied to the buttocks. But you can use it more lightly in other spots, like the insides of the legs, the feet, or wherever."

Britt rubbed the cane across the taut skin of George's ass, and then surprised him with a quick tattoo. The sensation wasn't unpleasant. She moved from there to his inner thighs, rapping the cane rapidly from side to side, uncomfortably close to his scrotum. He rose to his toes, and the flicking cane followed. The skin was more sensitive there, and George soon felt the skin tingling under the repeated blows that ranged up and down his thighs.

Britt returned to George's buttocks. "Tapping is interesting and does make the surface more sensitive. It prepares the canvas for what is to come."

"Oh," said George uncertainly.

"Are you ready?"

"No."

For a few seconds, nothing happened. George allowed himself to relax when a quick whoosh occurred, followed by a lightning crack of pain across his cheeks. His cry of surprise was cut short by another crack, slightly lower, which overlaid the heated glow of the first. The third blow crossed the first two, adding a slightly different flavour to the first two blows. George bit his lower lip. His cheeks were on fire, each blow heaping flame atop the embers of the previous ones. When Abby stopped, George could not tell how many blows had landed.

"For a professor, you're a good student," Britt quipped.

George still leaned over the chair. The pain subsided, but the incredible mental focus remained. That and an electric thrumming that coursed through his body. Must be an endorphin rush, he thought. 

Britt had resumed her gentle tapping on George's now tender flesh. George closed his eyes.

"Are you enjoying this?" she asked.

"Enjoy isn't the word."

She struck him with a medium strength blow that interrupted the soft, hypnotic taps, sending an electric jolt through his being,

He noted a curious untethering of his body and mind, a mental relaxation that stood in contrast to his bodily pain, as though a filter had been inserted between the two.

He lost all sense of time and only noted that Britt had stopped when she rubbed his tender and scored buttocks with her hands.

"That was remarkable," he said finally, standing up.

Britt unlocked the handcuffs. "Now you understand."

* * *

But for the horse nickering softly in its stall, all was quiet. Motes of dust danced in the light that streamed in through dirty windows. Abby couldn't see Damian. Had he left her alone in the barn, or was he behind her enjoying her predicament? She had no idea.

Through the growing discomfort and strain, Abby lost track of time. Minutes felt like an hour, and only the slow progress of the light across the dirt floor of the barn indicated that very little time had passed.

Every movement caused discomfort. Abby attempted to ease the strain in her neck by bending it ever so slightly forward, only to be rewarded by an ungentle tug on her hair and the hook that was firmly embedded in her ass. Her calves burned, and lowering herself from the balls of her feet served only to increase the strain on her shoulders.

But for the growing pain, her position was exquisitely diabolical.

For the first fifteen or so minutes, Abby was confident that she could pass this test. She abhorred the thought of giving Damian the satisfaction of having broken her.

Her right calf suddenly cramped. Reflexively, she lowered herself on the one side to stretch it, only to feel a wrenching in her shoulders. At this moment she cried out as she tried desperately to elevate herself to gain a modicum of comfort.

Abby prayed desperately for Damian to release her. 

How long was that bastard going to keep her here like this?

Minutes ticked by. By balancing carefully on one leg, she managed to stretch the calf muscle of the other. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Sweat broke out on her brow and saliva dribbled down her chin. What she would have given at that moment to have had her arms unbound to enable her to massage away the painful knot. 

In answer to her prayers, her arms gradually descended. She groaned in relief as her bound wrists lowered and finally lay against her back. She straightened her back and settled fully on her feet. However, she was forced to gaze at the ceiling, chin upraised, as the hook was still buried in her rectum. 

By lowering her eyes, she could make out Damian's head and shoulders. She looked at Damian with gratitude, and started at the incongruity of it, for hadn't he put her into this position in the first place? 

Damian placed his hands on her shoulders and massaged them gently. In spite of herself, Abby moaned in gratitude. 

"I feel terrible for having made you suffer so. I really do."

He removed the bit and gently wiped her chin. Abby worked the soreness out of her jaw. "I bet you do," she said bitterly.

"But I plan to make it up to you."

"You can start by untying me."

Damian shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid not."

* * *

Britt tied a large, overstuffed pillow to the back of the chair. "You need to practice."

"This is silly."

"It's not silly at all. Injury happens with sloppy technique. Sloppy technique is not only careless, but a breach of trust."

"It's one thing to have it done, but another to do it. You're assuming I'll ever do this to anyone."

"You're assuming you're not and you're wrong. Besides which, we're not talking about anyone, we're talking about Abby."

"Maybe that's part of the problem."

"Consider it another tool in your toolbox then. You won't use it every day, perhaps never, but it can't hurt to know how to do it."

Britt walked him to the chair. "You'll be doing it to me by the end of the day, and believe me, I've been flogged by the best and don't take well to amateurs."

Britt straddled the chair and leaned her arms on the back, facing George. "If you get any wraparound and hit me accidentally, I'll be very upset with you."

Britt instructed George with the use of the flogger, where and where not to strike, and technique. "Loosen your shoulders and wrists. You're moving like a clumsy marionette. Pay attention, the movement has to be fluid and graceful. Concentrate on having only the tips of the falls strike the pillow. Don't look at the falls; look at the target." 

The instruction continued with frequent suggestions and occasional praise. She encouraged him to vary the intensity and direction of the strokes. To approach a scene with a strategy. To think before acting. Over and underhand, spinning strokes of various speeds, figure eight. George concentrated on the tips of the falls and observed the effect on the pillow, the impact, the sound, the follow-through. 

"Remember," said Britt after several minutes, "using the flogger to strike is only one option. You can use it lightly to mentally and physically relax you're partner. You know that effect yourself now, right?"

George nodded.

Britt continued. "You can use it to stroke, tease and arouse. You can dangle it above the flesh and let the ends lightly touch your partner, draw it slowly across the skin. Use the handle. The possibilities are endless. Above all, consider your partner and the sensations you're evoking. Consider where they want to go and how best to get them there. Flogging is not about you and your perceived power. Yes, you can inflict a great deal of pain. Always consider where the line is. Get close, but stay on the right side of it. Above all, listen and watch. The reactions you evoke will tell you how far you can go."

All the while, George struck the pillow, from various angles and with different intensities. His arm was growing tired. He pictured Abby as the recipient of his efforts. Was it possible?

"Alright, let's move to the cane." Abby walked to the cabinet and selected a three foot cane with a leather handle. 

"This one will sting, as you know. It can also break the skin, so it's important to be aware of the force that you're using. With a long cane like this, you can easily strike both cheeks at the same time..." 

* * *

Abby rolled and stretched her back and shoulders while Damian rummaged around at the bench behind her. As the burning discomfort began to ebb, she thought of asking Damian why he was doing this. What, in the context of her broken marriage, did he hope to achieve by abusing and humiliating her? The obvious answer was that he was taking advantage of her vulnerability to satisfy his own depraved tastes. For all she knew, he'd been snapping pictures that would eventually appear on the internet. She knew, however, that this was a misinterpretation. He didn't need her. He'd revealed no ulterior motives.

Abby was exhausted from the first round, despite the fact that it had lasted no more than fifteen or twenty minutes. Her limbs felt gelatinous and her mind languorous.

"Ready for round two?" asked Damian.

She should be able to figure it out, deduce Damian's hidden motivations. She'd been so focussed on withstanding the stress that she hadn't considered her predicament in the larger context. 

"You're trying to break me, aren't you?"

"You mean, like a horse?"

Abby nodded.

"It's an apt analogy, but not entirely applicable in the way you intend."

Abby wasn't so sure. "You won't, you know."

Damian grunted noncommittally.

Abby's ankles were still fastened to the eyebolts on the stage. Damian walked around her, lightly trailing his fingertips from her hip, across her taut abdomen, and around to her buttocks. Damian untied her wrists and, for a moment, Abby had freedom of movement. She considered striking him for the pain she had inflicted on her, but quickly realized that it would do little good. He had her captive in more ways than one. She couldn't run, for one thing. She'd promised George that she would do whatever it took. Admittedly, she'd made the promise without fully knowing what it entailed. Finally, she was curious. She now knew that Damian meant her no harm, and that knowledge was supported by the beginnings of trust. As humiliating as his treatment of her had been, he hadn't taken advantage of her mental and physical vulnerability to satisfy himself. That was a line, she knew intuitively, that he would not cross.

But still, she would not make it easy for him. She could bend, after all, and not break.

He fastened the rope around her right wrist, tightly but not uncomfortably. He threw the other end of the rope over a wooden beam that ran the width of the barn above Abby's head. He pulled it until Abby's right arm rose, stretched out at a right angle to her torso. He fastened the left arm in the same way. He stepped back into Abby's line of vision.

"Are you okay?"

Abby bit back a rejoinder and glared at him. "Yes."

Damian rummaged around the workbench and presently returned with a length of wood, roughly two feet long. He inserted it into a hole between Abby's feet so that it pointed like a finger to her vagina. 

What now? Abby asked herself. She tingled with nervous anticipation.

Damian then returned to his bag and said, "You may want to close your eyes."

"And if I refuse?"

Damian shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Abby wished she had closed her eyes, for Damian pulled out of the bag a dildo of monstrous proportions. It looked not unlike a large candle that sat on a cone of molten wax, narrow at the top and flared at the bottom.

Damian stepped under her line of vision. Her attempts to observe him served only to remind her of the hook still impaled in her ass.

The tip of the dildo touched the folds of her labia, back and forth, until it found the entrance. Damian inserted the dildo quickly and without preamble. Abby gasped and tried to pull away. Inexorably it disappeared within her until she was forced to rise with it as she met its width, standing on the balls of her feet. Damian fastened it to the post he had inserted in the stage and stepped back to admire his handiwork. 

Through the thin wall that separated her vagina from her rectum, Abby could feel both the dildo and the anal hook, arousing and uncomfortable in equal measure. 

Abby peered through her lashes at Damian, who leaned against the workbench with his arms crossed and a slight grin on his face.

Her calves, strained from the last position, quickly tired. Her stance weakened and she lowered herself in increments, only to impale herself more deeply on the device that now strained her vagina. The muscles in her legs quivered with exertion, each vibration communicated to the length of silicon embedded in her pussy. Twin trails of fluid tricked down the insides of her legs. Part of her traitorous body seemed to be enjoying this punishment.

An animal whimper escaped her lips. Her body rose and fell, seemingly of its own volition, allowing the dildo to penetrate her even more deeply than before, simultaneously stretching her and pressing uncomfortably against the walls of her vagina.

A delicious tingling blossomed at her clitoris, and Abby noted absently that Damian had approached her. A vibrator? She couldn't see. Not that it mattered. She bore down on the dildo and swept her hips in an unconscious circle. She leaned her head forward, causing the hook to embed itself still more deeply.

Her entire focus narrowed to that single electric area. Gone was the barn, Damian, her bondage, vulnerability, and humiliation. There was nothing but the growing heat and a body piloting itself automatically to climax. 

It came upon her suddenly, a great all-engulfing wave that crashed to the accompaniment of an animal growl that rose to a shriek. 

She was making noises that she never had before. Whimpers, groans, and barely comprehensible words. She sounded like a porn flick.

It was as though her body sought revenge for so many years of denial, compressing the years of lost fulfillment into a single violent crescendo. 

Her body bucked and trembled, as though possessed by an angry spirit given free reign after a long confinement.

Oh please stop, she commanded her body weakly. Please stop.

Any semblance of control left her body, now trembling uncontrollably and moving in quick jerks upon the shaft that impaled her. 

Abby finally managed to marshal her remaining shreds of determination and self-respect and commanded her hips to cease their punishing grinding on that silicon parody of a man.

Her gut clenched and her chest heaved. Her sweat mingled with tears. She was spent, completely and utterly. She straightened her legs and that impossible length receded slightly from her abused vagina.

She noted dimly that she her ankles and wrists had been untied. She was able to stand normally. 

