Time to Heal Read online

  He had been feeling concerned ever since he had entered the establishment called “Mother Griffith’s” and saw that all the females inside seemed to be of the same small, weak variety as the ones aboard the Mother Ship. But he had been telling himself that surely when Emmeline appeared, she would be the exception. However, this was proving not to be the case.

  “You are the Countess?” he managed to get out at last, still staring down at her. “But how can you beat me?”

  “Oh, I can beat you all right.” Her chin tilted defiantly and he saw a gleam of something that looked very like fury in the large luminous eyes behind the black leather mask she wore. “Come with me and you shall see that.”

  To his utter surprise, she reached up—though it was a very long reach—and gripped him firmly by the ear. Then she yanked his head down and began dragging him up the stairs to the second floor.

  Of course, she didn’t have the physical strength to force him to go anyplace on her own but Skahr found himself so surprised by both her diminutive stature and her fierce demeanor that he came meekly along with her without voicing a word of protest.

  “This way,” she proclaimed when they reached the second-floor landing. With another tug on his ear, she led him down a hallway and into a room.

  When the door closed behind them, she let go of his ear and Skahr straightened up and looked around uncertainly at his new surroundings. The space was small and the walls were painted crimson with some kind of black matting on the floor. Standing directly in the center of the room was a long wooden bench, padded with leather which looked to be about waist-high.

  Hanging on one wall were a variety of implements which he could only guess the usage of. Some looked like the branches of trees stripped of their leaves, others like long, straight walking sticks, and still others were flat and black and as broad as his hand. There were also a variety of whips. What could all this be for?

  He was soon to find out.

  “All right—down with your trousers and over the spanking bench you go!” declared “The Countess.”

  “What? I do not think—” Skahr began, even more startled than when she had grabbed him by the ear.

  But the Countess was apparently not in the mood to listen to protests. Without asking, she planted both small hands on the small of Skahr’s back and pushed him over to the padded bench. She pressed him down over it and reached around the front of his waist to unfasten the strange leg coverings called “trousers” which he found so constricting.

  “Wait!” Skahr moved to stop her but she was too quick for him. Before he knew it, his trousers and the underpants he was also wearing were down around his ankles and he was bending bare-arsed over the padded bench.

  “Now then, you’ve been a very, very bad boy and you shall be punished soundly,” the Countess proclaimed. With that, she picked one of the implements from off the wall and began thrashing his bare buttocks.

  When she had first seen him, all Emmeline could think was, for once, Rose was not exaggerating. He was seven feet tall if he was an inch and the most massive, muscular man she had ever seen in her life—including the Strong Man in the traveling freak carnival one of her governesses had taken her to see when she was only ten.

  Also, he had a frightening scar that ran from his hairline, right across his face, narrowly missing an eye. And speaking of his eyes, they were strangely light in the center and circled with concentric rings of blue, getting darker as they reached the outer edge. She had never seen anything like them before.

  All in all he was one of the strangest and most frightening-looking men Emmeline had ever seen. He might have made another woman back off or cower in fear. But she had made herself a promise after the ragged man with the gray teeth had attacked her in the park—she had sworn never to be afraid of a man again and she didn’t mean to start now.

  Though her new client’s massive build and scarred visage were terrifying to behold, Emmeline refused to show a moment’s hesitation. He could be here for only one reason—he wanted to be ordered around and punished—dominated, was the word Mother Griffith used to describe their punishing treatment of the Jonnies. So Emmeline intended to give him what he wanted and dominate him—hard.

  Accordingly, she had taken him by the ear as though he was a naughty schoolboy and led him up to the punishment room. The huge, scarred man had not protested but had followed meekly along, which only reinforced her idea of how he wanted to be treated.

  Once up in the room, Emmeline got his trousers down and bent him over the spanking bench in short order.

  As she went to the wall to select her instrument, she was still filled with irritation and worry for her son and anger over the way her entire life had been derailed by Torrington’s attack. She wished it was he that she was about to punish—her attacker. Her rapist. She was glad Richard had killed him for her, but she wished in that moment that she could have him back, bent over the spanking bench like the big, scarred man was, so she could make him pay. She wished that she could beat him.

  Grabbing a switch from the array of instruments on the wall, she began beating her new client as hard as she could.

  Mother Griffith insisted that her switches be birch because of the wood’s special springy quality and she had Nick go out and pick them fresh every day, so they never lost their elasticity and snap. They stung most dreadfully—at least if the yelping and squirming of her regular Jonnies was to be believed—and they left a series of thin, red lines on the soft, white rumps of those they came in contact with.

  But no matter how hard she swung the birch switch, the massive, scarred man lying over the spanking bench didn’t move an inch. Neither did he yelp or wince or beg as most of her regulars did. He just stayed there, as still as a boulder, saying not a word of protest as she beat him as hard as she could.

  Also—and this was even stranger than his apparent indifference to the birching—his skin took no wounds from the switch. No thin red lines appeared on the hard, muscular buttocks displayed by his submissive posture—in fact, no marks at all were visible.

  At last Emmeline threw down the birch switch, panting. Clearly she needed something with more clout to make this new Jonnie react.

  Going to the wall, she picked out a long black riding crop and slipped the loop over her wrist. Taking a firm grip on the handle, she took up a stance and resumed the beating, slashing at the man’s backside as hard as she could.

  But again, even her most vicious blows made no mark and the man didn’t move an inch or make a single sound of protest. She might as well have been beating a brick wall for all the response she got from him.

  What was going on? Emmeline’s arm was beginning to ache but it was clear she was having no effect on this giant, scarred man at all. He just leaned there, over the spanking bench, looking as calm as though she hadn’t been whipping him as hard as she could for the past ten minutes.

  Emmeline began to feel uneasy. Something had to be done. If she failed to give satisfaction, the man might refuse to pay. He might even get angry. And though Emmeline had promised herself she wouldn’t be afraid of a man ever again, she would be foolish indeed to enrage a fellow this size.

  In desperation, she went back to the wall and chose a long, thin, bamboo cane with a solid steel core. This was an instrument which could break a man’s bones if handled incorrectly. Emmeline had heard that Rose had once broken a Jonny’s wrist with it and there had been all Hell to pay afterwards. She had been afraid to use it after hearing that story but now it seemed like her only option.

  Gripping the cane firmly, she hefted it in one hand. There was a weight and gravity to this tool of punishment which gave it an extra level of threat. When she swung it, there was a low, deadly whistling sound and then a flat crack as it connected with the waiting buttocks.

  There, she thought triumphantly. Surely that will leave a mark!

  It would have left a bruise on any other Jonny but, to her dismay, there was no sign that the huge man had been hit at all