Beloved bonds

5 Punishment Post

For Trudy Ramsay the day promised to be long.

She suspected it was no’ more than half done. She longed to scream at the injustice of what was being done to her. But she had been warned about screaming. It would be wiser to suffer in modest silence—perhaps an occasional moan.

The flat top of the post was about the same diameter as her bare bottom. Obviously they had been made for each other. The post was in the middle of the Barrack Square. Naked, she sat astride it for all to see. She had disgraced the guard uniform, so it had been taken from her. She would not have sat upon this four-foot-high perch had it not been for the ankle clamps. They were metal. At a cunning angle they fastened one of her feet to each side of the post, bent so that her knees stuck out and all her weight rested on her bottom. To complete the ensemble of penitence her wrists were unkindly tied at the small of her back. Trudy Ramsay was most definitely a fixture.

But, being Zindawba, there had to be more. Unhappily she recalled her first sight of the coarse sandpaper glued to the circle of wood on which she must sit. It would have been bad enough without Sergeant Galla’s dictum. “Sandpaper’s better with a tender rump, love. Lie over my lap.”

The spanking had been shaming and hurt more than she would have supposed. When the sergeant was breathless there was another girl proffering her knees and the impacts of her palm—and another—and another . . . In all, nineteen. By the time they were through with her, Trudy’s bottom was ablaze and a fiery red. There had been no animosity in any of the slaps but they had hurt just the same. They had then all helped hoist her up on the stub of timber and fastened her ankles in the clamps, tightening the bolts with a spanner. It was all very efficient and most unkind. Sergeant Galla had summed it all up succinctly:

“You shouldn’t have bit the W.O.’s dink, love.”

“He shouldn’t have tried to shove it in my mouth.”

But that had all been gone over at her trial. It was generally conceded she had got off lightly. W.O. Ringbolt had demanded she be flogged. He had been conciliated only by the sergeant’s insistence that she was very new to Zindawba and would probably be a more obedient girl next time she was so honoured.

“We have to, love. All of us. He’s a terror, he is! But it makes a change from getting it up the other place below.”

Trudy had gained no solace from the sophistry.

With her blazing seat solidly planted on the sandpaper, and quite unable to move it an inch, she saw no solace anywhere. The day stretched endlessly. After it there would be others. Making the best she could of her plight, she mentally reviewed her life, so far, in the President’s Guard. It was not all bad. The cots were comfortable: and if several of the girls got an ankle chained to hers for the night it served her right for entertaining silly notions, Trudy’s ankle had been chained the first two nights, but since then had become trusted. In any case, escape over the electrified fence was close to impossible. The food was good, there was a library and a TV. The girls were kind. They were all in the same boat and, with wry resignation, made the best of it. They had all been recruited with broad hints they had better join or else! The pay was good. Not that they had, as yet, much chance to spend it.

Their lives, including Sergeant Galla’s, were shadowed by two male figures. W.O. Ringbolt and the President. They were the sexual perquisite of both or either. Failure to joyfully yield her person earned a guard a flogging. Only one girl had braved the ordeal. After seeing her back and behind no other had drummed up the courage to resist. The President’s sexual demands on his troop were spasmodic and uncertain. He was much absorbed with Caroline! W.O. Ringbolt demanded his pound of flesh and made sure he got it. But there were twenty of them and only one of him. Their sacrificial journey to his hut to be raped, sodomised or caned was not frequent for anyone of them. He had a roster he adhered to and played no favourites.

The W.O. came closer to authority than the sergeant. Galla was a good-natured girl who was content to receive his attention and to hand over to him most of the reins of office. He drilled the girls with amazing competence and managed to infuse into them a pride in what they did and what they were. Their precision drill became a showpiece and was much in demand at public functions. He also taught them to shoot straight and far. He caned their bottoms until there was not one of them who did not get the bull at least one shot in five at five hundred yards. He was a martinet but they respected him.