Damian gathered her up in his arms and carried her to a vacant stall, strewn with hay overlaid with a blanket. He lay her down.

"Stay here," he said. "Rest."

If Abby almost laughed. For the moment, controlled movement was impossible. She lay back and closed her eyes. 

* * *

"Are you ready to apply what you've learned?"

"I think so," George replied.

"In that case, I'm going to leave you for a few minutes to prepare. I've shown you the basics, but it's up to you to put together the elements into a scene. While I'm gone, think about what you're going to do and how you're going to do it."

With that, Britt descended the stairs and disappeared from sight.

George wandered the attic, inspecting the various whips, floggers, paddles, and crops arrayed in the cabinets. 

Soon Britt returned, dressed in a light robe.

"Just stand there and close your eyes," he said.

Britt smiled and the dimple played on her cheek. "I like it."

George shushed her. In truth, he felt more confident being unobserved.

He selected an assortment of canes, crops, and floggers from the cabinet and leaned them against a wall. He wanted them close at hand.

George regarded Britt for some moments, standing within a square of light thrown by the skylight overhead. Not for the first time, he doubted the reality this moment and all that had led to it. By any measure, the previous weeks had been surreal. This very moment seemed imbued with the stuff of fantasy.




Thumper Ch. 05



George balanced a cane in his hand and approached Britt. With the tip of the cane, he undid the belt that loosely held Britt's robe together. The belt unwound and the robe opened slightly, revealing that Britt was nude underneath. He stood at her side and inserted the cane between the thin fabric and her breast. He ran the edge of the cane down the slope of her breast, over the nipple, and around its tender curve of its base. Britt's nipple hardened instantly and he repeated the movement in reverse. Britt purred.

Using the tip of the cane, George opened the flap of the robe to reveal more of Britt's voluptuous body. He lifted the robe over her shoulders on each side until it fell and pooled at Britt's feet. He walked around her, allowing the tip of the cane to circumnavigate her waist. 

From any angle, she was perfect. George suppressed a twinge of guilt for even thinking it.

Using the tip of the cane, he drew a gentle circle around each nipple and played the edge of the cane quickly across it. He ran the cane down Britt's flank to the floor and up the inside of a thigh, pressing at a slight angle across the vulva. No complaint. Emboldened, he used the tip of the cane to trace the labia up to the pierced clitoris. He gently inserted the cane into the ring and lifted it. Britt responded with a gentle pressure against the cane.

So far, so good, thought George.

He led Britt by the hand to a tall padded bench that occupied the far corner of the attic. 

George had Britt straddle the end of the bench. Britt regarded him expectantly.

"Close your eyes and put out your hands," said George.

Britt grinned, recognizing the words she'd used to entrap George.

George pulled her forward and fastened her wrists beneath the bench with the same handcuffs he'd worn.

He moved behind Britt and slid his hands under her thighs and pulled until her tender parts overhung the edge of the bench. 

"Professor, what are you doing?" asked Britt in a lilting voice.

George decided to play along. "Cheating can get you expelled."

"Oh, professor, I can't afford to be expelled. Dad would kill me."

"Perhaps a suitable punishment?"

"Anything but expulsion."

"We'll see."

George retrieved a flogger from the wall and splayed its falls on Britt's upper back and ran them down to her ass. With gentle swings, he underhanded the falls to splash gently against the folds of her pussy. Britt swivelled her hips and edged her pelvis further out and arched her back to present her vagina more clearly. Taking the cue, George swung the flogger with greater intensity.

"Professor, that feels nice."

"Nice, unfortunately, doesn't qualify as punishment, does it?"

George swung the flogger in controlled circles just above the surface of her ass. He gradually lowered his hand until the falls brushed her flesh with a series of muted thwacks.

He then stepped back and worked the falls into a tight figure eight that he landed with increased authority. There was nothing muted about the sounds now. Each concussion was pronounced, and the skin grew red beneath the onslaught.

Was this too much? wondered George.

In answer, a purr of pleasure issued from Britt's lips.

George took a deep breath. "I've evaluated the gravity of your transgressions and it's clear to me that a more severe punishment is needed."

Britt said nothing.

George returned with a rattan cane and stood at Britt's hip. He tapped the length of it against both cheeks simultaneously. Experimentally, he tapped lightly half a dozen times on the right buttocks and then stuck with increased force on the seventh stroke. Britt yelped on the seventh, but didn't ask him to stop.

"Are you okay?"

Britt murmured in the affirmative.

George repeated the rhythm on the other side, increasing the intensity of both the lighter strokes and the final one in the pattern. He alternated several times between the left and right buttocks, both growing increasingly flushed.

The sound that now came out of Britt now did not belong to the coquettish student persona. This was Britt. Entirely Britt. 

"Five more, okay? Then you're absolved."

George matched the intensity of the first stroke with the last of the previous cycle and worked it up from there. By the fourth, the slice of the crop through the air became louder and more insistent. The concussion against flesh became sharper and more biting. One the fourth stroke, he left the crop impressed on her flesh on the point of impact, nestled in the cross-hatching of the strokes that had landed before. The tender skin was pink with angry ridges of red, George saw with some alarm.

But Britt hadn't stopped him. Instead, she'd moaned, but it was a moan of pleasure.

Britt had demonstrated mercy on the last stroke that she'd applied to George. Surely she would expect him to do the same. George waited several seconds. 

"Here's the last one," he said. Then, lightning quick, he thwacked the same spot with more force than he had yet applied. 

Britt yelped and allowed a contented sigh to escape her lips as she relaxed.

Suddenly guilty at his own enjoyment of the scene, George bent and kissed each heated cheek where the angriest welt rose. Silently, he unlocked Britt's wrists.

She swung her legs over the bench and hung them over the side, grimacing as she adopted a seated position.

George stood before her, expectantly, but fearful. Here, he thought to himself, sat a woman upon whom he'd applied force. He shook his head slightly. Applied force? I'm kidding myself, he thought. He'd hit her. And he'd enjoyed it. Whether or not he'd crossed the line, it was still wrong.

Britt, naked and vulnerable, regarded him silently, her face an inscrutable mask.

Then, with the brightness of a tropical sun cresting the horizon, she broke into a wide smile. "That was brilliant, professor."



Thumper Ch. 06



Previously...

With their marriage on the rocks, Abby and George turn to a most unlikely source for help. Unbeknownst to George, Abby has agreed to let the incubus, Damian, and his mate, Britt, act as marriage counsellors. 

Following a morning of bondage at the hands of Damian, Abby discovers a newfound sense of freedom.

***

Abby awoke some time later, disoriented and stiff. She took in the rough wood of the horse stall around her and the straw on the floor. After a moment of confusion, the episode with Damian came back to her -- of having been bound in the barn, wrists tied behind her back and raised uncomfortably while Damian had done his work. 

How long had she been sleeping? She stood in the stall and groaned as she straightened her back. Judging by the slant of the light on the floor of the barn, perhaps no longer than an hour.

Her shoulders especially were stiff and sore. Her privates tingled. Her thoughts chased each other within her head. Thoughts of the humiliation of bondage followed by thoughts of the shameful yet blessed violence of her release. Her body had betrayed her yet again, responding in quivering pleasure to the very things from which her intellect recoiled.

She was completely nude and wondered what she should do. A quick scan of the stall and interior of the barn revealed that her clothing had been removed. She could wrap the blanket around herself and seek out George. Unfortunately, she'd have some explaining to do. Or she could remain in the barn and wait for what came next.

In the end, Abby decided on the latter. She wound the blanket around her and tucked in a corner at her breasts. She sat on the straw, leaned against the wall of the barn and resolved to wait.

A few minutes later, the barn door opened and Damian appeared, carrying a bottle of wine and two long-stemmed glasses. He entered the stall and sat on the dusty floor opposite Abby. Without speaking, he poured two glasses of wine and passed one to Abby.

The blanket slipped and pooled in her lap, exposing her breasts. She left it. A little late for modesty, she decided. Like a bizarre if inexact parody of the Manet painting, "Déjeuner sur l'herbe", Abby sat nude while watching the fully clothed Damian, seemingly oblivious of the incongruity of the scene. 

"Thanks," she said after taking a sip.

Damian studied her intently until she was forced to look away, gazing at the wine she swirled in her glass.

"You're a remarkable woman. I'm impressed," said Damian.

Abby remained silent. Until recently, Abby's idols, her pantheon of remarkable women, were those who had achieved great commercial success, who had crashed through glass ceilings and institutional sexism by outmuscling and outthinking their male counterparts. They weren't women who allowed themselves to be trussed up, manhandled, and brought to gibbering orgasms. While these last few weeks and answering Damian's challenges were remarkable for her, she laboured under the seemingly irreconcilable contradiction between her ideals and this new, unfathomable reality. The trouble was, she genuinely enjoyed the challenges she'd faced over the last few weeks. While achieving success provided intellectual satisfaction, there was no denying the rewards of Damian's brand of stimulation.

Damian interrupted her thoughts. "You mentioned before that I was trying to break you -- as in a horse."

"And you said the analogy was wrong."

"Partially. A lot of people think that horse breaking is a process of robbing the horse of its spirit until it is completely compliant and malleable, leaching it of what makes it vital and majestic."

"It isn't?" 

"No. In reality, horse breaking involves training the horse so that it and the rider can work as a unit without one hurting the other."

"But the horse is still subordinate."

"What good would it be to the rider if it weren't?"

Abby mulled it over for a while. "That's the rub, I guess. Who's the rider and who's the horse?"

"True. That's the rub. We're almost done for today. But first, I would like us to explore the nature of horses."

* * *

George still couldn't get over it. He could see the angry welts curling around the side of Britt's buttocks. He had struck a woman. In fact, he'd enjoyed doing so. What's more, she appeared to have enjoyed it as well.

It was a strange world in which he and Abby had landed.

Britt held up her manacled wrists. "Could you unlock me, please?"

George hurriedly complied and Britt rubbed where the unforgiving metal had chafed her.

"Well, George, now you've gone and done it." She crossed her legs and leaned back on the bench, perching herself on her arms. The rings on her nipples glinted in the sunlight that streamed through the skylights. If she was self-conscious about her nudity, she hid it well. "How do you feel?" asked Britt.

"I should be asking you that."

Britt cocked her head. "I'll be okay, but I'm curious about you."

"Guilty."

"Despite the fact that I gave you permission?"

George shrugged.

"You have nothing to feel guilty about. I wanted you to do it."

George wasn't convinced.

Britt smiled. "Did you abuse me? Some might say that you did. As far as I'm concerned, absolutely not, and only I can judge. Don't you think that it's the height of arrogance for anyone else to judge? What happens in the bedroom between consenting adults is no one else's business."

"But this isn't normal."

Britt laughed. "Why are you so worried about normal? If it's normal for you, it's normal. There's no one else in your bedroom evaluating your actions against standards. You know, not too long, sodomy was a criminal offense. Now, it's a part of the menu. Are you going to wait for lawyers to tell you it's okay?"

Britt took his hand and placed it on her breast. "With consent, anything is possible."

Her nipple grew hard beneath his palm.

Britt continued, "It's something that has to be negotiated by the couple. It doesn't work for everyone. It requires a special kind of man and an enormous level of trust. It works for me because I trust my partner implicitly. That and I find it enormously satisfying."

George let his hand drop. "But we're talking about Abby."

"I think you'd be surprised at what Abby is prepared to do."

* * *

Abby was surprised to see that the bottle of wine was just about done. Damian had kept her own glass filled, and she couldn't be sure whether Damian had drunk as much as she. She felt pleasantly mellow, content even. 

"Are you up for it?" asked Damian.

"Honestly, I'm exhausted," said Abby.

"I won't be placing any unreasonable physical demands on you."

Abby closed her eyes and nodded. 

