The Marine's Pet Read online

  “Why are they on the floor?” She asked the question sotto voce as conversation rose around them.

  “I’ll explain it all later,” Austin promised her. “Right now, let’s just say it’s because they enjoy it and it’s part of their relationship.”

  “It’s got to be hell on their knees,” Sarah murmured under her breath.

  The actual content of the conversation was fairly innocuous, though there were a few differences from a normal dinner party. Earnest fed his two companions from his own fork, which made the meal take quite a lot longer than it otherwise would have. When one was taking a bite, the other let out a whine.

  “Sybil, quiet,” Earnest said firmly. “You will wait your turn.”

  “If only she could operate a fork on her own,” Sarah muttered under her breath. “How sad for her to have such a debilitating condition.”

  “Shh,” Austin replied.

  “You shush,” Sarah replied. “You can’t take me somewhere weird and expect me to pretend it isn’t weird.”

  “I’m not asking you to pretend anything; I’m asking you to be polite.”

  “I’m not not being polite,” Sarah said in terse tones.

  By this stage, other diners were starting to notice the little nexus of tension at their part of the table. Conversation was quelled as questioning eyes turned in their direction. Austin smiled somewhat grimly at his friends as Sarah took a defiant bite of her dinner.

  She understood that some of the guests had entered into an agreement with their partners to take on subordinate roles. She understood that they enjoyed that too, but for some reason observing it made her feel prickly and a little bit rebellious.

  “Is everything alright?” Anastasia was to Sarah’s left, a perfect position to overhear her grumbling.

  “Everything is lovely,” Sarah said. “I especially like how I can put my own food in my own mouth.”

  Anastasia gave her an incredulous half-smile and shook her head in warning. “Shh,” she said, giving in to a little giggle. “They’ll hear you.”

  “They’ll hear me, but will they be able to do anything about it? I mean, they can’t use their own hands…”

  “Oh, Sarah, no… shhhh,” Anastasia said, making a quieting motion with her fork. “It’s not like that. It’s a way for them to feel connected… you’ll understand when you’ve learned a little more about this lifestyle.”

  “Do you have a question, Sarah?” It was Earnest who spoke, his clipped tones and the resonant, Gothic tone of his voice striking some form of existential terror into her breast.

  “Do you need a spare fork over there? Seems to be cutlery rationing taking place,” she quipped.

  Neither Earnest nor his companions found her little joke to be amusing. Nor did Austin.

  “There could be some crate time in your future if you’re not careful,” Austin said loudly enough for everyone to hear. There was a series of little chortles in response to his comment, which she had not understood. Obviously there was some joke she was not getting. There was a lot she was not getting there in the judge’s house.

  “Crate time?”

  “Pets that don’t behave spend some time in their crates,” Robert said, gesturing toward what Sarah had first taken to be a large sideboard in the corner of the room. She now realized that it was no such thing. It was a cage of sorts, large enough for a human to fit inside quite comfortably, as long as they were content to sit or kneel or lie down.

  Only then did Sarah make the connection. She was being threatened with being confined if she did not behave.

  “Seriously?” She hissed the question at Austin.

  “Seriously,” he replied firmly.

  “You are out of your fucking mind,” she declared boldly, no longer bothering to keep her voice down. It was obvious that they were being listened to by that point. All attempt at polite discussion had been abandoned in favor of looking at her with unmistakable judgment.

  “Come here,” he said, taking her by the hand. “Excuse me,” he addressed the rest of the group. “Sarah and I need to have a little talk.”

  There was a smattering of murmurs as Austin led Sarah out of the dining room and up the stairs to a spare bedroom, which Sarah noted he knew the precise location of without having to look around. He shut the door behind them, and she unleashed before he could.

  “You embarrassed me!” she accused him hotly. “Taking me out of there like some… like some…”

  “Like a badly behaved little brat,” he said, sitting down on the bed. Sarah opened her mouth to respond to his comment, but all that came out was a squeal as he yanked her over his thighs without any warning at all.

  Her dress pulled super tight over her bottom, stubbornly covering her cheeks but providing nothing in the way of protection against his palm. It hurt from the very first slap, a pain that not only stung, but embarrassed her further. Everyone knew what was happening to her. Half a dozen people were out there picking at their vegetables and probably listening to the sounds of her being punished.

  Fine. If Austin wanted to make a spectacle, she’d help him. She let out a bloodcurdling scream, so loud and so piercing that he was forced to stop spanking her to cover her mouth for a moment.

  “Stop that this instant,” he growled in serious tones. “I am not spanking you that hard.”

  Sarah bit his hand.

  Austin swore and shook his fingers, two of which bore the marks of her teeth.

  There was a tap at the door. Sarah was sure that she had been saved, but all that happened was Austin slid her off his lap without a word, went to answer the door, and exchanged a few words with Robert. Sarah didn’t hear precisely what was said, but he soon shut the door and turned back with something in his hand. A length of leather with a round rubber ball in the middle. A gag.

