Probation Period Pt. 01

A few times she has come hard up against the limits set by Penny and even gone beyond them, assuming that this would be precisely the kind of borderline experience her slave seeks and ultimately wants. Or has that assumption in reality been nothing but a convenient rationalisation to justify her own sadism, fuelled by her own growing frustration? While being honest with herself, she acknowledges that she has consciously been trying to push Penny into using her safe word a few times lately, but of course the stubborn brat has not done her that favour. It seems as though her slave ultimately stands to gain the upper hand in this exotic game.

Penny has probably long since realized how Victoria feels about her. Yet, the question remains how she will deal with this knowledge. Perhaps Penny has waited all this time only for a clear and unambiguous sign from Victoria to trade the implacable and aloof mistress for a loving one? No. It has been Penny's express wish from the very beginning to experience abject submission and nothing else. She has, without question, enjoyed being almost unconditionally at another woman's mercy, just as Victoria herself has been intoxicated by the power granted to her. Today, however, the game ends with the expiry of the six months long probation period and all of her imagined power culminates in nothing but helpless impotence.

Victoria claws her fingers into the silky bed sheet with the thought that everything could be over after today being unbearable, despite her realisation that that outcome might actually be the best thing for both of them. Given how their relationship has come to a head recently, continuing as before for sure is not an option.

BEFORE

"Look what I have here!" Victoria waved what appeared to be a standard DIN A4 envelope in her hand. Nonetheless, Penny gasped for she suspected that the envelope's contents could only be of evil portent for her. She was already out of breath anyway, being in the final phase of the fitness training regime Victoria had prescribed: struggling up a simulated incline on the cross trainer.

Since Victoria had brought home a body fat scale and thus revealed Penny to supposedly be in the 'skinny/fat' portion of the population, she had, in addition to yoga sessions, also required a demanding workout to now be a part of Penny's daily routine as well. At least she was allowed to exercise without annoying shackles, if one disregarded the fact that she was always leashed to the respective training device by her ever-present collar.

Victoria retrieved two tickets in bright red and black from the envelope.

"These are VIP tickets for 'Europe's biggest fetish and BDSM Convention' - and that's where you and I will be going! What do you think? Are you excited?"

"I'm thrilled," Penny claimed with very little enthusiasm, which was not solely a result of her physical exertion. In fact, she had wanted to attend this event for quite some time, but unfortunately, based on recent experience, she had cause to suspect that there existed a slight discrepancy between her and Victoria's ideas regarding the manner in which she would be attending.

"You do have the terms of our agreement in mind?"

"Don't worry, no one will recognize you," Victoria assured her blithely, only to continue with a malicious smile: "However, what's good for the goose is good for the gander ..."

Penny did not find out what Victoria had meant with her remark until a week later, when they drove their big SUV to the convention venue and parked it in a secluded spot of the fenced parking lot, where they were shielded from view by dense vegetation.

"Here we are," Victoria informed her silent front passenger. "Showtime!"

Over the past months, nearly every time when they were out in the car, Penny was required to wear a long coat with its deep hood pulled fully over her head, hiding her risqué outfits and the harness gag which Victoria had always insisted on her wearing since their very first car ride together.

In the aftermath of that momentous trip, Victoria had informed her slave in no uncertain terms (and with the help of a judiciously applied crop) that henceforth she would gladly dispense with 'unqualified comments' about her 'dynamic' driving style. Actually, Penny felt quite safe with Victoria behind the wheel, even though she liked to max out the eight-cylinder's acceleration power. She somehow mastered even the most confusing of traffic situations with somnambulistic confidence, seemingly to be intimately aware of the car's dimensions down to the millimetre, just as if she had been driving a taxi in a Southeast Asian metropolis for years.

Victoria leaned across to Penny, pulled the hood back and off her head, then opened the buckles of the harness that held the big red ball gag in her captive's mouth.

"Spit it out!"

Penny lowered her head to her chest and began to move her lower jaw back and forth, while, as always fascinated, Victoria listened to her muffled groans. Already spread wide open by the gag, her mouth resisted Penny's dogged efforts to open it any further and use her tongue to push the huge silicone ball past the barrier formed by her teeth. Finally, she gave up her futile attempts and looked up at Victoria pleadingly.

