penance

Even though she’d been here before, the warehouse annex made Leigh Ann nervous. It was a dirt-road extension of the industrial park on the west end of town. Here were no streets or sidewalks. No boundaries. No structure. It was unsettling. Yet its very formlessness fronted a system of justice. It was why she came.

She braked her SUV in a semblance of a lot a hundred yards down, another dirt area among many, defined as parking only by a handful of cars left there, helter skelter.

Dressed in a pleated black skirt, blue blouse, black blazer, Leigh Ann walked across the dirt expanse to Warehouse 19, having to tread carefully in the rutted road. She came to a side door, pressed the button, and was buzzed in.

Inside was a small reception area. At a desk was a woman in her thirties, blonde and smoking a cigarette. As before, Leigh Ann wondered why she was allowed to smoke in a business office. There had to be rules against that.

“Hello, Miss Jennings,” the woman said. “Good to see you again.”

“Hi, Dana.”

“Time for another session,” Dana said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. I’m afraid so.”

“I hope it won’t be too demanding.”

Leigh Ann nodded.

“You can take room 3.” Dana held out a key.

“Thank you.”

Leigh Ann was buzzed through the reception room door, walked down a hallway, and came to a T that opened up to a bank of meeting rooms. She unlocked the door to room #3.

Inside: a clothes rack with hangers, a wooden straight back chair, and a small table. Across from the entry door: another door. On the floor: a pair of high heels, five-inch, in scarlet red. On the table a burnished metal collar, two inches wide, with an O-ring in front.

Leigh Ann unbuttoned her blouse, then her skirt in back. She slipped out of both, hanging each on a hanger on the clothes rack. She gripped the waistband of her panties and slid them down, stepping out of them, then reached behind her back, unclasped her bra, and peeled it off.

Leigh Ann’s breasts were full and fleshy. She was shaved below, smooth, bare, pale.

She slipped out of her kitten heels and slid into the tall heels of scarlet. She walked around the dressing room to get accustomed to them. Finally, Leigh Ann picked up the silver metal collar and fit it around her neck, fastening it in back with the snap of the clasp, positioning the O-ring in front.

She stood there waiting, breathing deeply.

<<<<>>>>

Leigh Ann opened the far door, which opened to the outside. Naked, high-heeled, now bathed in sunlight, she stood before a man waiting. He was in a sweaty T-shirt, jeans, and old tennis shoes. She’d never seen him before.

He looked at her nude flesh, letting his eyes feast on her large breasts. He nodded. Leigh Ann looked down and to the side.

The man held a long length of steel chain such as would be used on a dog run and hooked one end to Leigh Ann’s metal collar. He started walking, the length of chain dragging on the ground between them.

Ahead thirty yards, two warehouses sat side-by-side. Leigh Ann knew one was empty and the other was operational, teeming with workers. She prayed she would be led through the empty building, as had happened before. Yet she didn’t know the rules, the reasons.

The man walked quickly toward the buildings. Leigh Ann’s collar tugged, and she stumbled forward, trying to navigate the rutted road without falling, trying to keep up.

He stopped once, seeing her struggle, took up some slack, then slowed his pace.

They proceeded into the warehouse on the left. Filled with storage racks all the way to the ceiling, the building was empty of people.

Leigh Ann breathed a small sigh of relief, though she knew how much still awaited. She struggled to keep up with the man, who walked briskly. Her heels allowed only short strides, forcing jolting steps that made her breasts bounce and judder.

At the far end of the warehouse appeared an exit, and suddenly they were outside in sunlight again.

<<<<>>>>

Fifty yards down a dirt road was their destination — a low, long prefab unit, office space.

The man kept walking her on the chain leash. In the distance Leigh Ann heard the hydraulic brakes of semi-trucks and the beep-beeping of a truck backing up. She was naked and exposed under high heaven, in the heart of a dirt-baked blue collar city.

Unsteady on the ruts and ridges, she nearly fell, but righted herself. She vowed to herself to keep up, to make sure there was always slack in the chain, else she would topple.

Eventually the two came to the side door of the office building.

Leigh Ann was led into a room twenty feet square. A tall thick man waited there, dressed in black, wearing black leather gloves. He eyed her naked body, staring at her large blushing breasts and white shaven pubis.