  “What the fuck is that?” she said, knowing precisely what it was.

  “It’s what you’re going to have in your mouth for the rest of this session, and for the rest of the evening if you’re not careful.”

  “I’m not putting that in my mouth,” Sarah said.

  “I know,” Austin agreed. “I am.”

  He had a look of quiet determination that made her stomach do flip-flops as he came toward her quite nonchalant, as if gagging women was something he did all the time.

  “Austin! No!” She tried being firm, but it didn’t work on him. He was still advancing and she was running out of places to go. Finally, in an act of desperation, she threw herself face down on the bed and buried her head under the covers so he could not possibly put it in her mouth.

  A very hard slap to her bottom made her realize the foolishness of that plan. Austin didn’t ask her to come out of her little hiding spot, he simply spanked her until not coming out was no longer an option.

  “Austin!”

  Sarah came up for air and to screech his name. Austin was lightning quick in taking hold of the back of her neck with one hand and slipping the ball into her mouth with the other. In seconds she was gagged, the leather straps secured behind her head.

  Unable to speak, or scream, or do anything other than breathe heavily through the holes in the ball, Sarah gave Austin a wide-eyed look with no small amount of fear in it. She had never anticipated such treatment, and although she might have provoked it, finding herself unable to speak was very unsettling.

  “It’s alright,” Austin said. “This isn’t going to hurt you one bit. It’s just going to ensure that you don’t scream the house down in your efforts to avoid a very, very well deserved spanking.”

  Sarah let out a little whimper. From the moment she’d stepped over the threshold she’d sensed she was out of her depth. Now she was so far out of it she felt as though she were sinking. Tears began to well in her eyes as she looked into Austin’s eyes and silently begged him for some kind of mercy.

  Austin caressed her cheek gently, then pulled her back over his thighs to resume the spanking. Completely powerless, Sarah could do nothing to stop the
hard swats that landed again and again, painting nigh unbearable heat across her bottom.

  It did not take long for her to start crying, and then sobbing. Waves of upset were crashing over her, emotional pain mingling with physical. She did not entirely know the source of it, but she knew that it was almost too much to handle.

  Sensing that she had reached her breaking point, Austin pulled her up and cradled her in his lap, holding her close as he removed the gag, allowing her to breathe more deeply and speak again.

  “Sarah,” he said consolingly. “It’s alright. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” she sobbed. “It’s not okay at all.”

  His hands held her tightly, their warmth and their strength comforting.

  “We’re at a party,” she sobbed. “The worst party ever. I want to go home.”

  “We’ll go home when you’ve calmed down,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Nothing to worry about? They know. They all know. That judge brought you that gag…” She started crying all over again.

  “Because each and every one of them knows what you’ve been feeling tonight, and a good number of them know what it’s like to wear a gag,” Austin said. “You’re among people who understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “That sometimes a lady needs a spanking to feel at home.” He pressed kisses to her cheeks, taking her tears away with his lips.

  “I don’t feel at home,” Sarah said. “I feel awful.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t understand this… and you spanked me… and…”

  “It’s not nice being spanked for disciplinary purposes,” Austin agreed. “Even less so when you know that others know not only that you misbehaved, but that you were punished for it, but I’m telling you now, nobody is judging you here. This is one of the very few places in the world where a deserving woman can end bottom up over her master’s thighs and nobody will be the least surprised or concerned by it.”

  Her master’s thighs. Three words which said so much. That she had a master, that she was owned, that she was now living in a world where her reckless mouth would earn her repercussions.

  “This is…” She could not quite finish her sentence.

  “It’s new,” he said. “And I brought you here for that reason. Well, partly for that reason. I thought you’d learn more by observation than by direct experience on your first gathering, but I suppose that was fairly silly to assume, knowing you as I do.”

  He held her close for a little longer, then announced that they were going to rejoin the group.

  “I can’t go back out there,” Sarah refused.

  “Yes, you can,” Austin said firmly. “And we’re going to. And you’re going to apologize to Earnest and Sybil and Hannah for your rudeness.”

  “I am not.”

  “You are,” he said. “That was totally unacceptable. You basically mocked them to their faces. You didn’t even attempt to understand what was actually going on. I expected better from you, Sarah. I really did.”

  The disappointment in his voice made her heart feel heavy. She knew too, that he was right. She had been rude, and for no real reason.

  It was with great reluctance that Sarah allowed herself to be drawn back to the party. The guests were back in the lounge now and conversation was flowing, as were the post-dinner drinks. Nobody made any mention of it when Austin and Sarah came in and he sat on the couch, pulling her down into his lap where he held her close.

  “Earnest, Sybil, Hannah,” Austin said. “Sarah would like to say something to you.”

  Everyone looked in Sarah and Austin’s direction.

  “Now apologize,” he murmured in her ear.

  Heat suffused her face. She had not felt this guilty, this small, or this undone for decades. “I’m sorry I was rude to you,” she said, hating how her voice wavered with the threat of fresh tears of embarrassment. The stinging in her bottom seemed exacerbated by her shame, so much so she could not help but squirm.