Caning was implicit in their service. They were caned for everything. One, two or three strokes at a time, but in a week it mounted up. If the bottom of any girl became too inflamed the cane was switched to her hands or the soles of her feet. Since none of the troop relished the two latter inflictions there were few who did more than modestly infringe the rules. Had Trudy been asked if the troop was happy she would have had to say yes.

“Is it very miserable, dear?”

Trudy’s reverie was broken. Maisie Collins, the honey blonde member of the guards, had approached, curious but unheard. She was surveying her colleague’s plight with erotic interest. “Everything they do to us makes a girl’s cunt stick out,” she observed meditatively. “Have you noticed? The way those clamps fasten your ankles . . . ?”

“Of course it’s miserable,” Trudy wailed. “I don’t see why all you girls had to spank me so hard.”

“The sergeant was watching.”

“I think you all enjoyed spanking me,” Trudy sniffed. “This punishment might be bearable if a girl’s bottom wasn’t beaten first. Mine feels like I’m sitting on a hot stove.”

“You can’t move it at all, can you!”

“Did you come to sympathise or gloat? I hurt!”

“Don’t get shirty. I expect we’ll all get to sit there sooner or later. Have you noticed: it doesn’t matter how good a girl is she gets caught out on something or other.”

Trudy managed a giggle. “Are you all going to bite old Ringbolt’s cock?”

“I think it’s a carryover from the Old Imperial Army,” Maisie pondered. “They had to mind their P’s and Q’s. It’s supposed to keep us on our toes.”

“I’m not on my toes! Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“If you’re going to be irritable I’ll leave,” Maisie pouted. “I know it’s horrid for you but it’s not my fault. If I could let you down I would. But those clamps on your ankles . . . ! I say, they are ingenious, aren’t they! Do they hurt?”

“Not much. They just tell me I’m fixed for good. I don’t think an earthquake would budge them. They scare me.”

“Ever think of escape?” Maisie became serious.

“I don’t mean from that post but from the guards. Daphne and I talk about it a lot. Would you join us?”

“What’s the punishment if we’re caught?”

“A flogging. Then sent to a work camp.”

“No thanks. I don’t think I could stand being flogged. The very word makes me shiver.”

“That’s because you’re being punished now and you’re hurting and sort of sorry you misbehaved,” Maisie said wisely. “But the thing is: we need not be caught. All we have to do is get inside the Consulate or across a border—?”

“And I bet the work camp is pure hell.”

“Well, you’re not exactly comfortable where you are,” Maisie pointed out reasonably. “Do you want to stay a guard and be fucked by the drill master until you’re middle-aged and they don’t want you anymore?”

“Of course not, but it’s silly to talk of escape. We’re prisoners. That fence—”

“There’s a rumour we’re all going out on some sort of exercise. A maneuver or exhibitions or something. We’ll be away from here. If we keep our eyes open . . . ?”

The girl in pain upon her post twisted unhappily, then managed a sad giggle. “There are worse places than this, Maisie, and worse jobs. I was chained in a cage for weeks and weeks . . . ! This is better. And haven’t you noticed, there’s times when we’re all proud? When old Ringbolt’s got us to do something clever? Or when we’re all marching in step and sticking our tits out?”

“Yes I know, there’s that. But look, I’ve got to run. Darling, keep your chin up—and think about what I’ve said? Bye now.” Trudy pondered an improbable escape. There wasn’t much else to occupy her mind except her pain.

“I’m a reasonable man. You didn’t have to bite it.” Warrant Officer Ringbolt’s tone was conciliatory. He gazed with approval at the naked girl suffering her punishment for oral assault upon his genitals. “After you’ve served your time on that post I’m quite prepared to let bygones be bygones.”

Trudy morosely supposed it part of this punishment that she endure visits and scrutiny from all and sundry. Prudently, she decided to try and repair a damaged entente. “That’s awfully sweet of you, sir. I’m sorry I was so silly. Is it better?”

“Better? What—? Oh that! Ahem, yes—no damage.”

“I deserve every minute of what I’m getting, sir.”

“Do you now!” He fixed her with a baleful eye.

