Chapter Twenty-One

As expected, that date was revelatory indeed.

Karl had thought he knew what pain was. He’d thought of pain as a tempestuous lover, one of seductive appeal whose outrages he could endure in light of the perverse rewards she offered. She could turn him on with the mere expectation of a visit, deliver him into rapture with her first caress and then test him to his limits while she had her demanding way with him.

Afterwards she left him wounded and wrung out but proud for having braved her embrace. She left him so full of himself that he looked forward to their next dalliance with as much excitement as dread. Now she was showing her true colors. And now Karl’s commitment to indulging her daily for the next nine months suddenly seemed intolerably foolhardy.

The first slash of leather across his torso (right on the nipples naturally) set off a detonation of pain the similarly un-afflicted would find impossible to credit. Everyone knows having a sunburn hurts, and a bad one can be a persistent source of suffering. Nearly everyone has endured a prankish slap on a sunburned back, and can at least fathom the nature of Karl’s pain if not its sheer magnitude. Who has ever had a severe sunburn covered with inflamed little weals whipped with a heavy leather strap? Who can fathom the excruciation of that?

Somehow Karl managed to keep his commitment (if not his dignity) intact all through this insane exponentiation of his daily punishment session. Even the wet heavy cane was put in perspective. Though he wept messily nonstop, screamed into his mouth-plug at every blow and nearly fainted each time his meekly shriveled-up penis took the strap, he somehow remembered himself enough to accept the justice and necessity of this ordeal without weakening. Still this was a challenge far beyond anything he’d yet conceived (outside his dreams at least). He was barely halfway through his additional licks for falling asleep when his courage failed him at last.

Lying arched over the padded semi-cylinder that inspired the rack of his dreams, his wrists and ankles shackled widely apart, he finally broke his own scrupulously observed rules.

Blinking his eyes clear, he focused his gaze on the Goddess’ gorgeous face. For a while this gave him the strength to remember why he was here and the stakes involved. Eventually he couldn’t keep the pleading out of his expression however. And when this failed to stop the strapping or even alter the somber demeanor of the Supreme Being inflicting it, he began to shake his head imploringly. Shamelessly he begged, something he’d sworn he would never do.

Though he stuck to nonverbal means this was still a despicable failure, and the frown of disappointment in that worshipped visage was more devastating than the futility of his plea. As he’d known she would, Nurse Drake merely continued to deliver the exact number of strokes he’d earned. Personal feelings could not be allowed to interfere with medical necessity. Once his punishment was finally over however she cuddled him close. She soothed his shamed sobbing with understanding and encouragement. She restored his fortitude even as she warned him.

“It’s okay darling, you’ve failed us both, but this day was inevitable. Frankly I’m amazed you made it the whole first quarter without breaking. No one else ever has. You continue to be exceptional, my favorite patient ever – not to mention incredibly sexy. I want to ride your face and front right now, both as punishment for weakening and reward for making it this long. I want to smother you with loving and use you like a bitch. I’ll restrain myself until tonight however, when I can give you a good extended scratching too.

“Anyway consider this, darling: you made it through the first session of quarter two too. It wasn’t until the extra session that you broke. If you hadn’t fallen asleep you never would have shamed yourself today. So does sin lead us on to sin. Anyway you really suffered this time too, just like you used to – none of this masochist’s fantasy stuff.

“Tomorrow’s test will be sterner of course, when I begin to use the whips on you. But you’ll get through that too, and every day thereafter. You’ll make your atonement with bravery and grace and our loving bond will be what heals you. I believe in you, little slut.”

This echo from his dreams knelled through Karl and sustained him over the next few days. It also helped that he was given another novel to read.

This was Rose Madder by Stephen King. Naturally it opened with a woman being stomach-punched by her abusive husband to a gruesomely detailed miscarriage. Karl sighed after the first scene. But soon the story gripped him and he had something else to think about besides his strapped-swollen, intolerably itchy sunburn.

As promised Doreen ravished this with scratching later. Indeed she made it a featured part of their lovemaking while she could. She also made it as madly erotic and dominating as everything else. Karl was teased and toyed with and made to beg and debase himself again first. Then he gasped and thrashed and soared on that quasi-orgasmic agony-satisfaction for long convulsive minutes before at last crashing into ever worse pain and itching.

That was the kind of suffering he could appreciate however. With this and his mistress now adding simulated straddle-sex to their bed-repertoire, he had as much increased incentive to cope with as punishment now.

Despite the way this worsened the frustration he continuously lived with, it also fed his addiction to intimacy with this icon beautifully. It bound him to her more straitly daily. And all that rapturous wallowing also helped him get through the time it took his skin to heal up.

