Rum, Sodomy and the Lash Ch. 09

The Captain did not join Kitty in his bed that night, leaving her instead to stew miserably and attempt to predict what the next day would bring.

Shortly after sunrise, the door opened and Kitty strained in her tethers to see what was happening. She heard a body falling on the floor and a terse command to 'Wait there'. Then the door closed. Intrigued and terrified, Kitty manoeuvred her body until she could see the figure of Tom, bound hand and foot, lying on the floor.

"Tom," she hissed in a sharp whisper. "What is going on?"

Tom's voice was weak and croaky as he replied, "He knows it was me, Kitty. That provided the boat and the clothes. I think he means to kill me." The boy broke into harsh sobs and Kitty struggled anew to release herself, but in vain.

"Surely he wouldn't....kill you," she breathed.

"I've seen men walk the plank for less," wept Tom. "Or lose every inch of skin on their back to the cat. Either way, I'm a dead man."

"Oh, Tom, no. I'm so sorry. I'll plead for you with the Captain...if he doesn't mean to kill me as well." Tears welled up in Kitty's eyes as the peril of her situation hit home.

"He will not kill a lady," said Tom.

Kitty hoped he was right.

*

An hour later, one of the crew stepped over Tom's prone body to offer Kitty a cup of water and a crust of bread. Despite her fear, she was weak with hunger and her lips were bone dry, so she accepted gratefully, gulping down the refreshments and asking for more.

The crewman shook his head and left.

Having given Kitty half an hour more to digest her breakfast, the Captain sent the crewman back to untether her and bring her through to the cabin.

Kitty was shivering with fear and the cold morning air on her naked body as she looked along the highly polished table to where the Captain sat at its head.

His face was sternly set and his arms folded, but even in this unenviable moment Kitty felt the lancing blow of attraction. Moving her rapt eyes from his scarred cheek and raffish hair, she felt a pulse of dread at the objects ranged before him on the table. An oval-backed hairbrush, his strap and a round-handled rattan cane such as she had seen wielded by her cousin's tutor. She had heard tales of its beastliness but had never thought to experience it at first hand.

"Leave the door open," the Captain bade his crewman, who was about to shut it. "Young Tom will need to hear this. Likewise the door to the deck. You may go." The crewman left.

"Well, Kitty, I was in two minds whether to conduct this morning's proceedings outside in front of the crew..."

Kitty started and whimpered imploringly.

"...But in my mercy, I decided to keep it relatively private...though I imagine they will be in little doubt as to what is happening in here. I haven't heard any words of thanks yet, Kitty."

"Thank you, Sir," she stammered. "But...what will you do to me?"

"I daresay I will give you a little taste of what you deserve, and hope that it will prove sufficient to teach you a lesson you sorely need. Had any man in my crew pulled the stunt you did, Kitty, he would not be alive to tell the tale. I need you to know that it is only your sex that spares you this fate, my dear. I am not a man to be trifled with."

"I know, Sir," she said humbly.

"Clearly you do not, Kitty, for you have done rather more than trifle with me, and you are about to pay the price for your ignorance. Now do you have anything to say to me?"

"I...am truly sorry, Sir. I deeply regret my actions."

"Not as much as you are going to. Well then. I'll have you over my knee to start off with, I think."

Kitty made what seemed like the longest walk of her life over to the Captain's chair and placed herself without complaint across the Captain's hard muscled lap. Without benefit of any warm-up, he reached for the hairbrush and laid straight in, emblazoning her arse with fast slaps. Kitty screwed her eyes up but tried to be strong, accepting in her heart that she had asked for this and resolving to take it compliantly. But it was difficult. The hairbrush was solid and made resounding thwacks against her juddering skin, bringing her to a state of mewling protest much sooner than she had expected. The Captain appeared deaf to her entreaties and continued to belabour her fair backside with enthusiasm, commenting all the while on its increasingly red hue and chiding her for her actions.

Kitty found the scolding coupled with the scalding of her buttocks hard to take; she twisted her neck up to see if the Captain was showing any signs of fatigue but he had not even broken a sweat.

"Oh, there is power in this arm that your previous whippings have only hinted at, Kitty," said the Captain, to her despair, as he continued to wield the brush with hateful assurance. Her resolutions crumbled and she let forth dolorous cries, trying without effect to twist away from his inescapable hail of blows so that he pinned her down with a hand to the small of her back and proceeded to perform the impossible by hitting even harder.

