He got her head down into the stocks, guiding her
firmly past the edge of the wood, his grip keeping her thrashing
head from hitting the dark edges. However, he realized as he held
her there—her legs kicking up helplessly in flashes of skin through
the side slits of her dress.—that he had a problem.
He could hold her head there, no problem. Likewise
one arm, since he had a free hand. That left her other arm still
free and entirely uncooperative, and he would still need to somehow
close the stocks over her head and arms. He leaned forward and
spoke low into her ear. “You need to be taught a lesson in manners,
Miss Sally. And we will start with you granting a simple request.
Put your arms in the stocks. Now.”
She angrily turned her eyes to glare at him, her
teeth bared in an animal’s grimace. “Fuck you!” she hissed.
“Eventually,” he nodded, amicably. “But for now you
simply need to put your arms in the stocks. It is, as I said, a
lesson in manners. You were quite rude.” His tone was deep and
calm, echoing the strength with which he held her immobile over the
edge of the open stocks.
“I
won’t.”
she hissed again, her eyes
blazing at him. “You can’t
make
me.”
“Of course I can’t make you,” he replied, again in
the measured tone. “If I could make you, I would not ask. What I
can do is make you regret your choice.” Abruptly he lifted her,
straightening her body so quickly that she lost her balance for a
moment and was only kept erect by the grip on her neck. He moved
behind her, so that she was facing all of the crowd, her friends in
the front row smiling up at the scene.
The Wrinkled Man was smiling now.
The Troublemaker had apparently been naughty in his
youth. Several Tools had done the looking, and the Wrinkled Man had
seen through their eyes even as they pulled up files they didn’t
know they wanted, and whispered answers into phones that had never
rung.
The Troublemaker had been a nasty young teenager,
and had fathered not one but two daughters on his girlfriend. More
than that, he had stayed with them, through a divorce, military
service, poverty, raising them to be—if the records from the school
were any indication—more Troublemakers. They had a history of
asking questions, of challenging the system. The Troublemaker had
let them go once, sharing custody when the Mother had seemed to be
marrying up into a better environment—but he had taken custody back
in an instant when she was no longer able to sustain that
charade.
But the Wrinkled Man was smiling, because now he
had the lever. He could stop the Troublemaker, possibly even turn
him into a Tool, or simply use him to replace one of the wasted
bodies outside his room.
Because the Troublemaker loved his daughters. And
love was the best lever of all.
The Wrinkled Man called for the right Tools, two
women who believed they were working for the betterment of their
sisters, start towards a house. A house where the Mother and the
two daughters were watching TV. Or reading. Or playing a game. It
did not matter, for when the women arrived, the Wrinkled Man would
choose what they would be doing for the rest of their short
lives.
He cracked a piece of skin off of his left thigh
and popped it into his mouth. It crunched as he bit down, and he
kept smiling.
Brian held her there for a moment, swaying, letting
her see herself put on display, feeling her skin warm as she
flushed at the spectacle of helplessness, so different from the
snobbish social air she’d had a moment before. He held her there
for a few seconds, then focused on the small bump in her spine at
the base of her neck. He pressed a finger there, gradually
increasing the pressure until he was certain she was aware of it…
then began to draw it downward, slowly, along the bare muscles and
ridges of her back.
Inch by inch he drew it down, watching the finger
as it passed, letting the warm energy that burned in his Mark flow
directly through that point as it traveled. The connection was
quick and deep, his awareness encompassing her hard shell of
resistance like ivy pouring over a wall, stopped by its apparent
impermeability while at the same time flowing over and through it,
sinking into the manifold chinks and crevasses and digging deeper.
She had stilled during this process, still trembling, but with
anger…as something else… stirring behind that wall.
Finally his finger had traveled past the base of
her spine to where the ebon fabric flowed to a point just above the
swell of her ass. At that point Brian paused for a beat, then
grasped the zipper of the dress and swiftly drew it down, the back
of the dress turning into flaps of velvet that parted to reveal the
cleft of her ass. Sally gave another indignant squeal and began
struggling again, her hands flying behind her to try and close the
flaps.
He’d been waiting for that, and as her hands met
behind her he suddenly released her neck, causing her to stagger,
and in that moment he put a hand on each shoulder and drew the
straps down, the loose front falling to her waist. Her nipples
shone pink and hard in the yellow light, their tiny aerolae
serrated by the sudden exposure. There was a smattering of applause
from the observers, and Betty gave a loud cheer, “Boobies!”
Brian moved again quickly while she was off
balance, and drew the dress down over her hips and let it puddle on
the floor around her spiked heels. She wore only a garter and
stockings, her vulva a tiny orchid under a smoothly trimmed strip
of pubic hair. “Such a pretty little pussy!” cooed another woman
from the audience, and there was a tittering of laughter. Sally’s
face grew more red, but she defiantly stepped out of the dress,
hands at her sides, letting her pride serve as an anchor of
resistance against Brian.
He stepped back for a moment and let her enjoy her
celebrity, full of hubris and beauty standing on the wooden
platform. He knew that in a moment she would begin to try to work
the crowd by doing some sort of dance or strut. He folded his arms,
waiting patiently, aware that she was too busy basking in the
attention of the crowd to realize that she was still within his
reach. Sure enough, his dancer’s eye saw the shifting of her weight
onto the ball of one foot, about to pivot—and that was when he
reached up and grasped her neck again. She froze for a moment, then
tried to move away—only to feel his thumb and forefinger digging
again into either side of her jaw, the pressure on the nerve
clusters causing her to be still in much the same way that a bit
will temper a wild horse.
