Mary rubbed her hands over her bare arms where goosebumps had appeared. She didn’t tremble only from the chill in the cool November air. She shook with anticipation. Bare-bottomed spankings had become the norm in her relationship with Ben, and though she thought she should be used to them by now, the fact remained that they always hurt, especially when they were of the more serious sort as the one today would be.

It was nearly dark, and Ben would be returning from work any minute. Earlier in the day, he’d stopped by the restaurant, led her to the private corner of the kitchen, and informed her that she was due for a spanking. Recalling the way he’d growled in her ear to be ready for him made a shiver of half-fear, half-delight skitter down her spine. She knew what that meant. It meant to wait in her room wearing only her punishment garb and to expect to have her bottom set on fire.

Now she was home, and there was nothing to do but wait for the inevitable. Her stomach dipped when she heard the front door squeak open. It thudded shut, and a short time later Ben’s boots were on the stairs. The footsteps became louder and louder until they reached the door and he entered.

Upon perusing her person from head to toe, he said, “Mary, I see you obeyed me.”

“Of course. Do I ever not?” She asked it with a slight smile.

“Occasionally you don’t,” he responded, a lilt of amusement in his voice as well. “Such as yesterday. I’ve told you before not to place the meals directly in the prisoners’ hands at the jail. You must deliver them to me or the marshal.”

She sighed. “The dinner crowd was large. I didn’t have much time to spend away. When you weren’t there at the jail, I didn’t see the harm in quickly giving the prisoner his meal and getting back to the restaurant.”

Ben placed something small on top of the dresser, and Mary couldn’t make out what it was. As he rolled up his sleeves, he said, “That prisoner escaped from the county jail, and he could have used you to escape from this one. Worse, you could have gotten hurt in the process. You got lucky that all he did was take the food.”

Mary knew she’d acted foolishly by rushing through the delivery. No one was even supposed to enter the back room where the cells were located without gaining access through Ben or the marshal, but she had been unusually busy. “My business will suffer if I’m away too long. Don’t you care about that?”

Ben crossed his arms in front of his chest. “That’s a rather unfair question to ask me, don’t you think?”

“I suppose,” she admitted, dropping to a sitting position on the bed. Ben had gone above and beyond to help her and her business. 

“The thing is, Mary, I care more about your safety than your success, and besides, you can’t be successful if you’re injured or worse.”

“You’re right, of course,” she said, looking down at her hands. Looking back, she realized she could have paid a friend or neighbor to deliver the meal and wait at the marshal’s office until one of the lawmen arrived to admit them to the back.

“So you agree you deserve punishment?”

She hated answering this question. “Yes.”

“I consider putting your safety at risk the most egregious error, so it deserves a harsh punishment.” He picked up the item he’d placed on the dresser and held it up.

It was then that she recognized it as a finger of peeled ginger from her kitchen. She squinted at it. “What’s that for?”

“It’s part of your punishment,” Ben said. “I will place this up your lovely bottom hole. It will burn something fierce, but it won’t harm you.”

She gasped, scandalized by the very idea of being punished in her most private channel. It shouldn’t have surprised her, though. Ben never neglected to caress and stimulate every part of her, and he’d previously punished her pussy, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to believe he would punish her bottom in such a way.

“Wherever did you hear of such a thing?” she asked breathlessly.

“I like to read,” he said, as though that adequately explained it.

He stalked toward her, holding the finger of ginger. “Turn around so that you’re lying on the bed.”

She stared up at him, unable to move. She was still coming to terms with the fact that in not too long, she would be enduring an herb from her kitchen being inserted into her bottom. It was in moments like these when she was about to experience punishment from her husband that she realized how fearsome he was. He was not a man to be trifled with, no matter his wit or capacity for forgiveness. Certain lines could not be crossed, and he was as immovable as a brick wall when it came to her safety. He had been since the day they’d met.  

Ben frowned down at her when she didn’t move. “Do as I say, don’t argue, and don’t delay for another second. This is punishment for putting your safety at risk, and I won’t tolerate disobedience.”

She groaned, but she was spurred into turning around so that she laid on her stomach on the bed. Ben lifted up her gown and placed it over her back, causing a rush of cool air to brush over her bare cheeks.

“Reach back and spread your bottom cheeks,” he ordered.

This was nothing new. It was a common step in the more serious punishments when he wanted to get her into a submissive state of mind. Revealing her bottom hole and entrance to her womanhood to his eyes always caused her a rush of humiliation that was only offset slightly by the thrill of arousal it provided.

She obediently reached back and parted her bottom cheeks, squeezing her eyes shut as she did.

He stroked his finger over her rosette. “This is a punishment that’s been used for a very long time on naughty females. It’s called figging. In Ancient Greece, the punisher would bend a recalcitrant female over a bench and restrain her hands and legs so that she couldn’t move at all. Then he would place peeled gingerroot into her bottom and watch her writhe. She would wiggle her bottom and squeeze, trying everything she could to stop the burning, but only time makes it fade.”

“How long?” she gasped, both shocked and aroused by the image that had formed in her mind of the sadistic punishment.

“Thirty minutes or so, but I will only make you endure ten. After that I will remove the gingerroot and spank you.”

She moaned. “It seems as though the ginger is punishment enough. Must you spank me also?”