"Please...I can't take it..." she protested, her derriere ablaze, but the Captain chuckled grimly.

"You can, Kitty. You can take much more. And you're going to get much, much more."

She dissolved into defeated sobs, furious with herself at cracking so soon, and flopped limply over the Captain's thighs, taking her punishment in a spirit of agonised resignation.

After ten minutes of this treatment, the Captain put the brush aside and Kitty was led to hope that his powers of endurance were at an end. It was not so, though. He continued the spanking with his hand for another fifteen sizzling minutes, finally ending up running his hands over her throbbing rear, even moving them down to her sex, before ordering her to the corner.

"I have some paperwork to see to," he informed her. "You will remain there with your punished posterior on display and think about an adequate expression of contrition to be made once the rest of your correction has been completed."

Kitty's heart sank to her metaphorical boots at his 'rest of your correction' phrase, sure that she could not survive much more of this and dreading the next phase. She stood with her nose pressed to the wall and her hands clasped behind her neck, wondering what the Captain had in mind by an 'adequate expression of contrition' and hoping it was nothing too demanding. She could hear the scratching of his quill and the mortifying entrance of a handful of crew, exchanging words on shipboard business as if she were not there.

After half an hour of this, during which the heat of her rear began to abate a little, the Captain stood and called her out of the corner, bidding her kneel before his chair with her upper torso draped over the cushioned seat. She obeyed wordlessly, a frisson of pure fear running through her when he used a belt to secure her to the chair around her waist, and another running around the backs of her knees and the two front chair-legs. Something was going to hurt a lot, she surmised, so much so that she would be unable to keep still.

"Now for this next element of your punishment, Kitty, you are going to be reacquainted with your old friend, the strap. I'm sure you recall how very effectively it worked on you during your last encounter, hmmm?"

"Yes, Sir," faltered Kitty, gripping the sides of the chair until her knuckles whitened.

"I intend to make an indelible imprint, firstly on this ill-behaved little rump and secondly on your memories, Kitty. I mean to make it absolutely impossible for you to even consider insubordination without having a strong retrospective picture of this day's lesson. You will be mastered, Kitty, and the only part you have to play in the process will be to decide how quickly to submit. And if your arse had any say in the matter, I suspect it would tell you to make it...snappy."

On the word 'snappy', he picked up the leather strap and snapped it loudly, leaving Kitty in no doubt as to the sincerity of his lecture. She squealed and tried to writhe out of the tight embrace of the belts, but they held her fast.

The Captain administered the first loud stroke to the centre of her right cheek, smiling at her outraged yelp. This would be a salutory lesson indeed for his treacherous young mistress. He hoped it would be the last time he would have to punish her as severely as this, but somehow he imagined the scene would be oft-repeated. Kitty's spirit was too proud to take readily to submission. He thought about her proud spirit as he applied the strap with indomitable stamina for ten minutes of violent struggling and yelling and even swearing – for which infraction he added a further minute.

"Do we need extra discipline for manners, Kitty?" he asked unbendingly. "Should I repeat this strapping tomorrow?"

"No...please..., Sir....I won't....use bad language...again," she gasped, almost beyond speech with the furious relentlessness of her flaming backside. "I'm.....sorry."

"I very much hope so," drawled the Captain, flicking a final stinging slap to the middle of her left thigh and letting her gulp and hiccup her way back to a semblance of composure.

Kitty's behind and thighs were now of a shade much deeper and darker than any she had sported previously; she would, in all probability, still be somewhat red and certainly a trifle bruised tomorrow. Sitting would be uncomfortable for a couple of days at least. And this was even before his planned finale. He unbuckled the restraining belts and motioned to her to sit down on a hard wooden chair at the table.

"I can't..." she wailed. "It will hurt too much."

"Hmm, not as much as Martinez's knife on your throat though, I'll wager. Sit or I'll have you back over my knee, lady."

Kitty lowered herself gingerly on to the unyielding seat, wincing as her hot, sore bum made contact with the wood. The Captain placed a roll of parchment and his quill and ink before her. "You will write two hundred lines, Kitty, the line being 'I will obey Captain Prince in all matters and submit cheerfully to his authority'."