He was well aware of the predilection of damsels to cozen mature males. But his regard melted before the onslaught of Trudy’s breasts and Trudy’s pubic hair. Both were superlative and merited his full attention. “Well, I’m glad to hear it,” he rambled absently. “May make a guard out of you yet.” Struck by a random vision, he guffawed. “Damn good thing for you it wasn’t the President.”

Trudy tittered dutifully. “I’m so thankful, sir, I could never have forgiven myself. I don’t know what got into me—”

“Well, it wasn’t me!” This sally was delivered with a gargantuan guffaw to which she contributed a wan smile.

“I’m afraid I was nicely brought up, sir. My parents were very strict with me.”

“A pity! Poor judgment with a girl in my opinion.” He brightened. “Tell you what. Bring that little arse of yours to my place after drill tomorrow. I want to see what it looks like. What you’ve had takes a day to mature properly—should be a pretty sight. Then we’ll make a proper appointment for me to fuck you properly in the old-fashioned way sometime next week?”

“That’s very generous of you, sir. I’ll be there.” Trudy wondered if her loathing showed. But she was sick of punishment.

“Actually it is,” W.O. Ringbolt agreed modestly. “A conventional piece of tail is a bit of a waste, in my opinion. At my age a man wants a bit of, well, I suppose sophistication is the word, eh! But considering the stand your parents took with you I’m prepared to accept a plain ordinary, piece of tail.”

“You’re ever so kind, sir, I know mother would be grateful.”

“Well, that’s settled then.” The W.O. visibly preened. “Sorry I have to make you wait ’til next week, but I’ve already promised—”

“That’s quite all right, sir,” Trudy hastily interposed.

“But I expect by Wednesday or Thursday I’ll be ready for you.” He bestowed a heavy scrutiny upon her pubic hair. “Wouldn’t want you to feel you got less than my best, y’know.”

“I’m sure I’m going to feel a lucky girl.”

The W.O. donned an air of diffidence and raised his appraisal to Trudy’s breasts. “I suppose the girls have told you about the option?”

“I don’t know anything about an option, sir.”

“Hmmm, might have guessed!” He now emanated magnanimity. “There’s times when you girls don’t want. I mean, that time of the month and all that sort of rot. Or maybe they’re not in the mood. In cases like that I give ’em the choice of taking ten of the best instead.”

“Ten what, sir?”

“Ten strokes with the cane, of course!” His vehemence made her question sound silly. “You can have ’em on your seat, your hands, or the soles of your feet. I couldn’t say fairer than that, could I now!”

“It’s more than generous, sir,” Trudy lied manfully. “I’ll remember those options just in case.”

She remembered them bitterly as he stalked away. The distress of her raw contact with the sandpaper made the prospect of choosing to have her bottom caned impossible. It would have to be her hands or the soles of her feet. Either was torture. Perhaps it would be better to spread her legs and accept his sperm. She might as well get used to the idea. Sooner or later the President would choose her, and he was unlikely to offer options. Fretfully, she tugged at her bound wrists. The cords were deep in her skin, relentless. Sadly, she wished she had thought of some less dramatic protest than the biting of a Warrant Officer’s penis. Her bottom and the sandpaper continued their quarrel without respite.

Daphne and Maisie carried loops of the rope the girls had come to hate, thin supple stuff designed for the mortification of the flesh of girls. They looked despondent. Sergeant Galla looked determined, her lips a thin straight line. The trio’s approach sent shivers of apprehension down Trudy’s spine. They were going to tie her elbows, or her arms, or her knees, or something beastly to add to her penance!

“This fool girl want yo’ to escape, love?”

The sergeant clapped a hand on Maisie’s shoulder and cocked a querying eye at the punished delinquent. Maisie and Daphne looked at her too, their eyes imploring. The girl tied on the post wished she was a thousand miles away. “Escape . . . ?” She tried to look vaguely shocked.

“Never yo’ mind no lies,” Galla said forcefully. “I can tell by yo’ face—and I seen her over here a’ talking. They think Galla stupid, but I knows what they whisperin’ to the rest o’ the gals.”

“As if we would! Oh Galla . . . !”