"Ih can'h!"

"You can't spit out the gag?" Victoria inquired with false regret, then giggled with glee as Penny shook her head dejectedly.

"Excellent! Wait, I'll free your hands!"

First, she opened the lock which attached Penny's handcuffs to the front ring of her chastity belt, then unlocked the cuffs themselves. With the use of her hands, Penny finally managed to extract the ball gag from her mouth using gentle twisting movements.

"Ahh!" she moaned when she was finally able to relax her jaw muscles that had become stretched and sore during the half-hour drive. Yet, she was only granted a short respite. Victoria extracted a sports bag from the trunk and put it in front of her feet, then opened the zipper and removed a black leather armbinder. Penny - with a sinking feeling in her stomach - recognized it as the strictest one in her small but fine collection: the particularly tight one, that reached almost to her shoulders whose buckles were secured with small locks.

"OK, take off the coat, then put your hands behind your back!"

"Yes, Mistress."

Victoria waited impatiently for Penny to wriggle out of her coat in the cramped space. Beneath it, a gleaming black latex catsuit was revealed; encasing Penny's luscious curves like a second skin. The way her ringed nipples and her body's every contour showed under the shiny rubber layer made it clear that no other garment had found room between the suit and her skin and so, consequently, she wore her shiny, stainless steel chastity belt over it. With squeaking sounds she slid forward on the seat's leather, then turned her back towards Victoria and venting a resigned sigh extended her arms behind her.

Once more, Victoria admired how effortlessly Penny could bring her forearms together, including her elbows. Undoubtedly, in addition to regular gymnastics, Penny's delightful slim figure also played an important role here. Victoria's more athletic physique made the same pose a rather strenuous affair, despite years of yoga. However, Penny's natural flexibility did her little good, since it only incited Victoria to push her bondage to limits that even she could barely endure.

Today was no exception: When Victoria finally was done, Penny could not suppress a throaty moan. Her elbows were pressed firmly against each other by the armbinder, laced to the max and forcing her shoulders back so far that she had to keep her back ramrod straight and stick out her chest, as if she wanted to draw attention to her ringed nipples. These were now prominently displayed, showing blatantly under the thin layer of latex. Without the idiosyncratic, conditional reflex that somehow made her body transform the aching tension in her joints into sexual arousal, she would have considered her position painfully uncomfortable, but as it was she enjoyed the severe bondage - at least for the moment.

Even the anxious question of how long she would have to helplessly endure her predicament did not dampen her lust, but stoked it instead! It was too late anyway. The small locks with which Victoria had secured the buckles of the holding straps crossing above Penny's breasts and going around her wrists and upper arms ensured that she was completely at Victoria's mercy. Not even any compassionate soul they might encounter at the convention would be able to take pity and free her against mistress's will.

"It doesn't get any tighter than that! Ha! That will show them," Victoria enthused.

"In case it looks as tight as it feels, they'd better be impressed. I'm glad you for one are enjoying it."

Victoria's face became serious.

"Can you endure it? Or should I loosen the armbinder?"

For a moment, Penny wavered between reason and arousal, then her masochism gained the upper hand.

"Make me endure it!"

"Good girl," Victoria praised her and gently stroked her head. Penny snuggled her cheek against Victoria's fingers but the intimate moment lasted only briefly, then Victoria withdrew her hand and reached into the sports bag again. The leather object she drew out this time made Penny flinch.

"Oh, no. Please don't make me wear that again, Mistress!"

"Oh yes! You most certainly will. You said you didn't want to be recognized."

"But then I won't be able to see anything at all!" Penny complained.

"Really? I wouldn't have noticed it myself, but now that you mention it ... I'm afraid you'll have to live with that. Now, bend the head so that I can put the helmet on!"

"No! I don't want to!"

Penny shook her head wildly in rebellion and struggled madly against her restraints to avoid what was coming, but to no avail. Victoria looked on with amusement for a moment, then her hand shot forward and grabbed the hair at the back of Penny's head.

