Chapter 17: The Punishment
The grey light before dawn found her awake, and restless in a new way. The profound surrender of the previous afternoon had settled into a strange, buzzing energy. It hummed beneath her skin, in the heavy warmth of her breasts, in the deep ache where he’d filled her. The certainty of her choice felt less like a prison and more like a catalyst.
She watched him sleep. In the faint light, the harsh lines of his face were softened, but no less potent. He was sprawled on his back, one arm thrown above his head, the sheets pooled low on his hips. The hard plane of his stomach rose and fell steadily. And there, even in repose, was the thick evidence of what he was, lying against his thigh.
A reckless impulse, sharp and sweet, pierced the lethargy of her body. She moved carefully, the mattress shifting, her immense belly making the maneuver clumsy. She swung a leg over him, settling her weight slowly, careful not to wake him yet. The heat of him seeped into her immediately. She positioned herself, guided him with a hand that trembled only slightly, and sank down, just an inch.
A slow, breathless stretch. She bit her lip, watching his face. His breathing hitched, but his eyes remained closed. She lowered herself further, taking him deeper by fractions, a deliberate, silent conquest. A smile touched her lips—seductive, yes, but also proud. This was hers to take, too.
She began to move, a slow, circular grind of her hips. The friction was exquisite, a building fire in her core. She leaned forward, her heavy breasts swaying, their tips already tight and beaded. She brought one to his mouth, brushing the nipple against his lips.
“Snake,” she whispered, her voice husky with sleep and intention.
His eyes opened. They weren’t fogged with sleep. They were clear, instantly aware, and darker than the room’s corners. He didn’t move. He just watched her, his gaze travelling from her face, down to where their bodies were joined, to the breast she offered.
He opened his mouth and took her nipple, sucking hard, without preamble.
A jolt went through her. She arched, a moan catching in her throat. She ground down harder, seeking more, chasing the sensation. This was power. This was control.
Then his hands came up. They didn’t caress. They gripped her hips, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. He pulled her down onto him, fully, brutally, in one motion that stole her breath. He released her breast with a wet pop.
“You’re eager this morning,” he said. His voice was flat, a dangerous calm.
Before she could reply, before she could even process the shift in tone, he flipped her. It was a sudden, violent explosion of motion. One moment she was on top, the next she was on her back, the breath knocked from her lungs, his weight pinning her. He wrenched her legs apart, wider than was comfortable, and drove into her, a deep, punishing stroke.
“You think,” he grunted, his rhythm immediately punishing, “because you spread your legs on a table yesterday, you’re in charge?”
“I— no, I just—” The words fragmented into gasps. His anger was a tangible thing, a new, frightening edge to their familiar dance. It thrilled her even as it terrified her.
“You just wanted to play,” he sneered, leaning down, his face inches from hers. His hips pistoned, each thrust jolting her body up the bed. “You wanted to tease. To act like this is a game you can direct.”
He captured her mouth in a kiss that was all teeth and dominance. Then he dipped his head, taking her other breast into his mouth, sucking with a ferocity that was beyond pleasure, bordering on pain. The dual assault was overwhelming. The relentless, deep fucking, the sharp, rhythmic pull on her nipple—it co-arched a wire of sensation tighter and tighter in her belly.
“Snake, please—”
“Please what?” he snarled against her skin, his tongue laving the abused peak. “You came to me. You mounted me. You don’t get to beg now.”
He was right. She had. And the shame of it, layered with the blinding, physical overload, tipped her over. Her climax tore through her with a violence that matched his, a raw, screaming thing that left her shuddering, her vision spotting. He didn’t stop. He fucked her through it, through the unbearable sensitivity, until she was sobbing, her hands pushing weakly at his chest.
Only then did he still, buried to the hilt, his own release hot and deep within her. He collapsed on her for a moment, his breath hot on her neck. Then he pushed himself up, looking down at her wrecked form. Her hair was a wild fan, her skin flushed and sweaty, her breasts glistening from his mouth. Her eyes were glazed, filled with spent tears.
He didn’t look satisfied. He looked… displeased.
“Get on your hands and knees,” he said, his voice cold. He slid out of her.
Confused, aching, she complied. The position was familiar for the milking, but the pail wasn’t there. He moved behind her. She heard the clink of glass, the sound of oil. A cold dread, different from any before, trickled down her spine.
“You need a reminder,” he said calmly. “A physical one. Since your mind seems to be getting ideas above its station.”
She felt the blunt, cool pressure of something against her other entrance. Not him. Something smaller, harder. She flinched, tried to pull away.
A stinging slap landed on her backside. “Stay.”
The pressure increased, insistently. There was a burn, a stretching unfamiliar and wrong. She cried out, a short, sharp sound of protest as the object—smooth, unyielding—pushed past the tight ring of muscle and seated itself deep inside her. It felt huge, a foreign, solid presence that seemed to crowd everything. A silver anal plug, its ornate, flared base cold against her skin.
The humiliation was instant, visceral. It was a violation of a different order. This had nothing to do with pleasure, or even pregnancy. This was pure demarcation.
He helped her up, his hands impersonal. “This stays in until I say otherwise. You try to pull it out, the punishment will be worse. You understand?”
She nodded, unable to speak, feeling the obscene weight of it with every tiny movement.
“Good. Now get dressed. The morning pail is waiting.”
The day passed in a slow agony of denial. The plug was a constant, humiliating awareness. It shifted when she walked to the privy. It pressed when she sat on the edge of the bed. It was a shackle he could see, a claim he could reinforce with a glance.