Damian stood up and held out a hand. Abby took it, clutching the blanket at her breast. As he had earlier that morning, he asked her to strip. Stripping took little more than letting the blanket to fall to her feet. This time, Abby complied without hesitation, despite some misgivings that she might be subjected to the same treatment as before. Her immediate and unquestioning compliance didn't surprise her any more. She asked only whether he planned to stress her as he had. There was only so much her body could stand.

"No," said Damian. "We'll take it easy."

He approached her nude form. "You have quite the body."

Abby blushed and shuffled her feet in the straw. "Thank you."

He stepped behind her and placed his hands on either side of her neck and kneaded the muscles. A massage was the last thing she'd expected. She could feel the heat of him behind her as his fingers worked their magic. Between the wine and Damian's hands on her, she found herself relaxing.

"I don't think you realize how much power you possess, even if you subordinate yourself to a man," he said quietly, almost to himself.

Was Damian making a pass? Was he admitting to being aroused? And what was this about subordination?

His strong hands left her and he disappeared into a dark corner of the barn. She mulled over what he had just said – subordinating herself to a man. Before meeting Damian, the thought would have filled her with revulsion. Now less so, though the notion still made her uncomfortable. 

Damian returned a moment later with a cardboard box.

"More farm implements?" asked Abby nervously.

Damian chuckled and reached into the box.

He removed what appeared to be a squat, black cylinder. Abby was curious in spite of herself. As he approached her, she recognized what it was. With a wink, he placed a tall, fur-lined leather collar around her neck and fastened a pair of buckles at the nape of her neck while she held her hair out of the way. The collar sat firmly on her shoulders and braced her chin, effectively keeping her head immobile and upright. A large ring dangled at the base of her throat.

He stood back and admired her. "Bend over," he commanded.

Abby furrowed her brow at Damian. "What are you going to do?"

"Bend over and you'll know. Trust me. This shouldn't be too unpleasant," he said.

Trust him. The words rolled around in her head. How could she even entertain the thought of trusting someone who'd done the things to her that Damian had? Yet Damian could have had much more than he'd taken. In fact, he could have had taken just about anything and she doubted she would have wanted to stop him. Yet she could have stopped him with a word, a word that had remained unspoken.

Abby complied. Excited foreboding warred with anticipation. The collar forced her to keep her back straight as she bent at the waist. 

Damian nudged her gently and she spread her legs. She grasped her ankles and closed her eyes, exposing herself to whatever Damian had in mind.

Abby felt his hands on her naked ass. He rubbed her for several moments and she sighed. The rubbing stopped and at length an object pressing against her anus. The object was cold and slippery. She thought it might have been the ball of the hook from earlier in the day, but soon noted that the object was tapered. She would only make it worse by fighting it, so she took a deep breath and forced her muscles to relax. She could feel more and more of the slippery length entering her. The object widened, stretching her almost to the point of discomfort when it suddenly narrowed, her anus closing around its base, hugging the object firmly within her ass. It wasn't uncomfortable now that it was embedded within her, yet the sensation of a foreign object lodged within her rectum was definitely insistent.

Still holding her ankles, Abby opened her eyes and peeked between her legs and observed a cascade of what looked like hair dangling between her legs.

A tail?

Damian invited Abby to stand. 

"Um, I appear to have a tail," she said as the hair of the tail tickled the backs of her calves.

"All this horse talk." He shrugged. "I'm sorry if it doesn't quite match your hair, but I did my best."

What could she say?

"I have something else for you, Abby."

"I can't wait," she said, but failed in the sarcasm. Her heart was racing, not in fear but in anticipation. 

Damian presented her with a tangled mess of leather straps. "I know it doesn't look like much now..."

He busied himself around her breasts. Her skin tingled at every accidental touch of her nipples as he untangled straps, draping a pair over the top of her breasts and another beneath. He fastened the straps behind her and tightened them. Her breasts seemed caught in a wedge of leather, held by a central metal ring at her sternum. She could feel him at the sides of her breasts, sliding something forward to narrow the straps, squeezing her breasts between them.

"Beautiful," he said, admiring his handiwork. "Are you ready for a walk?"

"A walk? As in outside?"

"Outside is one of the best places for a walk. The fresh air, the woods..."

"I can't go outside like this," said Abby in growing panic.

"Why not? We're in the middle of nowhere."

"But what if someone sees me?"

"They'll be in for a treat, I guess. There's no one. I promise." He clipped a lead to the ring of her collar. "Let's go." 

Abby allowed herself to be walked to the open doors of the barn when she balked. "I can't do this."

Damian, standing in the sunshine, holding the lead, frowned. "I can't believe that after all we've been through, this is where you draw the line."

Abby looked from Damian to the path leading into the woods some hundred yards from the barn. "Can you cover me with the blanket until we get to the woods?"

"No."

Abby scrutinized the drive leading to the farmhouse and the windows that overlooked the barnyard. She could see nothing. She took a deep breath and then tentatively stepped into the sunlight. Damian turned and walked toward the path, leading Abby. She followed, almost overtaking Damian in her haste to reach the cover of the forest. 

Damian and Abby walked along a cart path. Soon the path dove into a forest. Now that she was hidden from prying eyes, Abby found walking in the woods in the nude strangely liberating. Her tail tickled the backs of her thighs in time with the graceful movement of her legs and sway of her hips. She tried to keep to the grassy strip in the middle of the path to spare her feet the worst of the gravel.

The birds chirped unseen in the trees and for the moment, Abby forgot the unnaturalness of her position and listened to what Damian was saying.

"...we have these magnificent bodies that are capable of giving and receiving inconceivable pleasure, coupled with limitless imagination that enables us to explore the boundaries of sensation. Yet most people willingly restrain themselves because of prudishness, fear, ego. And you think that what I did to you was bondage." Damian laughed. "People restrain themselves in more creative and permanent ways than I ever could."

They walked in silence for several minutes.

"So, how did you like the barn?" asked Damian.

"It was the most intense thing I've ever experienced," Abby admitted.

"And you did it yourself. I merely set the stage." 

"Great as it was, what's the point of all this? In the context of healing my marriage, I mean."

"I'm surprised and disappointed that you have to ask. You're a smart woman. You figure it out."

Damian's rebuff hurt, particularly since they seemed to have developed a kind of rapport, though Abby knew instinctively it wasn't one of equals. 

Okay, she was smart, particularly when it came to the binary logic -- on and off, yes and no. But of late, Abby operated in an expanse of grey, where lines that had been respected forever vanished and re-established themselves in the distance. Damian had mentioned prudishness, fear, and ego. Did these apply to her? She thought for a moment and had to admit that they did. How might things have been different had she embraced the timid innovations George had introduced? How might they have been different had she encouraged him? 

She remembered the early years of their marriage. Curiously, she'd never felt diminished, even on her knees before her husband, pleasuring him with her mouth. The giving of herself had occurred naturally, without any notion of reciprocity. She had revelled in her ability to stimulate George, to cross the line of her own comfort and accomplish something new. His loving gratitude was reward enough, though more often than not he'd upped the ante in his own way. What had happened?

Abby suddenly stopped when she heard someone whistling just around the bend in front of them. "What's that?"

"Sounds like the theme from the Andy Griffith Show."

"That's not what I meant."

"My guess is that it's Rodney," said Damian, tugging on the lead to keep Abby walking. "He's the groundskeeper at the farm."

"We've got to hide."

Damian laughed. "Don't mind Rodney. He's harmless."

"But look at me. I'm practically naked! And done up like a pony!"

"Believe me, I've noticed."

"Please!" Abby begged.

Damian shrugged as the whistling grew louder. He led her onto a game trail that intersected the path they were on. Abby begged him to hurry.

While Damian leaned against a tree with his arms crossed and a smile playing on his lips, Abby crouched behind some undergrowth. Ferns and grasses tickled the exposed flesh of her butt. She felt like a little animal, hiding from a predator. A man rounded the corner, dressed in a suit and a bowler hat. He carried a walking stick that he swung before him, more of a prop than anything, for it never quite touched the ground. He neared, seemingly oblivious to the two who watched his progress from just off the path, until he reached the point just opposite them. He turned his head toward them, or rather, toward Damian. In the suddenly unnatural silence of the forest, the man pointed to his eyes and then to Damian. His malevolent smile made Abby shudder. With a nod, the man sauntered down the path and out of sight.

There was a menace about this man that contrasted with his almost comical costume.

Abby heard the hissing intake of breath behind her and she turned in time to see an unearthly shimmering around Damian, as though waves of heat disturbed the air around him. She'd almost forgotten what he was.

After a minute, the whistling dwindled to nothing, replaced by the tentative sounds of the forest. 

"Who was that?" she asked. Abby was angry. She turned to him, ready to launch into a tirade regarding his promise, now broken, that they were alone, that her vulnerability would be shared by no one but him. But Damian's own face was a study of fury. Lines etched his countenance and his eyes blazed under a furrowed brow. Beneath his anger roiled another emotion. Fear. "Rosier," growled Damian.

It was Damian's fear that robbed her of her angry denunciation of him and his empty promises. "Who is?"

He cut her off with an impatient motion of his hand. They emerged once again onto the forest path. The light slanted at a sharp angle through the trees, casting long shadows across the path. He stood in the middle of the path, looking the way Rosier had gone. There was wariness about Damian now, a tenseness that caused the muscles in his jaw to twitch.

Finally he took a deep breath and by force of will, it seemed to Abby, relaxed somewhat. "Let's go," he said quietly.

Damian allowed the lead to dangle from the collar Abby wore and took her hand instead. The contact was comforting, and Abby wondered who was comforting whom. 

They continued walking, dapples of light playing across Britt's skin.

"I guess it's working," ventured Abby, wanting to get Damian's mind off the unwanted apparition that had so disturbed him.

"What is?"

"Your attempts at lowering my resistance," said Abby.

"The evidence would appear to support your statement."

They continued in a strangely companionable silence. She'd already forgiven Damian for his broken promise; it was obvious that the man's presence had been as unexpected for him as it had been for her. 

As the distance between them and the strange man grew, Abby immersed herself in the enjoyment of this simple walk. Abby had never been so attuned to her body. The collar forced her to stand erect when she would have preferred to curl in on herself to hide her nudity. She felt the sway of her breasts, the plug within her and the tail that brushed the backs of her legs with every step. She felt the breeze between her legs and the hand that held Damian's. And she felt the freedom.

* * *

George turned at the sound of Abby and Damian entering the old farmhouse. Damian paused in the doorway to the living room. 

Abby entered behind Damian, as though wanting to hide behind him for as long as possible. 

"Hi you two," said Britt brightly. "George and I were wondering what kept you."

"Just a short stroll," said Damian. "We ran into Rosier..."

Had either Abby or George been looking, they would have noticed the sudden pallor of Britt's face and the look of alarm that passed between her and Damian.




Thumper Ch. 06



Abby slowed her progress and stepped out from behind Damian, clad in little more than a leather harness. She'd begged Damian to let her get dressed. "Why should you reveal yourself to me and hide from the man with whom you share your life?" he'd asked.

George was twisted around in the armchair and gawped open-mouthed at her. She approached the back of the armchair. George sat mesmerized. She placed her hands on his shoulders. 

"Abby?" he asked, concern and confusion in his voice.

She bent and whispered into his ear. "It's alright."

She wanted to tell him that she didn't mind, that she felt strangely liberated, but she doubted he would understand. Would interpret her as having been broken, rather than having been encouraged to bend? Would he see her as having been diminished by another man, as having had some vital part of her leached away? Would he realize that whatever she'd done with Damian was available to him, and more? How would she convince the shy and retiring George to take the lead as confidently as Damian did when they left this place? She wondered whether she would or could respond to George in the same way she had to Damian. Damian brooked no dissent and left her but one irrevocable out -- her safeword. Would George exercise that same confidence, that control? 