"Ow! You're hurting me!"

"Stop this nonsense immediately and hold still! I'd really hoped we were beyond this stage." Victoria maintained her iron hold and stared sternly into Penny's face until she gave up her resistance and lowered her eyes in surrender.

"I'm sorry, Mistress."

"OK, apology accepted just this one last time. But I warn you, no more antics!"

Victoria loosened her grip, whereupon Penny tilted her head back as far as her collar would permit and allowed the tight, black leather helmet to be pulled over it without further ado. Apart from two metal-reinforced holes for the nostrils and a larger one for the mouth, the mask had no other openings. Victoria adjusted the fit of it until everything was seated perfectly, then she turned to the lacing at the back and starting from the crown, she pulled the criss-crossing laces taut through the chromed eyelets.

When she reached the bottom edge of the collar at the nape of Penny's neck, she repeated the whole process with a vengeance, before securing everything with a knot. When she was finally done, the soft leather stretched tautly around Penny's skull so that her facial features were nearly visible beneath it. Finally, Victoria closed the integral collar over the knot of the lacing and locked it snugly around her neck, so that here, too, no unauthorised person stood a chance to free her.

Penny endured the whole procedure without uttering a single sound; only her hectic breaths whistling through the small nostril holes were clearly audible. Fortunately, she did not suffer from claustrophobic attacks; otherwise she could not have tolerated having her world reduced to the oppressive confines of the helmet which neither allowed her to see anything, nor to hear particularly well, muffling all ambient sounds to the point where they were almost drowned out by the noise of the blood rushing in her ears.

As it was, the awareness of her almost complete helplessness triggered quite different emotions. Her subliminal but nevertheless undeniable anxiety added to her excitement and the thrill she so desperately craved. Yet, up to now she was still able to plead for mercy or help, an oversight that Victoria would surely correct soon. With this realisation, she involuntarily pressed her thighs together and groaned throatily.

"Are you alright? Are you getting enough air?" Victoria's loud question penetrated through the hood and jolted Penny out of her masochistic bliss.

"Yes, no problem, I'm fine," she replied impulsively, being well aware of the foreseeable consequences of her statement. But even if she had tried a tactical lie, the end result would probably be the same.

"Perfect! Open your mouth as much as you can!"

At the same moment Penny felt a touch on her lips. She willingly opened her mouth, fighting against the resistance of the helmet. Instead of the expected ball gag - for which she likely would not have been able to pry her teeth far enough apart anyway - she felt a flaccid, silicon rubber bladder pushed into her mouth.

Penny shivered fitfully, but it was too late to protest by this point. Victoria was already stuffing the wings of the inflatable gag into the space between her teeth and cheeks and its central partition behind her front teeth. It was her strictest gag, the only one that reliably stopped all attempts at speech - and the only one she was truly afraid of. Not quite as afraid as of the electric shocks her steel collar frequently meted out to keep her from making any noise at all, but it was close.

Although she would never admit it to Victoria, Penny loved being gagged. Well, she did not exactly love the inherent discomfort and humiliation, but without a gag, her bondage just did not feel complete since a crucial element was missing. As long as she could talk and protest or beg, she felt compelled to actually do so. Only enforced speechlessness relieved her of this perceived obligation and allowed her to revel in her helplessness.

Despite its size, she had almost gotten used to the ball gag. It was Victoria's declared goal to keep her gagged in one form or another for days on end, which is why she was 'encouraged' to practice with ever larger gags over ever longer periods of time - a training that Penny secretly enjoyed, although the butterfly gag was an exception. From her sorrow- as well as lustful experiences she knew how extreme it could be. Similar to doing a bungee jump after looking into the abyss, facing up to wearing it once more required a conscious effort on her part each and every time. That is not to say, however, that Victoria would have given her a choice in the matter in the first place.

After the various sections of the inflatable gag had found their proper places within her mouth, Penny felt its wide leather panel begin to press onto her lips, followed by the many ensnaring straps of the head harness designed to secure it immovably in front of her mouth. Since the gag - like most other pieces of her slave equipment - had been made to measure for her according to Victoria's exacting specifications, each strap sported only a few holes, so that harness could either be fastened 'too tight' or 'damned much too tight' in Penny's considered opinion.