“Shush now! Galla got yo’ figured. I just been too damn easy on you gals. ’Bout time I smartened yo’ up.” She shook Maisie’s shoulder admonishingly. “Off with that uniform!”

“Please, Galla, we were only joking.”

“Galla, we’re too fond of you—and Trudy doesn’t want to escape anyway. Oh please . . . !”

“Get yo’ self naked, love.”

“But what for? Oh, Galla, what are you going to do?”

“Yo’ soon find out. Strip!”

Trudy could have wept for them, just as she wanted to weep for herself. All three of them were in the grip of a force against which they were helpless. Zindawba owned them, they were slaves. She watched Maisie doff her guard’s uniform to lay bare a sweet and lovely nudity undeserving of what it was about to receive.

“Hands behind yo’ back, love.”

“Please, Galla, not too tight?”

Save for the small sad request, Maisie passively allowed herself to be bound. First her wrists, then her elbows. Trudy winced in sympathy as the cords bit.

“Sit yourself down.”

Maisie’s ankles, then her knees. The bands circled and were knotted tight. Then the final cruelty: hands and feet were joined in a hogtie. Maisie’s breasts thrust into the grass, her nakedness bent backwards in a bow. She twisted to look up at the girl who had tied her thus, her voice pathetic. “Oh, Galla, not like this . . . ! Please, not like this . . . ?”

The sergeant ignored the plea. Her attention switched to Daphne, drooping and despondent. “Now yo’, love. Off with everything.”

Daphne was obedient and resigned. She accepted her binding without demur. Where Maisie went, so went Daphne. They were comrades in captivity and in their punishments. Soon, she too was an ivory bow, trussed.

“Yo’ three can talk ’bout yo’ escape. Yo’ talk all yo’ want.” She looked down at the hogtied pair with a trace of sympathy. “Yo’ two can do a bit o’ thinkin’, yo’ got the time.” She turned to Trudy. “See if yo’ can talk a bit o’ sense into ’em. Yo’ got the time, and they’s a captive audience.” She departed, chuckling.

When the sergeant was out of earshot. Maisie relieved her feelings with a hearty. “Damn!”

“Oh shit!” Daphne contributed with equal vehemence.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Trudy said wanly. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“It’s our own fault, love. Don’t worry. One of the others must have snitched. Oh gollies, this is going to get bad before night.”

“Can’t you get loose? I mean, help each other?”

“We can’t move. I couldn’t reach Daphne’s knots—no way!”

“Oh, Maisie, I’m hurting already. What are we going to do!”

“We’re going to lay here and suffer, you little idiot. Right now I wouldn’t utter the word ‘escape’ if someone paid me.”

“See, we shouldn’t have talked about it! Trudy has the right idea. If we behaved ourselves the Guards isn’t that bad.”

“Oh sure! And we get fucked by a President too!” Maisie was parting with her dream of freedom with reluctance. “Sorry, darling. I expect it’s all my fault. If we ever get untied again I promise I’ll be the best little guard ever.”

Trudy, on her painful perch, realised with a sad clarity the efficacy of feminine punishment. By fictional standards the three of them should now be vowing vengeance and plotting freedom. Instead, their pain was moulding them to the status quo. All three of them wished to be good little girls, fervently condemning themselves for not having thought of it sooner. Galla was terribly sweet. They could not hate her for what she did to them. She, too, was just one of the girls. Three pairs of wrists twisted against cord, helplessly.

“Don’t mind if I cry a bit,” Daphne apologised wretchedly. “It’s all so—so—oh damn our foolishness . . . !”

“It was me who told Galla ’bout you. This serves you right.” The dusky maiden tendered her information and opinion complacently. “You didn’t ought to go round talking us into trouble.”

“That was mean, Dilly. What did we ever do to you! Now just look at us!”

“I lookin’. Is it hurting real bad?”

“Of course it is! How’d you like to be tied this way?”

“I got more sense. I knows when I’m well off. Them ropes round your elbows . . . ? Must be real bad, eh?”

“How’d you like to untie us?”

“I’m not that stupid. S-a-a-a-y . . . you can’t do nothin’, can you. Galla fix you good.”