****

George sunk deeply in his armchair, completely and utterly gobsmacked. Abby had tried to reassure him by squeezing his shoulders, but he was far from calmed. It was not so much that a woman had appeared before him, nude but for some pieces of leather, but that this woman was Abby. Britt had disabused him of most of his prudish hang-ups and had reawakened his imagination and awareness of the possibilities, but Abby had always discouraged these particular flights of fancy. Yet here she was, demonstrating that she was willing and able to step out of her comfort zone. He also appreciated, now more than ever, Abby's sacrifice and the distance she would go to repair their marriage. The thought warmed him and filled him with confidence.

Still, what on earth had Damian done with his wife? She seemed frighteningly docile and alien now, particularly if aliens sprouted tails from their anuses. What kind of man could impress himself so completely on a woman, particularly one as seemingly intractable as Abby? Did Damian possess some brainwashing skills? George's bewilderment was tempered by a grudging admiration of Damian.

Damian and Britt left the room. The clattering of pots and pans in the kitchen told George that they were probably preparing dinner.

"How was your day?" As the words slipped past his lips, he realized how stupid and banal the question was.

Abby smiled and stood in front of him. "It was interesting."

"Certainly looks like it."

"And yours?"

"Educational."

Abby cocked an eyebrow.

"I'll show you some time. Maybe," continued George.

"I'd like you to." Abby sat on George's lap, flicking the tail over his leg and being careful not to sit on the plug. "Whatever it is, I'd like you to show me."

"Really?"

"Really. Whenever you want."

Abby shivered.

"Hang on," said George. He disengaged himself and peeked into the kitchen.

"I'd like a robe for Abby. Do you have anything?"

Damian studied George for a moment and then gave him a slight nod.

"I'll fetch you one," offered Britt, who patted him on the shoulder as she passed.

George suspected that he'd done something right, but didn't quite know what it was.

* * *

"What did Rosier want?"

Night had descended over the farm and the bones of the old house groaned as the old timbers cooled and the house settled on its foundation. Damian emerged from the shower naked and in his natural form, obsidian horns rising above his damp locks and tail swaying hypnotically behind him. This is how Britt loved to see him, all planes and angles and lean muscle. Not to mention the horns. Even after over a year with him, she was forever rubbing her fingertips over the spiralling ridges of his horns as if to convince herself that this life she now shared with him was real.

"He wanted to give us a warning."

Britt paused from brushing her hair. "I'd hoped that we'd seen that last of him."

Damian laughed bitterly. "What we're doing with George and Abby doesn't do much to ingratiate us to the powers that be. They're getting irritated with us. As interesting as it is playing with our guests, it's not doing anything for my credibility."

"Are you suggesting we stop?"

"I'm suggesting that we pick up the pace so that I can get back to doing what I'm meant to do. One more session and that will have to be it."

She could tell that Damian was worried and tense. She changed the subject. "And how was your session, honey?" 

"She did well. Actually, better than well."

Britt smiled. "Did she give you a meal?"

Damian looked uncomfortable. He seldom discussed his methods or partners with Britt. She knew, of course, how he sustained himself, but he took pains to separate that part of his life from the weirdly domestic part he shared with Britt. "There were moments when I... tasted her."

He didn't mention that Abby's taste and the depth of her emotion were both exquisite, a rare and fine wine against which most others resembled a poor man's plonk. While she was bound in the barn, struggling on the platform, the waves of desire and fear had almost overwhelmed him as they had her. That she'd been able to maintain that delicate balance without surrendering to either one was remarkable.

"So there's some hope for them?"

"I'm beginning to think so, although they're still facing their biggest challenge. A lot depends on George."

Britt got that faraway look that told Damian that her mind was elsewhere. "I think George has matters in hand," she said with a grin.

She motioned Damian closer and reached for him, touching her fingertips to his lower abdomen before running them down between his legs. "Now that you've sated yourself on Abby, perhaps you'll let me take some matters in hand too?"

"Nothing would please me more."

And so she did.

***

Abby and George shared a look and a secret smile at the breakfast table while Britt and Damian chatted amicably at the stove. 

After dinner the night before, they had retired to the guest room. 

After removing her tail, which was far more difficult than she'd expected, Abby showered away the dirt and accumulated stress of the day, lingering under the hot jets of water. Already, the day possessed a dream-like quality, her memory being like a film that featured a body-double.

Yet it had been her, or rather an alien version of herself, for the old one would have felt more shame.

Abby entered the guest room wrapped in the silk robe that George had procured for her. She'd been grateful for that, George taking charge enough to protect the illusion of her modesty. 

George lay on the bed and looked her over. With George as well, something was different. The George of old would have jumped to his feet, faithful as a puppy and just as eager to please. This George, eyes hooded and expression unreadable, observed her with perhaps more than idle curiosity, but with none of the hopeless yearning that Abby might have expected.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

Abby wordlessly sought the comfort of George's arms, kneeling between his legs and fitting into him as a hand in a glove. After the strain and anxiety of her time in the barn, Abby longed for the comforting familiarity of George's embrace. Her eyes misted that those arms should still so willingly envelop her. They kissed, tentatively at first, and then with honest and fully reciprocated ardour. Neither asked how the other had passed the day. In fact, from the moment the bedroom door clicked shut, neither exchanged a word. They gazed at each other and noted anew the subtle changes in the other.

George slowly unwrapped her from the robe, revelling in her as the thin fabric exposed one breast to the cool air and then the other before it whispered to the floor. He touched her as though discovering her for the first time. She closed her eyes and gave herself over completely to this sense of exposure, more intimate and comfortable by far than how she'd spent the afternoon. His fingers explored her body, caressing her breasts, brushing down the well of her abdomen, reclaiming her. 

And Abby grateful in being reclaimed.

George leaned back and Abby unbuttoned his shirt with deft, unhurried fingers. 

With her tongue, she tasted the saltiness of his skin. She unbuckled his belt and he lifted himself so that she could pull his pants and underwear down over his hips, releasing his penis from its confines.

Abby took him in both hands and squeezed, causing a low moan to issue from George's throat. She ran her fingernails slowly along the underside of his growing erection. 

For the first time in what seemed like ages, she had felt the pleasure of freedom, the latitude to act rather than being acted upon. She'd had this freedom before -- years of it -- and had chosen inactivity. 

Grasping him firmly in one hand, she parted her lips to take him into her mouth. Her lips slid over the head, tongue cradling its underside. She tightened her lips around his circumference. She ran her tongue in teasing circles around the glans, the surface of which had grown firm and taut under the pressure of increased engorgement. 

When was the last time she'd done this of her own volition, without the dubious foreplay of George's wheedling and cajoling? She couldn't remember. Nor could she remember the cause of her unwillingness to do this. She felt again the immense satisfaction in his response to her, in her ability to arouse, in the hardness she held in her hand and mouth.

Slowly, she lowered her mouth beyond the head. She could barely manage half of its length. The head, smooth and hard, pressed insistently against the roof of her mouth. George's breathing quickened as she ran her tongue along the underside of his length as her head moved unhurriedly back and forth. She rolled her tongue in waves, a motion that communicated itself through his shaft, drawing him in more deeply. She fought reflex, wanting to take him in more deeply than ever before. With a nod of her head and a flattening of her tongue, she pulled on his hips, slipping his remaining inches into her. Her nose touched his skin and she held him there for several moments, relishing the feeling of his cock completely within her and the satisfaction of having claimed him fully.

At length George disengaged himself from her and lifted her to her feet. Wordlessly, he positioned her in the center of the bed and knelt between her legs. His fingers traced the contours of her body, leaving goose pimples in their wake. These were the hands that knew her best, she thought. These were the fingers that had explored her countless times in the past, that knew her better than she knew herself. They brushed her hard nipples, trailed down the well of her abdomen, found an eager home between her legs.

At that moment, she cursed herself for having shunned him for so long.

He took her wrists in his hands and positioned her hands on either side of her head. Abby opened her eyes and observed him, noting his unreadable expression as he twined his fingers between hers and pressed her hands down onto the bed as he shifted his weight. 

He lowered his hips until the head of his cock brushed the flesh of her pussy. She spread her legs and tilted her hips to him, offering herself. It had been so long since she'd allowed him to take her like this. She wanted him now. She wanted him violently.

Heedless of her unspoken wishes, George lowered himself slowly. She traced his passage into her with furious concentration, and she surprised herself with a whimper. She'd never whimpered before.

She let the breath sigh out of her when he finally filled her completely. She wanted nothing more than to grasp his hips and pull him to her even more closely, but he still held her hands firmly against the bed.

He took her slowly. She begged for speed and violence but he had his own agenda. With infuriating patience and control, he re-entered her and then slowly withdrew, over and over. She concentrated on the feeling of his repeated penetrations, nerves firing at his slow and deliberate passage. Her core warmed and then melted under this deliberate rhythm, her focus narrowing on pulsing space that embraced him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, willing him to greater speed with the backs of her legs, but he ignored her.

Abby met his eyes and found him studying her while he continued to thrust. Her breasts rocked in time with his movements. She used to see love and gratitude in him in the past, in this position; now his emotions were veiled. 

Had she lost him after all, despite her efforts?

The cadence of his movements gradually increased. He held her hands more firmly now, almost to the point of pain.

Abby spread her legs as wide as possible and concentrated, tightening herself around him.

He moved more quickly now, thrusting his length into her with renewed vigour. She felt the familiar tingle that presaged climax and held it off. She lifted her legs and tilted her hips and widened herself for him.

It was not as violent a climax as she'd had in the barn, but for that, it was deeper and longer and more intimate. As she arched her back, shuddering with the rolling spasms that wracked her body and noting absently that George too had found release. A warmth enveloped her.

George released her hands and she flexed her fingers. He smiled. George had known what she had truly wanted. He could have demanded anything of her and she would have given it gladly, yet he'd chosen the comfort of simplicity. 

And in that alone, he had revealed his newfound mastery.



Thumper Ch. 07



Previously...

With their marriage on the rocks, Abby and George turn to a most unlikely source for help. Unbeknownst to George, Abby has agreed to let the incubus, Damian, and his mate, Britt, act as marriage counsellors.

Over the last sessions, Britt and Damian have led the couple far out of their comfort zone. This session promises to be their last. 

***

Two weeks passed between that remarkable weekend at the farm and the next scheduled session with Britt and Damian. Damian had hinted to Abby that the next meeting might be their last and that he was satisfied with the progress she and George had made. Abby could scarcely believe it, that progress would be measured by her willingness to be bound and later traipse around the woods naked, but it was so. 

Recollections of that weekend would often intrude on her thoughts at the most unexpected moments. In the coffee room, chatting with an employee, she would recollect the feeling of the collar around her neck and the lead that attached her to Damian as she walked naked though the forest. In meetings she would tingle at the memory of being bound in the barn, of being played by a master, of finally surrendering to the onslaught of sensation. On passing Steve, her former lover, she would relive that night in the guest room, after the session was done for the day, when George had taken her and she had welcomed him.

It still amazed her that the methods employed by Britt and Damian would succeed where months of counselling had failed.

Then she would remember the one Damian had called Rosier, that caricature of a man who had instilled such palpable fear in Damian, and she would feel a chill.

Neither Abby nor George had spoken of their experiences on the farm in detail, although some aspects of it, like Abby's turn as a filly, were no secret. The weekend had been profound for both of them, and the weeks thereafter were marked by an introspection that both of them accepted. Curiously, George seemed to welcome some distance between them, but they would come together occasionally reclaim each other with a new comfort and growing understanding. 

For Abby, it was a period marked by a curious lightness of being and a diminution of that obsessive single-mindedness on career. She found herself looking forward to returning home at the end of the day.

Although uncomfortable with the notion of submission and docility, there was now a grudging acknowledgement that these characteristics, so abhorrent before, held a certain appeal. In the proper context. With the proper partner.

The changes were not limited to herself. George had become calmer, less needy, more self-contained. He exhibited a new confidence, a sense of expectancy, of barely restrained potential. Nevertheless, Abby wasn't sure whether George could impose his will upon her in the same way Damian had. She attempted to suggest to George that she'd be willing to follow his lead, but so far hadn't articulated her desire. For his part, George observed her, seemingly content to bide his time.