“Tinto,” he said, nodding to the man in the T-shirt.

Tinto handed him the leash, then opened a box, pulling out two pair of leather cuffs. He wrapped them around Leigh Ann’s ankles and wrists, buckling them closed. His fingers grazed her skin as each cuff was installed, and Leigh Ann tensed.

Tinto stood, looking at his partner. The two men said nothing, but took time to ogle Leigh Ann’s body for what felt to her like minutes. Tinto walked around her, staring at her breasts then her ass and her pussy.

Eventually the man in black spoke: “Why are you here?”

Leigh Ann nodded, expecting the question. “I have sinned.” Her voice cracked.

The man in black nodded and stood aside.

Behind him, in the middle of the room was a large bondage horse.

“Climb up,” he ordered.

Leigh Ann obeyed, walking forward, stepping onto the short platform, pushing herself up and on the long barrel of the padded horse. Her thighs straddled it, cradling its massive girth. Her knees and ankles rested on leather pads on either side. She leaned forward, her hands together at the front of the barrel as if clutching the mane of a horse.

The man in black assessed her torso length and cranked a lever at the side. The barrel shortened slightly. With his cane, he tapped Leigh Ann’s body backward several inches. Her ass and pussy hung over the back edge of the padded barrel.

He tapped her back, saying, “Down.”

Leigh Ann let her body down across the padded barrel. The leather felt cold to her tummy. Her heavy breasts swung free over the far end of the bondage horse.

Tinto came around to the front and attached chains to her wrist cuffs, then to large eye hooks at the edge of the platform. He adjusted them taut to pull Leigh Ann’s arms forward and down. Her leash, still attached to her collar, was pulled back and attached to a hook dangling from the ceiling. It pulled her head so it faced forward. Then Tinto hooked her ankle cuffs to hooks on the leather pads.

Leigh Ann was now firmly bound in a doggy position, her ass open and high in the air, her pussy splayed open behind. She felt as if she were being absorbed into a mechanical structure, so strapped into the contraption as she was, so vulnerable to its power and its mechanical adjustments imposed on her.

The man in black stood at the front so he could see Leigh Ann’s face and hanging breasts. “Tinto,” he called.

Tinto picked up a flogger from a wall rack and awaited the signal of the man in black.

“What did you do?” the man in black demanded.

“I’ve had an affair with a married man.” Leigh Ann confessed. It felt good to say it, even though she knew the pain that it would compel.

The man in black held his hand up with three fingers extended.

Tinto pulled the flogger to his side, then brought it forward, slapping it across Leigh Ann’s pale ass. She grunted as she felt its weight. In quick succession, Tinto applied two additional thwacks.

Leigh Ann moaned.

The man in black swiveled his uplifted hand side to side, ordering the beating. Tinto swirled the flogger in a circle, letting the leather straps strafe Leigh Ann’s pinkening bottom in a continuing cycle.

The floggings hurt more from the force of the blows than from the bite of the leather straps. The flogs made her ass cheeks jiggle and grow red and warm.

“Did you seduce him?” the man in black demanded sternly.

Leigh Ann hesitated. She was here to pay her price, not to go into detail.

The twirling ended, but the flogger soon landed once more in a heavy, forceful thud.

Leigh Ann’s body jerked from the force. She could sense the man in black watching her breasts, hanging down as they jiggled from the blow. She knew this was his job, exacting penance, but it didn’t stop him from also exacting his personal pleasure. This was one part of the price of confession.

“Did you seduce him?”

Another heavy flog thudded on her bare ass.

This one hurt. “Uhhh,” she groaned.

“Well?”

“He seduced me,” she finally admitted.

“You could have told him no.”

“I could have.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t.”

Another flog landed, making her groan again.

“One more time. Did you seduce him?” The question hung in the air as another thud of the flogger landed.

Leigh Ann groaned again. “He seduced me,” she insisted.

“You’re not telling me the full truth.” The man said.

While he looked like a thug, he was experienced in this, and he had an uncanny intuition.

He signaled and another heavy flog landed.

Leigh Ann yelped.

“Again!” he ordered, and Tinto applied the flogger, which landed with even more force.

“Please!” Leigh Ann cried out. The blows were leaving bruises now, and she felt the dull pain below her ass cheeks.

“Tell me!”