  “Thank you, Sarah,” Earnest said. Sybil and Hannah made similar noises of acceptance, but it was Earnest’s eyes on her that made Sarah feel as though she was being consumed by a flame of shame. She didn’t know if she was forgiven, and intellectually she didn’t care either way, but her emotional self was on a completely different plane, reacting to every glance and breath.

  “Good girl,” Austin said, rubbing her bottom gently.

  Anastasia looked over and caught Sarah’s eye, giving her a warm, commiserating smile. Sarah felt herself blush in response. She would never live this down. She would certainly never adjust to being publicly punished. They had been technically private, but there was very little actually private about it. Everybody knew what had happened to her.

  As minutes went by and the conversation did not turn to her or her shameful experience, nor did any discomfort taint the conversation or the group’s mood, Sarah began to realize that Austin had been correct. His friends did not find her being taken off and disciplined as being in any way odd, or even particularly negative.

  Anastasia came over to sit beside Sarah and Austin. She brought another concoction with her, stronger than the first.

  “These take the edge off,” she whispered to Sarah with a little wink.

  “Thanks,” Sarah said, sliding off Austin’s lap to talk to her hostess a little more privately. The two of them slipped away from the main group a little, just far enough that they would not easily be overheard.

  “The first time Robert brought me to a gathering like this I ended up in trouble too,” Anastasia confided in Sarah.

  “How?”

  “Robert and I had just started this thing we do and I wasn’t entirely convinced,” she said. “And we came to a party like this and it was overwhelming to say the least. Not nearly as refined as this one,” she said with a smile. “And the drinks weren’t nearly as good.”

  Sarah snorted with amusement.

  “In the end I got into an argument with someone about something silly,” Anastasia continued. “And before I knew it, I was over Robert’s lap in front of everyone.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow was not the word I had for it, especially when the man I was arguing with kept offering advice as to how to make sure I felt every swat.”

  “Oh, my God.” Sarah covered her mouth. “Seriously?”

  “I called him an asshole,” Anastasia said. “That didn’t help matters.”

  “And what happened… did you ever go back?”

  “Well, we host the parties quite often now,” Anastasia said. “And the man I had the disagreement with is sitting over there.” She nodded in Earnest’s direction.

  “Oh, him.” Sarah narrowed her eyes reflexively. “He seems…”

  “I know,” Anastasia said, understanding what Sarah meant without the need for Sarah to finish her sentence. “He seems like a stuffy jerk. And he can be. But he’s actually an amazing master. Those two adore him.”

  They certainly did seem to. Sarah could see that even at a distance, the way they looked at Earnest was enough to make her feel faintly nauseous. Then it hit her. She was jealous. He was undeniably strict and so stern it made her prickle all over, but there was a part of her that was completely curious as to what it would be like to be subject to that kind of control.

  He must have sensed their eyes on him, for he turned his head to look in their direction. Sarah looked away immediately, while Anastasia gave him a little wave.

  “You’re shy,” she said teasingly.

  “Not usually.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re going to abandon that shyness soon enough,” she said. “Robert’s keeping his eye on you too.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’ve got more than just Austin to worry about now,” Anastasia said. “In this community, everyone watches out for one another.”

  “I’m guessing that doesn’t mean bake sales and night patrols,”
Sarah replied.

  “No.” Anastasia let out a little laugh at Sarah’s stricken expression. “Austin!” She raised her voice. “I’ve frightened your poor pet.”

  Austin slid down the couch and wrapped his arm around Sarah’s shoulder. “What have you been telling her?”

  “She’s been telling me I have to worry about Earnest and Robert, and probably Rebecca too,” Sarah said. “Is that true?”

  “Well,” Austin said. “I’m possessive when it comes to my pets, so I have no intention of sharing you, but I do expect you to treat them with respect.”

  “Possessive, huh?” Sarah smiled at him. She liked the sound of that. Being his. Being protected from others.

  “If you do misbehave around the others, I may very well leave you to their disciplinary mercy.”

  “What? But you just said…”

  “I said I wouldn’t share you sexually,” he replied. “I didn’t say your butt would be safe if you misbehaved.”

  “But…” She looked at him with her mouth ajar in dismay. “But I don’t even know them.”

  “You’ve clearly met Robert before,” he said with a significant look that referenced her brief incarceration. “And I think you have the measure of Earnest too. Besides, if you don’t want to be disciplined by them, then don’t misbehave around them.”

  “This is not fair,” Sarah said, her expression and mood darkening.

  “It’s very fair, oh, and Sarah? I wouldn’t waste too much time worrying about what might happen with them. Worry about what will happen with me.” He lowered his voice and spoke in a soft growl. “I’m probably the most demanding dominant in this room…”

  Sarah probably should have hidden her snort at that, but she did not.

  “Ah, you don’t believe me,” Austin said, amused rather than insulted. “That’s because I’ve been so gentle with you so far.”