He ignored her. Completely. She heard him downstairs, talking easily with the innkeeper, the sound of his laugh a distant, mocking thing. She cleaned the room, the simple act of bending to pick up a garment sending a fresh wave of awareness through her. She tried to read, but the words blurred.
As the afternoon wore on, the initial shock melted into a different kind of need. The anger, the rough possession of the morning had ignited something, and the plug, instead of quelling it, had become a focal point for a twisted, crawling hunger. She wanted his attention again, even his anger. Anything was better than this void.
When he returned to the room to fetch a cloak, she stood in his path. She’d undone the top laces of her dress, letting the swollen curve of her taut breasts, unmilked, peek out. She met his eyes, trying to summon the seductive smile from the morning.
“Snake…”
He looked right through her. His gaze flicked over her exposed skin with no more interest than if he were looking at a wall. He sidestepped her and took his cloak from the peg.
“The plug’s still in,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, the words themselves a humiliation.
“I know,” he said, not turning. He left, closing the door softly behind him.
The rejection was a physical blow. It left her cold, empty in a way his rough treatment never had. She was nothing. A piece of furniture he’d used and fitted with a custom fixture. She slumped onto the bed, the plug a cruel joke. She was starved for touch, for any acknowledgment, and he was letting her starve.
Night fell. He came back late, smelling of night air and cheap ale. He prepared for bed in the dark, his movements quiet. She lay rigid, pretending to sleep, every nerve screaming.
She felt the dip of the mattress. He lay down, his back to her. The space between them was an icy gulf.
She couldn’t stand it. After a few minutes, she turned, pressing her body against the solid heat of his back. Her hand stroked down his arm. “Snake,” she breathed into his shoulder blade.
He caught her wrist in a grip of iron. “No.”
“Please. I’m… I need…”
“You need to learn,” he said, his voice utterly calm in the darkness. He let go of her wrist and got out of bed.
Her heart hammered. What now? Was he leaving?
He didn’t leave. He lit the single candle. The sudden light made her blink. He walked to his pack and drew out a coil of soft, supple rope. He came back to the bed.
“On your back,” he commanded.
A flicker of hope. Was this it? Was the punishment over? She obeyed, spreading her legs in invitation.
He didn’t touch her there. He took her right wrist, looped the rope around it, and tied it securely to the bedpost above her head. He did the same with her left. She was stretched, exposed, her breasts rising and falling with quickening breath. This was different from being held down. This was deliberate, premeditated restraint.
Then he moved to her ankles. He tied each one to the respective foot of the bed, spreading her wide. She was utterly helpless, trussed like game, her pregnant body a vast, vulnerable offering in the candlelight. The plug felt larger than ever.
He stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at his work. His expression was unreadable. “There,” he said quietly. “Now you can’t relieve yourself. You can’t touch yourself. You can’t try to entice me. You can just… be. And think.”
“Snake, this is cruel,” she whispered, tears welling.
“Cruel?” He almost smiled. “Cruel was you thinking you could use me for your little morning ride. Cruel is you believing, for even a second, that you hold any leash here.” He leaned over, his hands on the mattress on either side of her hips, his face close to hers. “You belong to me. Every part of you. Your cunt, your ass, your milk, your thoughts. I decide when you come, when you’re touched, when you’re ignored. You gave me that power. Now live with it.”
He blew out the candle.
Darkness swallowed the room. She was alone in it, tethered, filled with his plug, empty of his touch. The silence was absolute, broken only by her own ragged breathing and the frantic beat of her heart. Every slight shift pulled at the ropes. The craving for contact became a physical pain, a hollow ache in her chest and between her legs that was worse than any physical desire. She tried to rub her thighs together for some scant friction, but the bindings held her fast.
She wept, silent tears that tracked hot lines into her hair. She wept for the woman who would have found this horror unimaginable. She wept for Rain, whose kind, oblivious face swam in the darkness, a ghost from a life that felt like someone else’s story. But most of all, she wept from the sheer, utter loneliness of her submission. He had given her everything she thought she wanted—obliteration of choice, of guilt—and now he was showing her the true shape of that void: it was cold, and dark, and he was its master, standing just outside the circle of her reach.
Hours bled by. She dozed fitfully, waking each time with a jolt of panic at her restraints. The room slowly lightened from black to deep grey. Pre-dawn.
She heard him stir. He sat up on his side of the bed. She held her breath, watching his silhouette.
He got up and walked around the bed. He didn’t speak. His hands went to the knot at her right ankle. He untied it, then the left. The blood rushed back into her feet with a painful prickling. He moved to her wrists, freeing them one at a time.
She brought her arms down slowly, her shoulders screaming in protest. She lay there, freed but inert, watching him.
He looked down at her, his eyes gleaming in the low light. “The plug stays,” he said. Then he crawled back into bed, turning away from her once more.
She lay on her back, the ropes gone but their phantom imprint still tight on her skin. The foreign object within her was a more permanent shackle. The lesson was carved into her flesh, her nerves, her understanding. Initiative was not hers. Control was not hers. Even the need for connection was not hers to satisfy.
She was his. A vessel. A possession. And possessions did not make requests. They waited, silently, to be used.
As the first true light of the fourth day washed the room in pale gold, she finally understood the abyss. It wasn’t a place of passionate sin. It was this: an endless, quiet corridor where she waited, alone, for the sound of his footsteps.