This was set back a bit by all the scratching, which predictably worsened his condition. At last Nurse Drake relented and administered more aloe, as well as Benadryl and calamine lotion. The strapping wasn’t conducive to rapid healing either, nor was being hung up like a side of beef for Doreen to again decorate with her lungeing whip, flogger, and even the first bullwhip to be used on him. Though employed prudently this last caused inevitable damage. Karl often found himself hung from the sling for his daily reading too and bound in those challenging new contortions at night. Yet through everything he managed to maintain his honor. Though his whippings truly were progressively worse ordeals (at least until his sunburn faded) he took this new quarter’s far greater demands stoically after his lapse. By the time a week had passed (there were now three until the two year anniversary of his accident) he’d completely healed from his holiday and was well back into routine. He’d adapted as well as possible to the greatly increased demands on him. Still he now needed regular bolstering to face his discipline session each day.

Usually this was provided in the bath and on the mat beforehand. But beyond just loving intimacy and emotional support Doreen continued in her role as therapeutic counselor. Invested in the power of positive thinking, she gave him regular pep talks when he seemed unprepared for the day ahead. Whether from troubling dreams, recurrence of old sloth, too much testosterone or simply poor sleep due to especially distressing bondage, he occasionally profited from cajolery as well as control. Facing a new week of yet more fresh challenges, Nurse Drake responded to the unexpected trouble they were having with the elimination routine by once again pointing out the progress that had already been made.

“We’ve talked about the dreams of course. You never scream in your sleep like before. You never see Krista dead anymore do you? You never have to look at what happened to her or make the same round of mistakes over and over again. That’s got to be an enormous relief.”

“It is. I haven’t thought much about it lately, but you’re right. I can still see her in memory. But in my dreams it was always perfectly photographic, every gruesome detail horribly vivid. I sure don’t miss that. Speaking of relief though…”

“You could use some of the physical variety about now, couldn’t you?”

Sometimes without even breaking his dietary restrictions Karl had a trouble moving his bowels. It was the curse of such an extremely sedentary existence. The suppository did its job all right, relaxing that normally tight ring of muscle inside and inducing the rest of his system to push. But though he sweated and strained involuntarily, the hard plug inside him refused to be moved. If this persisted he might need an enema or something even worse.

He could take a laxative of course. But then he had to live with the messy and unpredictable consequences. He wasn’t going to start wearing a diaper; that was far too disgusting and demeaning, and not in any way he found even remotely exciting. Hoping to avoid the quick and practical but still dreaded manual disimpaction, Karl blew a lock of sweaty hair out of his face. Doreen tucked this behind his ear for him.

“Shall we give it a few more minutes?”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay then, let’s talk about your emotional progress. You haven’t suffered any anguish or self-despite while being intimate or falling in love with me have you? Remember how worried you were about that?”

“I was stupid, ma’am. We’ve been over and over this. My aversion evaporated the instant you took me in your arms. Blame it on youth and hormones and your immense appeal all overpowering my expectations.

“I loved Krista desperately. I wanted to be with her forever. But she’s gone now and you are here in all your warm, luscious flesh. I know I’m ridiculously unworthy of you after what I did to Krista. You demean me just by existing, by being such a wonderful person. That you could actually love a guy like me is truly confounding. It is the mercy of the Goddess. Under the circumstances, I could resist falling in love with you no more than I could choose to stop breathing. You are not only divinely sensitive and compassionate but also the most attractive, intelligent, exciting woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank you, darling. Believe it or not, I find you irresistible as well. But until a few short months ago you hardly registered that I was even there.”

“Once again I was an idiot, ma’am. In fact I was a typically callous, unforgivably ungrateful asshole male. I failed to properly appreciate all you were doing for me. I took you shamefully for granted, and I’m more sorry for that than I can ever express.”

“Peace darling, I forgive you. You had your troubles, and I was just doing my job the only way I can. But I don’t think you realize quite how much your emotional state has improved since moving here. Think about it for a moment.

“You used to spend all your time castigating yourself, wallowing in blame and self-hatred. You would agree with the shrink and me that this was pointless and defeatist, then go right on doing it. But at some point you stopped. I know you just said your sins made you unworthy of me until redemption is achieved, and this is true. But really, when’s the last time you thought ‘I don’t deserve this’, or ‘no one can love me after what I did’, when I kissed you or gave you sexual pleasure?”

Karl considered carefully, his spirits rising.

“You know, I don’t really remember.”