“You don’t have to gloat, Dilly. What d’you come here for?”

“Galla say for me to tell you the way I feel ’bout the Guards. ’Taint just me neither.”

“So, O.K., you love the Guards. Leave it at that.”

“Thass what wrong with you two. You don’t think sensible: you don’t think at all. Look what we all got! Lovely uniform! We all belong to President Abhad. He look after us damn good in this place. We’s a troop o’ real smart cookies what every girl in Zindawba envies. You watch their faces when we do our drill and go marching down the street. We got the best girl’s uniform in the whole world.”

“It’s certainly the sexiest. Galla took ours away.”

“Talking the way you been doing you could have been flogged. ’Stead o’ that Galla just ties you up.”

“What d’you mean, ‘just’! I wish you were tied up like this.”

“I wouldn’t mind being tied thataway if I bin’ disloyal.”

“All right, all right, Dilly! You’re a nice girl, but stop preaching.”

Dilly turned her attention to the post, the sandpaper, and the naked girl who sat thereon. “I hope you’s hurtin’ too. That was real unkind to Mr. Ringbolt, what you did.”

Trudy was indignant. “Well, how would you have liked to do—do—that beastly thing he wanted!”

“It ain’t beastly.” Dilly sounded genuinely shocked. “Lots o’ people calls it a blow job. I know lots of fellers who like a girl to do that for ’em. I been sucking cocks since I was a kid.” Her disapproval was almost pious. “You just ain’t been brought up proper. I hope you got a real sore arse.” She beamed portentously. “You know what the rest of the troop fixing to have you do?”

“I don’t want to hear.”

“We all stand in a line in the dorm with our legs wide apart and you work yourself down the row eating our clits.”

“I won’t do it! You can’t make me—”

Dilly’s voice was triumphant. “Sergeant says it’s good idea. She says if you don’t do good job you come back and sit on the post some more. ” She giggled. “The sergeant, she’s going to stand right there with the rest of us.”

“You’ll have to do it, dear.” It was Maisie’s hurt voice from the grass. “It’s not as bad as you think it is. Daphne and I do it all the time. Some girls taste gorgeous. Dilly does, I’ve tried her.”

Dilly was flattered. “We’ll give her little rests along the line. A girl’s tongue gets awful tired if she hasn’t used it.” She looked down at the hogtied nakedness. “Maybe you’d like to eat me right now? I wouldn’t mind.”

Maisie giggled. “Sure! My tongue’s about the only thing I can use. You’ll have to do the rest.”

Trudy wanted to look the other way. But she could not move, so became a privileged spectator. She wasn’t all that prudish—she recalled with longing those nights with Caroline in the cage. But this was so blatant, so very unprivate. She envied the two girls their unconcern. She watched a third uniform join the others on the grass, then Dilly’s wiggling nudity as it knowingly postured its pudendum to the greatest convenience possible for the captive tongue.

“Don’t let me smother in your bush, darling.”

Dilly giggled happily. “You want air, you snort.”

With a practised eagerness, Maisie began to lap.

Her tongue was long. With the sounds of suction. Dilly’s eyes became faraway.

“It was the girls’ idea, love.” Galla looked up placatingly. “But I’m not going to say I don’t agree. I think it will do you good. You’ll be more at home together after.”

“Lesbians—!”

“I suppose so. But don’t say it like that when they can hear. There, the clamps are off your ankles.”

Trudy spared a glance at the distant figures of Daphne and Maisie carrying their uniforms and the ropes with which they had been bound. Galla had been merciful. It was not yet fully dark.

“You all right, love?”

Trudy supposed she was. It was a glorious feeling to have her hands and feet back. She was massaging her wrists gratefully. Her legs hung free. But her bottom and the sandpaper were still close joined by her weight. “I’m scared,” she confessed. “I burn so bad I’m sure my skin will peel off or something.”

“It will be bad for a moment. Look, lean on my shoulders and sort of hoist yourself.”

The captive of the post moaned and caught her breath as her skin and the sandpaper made a reluctant farewell. She slid to the ground and was glad of Galla’s supporting arm. “I’ll never sit down again,” she mourned.