“He seduced me,” Leigh Ann confessed, “he did. But, I seduced him too.”

The man in black put up his hand. Tinto stopped the flogging. The two left the room, going outside.

<<<<>>>>

Leigh Ann smelled cigarette smoke. She knew this was part of the routine, that nothing prevented them smoking in the room and during her flogging. No, this was designed to humiliate and objectify her, to leave her strapped in as she was, helpless, irrelevant to their personal schedule, and looking very much like a cow strapped into a milking pen.

It made her feel all of that.

After a fifteen minute break, the two reentered. This time, Tinto stood at her front with the flogger. The man in black stood at her rear looking at her crimson ass.

“This lover,” the man in black continued. “Did he fuck your cunt?”

Leigh Ann wished he’d just apply the remainder of her punishment and be done with it. She was paying for penance not a counseling session.

“Did he fuck your cunt?” the man repeated.

“I just want to receive my punishment. That’s all.”

The man raised his voice: “Did he fuck your–”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“He fucked my — cunt.”

The man in black made a show out of pulling off his leather gloves. He dropped them to the floor, then raised one hand and harshly spanked Leigh Ann’s ass cheek. She winced.

Tinto brought the flogger up underneath to flick Leigh Ann’s breasts. It stung, and she yelped.

In tandem then the two applied her ongoing punishment — bare-handed ass spanks, followed by a snap of the flogger against her hanging breasts. Spank, flick. Spank, flick.

Leigh Ann cried out at every cycle of hits, moaning loudly in between. The process was slow, but the spanking was hard and the flicks of the flogger stung her breasts and nipples like hell. She lost track of how long this went on. She tried to do a mental count, but got lost and distracted after forty. Her breasts began to burn. Her ass throbbed.

But it wasn’t the physical pain she experienced that made its mark. Now she felt the reason she had come — to experience the humiliation of being spanked for her sin. The degradation of being locked onto a bondage horse and flogged for her transgression.

The beatings went on. Tears dripped from her eyes. She was sorry for what she had done, and then again, not sorry. This had been her choice, her doing. Though the punishment had become excessive, she deserved it, and maybe more.

<<<<>>>>

After what felt like an eternity, the men stopped.

Leigh Ann’s heavy, loud breathing slowed and quieted.

The man in black spoke: “There is something more,” he said.

“Please,” she begged. “This is beyond what I paid for.”

The man in black paced to the other side of the room. “There’s more. Confess.”

“I’ve told you. I had an affair with a married man. I deserve my punishment for that.”

“No, there’s more.” The man in black walked back to the bondage horse. He came close to Leigh Ann’s ear. He whispered: “Did he come in your cunt?”

Leigh Ann closed her eyes, squeezing them of tears. Are these details necessary? she thought.

“No,” she admitted.

“Did he fuck your mouth too?”

“Yes.” Leigh Ann had no more energy to resist. It all just had to happen.

“Did he come in your mouth?”

Oh god. Does this have to go there?

“Did he come in your mouth?”

“Yes.”

“So that’s what you’re withholding?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re a dirty girl.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Tinto, what is the punishment for a dirty girl?”

Tinto went to a pile of magazines and newspapers in the corner. From the bottom he retrieved an old black notebook, worn at the edges. He opened it and leafed through some pages, finding what he wanted.

Leigh Ann knew this was a charade, as if there was some actual definitive punishment for sucking a man’s cock and letting him come in her mouth.

“Twelve spanks,” Tinto reported.

Leigh Ann moaned. Even though the notebook schtick was a sham, the spankings wouldn’t be.

The man in black took off his gloves. He palmed Leigh Ann’s left ass cheek, then her right, letting her anticipate his blows.

Quickly he pulled his hand back and spanked her left cheek then right in succession. The spanks were sharp and stung hard, and Leigh Ann yelped.

“One, two” he said.

Leigh Ann’s body shook, even though it was strapped into the bondage horse contraption. He breasts hanging, rippled.

Each pair of spanks followed — “Three, four” — with increasing intensity — “Five, six.” The man in black was expert in applying the blows, knowing how to flick his fingers at the last minute for stronger stings, and allowing his weight to increase behind each beating.

Her body shuddered each time, as if giving back the orgasm it had enjoyed in the execution of its sin. Her yelps turned into groans and grunts, then became screams.

