Chapter 9: The Punishment
The silence after the notebook burned was a physical thing, thick as the ash paste clinging to the drain. It filled Susanna’s lungs, heavy and inert.Lisa’s embrace loosened, her hands coming up to cradle Susanna’s face. Her thumbs stroked the hollows under her eyes, catching the tears that hadn’t yet fallen.
“You see?” Lisa murmured, her voice velvet.“Now we can start fresh. No ghosts.”
She took Susanna’s hand and led her toward the bedroom. The hallway seemed longer, the walls leaning in. Susanna’s gaze snagged on the fridge as they passed—the white receipt, the taped money.A monument to an errand. A tombstone for a poem about pigeons.
The bedroom was as Lisa had left it this morning: the quilt tossed back, the pillow still indented from Susanna’s head.Lisa didn’t turn on the overhead light. Instead, she lit the single candle on the nightstand, the one that smelled of fake lavender. It threw wobbling shadows against the corkboard, making the pinned Polaroids seem to swim.
“Take off your jacket,” Lisa said, not asking.Susanna’s fingers were numb. She shrugged the denim off, let it pool on the floor. Lisa watched, her arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe.“Now the jeans.”
A tremor started deep in Susanna’s core. She unbuttoned, pushed the coarse fabric over her hips.They caught at her thighs. She had to sit on the edge of the bed to tug them off, the position vulnerable, childish. Lisa didn’t help.She just observed, a scientist noting the reactions of a captive specimen.
When Susanna was left in only her thin cotton panties and a worn t-shirt, Lisa moved. She stepped forward, her fingers hooking into the waistband of the panties.
“These too.”
Susanna lifted her hips, a dry sob cracking in her throat as the last barrier was peeled away.The air was cool on her bare skin. Lisa’s hand smoothed over her stomach, possessive, then gave a firm push.“Turn over.On your stomach.”
The command was sterile. Susanna obeyed, the quilt rough against her cheek. She heard the closet door open, the rasp of a hanger, a soft clink of metal.She knew the sound. It was the buckle of Lisa’s wide leather belt, the one with the heavy brass clasp.Lisa didn’t speak. The first strike came without warning.Crack.
The sound was obscenely loud in the quiet room.The pain was a bright, white line of fire across the crests of her ass. Susanna jolted, a gasp ripped from her.Crack.
Another, lower, overlapping the first.Her muscles clenched, a futile attempt to brace.
“Don’t you fucking tense up on me,” Lisa said, her voice low and even.“You take it. You breathe through it.”
Crack.Crack.The blows fell in a measured rhythm. Each impact bloomed a deeper, more profound ache, the sharp sting giving way to a deep, throbbing burn. Susanna’s fingers twisted in the quilt.She bit down on the fabric to stifle her cries. Her body was a map of escalating pain, each welt a raised, angry border. Tears soaked into the material beneath her face.She lost count. The world narrowed to the anticipation of the next crack, the blossoming heat of the last.Finally, it stopped.
She heard the belt drop to the floor.Then, the bed dipped as Lisa knelt over her. Fingertips, startlingly gentle, traced the ravaged landscape of her skin.Susanna flinched.
“Shhh.” Lisa’s breath was warm on her back. “Look what we made.”
Cool air followed by the wet, shocking softness of Lisa’s tongue, lapping at the welts. The sensation was grotesque, a tender violation. Lisa moaned softly against her skin, a sound of perverse pleasure. She laved and sucked at the marks, her hands spreading Susanna’s cheeks apart.“This is what’s real,” Lisa whispered into the crease of her ass. “Not your little poems.Not some cunt on a phone.This.Your skin.My mouth. Your pain.My care.” She pressed a kiss to the most brutal welt. “It’s the same thing, baby. Love is just pain you choose to feel.”
Her hands were strong, flipping Susanna over with ease.Susanna’s vision was blurred, her face slick. Lisa looked down at her, her own face flushed, her lips swollen. She stripped off her shirt and jeans, her body pale and whip-thin in the candlelight.
“See?” Lisa said, guiding Susanna’s hand between her own legs.She was soaking wet. “See what you do to me? This is all for you.”
She kissed Susanna then, deep and searching, sharing the salt taste of tears. Her hand slid down Susanna’s trembling belly, through the coarse thatch of hair, and found her cunt.Susanna was dry, tight with fear.
Lisa spat into her own palm, the act crude and deliberate.She rubbed the wetness against Susanna, not gently. “You’ll get wet,” she stated. “You always do.”
Two fingers pushed inside, a ruthless, stretching invasion.Susanna arched, a choked sound escaping her. It hurt, a deep, aching hurt that bled into the fire on her skin. Lisa worked her fingers in and out, a brutal, shallow rhythm.“That’s it,” Lisa cooed, watching her face. “You feel that? You feel how empty you were?”
She scissored her fingers, the burn making Susanna whimper. But a treacherous heat was spreading, a slickness beginning to answer the rough friction.Her body, traitorous and alive, was responding. Lisa smiled, a predator’s smile.“I know you,” she said, adding a third finger. The stretch was overwhelming.Susanna cried out, her hips lifting off the bed involuntarily. “I know this filthy cunt better than you do.It doesn’t want kindness. It wants to be used.”
Lisa withdrew her fingers with a slick pop and reached for the nightstand drawer. The harness was black nylon, the silicone cock a lurid, veined pink. Lisa strapped it on with efficient, practiced motions. She knelt between Susanna’s splayed legs, the toy glistening with lube she’d squeezed onto it.She didn’t guide it. She just pressed the blunt head against Susanna’s entrance and pushed.Susanna saw white. The intrusion was massive, unyielding, tearing a guttural moan from her throat. Lisa leaned over her, bracing her hands on either side of Susanna’s head, and began to fuck her in earnest.Deep, piston-like thrusts that knocked the air from her lungs with every drive.
“This is you,” Lisa grunted, her rhythm relentless.“This tight, fucking hole. This is all that’s left. And it’s mine.”
Each thrust hammered the pain in her ass, sent shockwaves through her.Pleasure and agony twisted together, inseparable. Susanna’s sobs turned into ragged moans. Her legs locked around Lisa’s narrow waist, pulling her deeper.She hated it.She needed it. The world had burned down, and this was the only heat left.Lisa’s pace grew frantic, savage. The slap of skin, the wet, obscene sounds filled the room. Susanna felt a climax building, a terrifying wave rising from the same pit as her despair. She came with a shattered cry, her body convulsing around the hard silicone, the spasms a mix of excruciating pleasure and profound surrender.
Lisa fucked her through it, then slowed, grinding deep. She collapsed on top of Susanna, their sweat-slick skin sticking together.The candle guttered, casting one last wild shadow.
“You’re here,” Lisa whispered into the shell of her ear, her voice finally soft, almost girl-like. “You’re right here with me.”
Susanna stared at the ceiling, at the water stain shaped like a continent she could no longer name.Her body thrummed with aftermath. The receipt on the fridge, the ash in the sink, the phantom sting of the belt, the deep, hollow ache between her legs—it was all the same story.Lisa was right. It was the only one left.