He moved closer to her, until his lips were next to
her ear, and she could feel the smooth cloth of his trousers
brushing the skin of her ass. “Miss Sally. Observe one of the rules
of body mechanics: where the head goes, the body will follow.” With
that, he stepped off the platform, picking up his bag as he strode
across the room, pushing her ahead of him.. The crowd laughed again
and parted for the two of them, some wandering off inspired by the
play, others following them, eager to see where their scene would
lead.
She was screaming at him again,
hands waving in the air but unable to reach him or affect the grip
on her neck. He did not respond to any of the comments. His body
felt a foot taller, and every step seemed to be through waves of
energy that eddied through the air, and he felt that his scars
would burn through the shirt in a moment. At the same time there
was a calm
hereness
in him. The fortress within her was still firm and
entrenched, but he felt a small tremor come through their
connection, echoed in her body as they walked across the
room.
Bringing her to a spanking bench in the shape of a
leather-covered sawhorse, he gave a little twist, swiveling her
while at the same time driving two fingers into the crease of her
leg and pelvis. The sudden pressure didn’t hurt, but it caused her
to jackknife down, and he unceremoniously picked her up with one
hand between her legs, the other grasping her shoulder, lifting and
lowering her over the sawhorse, feet and arms astride. One of her
feet struck the hard wood, but with a slight adjustment he swung it
over as she continued to swear. He kept one hand at the small of
her back, pressing her down into the soft leather.
The transition knocked the breath out of her, and
she lay lengthwise on the leather for a moment, gasping. Brian
enjoyed sight and feel of the curve of her body as she lay,
gasping. He waited for what he knew would come next—not that he
could have told you how he knew it, he simply knew that in a
moment, she would—
“BASTARD!” her scream rang out as her arms tried to
push up from the sawhorse, legs and feet scrabbling for some sort
of purchase to push up from. Brian simply kept his hand at the
small of her back, pressing down, and she stayed pinned. She
couldn’t reach him with a fist or foot, as he was standing just out
of range of either, holding her helpless with one hand. After about
a minute, she realized it was futile, and, gasping with exertion,
lay her arms down on the small platforms jutting from the sides of
the horse for that purpose. Her legs also rested, but Brian could
feel the strength and defiance still in her, and knew that she was
simply waiting for the next opportunity to break free.
The two women neared the house, and as they rang
the doorbell, they smiled at each other. Another sister to be
saved, another victim of the patriarchy about to be rescued and
join them in the fight.
The Mother answered the door, her face suspicious
of the two women, who were somehow very like the Missionaries she’d
seen before. They spoke of Men, and the evil Men do, and of the
dangers Men can pose, not only to women, but especially to
daughters.
The Mother was nodding, slowly. Their words were
rhythmic and strident, a pounding rhetoric that strung a delicate
logic supported by misdirection and that most useful tool of the
persuader, statistics. The friendly sisters now, three in
solidarity there on the porch, laughed in the strength of their
reinforced view of Man as a whole.
And where were the daughters? One asked, casually.
Might we meet them?
He lowered his lips to her ear, and spoke again in
measured tones. “Miss Sally. You have been rude and inconsiderate
to me, your guest. Wouldn’t you agree?”
She gave a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, I treat all
idiots that way. You can be the big hulking barbarian all you want,
you still can’t make me submit to you.”
Brian smiled. “Right now, Miss Sally, I simply want
you to notice a matter of control, since you seem so incapable of
it yourself. By controlling your center,” he gave a little extra
push to her middle, again forcing a gasp out of her, “I control
your movement, your position, even your breath.” He increased the
pressure a bit more, not on the spine directly but spread over the
torso, letting her feel the sudden difficulty in drawing breath.
Then he lightened the pressure, just a bit, and continued in his
deep mild tone.
“I admire your beauty, strength, and intelligence,
Miss Sally, but that does mean I will tolerate being treated rudely
by you. You could have chosen to take your punishment more
easily—you recall, I gave you that choice?” Angry glaring eyes were
his only answer. “Miss Sally. I will ask you again. You recall, I
gave you that choice?”
When she refused to respond again, he reached with
his free hand into his bag and pulled out a length of soft red
rope, coiled neatly with a knot he released with one hand. His
fingers gripped the protruding bight where the rope divided in
half, and he cast the rest out across the floor, feeling a surge of
energy like a solar flare travel along its length as his fetish
resonated with the beginning of his work.
He fed the doubled rope through the hand at the
small of her back, stretching it the length of her spine, letting
the touch of it lightly brush her skin before pulling it taught. He
could sense the power building in the rope now, and in his mind’s
eye it had taken on a glowing pulse. It seemed eager, with a
presence of its own, ready to wrap and bind her into the flows of
power they were creating.
Quickly he drew the rope up and over her back,
looping it around each of her shoulders and passing across the back
of her neck. Splitting the tails of the rope, he passed them
through the doubled rope on each shoulder and passed it under the
horse, front to back, keeping it loose but drawing up most of the
slack.
Throughout this he had kept his hand at her back,
pinning her, but now he released her, watching her breathing ease
up, seeing her muscles tense up in preparation for her leaping from
the horse… and just as she pushed up with her arms, back arching
up, he tightened the rope.
Since he left her hands free, she
was able to keep her face from quite slamming into the leather top
of the horse. The ropes passing over her shoulders and across the
back of her neck drew her down and pinned her as effectively as his
hands had. He checked to make sure there was no pressure on the
carotid, jugular, or windpipe, and then looped the tails around her
ankles and through the D-rings on the foot panels of the horse. As
he tied the square knot between her ankles, he could feel the loops
flare with the resonance that simply felt
right
, and he could feel another
tremor in the fortress of her inner being as she felt the increase
of power over her. She only kicked once, discovering in the process
that the loops of rope would cause the neck and shoulders to
tighten more. Her hands tried to find a loop or slackness in the
rope, but there was none, and there were no knots except the one
between her ankles, far out of reach.