* * *

It was seven o'clock on a Friday evening and Abby and George drove silently to the offices of Britt and Damian. They held hands on the drive, uncertainty and expectation robbing them of their words. 

On their arrival, Britt soon escorted Abby to the building's elevator.

"This is going to be bad, eh?" asked Britt in the elevator.

Britt shrugged and smiled. "Depends on how you define bad. But in the sense that you're thinking, probably."

Abby's gut roiled. Before the weekend on the farm, she wouldn't have thought anything could be more challenging than what she'd endured. For her, the way she had been, the weekend had crossed several lines. Her safeword had been on her lips countless times, but stubbornness and pride had prevented her from speaking it. 

She was grateful now that she'd maintained her silence.

Britt and Abby took the elevator to the basement of the building. The hallway was bleak, a stretch of grey-painted cinderblock punctuated with steel doors at irregular intervals.

Britt unlocked one and pushed the door open, its hinges squealing angrily. She flicked on the overhead light. The sight took Abby's breath away.

The walls hung with heavy tapestries. Benches and pillows described the outer perimeter of the room. On a platform in the center of the room stood an object that Abby recalled from history texts. She'd never seen one in real life, having thought them relegated to the mean and distant past. 

'You can't be serious?"

"Damian told you that this would be your biggest challenge."

Abby approached the construction, her steps tentative. "I suppose this is meant for me?"

Britt nodded. 

Abby didn't know what she'd expected. She stepped up on the platform and placed her hand on the heavy, wooden pillory. It looked ancient and worn, as though it had been spirited away from the square of some medieval town and deposited here centuries later.

"I don't know about this."

"I know it looks scary," said Britt. "But honestly, I think this is the home stretch."

Abby shook her head. "What would you do?"

"I would trust."

There was that word again. She had trusted Damian -- or rather, she'd suspended mistrust -- and in return she'd discovered a great many things about herself.

"What do you want me to do?"

Abby took a deep breath and placed her neck in the large, leather-wrapped central well and her wrists in the smaller depressions on either side. Britt closed the pillory and threw a latch, locking the halves together. The snap punctuated the sudden feeling of vulnerability. 

Britt rubbed her fingertips against Abby's cheek. "You'll be fine."

Britt moved out of sight behind Abby. She manoeuvred Abby's ankles into a steel spreader bar with hinged metal cuffs. She closed the latches.

"Are you okay?"

Abby fought back a laugh. "Sure." Her heart tripped in her chest and rather than fear, she felt the keenest anticipation. Immobilized and having control removed from her, she relaxed and gave herself over to what was to come.

Britt lit a series of candles and turned off the overhead light. The room took on an even greater medieval aspect. 

Britt returned to the front of the pillory. She took Abby's face in her hands and kissed her on the lips. Britt allowed herself to be kissed -- she couldn't escape -- and found the feel of another woman's lips on hers more than a little thrilling. "I'll be with you," said Britt.

The kiss, rather than being sexual, reassured Abby, as though sealing the deal on a sisterhood in which Abby was but a novice. 

They waited in this way for several minutes, with only the flickering of the candles and Britt's gentle caresses to mark the passage of time. 

The door to the room opened behind Abby and a jolt of apprehension shot through her. She could see nothing but could hear footsteps.

* * *

Before they entered the room, Damian placed his fingers to his lips, indicating that George should remain silent. George nodded his understanding.

They entered a room lit by long, tapered candles arrayed around the room in sconces. It took a moment for George's eyes to adjust to the gloom and to understand what he was seeing.

Before him, bent over and locked into a medieval-looking contraption, was Abby. He took in the sight with some consternation. 

Damian approached Abby and placed a hand her up-thrust rump. "Hello again, Abby."

Abby responded, her voice soft and nervous.

"This will probably be our last session," said Damian, "one way or another."

"Uh-huh." 

George could detect a tremor in his wife's voice.

Was this the type of activity she'd allowed herself to be subjected to when she was with Damian? George turned the thought around in his head in wonder. His wife, proud and independent, had somehow permitted this. God only knew what she'd done with Damian before, leading up to this. Despite having seen her at the farm, he'd somehow ascribed it to an anomaly. Yes here was another example of submission that didn't quite mesh with what he knew of her. 

"Are you up for it?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

"Remember that you can stop this at any time. Okay?"

Abby tried to nod but the lumber locking her head in place prevented much movement.

A look passed between Damian and Britt, whom George saw crouched at Abby's head. Britt nodded.

George stood by the door, bemused by the scene before him and wondering where this was going.

Damian lifted Abby's skirt over her hips, revealing the twin mounds of her ass, split by the thin fabric of a black thong. When had Abby given up her sensible underthings? George wondered. The sight gave him a charge. Damian inserted a finger between Britt's hip and the fabric and lifted it. With a tug, he split the seam and allowed it to fall to the platform.

George could see that Britt was breathing heavily. He fought the desire to ask her whether she was alright, whether this is what she wanted.

Damian motioned George to the platform and took his hand, placing it on the curve of Abby's buttocks. George could feel the goose-pimples beneath his hand as he stroked her flank.

"Is that you, George?"

George glanced at Damian, who shook his head. George was nonetheless pleased that Abby would recognize his touch.

"George is otherwise occupied right now," said Damian.

Damian walked to one of the benches and lifted the seat, revealing a compartment. From it, he removed a flogger and a cane. With a nod, he handed them to George.

* * *

Abby could have sworn that it was George's hand, but he hadn't answered her. Now she couldn't be sure. She didn't know whether she wanted George here or not. Whatever humiliation Damian had in store for her, she was uneasy with the thought that George would witness it. He might very well lose all respect for her, a woman who would allow herself to be restrained in a pillory like a common criminal. 

"There's one thing that we've never talked about, you and I, through these last few weeks," said Damian.

"Oh?" Abby's voice sounded small, even to herself.

"Your infidelity." Damian paced the room. "I know that it's a symptom of your problems rather than the root cause, but I would like to discuss it with you now."

"We could do that over coffee. You have me at a disadvantage now."

Damian chuckled. 

"Do you remember your vows? You know, love honour and obey?"

Abby could feel the whisper of leather over her exposed buttocks like a thousand fingers.

"Obey wasn't part of our vows."

"Perhaps it should have been."

"It was cherish." Britt smiled as she crouched in front of Abby. Abby felt as though her head were separated from her body. Britt tucked a strand of hair behind Abby's ear. Behind her, she could feel the weight of what she now knew was leather lightly striking the backs of her legs.

"Perhaps it should have been obey, don't you think?"

Obey. The very concept was anachronistic. She and George had discussed their vows, and both had agreed to replace obey with cherish. It seemed like such a small change to make, but an enlightened one. 

Something thudded more heavily against her ass. It surprised her. She wondered what was coming. "Perhaps," she said tightly.

"If you were to redo your vows to George, would you add obey?"

Damian didn't say who would obey whom, but he didn't need to. Could she obey George? Unquestioningly do his bidding? Did she want to, even now? "Maybe."

Britt stroked Abby's cheek with her fingertips. Abby was comforted, despite what was occurring unseen behind her. Britt silently reassured her and Abby felt a surge of kinship with this woman.

"What would it take? What kind of man could win you completely? What characteristics would he possess? No, let me guess. Just answer yes or no."

"Okay."

"Strength?"

The flogger -- she was sure now that it was a flogger, one of those multi-tailed leather devices she'd thought the height of depravity -- struck her left cheek. The impact caused no pain, but it was insistent, a thuddy blow that sent a wave through her body.

"Yes."

"Trust?" Thud. If she knew that the blows would not grow stronger, she might have enjoyed the sensation of leather against flesh.

"Yes."

"A firm hand?" Thud. Harder still.

"Yes."

"Sensitivity?" She winced as the tips of the fells flashed against her skin. The backs of her legs and buttocks were growing warm now. Tingling.

"Yes."

"Anything else?" The concussion of the blow surprised her and drove the air out of her lungs.

"Leadership," she gasped.

"Does George possess these qualities?"

"Some."

"Did Steve possess these qualities?"

"Some," she gasped "The ones George doesn't."

"Interesting." 

The last blow had some force to it, and she was rocked forward in the pillory, her shoulders pressing against the lumber as the concussion dissipated in her body. 

* * *

George now understood what Damian was doing. There was little doubt that he understood Abby very well; otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to get her in this position in the first place.

Damian retrieved the cane and handed it to George. He held it lightly in his hand and trailed it down Abby's back. She stretched like a cat.

His lesson with Britt came back to him, of being both on the giving and receiving end of the cane.

He tapped the end tentatively against the twin mounds of Abby's ass, which had reddened slightly from the flogger. 

Damian might have understood Abby, but this didn't feel right to George. He wasn't as appalled by the cane in his hand this time, but the entire scene made him uneasy. When he'd taken lessons with Britt, there'd been an aspect of play to it. Now there was no play, only discipline. 

"If I were to guess, George possesses sensitivity and has your trust."

"Yes."

"But lacks strength and leadership."

Abby didn't answer. Damian shot a glance to George and with some reluctance, George thwacked the crop with some force.

Abby yipped and a red welt appeared against the creamy color of her skin.

* * *

That last blow stung a more than a little, surprising her. There was a brief flare across her backside which slowly subsided into a ruddy glow of sensation.

"Have you ever apologized to George for your infidelity?"

Abby frantically thought back. She must have, but for the life of her she couldn't remember. That infernal tapping on her ass was distracting her. She tried to imagine herself speaking the words but couldn't. Could it be? 

"What? Not so much as a simple apology?" 

It sounded impossible but Abby realized that it must be true. She had never apologized, never atoned for her actions. While the fault didn't lie fully with her, she had been the one to break her vows, even if she hadn't vowed to obey him.

How must she have hurt him.

The crop whistled through the air. Abby braced herself for the impact. 

The force of her betrayal struck her more solidly than the blow that was about to land.

The impact never came. Instead, she felt the crop rest lightly against her bare flesh. If there was ever a moment when she thought she might have deserved a rap across her buttocks, it was now.

* * *

George allowed the crop to trail down the curve of Abby's cheek as though his hand had grown heavy. He couldn't do this. He felt like Damian's puppet. It felt wrong on countless levels.

Britt peered around from the front of the pillory. Something that approached a smile played on her lips. Her eyes met George's and he realized at once that she knew. Her smile gave him confidence.

"I'm putting a stop to this," he whispered.

Damian cocked an eyebrow.

"I know what you're trying to do, but I'm finishing this. Now." 

Damian leaned against the wall, arms crossed, an unreadable expression on his face. Britt rose from her kneeling position in front of Abby with one last caress of her cheek.

George lowered the cane. "We're done now. Please leave us," he said.

Damian nodded slowly but George could tell that he was angry. "As you wish." He held out a hand for Britt and the two of them left, shutting the door softly behind them.

* * *

George approached the pillory and unlatched it without a word, lifting the top half of it to free Abby.

"I'm sorry Abby. I couldn't do it. It was wrong."

Abby straightened and stretched her back with a grimace. George knelt before her and released her ankles from the spreader bar. He smoothed her skirt over her hips and stood before her.

"You didn't expect this, did you?"

Abby shook her head and bit her lip.

"We're done with them now. You won't have to go through this anymore. Whatever happens now..." 

She worked her thumbs into the muscles at the small of her back and arched backwards. She was grateful that George had stepped in and put a stop to it. She was proud of him, in fact. Standing up to the likes of Damian must have taken some courage, for Damian was not one to be easily denied. Despite her gratitude, she realized with a start that she would miss the challenges that Damian had orchestrated for her. 

"I guess I'm as weak as you thought," continued George.

Abby shook her head. "Is that what you think?"

George regarded her mutely.

"It took strength to put a stop to it." She placed a hand on his chest. "When you found out about... Steve and me... you didn't do anything. You just sat there."