“Seven, eight.”

Leigh Ann screamed harder now, feeling her ass on fire and her humiliation flooding through her like acid.

“Nine, ten,” the man in black announced, his spanks becoming  thudding punches to her now-scarlet ass.

“Eleven, twelve,” he said finally.

Leigh Ann let loose a blood-curdling yell through the final spanking, falling silent and fully limp in the bondage.

The man in black stopped, walked away. He knew to let the pain and shame settle in.

Leigh Ann was blinded through tears welling in her eyes, tears that crawled down her cheeks and fell in droplets to the floor below.

“There is still something you aren’t telling me,” the man in black said.

Leigh Ann didn’t respond. She was spent emotionally, and had no words.

“I don’t know what it is, but there’s something else.”

Leigh Ann’s eyes squeezed tight, pushing out more tears.

“Ah, yes,” said the man in black. “Do you love him?”

She tried to keep her body from reacting, but she flinched slightly, and her hanging breasts jiggled.

“Do you love him?” the man in black repeated more loudly.

She didn’t respond.

“Hand me the cane.”

Tinto fetched the cane from the wall mount.

“Do you love him?” the man in black yelled.

Still, Leigh Ann remained silent, knowing the fatal outcome.

The man in black raised his arm and brought the cane down hard across Leigh Ann’s crimson burning ass, landing it with a loud thwack.

She screamed. Her body jerked against the restraints. “No!” she yelled. “No!”

“No, what?”

“No, I don’t love him,” she cried breathlessly.

“Ah, so there it is. The truth always comes out.” The man in black tossed the cane back to Tinto, who returned it to the wall mount.

Leigh Ann started sobbing — soft inner cries that shook her raw ass and pendulous breasts.

“You know what that means?” the man in black asked.

Leigh Ann strained against her collar leash and nodded.

“Tell me. What does it mean?”

“That I am a slut,” she whispered.

“I couldn’t hear you.”

“That I am a slut,” she said again, this time in a full voice.

“Tinto,” the man in black said. “What is the definition of a slut like Leigh Ann?”

Again, Leigh Ann knew, as everyone in the room knew. This was the required ritual.

Tinto read from the notebook in a mocking sing-song voice: “a prostitute; harlot; an immoral or dissolute woman; a dirty, slovenly woman; a woman who entices men for sex, not love.”

“And what is the punishment for this Leigh Ann slut?”

Again Tinto read: “To be marked as a slut, to walk naked through the gauntlet of men who see her as the slut she is, and to endure their judgment and shame.”

“No!” Leigh Ann screamed.

“It is what it must be,” the man in black said.

Tinto went into the back room and returned with a can of spray paint. He tested the paint on a sheet of newspaper, then moved to the bondage horse and aimed the can at Leigh Ann’s back.

She felt the paint applied in circular motions. Wet at first, but drying fast, affixing to her skin in a mark.

Tinto finished his work, examined the scarlet red “S” he’d painted, then looked up to the man in black, who nodded approval.

<<<<>>>>

Leigh Ann was led, chained, naked, and now marked, through a side door into the other warehouse. It was filled with large boxes stacked floor to ceiling. It was also filled with workers.

Tinto led her through a side walkway into the larger space of the warehouse. On the left, tall scaffolding supported a trio of workers thirty feet up, building a new stack of storage shelving. Over to the right scurried a cat picker up and down the aisle. Crossing at the apse was a lifter, and farther down were a couple of pallet trucks, each manned by drivers.

As Leigh Ann stepped into the warehouse, someone whistled long and shrill, and workers stopped to look. Leigh Ann’s chain became taught and she was jerked into movement, trying to hobble in heels through the gauntlet. Each step was jerky and awkward, jolting her big breasts into jiggles.

She hung her head in shame, her chin falling onto the chain leash.

Some of the workers whistled. Some said things in droning chatter with co-workers. One said more loudly: “Wild woman walking.” Others laughed.

She was led all too slowly through the warehouse. It felt to her like a snail’s pace and an endless journey. She walked by men just an arm’s length away, and she heard their comments. One said “Slut.” The man next to him laughed and said, “Why she’s here, her slutting around.”

Leigh Ann closed her eyes, squeezing tears down her cheeks.