“Yes you will—in a couple of days.” The sergeant chuckled. “Just as well there’s no mirror. You’d feel worse than you are.”

“Oh, Galla, that bad!”

“You needn’t put on your uniform. You’ll be easier without clothes. Here, give me your hands.”

“Handcuffs! But why—?”

“Just in front, love. They may save arguments later.” Trudy did not care. After the post anything was paradise. She watched the familiar locking of her wealed wrists. “I don’t mind, Galla, really I don’t. I know you’ve been kind. You could have left us out here for hours yet.”

“Well, you do have things to do, love. But don’t be anxious. I’m going to give you a rest and a shower and food first. How about a cup of coffee?”

The first steps were painful. Her knees had been clamped bent all day. Her punished bottom protested motion. But by the time they were halfway to the barracks she was walking naturally. The coffee was ambrosia, so was the shower, and then the food . . .

“I’d advise you to do what you’re going to with a smile,” Galla said as she watched her captive’s appetite. “They won’t take kindly to resentment. Make like you’re grateful for what they’re letting you do.”

“I have to be completely debased?”

“I won’t argue about terms, love. You’re a guard. Be one.”

“And Daphne and Maisie?”

“They’ll be there with their legs apart. They’ll be handcuffed, same as you: just a demerit for being bad.”

“Or to stop them trying to escape?”

“Maybe to show the rest that talking about escape isn’t a good idea.”

If she had not been so tired from her punishment and so ashamed of what she was about to do, Trudy would have giggled at the row of bare thighs and expectant pubic triangles. Dilly was standing to one side holding a whip. “That’s just in case, dear,” the sergeant informed darkly. “But I’m sure you won’t be silly?”

Trudy was sure too! Fatigue might defeat her but naught else. She had suffered a surfeit of penitence, she wanted no more. Halfway down the waiting line her white comrades wore their handcuffs with nonchalance. They bestowed a wink of encouragement. “Do Tessie first, dear. She always explodes with the first bite,” suggested Galla kindly. “It will get you started.”

Tessie ran true to form. After one cry of fulfillment she subsided, writhing. Trudy wiped her lips and moved on to number two. It was going to be hard on her knees as well as her tongue.

“Give her all the help you can, girls,” the sergeant ordered. “The poor dears never done it like this before. Just imagine!”

It was true! Girls were not all the same. The size of the pouting vulvas, the location of the elusive clitoris, the flow of lubricant, their scent! Each was different. Trudy’s tongue and lips groped questingly and humbly within warm wet sheaths of female flesh. Her handcuffed hands reached constantly for loose wiry pubic hairs truant on her tongue. But it was in their taste she found her deepest discovery. Some were sour, some were sweet. One or two left her wondering if such an individually intimate flavour might not spark a need, perhaps a union. Maisie and Daphne simulated rapid orgasms to give her a break. At the end Dilly set aside her whip with obvious regret but separated her thighs with gusto. At the finish there was Galla. A sweetly scented, sweetly tasting Galla who gently stroked her captive’s hair as the obedient tongue lapped its very best to give her joy.

The afterwards was like, the aftermath of any party. Camaraderie and a buzz of talk. No one noticed handcuffs, but everyone examined the scarlet and purple bottom that was Trudy’s penitence for an imprudent bite. It was much admired. She could almost believe it was envied. But that may have been due to the two bottles the sergeant contributed to the jollity. The owner of the scarlet seat became proud of what she would not sit on. She was still extracting hairs from her mouth at bedtime. She giggled with the rest when Daphne and Maisie sheepishly proffered a bare ankle to be shackled to their cot.

“You brought it on yourselves, dears.” Sergeant Galla was firm.

Trudy even giggled when Galla stood beside the cot and ordered: “Out with it, love.”

She stuck her foot from beneath the covers, and rested on her forearms and tummy to watch it chained. “Why me, Galla?” she asked innocently.

“Do I have to tell you, love?”

“No, I suppose not.”

They laughed.

Trudy slept face down.