George shrugged. "If it makes you feel better, I wanted to kill you."

Abby looked stunned and then laughed. "And I thought you didn't care." She placed her hands on his shoulders and stepped close to him. "And if the same were to happen now, would you do any different?"

"No." 

She felt a familiar pang of disappointment. Maybe she had underestimated the change in him. Maybe he was indeed weak. 

"I wouldn't let it happen now. I've allowed things to drift. I won't let us drift anymore." 

She nodded, realizing that it was the right answer. His voice revealed a determination that had been absent for too long. The steel in his voice, the confidence, spoke louder than a strong hand. Perhaps he had changed.

Abby spoke quietly. "If I were to tell you that I'm okay with it, with taking the consequences that Damian had in mind for me, would you do it?"

"Yes." No hesitation.

"Really?"

"Absolutely."

Abby took a deep breath and undid the buttons of her blouse. George watched as she undressed. She saw the interest in his eyes grow to hunger. She dropped her blouse to the floor and undid her brassiere, freeing her breasts. The old George would have offered to help undress her, ever helpful and eager to speed along the process. This George watched, savouring her actions and enjoying the show. It was a subtle change, but one that thrilled her and made her a little self-conscious. She unzipped her skirt and slid it over her full hips with a slight shimmy. George licked his lips. Abby stepped out of the skirt and shoved it aside with her foot. She finally stood before George, exposed.

George's eyes raked her body and she felt it as though he'd placed his hands on her. Neither moved. After several long moments, George approached and wound a hand behind her neck. He pulled her toward him forcefully, crushing his mouth to hers, embracing her with a strength that took her breath away.

Wordlessly, George took Abby's hand and led her to the pillory. Naked, she stepped up to the platform and placed her neck and wrists into the holes. George swivelled the top half over the bottom and latched it shut. 

Rather than fear, Abby felt an alert anticipation. Much like the sense of freedom she'd felt walking naked in the forest with Damian, the suspension of will, the inability to act, freed her to react, to focus on the journey that George had planned for her.

George stepped behind Abby and retrieved the cane he'd abandoned earlier.




Thumper Ch. 07



Returning to her side, he stroked the cane along the contours of her breast and flicked it playfully back and forth across the nipple. 

He ran the tip of the cane from the edge of her breast down her hip and leg, and then up the inside of her thigh. The tip described a lazy circle around her sex and anus and her legs weakened at the sensation. 

She felt the unforgiving length across her buttocks as George pressed it into the flesh.

For a moment she doubted the wisdom of submitting to this and fervently hoped that George would be merciful.

He tapped lightly three times before the cane whooshed through the air and struck her.

Abby gasped. She hadn't known what to expect, but was unprepared for the concentrated blaze that arced across her buttocks. If she'd expected timidity from George, she'd been terribly wrong.

"One," said George. "Shall we try for ten?"

"Uh-huh."

Another three taps and another blow, stronger than before, crossing the welt of the first. She stifled a cry.

"Two."

Before the burn of the last blow had faded, the cane tapped three times again. She steeled herself against what was coming. 

She must have cried out when the blow landed because the next series of tapping came after a longer interval. Her cheeks felt as though ablaze. She felt tears tricking out of the corners of her eyes.

"Three."

I can stop this, she thought. 

Tap, tap, tap. Whack!

"Four."

Her buttocks was on fire. I'll never make ten, thought Abby.

"Five."

She felt strangely disembodied when the next several blows landed, bolts of searing pain followed by the insistent hum of tormented flesh.

"Eight."

One more, she thought. I can take one more.

Tap, tap, tap.

Her universe contracted to the small space where cane met flesh. Her knees buckled as the sound of the blow reached her ears, followed a nanosecond thereafter by the firing of countless nerves. 

"Thumper!"

George's hand stopped. "What?"

"Thumper," whispered Abby.

He doesn't know my safeword, Abby realized, steeling herself for a blow that never came.

The pain receded gradually, leaving a dull burn. She felt George's hand over what she was sure were angry red welts. The hand felt warm and smooth against the prickling sensitivity of her skin. She felt his other hand join the first, rubbing the curve of her cheeks, soothing them. After the stinging pain of the cane, his hands felt unbelievably good. He kneaded her ass and then ran his fingers from her lower back along the insides of her cheeks to the edges of her pussy.

She realized with a start that she was wet. Was it in response to the caning or to George's hands? She couldn't be sure.

A hand cupped the contours of her sex and a quiet moan escaped her.

She wanted him, unbelievably, right now, even restrained as she was. Perhaps because of the restraint.

Abby moved her hips in invitation and whimpered, uncharacteristically, and George spread the lips of her pussy with his fingers. 

"Yes," she whispered.

George inserted a finger, wetting it, and then moved it to her clitoris.

Sensation blossomed, a pleasure heightened incredibly by the pain that preceded it. He played her, and her hips rocked against his probing finger.

Her body reacted automatically, moving unconsciously, and she was soon on the cusp.

George moved behind her and soon she felt something warm, wet, and probing. His hands pressed on her lower back and she angled her hips, presenting her cunt to him. His tongue danced over the lips of her pussy and her clitoris. She strained against the heavy wood that restrained her wrists, wanting nothing more than to caress her own breasts. She was positively thrumming with arousal.

George lapped at her hungrily and every movement translated into exquisite jolts of pleasure. He drew the flesh of her clitoris and labia into his mouth, sucking and running his tongue over the tissue he had claimed. Never had his tongue felt so insistent and intimate. Never had she so completely surrendered herself to sensation.

She came almost without warning. It was a great shuddering release, announced with a gasp. Her hips swayed against George's lips and tongue. Her muscles trembled. Wave piled on wave until she begged him to stop.

The movements of George's tongue slowed and she traced its languorous movements as he tasted her.

Completely spent, Abby rested within the pillory, grateful at the support it gave her. She heard clothing drop to the floor and then felt George's warmth pressing against her. 

He grasped her waist and soon the head of his cock split the lips of her pussy. She wanted nothing more than for him to drive it in, mercilessly. She wished she could press against him, but the pillory prevented that. To be restrained, to be denied the ability to answer to her body's desires, frustrated and excited her. She was completely beholden to him for her pleasure. She willed him to do as she would, to impale herself upon him completely and violently

He entered her slowly, his length gliding into her. He held himself within her for a long moment. Abby closed her eyes, focussing her attention to the sensations that rippled up from her pussy. Trembling, she concentrated on the muscles that clutched him. He pressed her between himself and the unforgiving hardness of the pillory, pushing himself even more deeply within her. 

"Fuck me," she whispered.

Slowly, he withdrew and plunged into her anew. 

Her restrained fists clenched and breasts swayed with the rhythm of his thrusts. Abby's world reduced to that part of her that lay between the hands that firmly bracketed her waist and the rigid length that repeatedly penetrated her. 

Unintelligible sounds escaped her throat. 

Her knees weakened as that familiar sensation grew and blossomed, and she willed herself erect, angling her hips to fully accommodate him.

A strangled cry that the barely recognized as her own counterpointed his insistent thrusts.

Her hands and head hung limp from the openings in the pillory and George released her for a second time. She scarcely had the energy to stand. He helped her upright and gathered her up in his arms. Her legs shook uncontrollably. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him.

They kissed as they hadn't in recent memory.

George disengaged and held her head in his hands. "I'm sorry that I hurt you," said George.

"It'll heal," said Abby. "I'm sorry that I hurt you too."

"It'll heal," whispered George as he wrapped his arms more tightly around her.

* * *

Britt and Damian returned to the farmhouse. The drive passed in silence.

When the door closed behind them, Damian said, "You knew."

"Knew what?"

"That George wouldn't go through with it." Damian sounded defeated. 

"I suspected it."

Damian grunted and ascended the stairs to their bedroom.

Britt had never seen him like this. 

Rosier sat on the bed, his head cocked to one side. "Took you long enough."

Damian said nothing. Britt entered the bedroom and stood motionless next to him. Damian shimmered and assumed his demon form, but there was none of the fury that had marked his previous meetings with Rosier.

"First the wife defies you, and then the husband. You left them in your little playground, fucking like bunnies. Is there no one other than your beautiful companion who will do your bidding?"

Rosier rose from the bed and paced back and forth, tapping his cane on the hardwood floor. 

"You had wanted to break her. I know that you did. To that end, I was willing to give you some latitude. It was entertaining, giving you enough rope to hang yourself. Yet for all of your efforts, the wife grew stronger. Never have I seen a plan go so awry, nor have I observed such a willful disregard of duty."

Rosier turned to face Damian. "I'm afraid that our patience is at an end, Damian. It's clear that you have lost your way." He shrugged. "I mean, with demons like you, who needs angels?"

Damian still hadn't uttered a word. Britt was shocked to see him so defeated, so resigned.

"On your knees, Damian of Pannonnia."

"Don't," gasped Britt.

Damian threw her a hopeless look, one of abject surrender.

Rosier placed his hand on the head of his cane. With a slow movement and an icy sound, he pulled, slowly revealing a long, thin blade. He discarded the shaft of the cane with a flick of his wrist, allowing it to clatter on the floor. Britt's eyes were glued to the cold steel in Rosier's hand. Her mouth opened, but a look from Rosier killed the scream that bubbled up from her lungs.

Damian closed his eyes and seemed to deflate and dropped to his knees before Rosier.

Rosier approached and placed the blade against one of Damian's horns.

"It pains me to have to do this," whispered Rosier, sounding genuinely regretful. "You were one of my favorites."

Damian nodded and Rosier swung the blade back.

Britt finally found her tongue. "No!" she screamed as she lunged for Rosier.



Thumper Ch. 08



George didn't want a slave. 

That's not to say that a small part of him -- a small pinkish part, say -- wouldn't rise admirably to a slave who responded with sexual verve to his every perverse beck and call. Someone, for example, forever clad in a sheer, flowing garment that left little to the imagination, someone who lived for the pleasure of giving pleasure and launched into mind-blowing, erotic gymnastics on command. No, he didn't want that. The problem was that Abby, all recent evidence of submissiveness aside, wasn't that woman, nor did he want her to be. Not really. Besides, he wasn't the type of man who'd be long satisfied with mindless acquiescence to every carnal whim.

George sighed and allowed the fantasy to dissolve.

So, no, George didn't want a slave.

The alternative was infinitely trickier. Abby had, over the last several weeks, demonstrated a grudging acceptance of submissiveness, just as he had reluctantly accepted the mantle of authority over her. They were at a delicate stage, he realized. He hadn't wanted to leave home so soon after what was, by all accounts, the last session with Britt and Damian. He'd wanted some time with Abby to build upon the foundation that Britt and Damian had helped lay for them. He wondered whether the old patterns had re-established themselves during his absence, or whether he'd return home to a fundamentally different relationship with Abby.

As he waited to board the plane, he pulled out his Blackberry and texted Abby. Two words. Perhaps it was a command, but it was one that granted room for interpretation. "Surprise me," he typed.

After boarding, he settled into his seat for the flight home. He'd presented a paper at an academic conference, disentangling his thoughts from Abby and the last few weeks just long enough to deliver a talk that had been, by all accounts, well-received.

Yes, they were at a delicate stage. He and Abby were on their own now. Britt and Damian had helped them adjust the course of their marriage and had finally nudged them into the current; it was now up to them to navigate their way by themselves.

Damn, it would be a lot easier with a slave...

The plane's engines spooled up and George let his thoughts drift back in time to the strange brand of marriage counselling that Abby had introduced them to. He still didn't know how she'd stumbled upon Britt and Damian and didn't much care. Perhaps the truth would come out at some point. He still couldn't quite believe how much had changed in those few weeks -- how he'd gone from cuckold to master and Abby from ice queen to submissive. Even now, as he allowed himself to think back, he could scarcely believe what he and Abby had gone through. As the plane taxied to the runway, the recollections passed like photographs in his mind's eye.