"What? I can't remember that!"

Impatiently, the Captain took up the quill and scribbled the first line down for her.

"There. Two hundred times, Kitty. I will be back to check on your progress periodically, and if I suspect that you have even thought about getting off that chair, you will be strapped again, and for longer this time, before being made to start the lines from the beginning again. Clear?"

"Yes, Sir," muttered Kitty, setting to work.

For the next two hours, Kitty stamped on her wild temptation to steal next door and talk to Tom, so serious was her fear of a repeat appointment with the Captain's strap. The round-handled cane still lay on the table and she considered 'losing' it, but she was perfectly sure that the consequences would be utterly unbearable if she did. She rolled her eyes and kept them on her parchment, scrawling away and wriggling uncomfortably on her taut-skinned swollen buttocks.

Her hand was horribly cramped by the time she finished and the Captain's appearance with a plate of food and pitcher of ale engendered something akin to relief. The food was good too – Spanish serrano ham, manchego cheese and fresh bread, with fresh fruit to follow. She tore into it lustfully, eyeing the Captain nervously while she ate. He was pacing the cabin silently, stroking his whiskers as if deep in thought.

Once Kitty's meal was despatched, the Captain stopped pacing and stood behind her chair, gripping the back so that his knuckles touched her shoulder blades.

"Well, then, my lady," he said abruptly. "How fares your pretty derriere now?"

"Still stinging quite a bit, Sir," she whispered, hoping against hope for a reprieve from the lethal weapon further up the table.

"Good," he said. "Now stand up and place yourself in front of my bureau, if you please." He moved away from her as she complied with his command and went next door. He returned a minute later with a wild-eyed and white-faced Tom, his ankles untied but wrists still bound. He was bundled down into the chair Kitty had recently vacated and told to note well what he was about to witness.

"You may well think that the treatment I intend to mete out to Kitty now is cruel and overly harsh," he told the shivering boy. "Indeed, I am sure that Kitty will think so herself. But what you need to bear in mind, Tom, is that it is as nothing...nothing at all...compared to what I have planned for you, boy."

Tom began to weep and Kitty cried, "Oh, spare him," at which outburst the Captain made a big show of pausing and contemplating her plea.

"Spare him, you say? What kind of message would that give to my crew? I cannot appear to show approbation to a whelp who has cheated and betrayed me. He must be punished, Kitty."

"But...be not so hard, Sir. His crimes are small compared with mine."

"Well, that is true enough, Kitty, and very honestly confessed. Perhaps you would like to make a bargain. I will add to your punishment in return for going a little easier on young Tom here. What do you say?"

"I...er..." Kitty stumbled. This was difficult to commit to when she had such a sketchy idea of what the Captain had in mind. It involved his cane, presumably, but she was not familiar with the effects of such an instrument and so could not predict how many strokes would be too many. A gurgle of terror from Tom's throat precipitated her boldly forward. "Yes, Sir. I will consent to that."

"You are a brave girl," said the Captain, one eyebrow raised. "For that I must give you credit. Well, Tom, it seems I am to show you some mercy. I will spare your life."

"Thank you, Captain," he croaked. "Thank you, Kitty."

"Madam to you," cautioned Prince sternly. "So, Madam, I will require you now to bend and grasp your ankles. Place your feet wider apart, Kitty. Yes." The Captain paused to admire the display; Rose's posterior still flame red and pleasantly exhibited, along with the engorged lips of her sex. He would have to take care not to accidentally strike it, or there might be a little less to look forward to abed tonight. He took the cane from the table and flexed it slowly, swooshing it through the air to assess its weight and speed. The sound was petrifying to Kitty, who whimpered.

"The cane, Kitty," said the Captain portentously. "I'll make no bones about it; this is painful. Very painful. If you can get through even two strokes without breaking your position I will be extremely surprised, and rather impressed. However, any deviation from your current stance will earn you additional strokes...so please bear that in mind. My initial thinking was to give you six strokes, but in return for Tom's life I am increasing it to twelve, plus any earned for disobedience during your caning. I expect you to count each stroke, Kitty, out loud, using the form, 'One, Sir; thank you, Sir' and to thank me once more at the end. Do you understand me?"

Kitty, already longing to be out of this high-maintenance position, sighed, "Yes, Sir."