“Yes. Be glad I am not like the old masters. If a female was especially bad, the master would whip her bottom while the gingerroot plugged her. Tell me, when you’re getting your bottom spanked, what do you do?”

“Cry.”

“What else? Think about what you do with your body.”

She thought about her previous spankings. “I clench my fists.”

“That’s right. You also clench your bottom, trying to brace against the pain. Well, if you have a gingerroot in your bottom hole, every time you squeeze your bottom, you will stimulate the root against your channel, setting the fire anew. The best way to accept such pain is to relax. That’s hard to do when you’re getting your bottom whipped, which is why I’m only going to spank you afterward.”

“Generous of you,” she said, still holding her bottom cheeks open and waiting for the inevitable punishment.

“Now’s not a good time for sarcasm,” he said. To prove his point, he pressed the root against her entrance. Because it was relatively thin, it slid right into her.

She involuntarily clenched. All she felt was cool moisture, an odd but not unpleasant sensation. He had carved it in such a way that it was lodged firmly inside her. She couldn’t squeeze it out—not that she was desperate to. She didn’t understand how this could be considered even mildly uncomfortable, let alone painful.

As though reading her mind, he said, “Wait for it.”

The sensation started small. It was mild and a little warm, but not painful. Then it began to grow, and after another half a minute she started to panic. The burn was increasing very gradually but showed no sign of relenting.

“Oh, Ben, it’s getting worse and worse,” she said. “You’re sure this won’t cause damage?”

“Aye,” he said. “You may let go of your bottom now and hold tight to the quilt.”

She wasted no time obeying. When her cheeks rested together again, they seemed to trap the heat of the ginger inside of her. It grew even hotter, and despite what she had learned, she clenched her bottom, trying to alleviate the pain.

“Oh, my god!” she cried. The burn seemed to double at once. “Please, Ben, take it out. It burns like nothing I’ve felt before.”

“You will feel that burn for every one of the ten minutes,” he said without mercy. “It’s been two minutes, so settle in.”

She thought of the ancient females bent over and tied to benches, unable to move for the allotted amount of time, and she considered her current predicament. The heat was intense in her bottom, and it spread out, warming her pussy and causing a throbbing in her belly. Her body wanted to flex and squeeze, but every time she gave into her impulses, the heat would magnify. The thing she felt most unable to do—relaxing—was the only way to keep the pain steady.

Ben rubbed her back, a soothing gesture amongst the intensity. “You will never deliver meals yourself to another prisoner.” It was a statement of fact. He knew he was making his point well enough by this unusual punishment.

“No, I won’t,” she panted. It was true. If she ever felt tempted, all she had to do was remember being bent over the bed and forced to accept a figging. It felt a thousand times more humiliating than a spanking. While being spanked, Ben was actually engaged in the activity. But during this, all he did was watch her endure the discomfort. It was a subtle but striking difference.

The sensation intensified to a severe level. She moaned and rocked from side to side, unconcerned about how she must look with her bare bottom exposed, a gingerroot plugging her anus, and her hips knocking against the bed in a lurid dance of pain.

She never got used to the heat from the gingerroot, and the burn never abated. But, true to his word, Ben removed it after ten minutes, and she might have felt a moment of relief, but the heat had not dissipated by the time Ben sat down on the bed and positioned her for a spanking. Her bottom hole still throbbing, he straddled her over one of his denim-clad thighs. He grasped her hips and pulled her toward him, causing her bare pussy to scrape against the ribbed material of his trousers.

“Ah!” she cried out, as the sensation sent bursts of shockwaves throughout her body. He pressed her down so that her upper body rested fully on the bed and clamped his left hand on her hip.

His powerful right palm connected with her bare bottom in sharp, staccato swats—whack whack whack—with no pretense at a warmup or easing her into it. This was clearly punishment, and though she’d been spanked plenty of times before, that didn’t make this particular spanking any easier to endure. This was especially true because the juices from the ginger were still inside of her. Every time a swat connected, it ignited the burn.

“Oh, please, Ben, not so fast. Not so hard!” she cried out, knowing it would do little good.

She was right. If anything, the pace increased. “You. Will. Not. Disobey. Me,” he responded, punctuating every word with a spank on the fleshiest parts of her bottom.

Her entire bottom, inside and out, was on fire. She couldn’t squirm more than an inch, and she knew better than to reach back to block the swats. That would only make the punishment longer. She cried out and kicked her legs, doing whatever she could to endure the spanking for however long Ben intended to make it last.

Like the figging, the pain only seemed to increase with no sign of abating, and she felt frantic. This was by far the most serious spanking Ben had ever given her. She knew it was because he cared, but that was hard to realize when he was causing her bottom to burn like it was on fire.

A sob bubbled out of her, and tears squeezed out of the corners of her closed eyes. “Ow, please. I’m sorry. I won’t disobey you again,” she blubbered.

“Let’s make sure of that,” he responded, continuing to punish her poor bottom.

She was sobbing now—loud, open-mouthed wails that would have woken the neighbors if they were any closer.

“Cry all you like,” he said. “I know this hurts. It’s supposed to.”

***

Don’t miss the rest of this scene or any of the others. Head on over to Amazon to get your copy.