Of him, on that first session, with his face buried between Britt's legs, having been issued a challenge to make her come in fifteen minutes.

Of Abby, emerging from behind Damian, looking unusually vulnerable and beautiful, clad in little more than a breast binder and sporting a pony tail from a part of the human anatomy that had evolved to be tailless.

Of him again, being taught the possibilities of discipline, the moon of Britt's exposed ass growing redder with each blow.

And of Abby again, willingly subjecting herself to the pillory while he claimed her from behind, her body stretched out before him like an extension of himself.

This could have been someone else's mental photo album, but it was his.

With a start, he realized that his small pinkish part was no longer quite so small. Damn. In public, no less.

He turned his mind instead to a more recent memory. Before this trip, George and Damian had met for lunch at a pub close the campus.

"You should feel blessed," said Damian.

"I do."

Damian sipped his beer thoughtfully. "Both Britt and I had our doubts about Abby. About you too, but perhaps less so. Abby had a longer, harder journey. Most women would never have agreed to our contract. A lot of those would have told us to go to hell when they realized what it entailed. But Abby is incredibly strong and determined."

"So now?" asked George.

"Now you dedicate your life to reinforcing the trust she has placed in you. You have the responsibility of guiding your relationship through the next chapters. If the relationship fails, it's because you haven't listened, haven't placed Abby's well-being and happiness above all else. You have to be more attentive and more creative than you've ever been. In return, Abby will bestow those same gifts on you. She's now capable of doing so."

The plane lifted off, pressing George more deeply into the seat. 

* * *

Abby received his text message an hour ago at work. His plane would have taken off by now. "Surprise me" was all it said. Those two words encapsulated a world of possibility. She smiled as packed her things and left the office early.

She hadn't wanted him to take the trip, but it had been planned long ago, before Britt and Damian had entered their lives. When the trip had been planned months ago, she'd considered his week-long absence with indifference. At the time, he was little more than a fixture in her life, a reminder of her failure. For the last week, however, she'd mentally checked off each day, growing excited as his return grew closer. 

Absence not only made the heart grow fonder, it made it hungry.

Once home, Abby placed her heavy briefcase in the hall closet and vowed to forget that it existed until Monday. She kicked off her pumps and gratefully wiggled her toes. She walked upstairs, shrugging out of her dress jacket as she went, and hung it carelessly from the baluster. Feeling lighter already, she quickly shed her blouse and skirt, letting them fall to the floor like discarded skin. She shimmied out of her underwear, a thong, and flicked it with her foot, caught it in mid-flight, and tossed it into the hamper for three points.

Naked, having left the outer trappings of authority and responsibility scattered through the house, she sighed and felt liberated. She stretched and caught her reflection in the mirror. She liked what she saw.

Abby took an unhurried shower; it would take George more than two hours to clear customs, collect his luggage and return home. She washed with leisurely care, stoking herself where, she hoped, George's hands would soon linger.

After drying, she anointed herself with a hint of perfume in the cleft between her full breasts and lit some candles on the bedside tables and antique dresser. It was too early for candles, but lighting them seemed oddly appropriate.

She knelt before an old steamer trunk that sat at the foot of the four-poster bed, lifted the lid, and examined the contents with a sense of wonder and anticipation. 

Britt had called out of the blue yesterday, perhaps knowing that Abby was alone, to suggest a shopping excursion.

There had been a mischievous tone to her voice, of challenge and playfulness. "We're going shopping for your graduation frock," Britt had added.

"Graduation?"

"You and George don't need us anymore. You're ready now to go it alone."

It was true. Abby felt a momentary sense of loss, knowing that the architects of their recent adventures were now exiting stage-left. She and George would have to find their own way now, and in a flash she realized that they were both now capable of doing so. 

Britt had driven Abby to a shop called Her Mistress's Closet. The mannequins in the window sported all manner of leather and latex. It was the kind of establishment from which Abby would have averted her eyes in the past, recoiling at the depravity of those maladjusted souls who frequented it. Now her heart skipped a beat. Britt ushered her in and Abby stopped at the threshold. The shop was tastefully decorated, completely devoid of the seediness Abby would have imagined.

"Hi, Britt," greeted the saleswoman, a remarkably beautiful Asian woman.

"Go browse," suggested Britt, propelling her into the shop with a little push on the small of her back.

Abby strolled past the lingerie. She had, she realized sadly, plenty of that; gifts from George that she'd ignored and relegated to the dark corners of her closet. She'd have to see about those, she decided. No, she wasn't here for lingerie, but something more emphatic. She continued to the back of the store where she spied more provocative items -- leatherwear, corsets, bustiers. There was a world of possibility here, each item unleashing visions of potential. As Abby strolled through the store, she found herself surprisingly engaged where a few months before she would have been mortified, shuddering at the symbolism of such items -- submission, degradation, objectification. Now she now considered the impact that such outfits would have on George. Would they please him? Would they arouse him? 

They would. What man wouldn't be aroused? She felt herself growing excited at the mere thought of surprising George on his return. Perhaps she really had graduated.

She settled on a leather corset with a shelf bra and laces up the back. 

"Find anything you like?" asked Britt, who had silently come to her side.

Abby raised the corset.

Britt nodded and smiled. "That'll do nicely."

They strolled past a display of restraints and Britt stopped. "Have you considered these?"

Abby hesitated. "No."

"You might," suggested Britt.

Could she? She examined the cuffs and collars, some plain, others studded and fur-lined, and allowed herself to imagine. These were not the tools of enslavement, but of consent to be George's erotic canvas. Her body answered for her by means of a tingle of anticipation in the pit of her belly.

"Okay," said Abby.

Their next stop was the beauty salon. Britt was recognized here too. Britt and a pair of hairdressers gathered around Abby and deliberated earnestly, as an artist might before a blank canvas.

Abby's current style just wouldn't do. They decided on a something radically different, something that would frame the geometry of her face, and add a few highlights to draw the eye and liven thing up.

She could barely follow their conversation, her mind on her new purchases and considering how they might best be employed. The hairdresser and Britt looked at her expectantly, as though expecting an answer. "Whatever you want," she said. "Just do it."

Abby scarcely noticed the stares that she and Britt drew, in equal measure, from the men who were returning to their offices after a late lunch. If she had, she would have been flattered. As it was, her thoughts were never far from George and his homecoming.

Over coffee when their shopping was done, Britt beamed at Abby. "You've come a long way, baby."

Britt could feel the blush rising to her cheeks. "I couldn't have done it without you and Damian."

"It was in you all the time."

"I have a question for you," said Abby, changing the subject.

Britt raised an eyebrow. "Shoot."

"Are you and Damian a couple? You know, in the way that you've... trained George and me."

Britt hesitated for a moment. "If you're asking whether Damian and I are master and slave in the strict sense, we'd say no. But then, neither are you and George."

"And in the loose sense?"

"Possibly. Certainly anyone looking in from the outside would say so. I prefer to think that we're partners. Are we equal partners? No. He's a demon, after all, and I have no wish to be his equal. Besides which, we've both seen too many equal partnerships dissolve under the weight of constant bickering over power and real or imagined threats to equality. So I defer to him because he has earned my trust and respect. In return, he constantly seeks new ways to reinforce that trust and respect. While some masters might be tempted to control a submissive through fear and humiliation, a good master will foster such a relationship through discipline tempered with love. "

"So it's a partnership?"

"Absolutely."

"But not an equal one?"

"I prefer to call it symbiotic."

That was yesterday. Today she was on her own and the heady confidence instilled by Britt seemed a long way off.

Around her narrow waist she fastened the corset, removing it to make adjustments to the laces and then trying it on again. When the fit was perfect, she strapped on the black leather wrist and ankle cuffs. She saved the collar for last. Her breasts lifted as she fastened it around her neck and fed the tongue through the clasp. Studs and rings glinted in the flickering candlelight. 

She looked at herself in the mirror, almost disbelieving what she saw. Not so much that she wore nothing more than leather and looked every inch a slave, but that she saw the unmistakable glow of confidence and anticipation that had been absent not so long ago. At that time, she would have averted her eyes from the sight in the mirror -- that and questioned her sanity. Now she appraised herself with satisfaction, knowing she would soon be giving and receiving pleasure in equal measure.

The leather would be a surprise for George, much as it was for her. She was still a little uneasy with the symbolism of enslavement, but she trusted George to see it for what it was -- consent.

She wrapped a silk robe around herself and cinched the belt. She reclined on the bed, sipped some wine, and waited for her man.

At the sound of George's key in the front door, Abby slipped from the bed and assumed the position. She felt a little ridiculous doing so, but a tremor of excitement coursed through her nonetheless. She knelt on the floor and rested her buttocks on her heels. Her hands lay open and palms up on her spread thighs and she paid special attention to holding her posture erect, not that her corset would have allowed much in the way of slouching. Britt had instructed her to bow her head, but she couldn't, not when she wanted to see George's reaction.

* * *

George opened the door to the bedroom and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Oh my God," he stammered.

Abby sat on her haunches in the middle of the room. Her back was straight and her chest swelled with each breath, visible beneath the diaphanous robe. Her palms lay face-up where her thighs emerged from her leather boots. A nervous smile played on her mouth.

He had told himself that he hadn't wanted a slave, yet here she was.

"Are you pleased?"

"Oh my God," George repeated.

He approached her slowly, eyes devouring her. He gazed down at her for a moment and then gave her his hand and drew her up.

"You're beautiful."

Abby blushed. 

He placed a hand under her chin and tilted her head up so that he could gaze at her fully. 

They kissed hungrily, bodies pressed together. A part of him wanted to throw her onto the bed and take her now but he sensed that she'd given this some thought and was curious to see where it would go.

She disengaged herself from his arms. She placed a hand on his chest and pushed him gently backward until he sat on the edge of the bed.

"I've been shopping," she said.

"I can see that."

Abby stepped back and stood before him with arms outstretched. She had changed her hairstyle, George realized. Her unruly curls had been tamed and framed her face. Her makeup flattered her eyes and well-defined cheek bones. Deep red lipstick accentuated the fullness of her lips. 

A collar with silver rings encircled her neck, the black leather contrasting with the tender, pale flesh of her throat. She wore cuffs on her wrists, the rings of which glimmered as they swayed in the flickering candlelight. The leather bodice she wore hugged her torso and thrust her bosom forward. 

Abby closed her eyes and pirouetted with slow and deliberate grace on the toe of a leather boot. George's eyes followed the laces up to her shapely thigh and glimpsed the freshly shaved pubic area until Abby's slow revolution removed it from view. 

She presented her back and George followed the lacing of the corset to the womanly flare of her hips and the firm roundness of her buttocks.

George was utterly gobsmacked as Abby stopped, legs apart, and placed her arms behind her back. Her breasts lifted becomingly in response. 

"What do you think, master?" she asked with a wink and a smirk.

George smiled and said, "I feel like I've died and gone to heaven."

Abby approached languorously and lowered herself onto his lap. She draped her arms lazily over his shoulders and straddled his legs with her leather-clad ones.

"That would make me an angel," she murmured into his ear before taking the lobe into her mouth. She bit the soft flesh and a low moan issued from George's throat. She pressed her lips to his and insinuated her tongue teasingly between his lips. "I'm not." 

Abby slid off George's lap and lowered herself between his legs. She placed a hand on his groin and traced the contours of his cock with the tip of her index finger. 

"May I?" she asked.

"Uh-huh."

Abby slipped his trousers and underwear off. George's manhood sprang free.

Abby's fingernails stroked the underside of his erection and George couldn't restrain an unmasterful whimper. He'd asked for Abby to surprise him, and so far she had. 

She held his cock against his abdomen as her tongue laved his testicles. Gently, she took one in her mouth and played her tongue over its surface. Then she repeated the action with its twin.

More arousing than her actions was the way in which she performed them. She lingered over him, exploring him with unhurried engagement. Before, when he could cajole her into doing these things, she performed with scarcely contained impatience, rushing through the script as though nothing were more important than the falling of the curtain. Now she lingered, following no script.