Twelve strokes. How bad could it be? It would all be over in five minutes at the most. She would just need to grit her teeth and...

The Captain laid the cane across her burning cheeks and suddenly Kitty had the presentiment that it was going to be very, very bad indeed. He tapped it lightly against her skin a few times, scientific in his approach to inflicting pain.

"Breathe deeply, Kitty and do not move," she heard him say brusquely, then there was a hissing swish through the air then....had it hit her? She was unsure for a split-second, then the effect seared across her skin like a streak of white heat. It was impossible to bear. She moaned long and loud and stood upright, aware only of the need to protect her posterior from further strokes of this vicious implement.

"Ah, Kitty, as I thought. I'm afraid I'll have to add one to the total. And you haven't counted, nor thanked me yet," sighed the Captain, taking a rough hold of Kitty's upper arm and forcing her back into position. She struggled wildly, shrieking her dissent. "I see I had overestimated your capacity for obedience," he drawled. "Well, I have forgotten how painful it is, probably. I'll make it easier for you."

He put her back over the chair, fastening her into position with the belts as before.

"I will have to remind myself to cane you again, Kitty, so we can work on your posture and comportment during punishment," he said uncompromisingly. "Now can we have the count, please?"

"One, Sir. Thank you, Sir. Please don't give me any more. It will kill me, I know it."

"Ah, you can take much more than you think, my dear. Now brace yourself."

Another firecracking stroke lit up her body with convulsive pain. Unable to move, she instead put all her energies into exercising her vocal cords. "Aaaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee, oooooooo, oooooooo, two, Sir, thank you, Sir," she said.

A dim hope that she might become desensitised to the pain after the initial strokes sustained her through the next two stingers, but by the fifth it was becoming clear that this would not be the case and she was back to begging and pleading for mercy that she knew would not be forthcoming. The sixth stroke fell in the cruel spot between rear and thigh and once Kitty had gasped out the count, the Captain paused.

"Now you can take six more, Kitty, and spare Tom's life, or I can stop now and Tom walks the plank."

Tom could scarcely believe the bind Kitty was in. Watching her being caned was difficult, but he prayed with every fibre of his being that she would keep her promise and save his life.

"Kitty, I'm sorry," he blurted. "I'm so sorry. Please don't let me die."

The Captain tapped the cane against Kitty's well-striped rump. "Well, my dear?"

She took a moment to catch up with her frantic sobs, her head spinning with her need to get away from the biting agony of the cane. "Please stop!"

Tom yelled, "No!" and the Captain laughed.

"Not so brave now, my lady. I have made up my mind though. Twelve you requested, and twelve you shall have."

Kitty howled with anguish and somehow kept her sanity through six more cuts, plus one for jumping out of the way. "Thirteen, Sir. Thank you, Sir," she juddered, feeling mad alien sensations racing through her head and body. She was sure she would never sit again but she felt oddly, shakily exhilarated, as if she had crossed her own body's limits.

The Captain gave her a minute to regroup before releasing her and helping her to her feet.

"Now, my lady, I'm afraid I must make an example of you for the crew," he said into her ear. She whirled around, white-faced. "Don't fret; your arse won't take any more today. Come on."

He steered her outside. She gasped and tried to hide her naked private parts with her hands, but the Captain tutted. "No need for that."

He took her down a ladder to the foot of the aft-mast, where he ordered her to face the mast and raise her arms above her head. Her wrists were lashed to the wooden post with rope so that she stood with her crimson, tramlined backside on full display to the crew, and there she was to stay until sundown.

Kitty's only consolation was that the weather was reasonably cool; only her behind would burn that day. The pain and humiliation mingled to form an enormous cocktail of woe and she cried in her bonds for over an hour, until she heard the sounds of a judicial lashing occurring elsewhere on board and stopped to spare a thought for poor Tom, who was doubtless on the receiving end of the cat now. At least she had eluded that fate, though she was not sure how it could be any worse than that wicked cane.

It was while she was thus engaged, naked and exhibited, that she made a resolution never to cross the Captain again. His concept of mercy was so limited, it just wasn't worth it. She would lead a quiet life, endeavouring to please him in bed and keep him from entertaining any suspicions of her. She would stay in the cabin and polish up the brasses. And perhaps, one day, she would be free. He may be apprehended or killed in a fight. She would let her destiny decide for her.