“You see? You used to obsess about that. But even worse was the apathy and depression that made up the rest of your outlook. You didn’t care about the future. Not even the prospect of spending your life being raped at the state home could affect you. You acted like the worst had already happened and nothing else mattered. You woke up screaming at night yet sleepwalked through your waking life. You found no joy in anything whatsoever.”

“I felt joy when you smiled at me, beloved.”

“Perhaps you did. But not enough to smile back or not very often. All that’s changed too, hasn’t it? You’ve shaken off your torpor and depression, fallen in love and dedicated yourself wholeheartedly to your recovery. And that’s the most important change of all. The fact that you’ve developed a delightfully rewarding fetish in the meantime is an added benefit for you and harmless fun for me. And now that you mention it darling, it’s been a few more minutes. I need to try and scare the shit out of you.”

“I know, Nurse Drake,” Karl sighed. “Do what you have to.”

Short of flushing him out, using a laxative or digging for the blockage by hand, there was still one interim step to try. Sometimes the bowels just needed a little extra stimulation to work. This was humiliating and uncomfortable, but far less so than the alternatives. Karl steeled himself as his nurse pulled on fresh gloves and lubricated not one but her first two fingers.

They jokingly called this ‘scaring’ the shit out because Karl’s body seemed to recognize what was coming next if this didn’t work. It was actually more like coaxing, and it usually did work. Still the metaphor was too good not to use. Now Nurse Drake reached down with a big dollop of lube and used those fingers to gently rub it into his anus.

This alone often got things moving, and she continued for upwards of a minute. It occurred to Karl as she did so that this sensation must be remarkably similar to what Doreen felt when he went to work on her with his tongue. He thought about how she moaned and thrust herself greedily at him and sighed heavily with sympathy before he could think about it. Burning at this betrayal, he turned his face away. Doreen’s calm acknowledgement followed him.

“It feels good, doesn’t it? Don’t be ashamed, little slut. There’s an enormous density of nerve endings there. And nerves don’t care about anything but being stimulated. It’s as natural as electricity if you don’t let your hang-ups get in the way.

“Seriously darling, if anal stimulation wasn’t pleasurable, then gays and your more adventurous straights wouldn’t bother with buggery would they?”

Karl wished she hadn’t brought that up. Because just the rubbing wasn’t working, and what came next was far too close to buggery for comfort. The rubbing and circling now had him as slicked up as those fingers. And this time both digits (the index and the one they’d called the ‘fuck-you’ finger with typical teenage vulgarity) suddenly pushed into him.

Karl groaned as they slid up all the way. Face flaming, he groaned again as they were rotated and spread, opening him up wider. Back and forth Nurse Drake twisted persistently in a manner Karl considered as redundant as the scrubbing of his penis – that first harbinger of so much eventual intimacy between them. At last she stopped. Nurse Drake just held him open then, letting his recalcitrant body got the message: offload now or face serious prospecting.

The message was received. A large hard mass pushed reflexively back against that intrusion, forcing those fingers out and stretching him almost agonizingly wider as it left. Sweaty and gasping with relief, Karl hung limply in the sling as Doreen flushed the commode and then treated him to a kiss on the lips.

“There: mission accomplished. Let me just check for stragglers…”

This time only that fuck-you finger penetrated him. Smoothly it slid in right up to the last knuckle, stretching and wriggling for more. Helplessly Karl groaned again, fervently telling himself there was nothing erotic in his reaction, and if there was, it was only because this was his mistress violating him, and that nothing she did was really a violation anyway, since she owned him body and soul. Still he was twitching toward erection by the time she at last withdrew and stripped off the gloves. Doreen couldn’t let that pass.

“Oooh, look at this: a monster has decided to join the party! If there’s one thing I love, it’s an adventurous monster.”

She ducked and engulfed him half-hard, taking him all the way in and out in long slow strokes that had him panting and outrageously rigid again within seconds. That was nice, and irresistible too. Though she had to bend uncomfortably to do so, Doreen swiftly fellated Karl to the very brink before leaving him hitching and gasping and gleaming with her drool. She gave his balls a friendly squeeze and his rump a hearty slap where it hung through the sling straps.

“Okay darling, let’s get you in the tub. We’ve got another big day ahead. We’re going to be making your PT a little more interesting too before we break out the cane. So let’s get it on!”

“I am all yours, ma’am.”

As he was lifted up higher for the transfer, Karl wasn’t thinking at all about how devastating that cane always was, what his PT might entail or even what the fact that he’d succumbed to anal pleasure might say about him. He was too busy rehashing their conversation. And he was marveling over the fact that yes, he was doing incredibly better than back at the clinic, more so than he’d properly appreciated. It just seemed a slow cure when every day was such a trial. He needed to hold course and courage if he expected his reward at the end.