Incidentally, Victoria seemed to be in a rather merciful mood today, although this probably did not bode well with respect to the length of time that she would be forced to tolerate it. Besides, Penny was very well aware that her evaluation of the situation could only be preliminary: the gag had not been inflated yet, which meant that the pressure its expansion would exert on her jaws and therefore a variable decisive for the overall assessment was still unknown.

Penny was not left guessing for long. Victoria screwed the hose connection of a small hand pump onto the valve protruding through the mouth shield and then squeezed the bulb. After some energetic squeezes, Penny began to protest incomprehensibly, yet enthusiastically. Victoria paused for a moment and tilted her head as if she was listening hard, but shook her head regretfully.

"Still much too loud. As long as you can make such a spectacle, you're not really gagged."

Immediately the volume of Penny's protest doubled. Victoria was not impressed.

"You're only confirming that I am right!"

Penny groaned in anguish. A few more squeezes reduced her whining by as many decibels to only a quiet whimper and guaranteed the desired state of silence. In the meantime, the rubber bladder in her oral cavity seemed to have assumed the dimensions of a billiard ball. It pressed her tongue down and completely filled her mouth to the last corner, but without expanding down her throat and endangering her breathing.

At the same time, its side wings distended her cheeks, so that without the constricting mask she would have resembled a chipmunk after a particularly fruitful session of foraging for nuts. She hated it when she looked so ridiculous, but Victoria seemed to enjoy the sight for some reason. Fortunately, under her tight helmet only a slight curvature of her cheeks showed, which under the prevailing circumstances was a cold comfort indeed to Penny.

Before Victoria removed the hand pump, she checked the fit of the gag, trying to slip her fingers under the mouth shield and the straps of the head harness. As Penny would have wanted to confirm to her, if she had been able to do so, everything was once again 'damned much too tight'. Victoria played it safe once more and secured the buckles with small locks, then petted Penny's leather-encased head.

"Almost there ..."

Victoria took a pair of lockable, thick leather cuffs with approximately 30 centimetres of connecting chain out of the sports bag and a moment later had them fastened around Penny's ankles, then came a second, longer chain with a sturdy leather hoop at one end, quite possibly designed to keep a cranky pit bull rather than a petite woman in check. Victoria clipped it to the front ring of the hidden steel collar, which projected through an eyelet in her latex suit. In combination with the collar of the hood directly above, the wide steel band made tilting her head almost impossible.

After she had prepared her slave girl, Victoria was finally ready to take care of her own appearance. She folded down the vanity mirror and checked her make-up. This time she had opted for a casual outfit because she did not want to steal Penny's thunder, or attract any wannabe slaves. Unfortunately, even in jeans, T-shirt and biker jacket she could hardly be considered a wallflower. However, for her to change her spots to the extent as to swap her high heeled boots for Birkenstock sandals was inconceivable.

After a few last corrections to her hair she was ready. She circled the car and helped Penny climb out.

"Come!"

With insecure steps Penny had to follow the constant pull of her collar. Blind, almost deaf and with her arms fastened into the armbinder behind her back, it was a challenge to simply maintain her balance on the high heels of her laced boots. In addition, Victoria set a pace she could hardly match, thanks to her stride being shortened by her ankle hobble chain. It required her full concentration not to stumble on the uneven pavement of the parking lot, so that she missed the sudden slackening of the pull on her leash and bumped into Victoria, who had stopped in front of the ticket booth at the entrance to the exhibition hall. A muffled, many-voiced laugh penetrated her helmet, drawing her attention to the fact that she had messed up their grand entrance in front of a larger audience.

"Watch it!" Victoria hissed angrily into her ear.

How? Unable to utter a hot retort, Penny felt herself turning red. Suddenly she was glad that her face was concealed from curious observers. They passed the checkpoint without further incident and left the entrance area, then at the threshold to the main hall they paused briefly.