Her hand held the base of his cock as her tongue trailed up its length and explored the contours of its crown. He felt the leather of her wrist cuff against the inside of his thigh. She took the head in her mouth and her tongue flitted over its surface.

He gave himself over to the sensation of her lips descending over him, the warmth of her mouth and tongue enveloping him and then withdrawing.

Whether it was the week of absence or Abby's actions -- possibly both -- George responded quickly. A few minutes later he felt that familiar tingling and sat up. "Abby," he gasped.

She stroked his saliva-slick length and peered up at him, a smile quirking on her lips. She shook her head. "Let me," she whispered. "We have time."

George perched himself on his elbows and watched as he vanished into her mouth again.

The velvet softness of her lips descended over his hardness in slow increments, deeper than he would have thought possible. Her hands reached behind his back and pulled as her mouth descended the last few inches until her lips encircles his base.

"Oh God," he groaned as she withdrew and plunged upon him yet again.

Abby had evoked a scarcely contained fullness to his erection that he hadn't felt since adolescence. He wasn't far now. Arresting the effect of her actions was now out of the question and he surrendered himself to her. The muscles in his legs trembled and seemed to signal Abby to redouble her efforts.

This wasn't how he'd imagined his homecoming. He'd imagined taking her, yet here he was being taken. Not that it wasn't great -- his body told him that much -- it was just...

With a groan he shot into her mouth.

* * *

George emptied himself into her mouth and the spasms gradually diminished. Abby revelled in her power over him. 

George lay limp on the bed and Abby climbed alongside and wrapped an arm around his chest.

"That was..." he whispered.

"Yes," she said with a smile.

George sighed contentedly. After a few minutes, he spoke again. "These cuffs..."

"Yes?"

"They give me an idea."

"I'd hoped they would."




Thumper Ch. 08



George rose on an elbow and regarded her. She couldn't read his expression at first. Then she belatedly realized that she'd effectively taken charge of his homecoming -- much against Britt's instructions -- and saw that the realization had dawned on George as well.

She almost apologized, and then thought better of it. "I'm your playground." she said. "Play."

Even that sounded like a command and she silently kicked herself for it.

"I plan to," said George, exhibiting little of the post-release lethargy he'd shown just a few moments before. He rose from the bed. "You should realize that no good deed goes unpunished," he said with a wink. "Stay here."

George left the bedroom and Abby lay back on the bed. She felt a little apprehensive at the mention of punishment.

At length George returned, carrying a bag. "I've been shopping too," he said. "Close your eyes."

Abby complied. She heard some rustling from the bag. What one earth did he have? she thought apprehensively. At length she felt George's weight on the bed. He raised her arms up over her head and she felt a tugging at her wrists. She realized that George was tying her arms to the posts at the head of the bed. She was surprised at first and then berated herself -- what else are cuffs for? He repeated the process with her ankles, spreading her long limbs apart. She tested the restraints and found that he had given her only the slightest freedom of movement, an illusion that she was slightly less vulnerable than she actually was.

"You can open your eyes now."

She did and searched for George, finding him at the foot of the bed, lit by the flickering candlelight. In his hand he loosely held a flogger. She was speechless. She may have been a little too assertive, she realized, but did that merit a flogging? George approached, swinging the fells. He allowed the fells to splay against her abdomen with a wet thud. Her muscles tightened involuntarily at the contact and her throat constricted. Was this just a preamble to something more? What have I done? What did I do to deserve this?

George drew the flogger down her body, allowing the fells to sluice between Abby's legs and cascade over her bare pussy. Despite her apprehension, or perhaps because of it, she shuddered in pleasure. He moved to her side and lowered the fells to her chest, allowing the tips to play over her nipples like a thousand feather-light caresses. She responded instantly and her nipples hardened and goose pimples erupted in the leather's wake. The flogger slowly descended past her corseted abdomen to play around her pelvis and the insides of her upper thighs. The concentration of such tiny nodes of stimulus became almost unbearable, particularly on her recently shaved pubic mound. 

George repeated the process and Abby squirmed with the sensations that set her nerves tingling. 

"As tempting as it is," said George, "this isn't the punishment I had in mind."

Abby breathed a sigh of relief as George set the flogger aside and climbed onto the bed. He lowered his head to her breasts and flicked his tongue over one nipple and the other. He blew gently across her breasts and her nipples instantly puckered. He drew one into his mouth and bit gently from the outer circumference and in towards the tip, working his teeth against each other, sending tingles of pleasure all the way to her toes.

He worked his way down until he rested between her legs. Gently, patiently, he licked the folds of her labia, eliciting an involuntary purr of pleasure. She felt him draw her labia between his lips, pulling gently, running his tongue back and forth across the soft flesh. He thrust his tongue deep into her, tasting her, and then drew it up to tease her clitoris.

With his tongue pressing the pink pearl of her clitoris, he inserted a finger, exploring her vagina with as much deliberateness as she'd employed on him. His finger roamed freely, lingering at a spot whenever her bound legs strained against the ropes that held them. Eventually he angled the finger upward within her, stroking the inside of her pubic bone. He rolled the tip of his tongue in a circular motion over her clitoris and the finger within her mirrored the motion. Her breathing quickened.

If this is punishment, thought Abby, I should be bad more often.

She felt another finger being inserted and then trailing down her perineum to her anus. Her breath caught in surprise. He stopped and listened, and Abby forced herself to relax as the finger gently inserted itself. 

Abby's mind flitted from one sensation to another, from the tongue that danced on her clitoris, to the finger pressing her G-spot and to the other slipping shallowly in and out of her anus. Her arms strained against her bonds, wanting nothing more than to grasp George's head and draw it roughly into her.

Not since the afternoon with Damian in the barn had she been restrained. She hadn't liked it much then, though overcoming her fear had resulted in an almost overwhelming release. This time was different. Yes, she was still bound, and yes, she was still completely at the mercy of another. The difference was trust. Though she might not fear George as she had Damian, her vulnerability this time was that much more arousing and intimate. She knew now that with George, she would consent to his demands implicitly. Trust allowed her to concentrate fully on what he was doing instead of fearing what might yet be done.

And what he was doing was wonderful.

Soon she was on the cusp. Involuntarily, she bore down and pressed hard on George's hand, pushing his fingers deep into her cunt and ass. She gave a strangled cry and spread her legs wide, affording George a better taste of that which he had worked to release.

She pulled against her restraints as her climax intensified and crashed anew under George's attentions, to the point where the subtlest flick of the tongue or pressure of his fingers would find a new, previously uncharted crescendo.

She didn't know how long she writhed on the bed, pulling against the restraints, captive to a body that was tireless in its release. With deep breaths, she fought to regain control. When the tremors had slowed, George lowered his head and thrust his tongue into her, savouring her. 

Abby took a deep, shuddering breath.

Presently he withdrew and was gone for a moment while the waves that wracked Abby's body gradually subsided.

She was spent and sore from working against the restraints.

After a few moments, George returned. 

"Can you untie me?"

"No. I'm not done with you."

Her protest was cut off by the feeling of something being applied to her abused clitoris. Whatever it was -- a cream perhaps? -- it grew almost instantly warm. 

"No," moaned Abby as she felt herself responding again to the sensations.

"Thumper?" he asked, invoking Abby's safeword.

Abby merely bit her lip and shook her head, not trusting herself to speak and unwilling to deny herself or him.

"Ready?"

Abby nodded, feeling her body open itself to him again.

A hum filled the air, unidentifiable until it made contact with her tender clitoris. The dual sensation of tingling heat and remorseless vibration set her bucking against her restraints once again. The wave was upon her in an instant, and she was soon driven senseless by the relentless pounding of orgasm upon orgasm, the end of one nearly indistinguishable from the beginning of the next, leaving her little time to recover or snatch more than a gasping breath.

She wanted nothing more than to escape this infernal vibration, to rein in her body again. As it was, her pelvis ground against the vibrator, her muscles quivering uncontrollably. She grew dizzy and felt as though she were turning inside out, a quivering molten mass. She fought against the restraints, desperate to release her hands to push the vibrator away.

"Stop," she pleaded.

It seemed to go on forever. 

"Please," she gasped.

But she was lost.

"Please stop."

George didn't heed her. This was her punishment, she realized dully as her muscles clenched violently in the throes of uncontrollable spasms. Better than the flogger but infinitely more diabolical.

Dimly she noted that the vibrations had ceased though the turmoil in her body continued. Her muscles quivered and clenched of their own volition. 

Slowly the roiling waves abated and she returned to her senses. 

She opened her eyes and her gaze fell upon George. "Some punishment."

He kissed her and untied her. When free, Abby wrapped her limp arms around him. "You're a master."

"A master? Hardly."

"My master." She felt as though she would pass out.

He shook his head. "Then I would like to suggest the next act."

"Please," she begged, "No more."

"Some slave." He smacked her bottom hard and she squealed in surprise.

Abby bit off the protest before it escaped her lips. She was too tired, but she knew that this request was anything but. "Anything," she said.

With some difficulty, George manoeuvred her to sit astride him. His cock nestled against the slick, wet folds of her pussy. She stroked them against him and he slowly revived. She could feel him now despite her numbness. After a few moments, she gently lowered herself onto him.

He closed his eyes and as the candles flickered in their holders, she moved to an unhurried, universal rhythm. She too closed her eyes, abandoning herself to the feeling of him within her. 

They would be alright.

* * *

Not unlike Abby and George, Britt and Damian found themselves in bed. 

Britt fingered a chip of obsidian horn that hung from a fine golden chain between her breasts. It served as a reminder -- as though she could ever forget -- of the individual with whom she chose to share her life and the rules that they had to live by. 

It had been a week since the scene in the bedroom in which Damian had almost lost his horns to the hand of Rosier.

Britt knew that it wasn't her scream that had slowed the stroke of Rosier's sword. She'd been a fool to think that she could have stopped it. 

At her scream, Rosier had raised his free hand, a lazy movement even as the blade in the other hand commenced its down stroke. To Britt, it felt as though she'd hit a brick wall. Crumpled on the floor, she watched in despair and horror as the blade flashed down. 

Yet at the last possible moment, the blade seemed to arrest its inexorable movement, but not before it had etched a chip from one of Damian's horns.

No, something other than Britt's scream had interrupted Rosier.

As the obsidian chip flew from the horn, a hiss of dismay sounded from between Rosier's clenched teeth. The chip fell to the floor between Britt's outstretched hands. She grasped it, cutting a finger on its razor-sharp edges, and looked at Rosier in time to see his sword hand fall limply to his side.

For a moment, no one moved.

"What's going on?" asked Britt in a faint whisper.

Rosier stepped back and seemed to collapse in on himself, a look of disbelief and anger on his face. He was silent for a moment and then spoke. "It seems that it's not your time, Damian."

Damian looked up, his expression unreadable.

"The boss, it seems, had a bet with Asmodeus that you'd fail, that you wouldn't be able to break that Abby woman."

He hadn't broken her, thought Britt. At most, she'd learned to bend. 

"I disagree, but you get a reprieve, Damian of Pannonnia. You'd better hope that the boss doesn't come to his senses and lose patience with you. In the meantime, we'll be watching you. Abby and George may go on to live happily ever after, but the same might not be said of you two. Not if I have my way."

Britt rose and approached Damian, placing a trembling hand on his shoulder. He leaned into her.

"These good deeds of yours," said Rosier with distaste, "they're most unbecoming to one of your station."

He sheathed his sword and began to lose substance, disappearing into the air.

"Be thankful that the boss enjoyed the show."

Then he was gone.

Damian rose to his feet. He fingered the notch in his horn and let his hand fall to his side. "That was close," he said flatly.

Britt trembled. "What would have happened?"

"I prefer not to think of it." Damian gathered Britt in his arms. "But I think it's time I go back to being a simple incubus."