Groups of workers started a chant of “Slut.” “Slut.” “Slut.”

She passed by a warehouse fan and felt the cool air between her legs, reminding her of her utter nakedness. One worker said simultaneously, “Slick pussy that one.”

Leigh Ann looked up again and focused though wet eyes on the far door of the warehouse, some eighty yards away.

<<<<>>>>

After Leigh Ann had dressed, she exited to the reception room and paid her money.

“I hope it was well for you, Miss Jennings.” Dana said.

“It was… effective,” Leigh Ann replied. “Say, when did the new guy start?”

“Tinto? Oh, about three weeks ago.”

“Just wondering.”

“See you next time, Miss Jennings.”

Leigh Ann made her way to her car, gingerly slid into the driver’s seat and let herself down slowly, wincing when her bottom touched the leather. She breathed deeply, her inhale breaking into sudden sobs. She reached for her purse, tissues.

Minutes later, she drove away from her penance.

<<<<>>>>

Leigh Ann returned to the office at 2:30, positioning herself at the stand-up desk in her cubicle.

Ashley in the cubicle next door popped her head up and asked, “How was mass?”

“Good. It’s always good to do confession,” Leigh Ann replied.

“Yeah, I’ll have to try church sometime. By the way,” Ashley added, “The boss wants to see you.”

Leigh Ann caught her breath. She walked down the hall to the executive office, and knocked lightly on the door.

“Come in.”

She entered. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Carlson? I was a little late from lunch. I’ll make it up.”

“No worries, Ms. Jennings,” he said, still studying papers on his desk. “Shut the door and have a seat.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll stand. Just feel like standing.” She shut the office door, feeling the harsh burn across her ass and the paint curves of the slutmark on her back. It would wash away in the shower that night, and the heat of her beating would fade, but mentally she would feel her penance for days.

“Suit yourself. Just a moment.” Carlson signed at the bottom of one of the papers, then another. Finally, he stood, walking to the front of his desk, sitting on its edge.

“Leigh Ann,” he said, his voice softening, “schedules have changed.”

“Really?”

“I’m not going to Pittsburgh this weekend.”

Leigh Ann’s heart skipped.

“Not going to the conference?”

“Changed my mind about that. Turns out Carol is visiting her mother for the weekend. She leaves Friday morning. Returns Sunday.”

“I see. Had your wife planned this? You hadn’t mentioned it before.”

“Carol said she’d told me. I didn’t remember. Anyway, I thought maybe you could join me at the lake house Friday night. Spend the weekend.”

“James,” she said in a soft voice.

“Leigh Ann.”

“Only I have one problem.”

“Oh, no.”

“My brother is stopping through on Friday night. He has just one night here, but I’m meeting him downtown. He’s at the Westin. We’re doing something that night, don’t know what as yet, but dinner and maybe a show. I don’t see him but a couple times a year, and I can’t very–”

“Of course, no question,” he said, nodding, though clearly disappointed. “You have to do that. No question. But maybe Saturday you could come to the lake house.”

Leigh Ann smiled. “I’d love to, James.”

Carlson reached out, took her hand, and pulled her into his arms. Her lips reached for his, and they kissed.

His hand went behind her back and cupped her ass. Leigh Ann caught her breath from the pain, but it became part of her passion. “James,” she whispered. She pushed her body into his, and her lips sought his lips again and again.

They uncoupled and stepped back. Carlson straightened his tie. Leigh Ann opened the office door, looking at her notebook, and said loudly enough for those in the outer office to hear, “I’ll make those travel changes right now, Mr. Carlson.”

“Thank you, Ms. Jennings.”

<<<<>>>>

Friday night Leigh Ann left work early and drove to the Westin hotel on Madison. She valeted the car and stepped into the lobby, making for the elevators.

She stopped at the sixteenth floor, then walked down the long hallway to room 1643. She knocked.

The door opened. A woman, blonde and beautiful, stood in the entryway, dressed in a thin, short dark blue chemise.

“Carol,” Leigh Ann said with a smile.

“Leigh Ann, my love.” Carol replied. “I have a glass of Viognier chilled for us and a hot bath drawn that I thought we could share.”

“Lovely,” Leigh Ann said.

Carol drew Leigh Ann to her. Leigh Ann’s lips sought Carol’s. They kissed passionately.