“I just wanted to feel safe.”
“Then talk to me.”
“You were…”
My arguments are cut off as he picks me up, carries me through to the bedroom and pins me down on the bed face down. He’s not going to spank me this time. This time he’s going to do what he said he’d do. He’s going to thrash me.
He uses an implement which has no parallel in the human realm. Imagine it as something between a leather vine and the physical embodiment of pain. I catch sight of it over my shoulder, a big black curled thing, a thick-laced handle in his hand, the rest of it an intimidating six feet, at least. It is not floppy, but also not hard. It is whippiness incarnate.
“You will obey me,” he repeats himself, bringing the lash through the air with a singing vengeance. I feel it cut across my ass, a thick and stinging thing which wraps around the side of my hip. At first, it hurts. A second later, it really fucking hurts. It feels like he whipped me with pure fire. I scream out, hoping that he might show me mercy.
He does not.
He lashes me again, and again.
“You could have been killed before I ever had the chance to find you,” he lectures. “Twice now, I have found you on the verge of disaster and kept you safe. And you reward me by sneaking off, abandoning our plans…”
I lose his lecturing in the swirling, stinging heat which is being lashed into me. I have never been punished like this before. I never knew it was possible to feel this intensity of shame and soreness at the same time. I know I deserve it, and that means I can’t fight it, can’t pretend as though I should be shown mercy. I tried arguing before this started, but he is right.
I have come close to complete oblivion twice now, and each time I thought I was making a good choice. The lash lands again and I am certain in that moment that I could not make a good choice if I had to.
I lose track of how many times he brings the lash down. It curls in a devastatingly fresh way every time, catching the outside of my cheeks and the insides of my thighs.
It is not long before my resistance, my pride, my hope for being able to get through this without breaking down, all disappear. I give in to the feeling, because that is all that is left besides Zed’s stern displeasure.
I lie sobbing on the bed.
I hear him sigh. “I do not like punishing you, Ava. You are too delicate and too vulnerable, but you must learn. Whatever danger you might think you are in with me, there is far more waiting for you elsewhere.”
He runs his hand over my rear in an effort to soothe me, but his touch only reignites the flame. I whimper and yelp and pull away.
“Ava,” he murmurs my name again. I hear my pain in his voice, and I know he truly did not like doing what he just did. I am not aroused, and I don’t think he is either. This wasn’t for fun. This was because I fucked up. I am going to feel this for a very long time.
He lifts me up and pulls me into his lap, carefully and gently, stroking my hair.
“You’re a very bad girl,” he says, but not in an accusatory, angry way. He says it more in a way which suggests it is a simple, inevitable, inescapable fact. “I’m surprised Earth turned one like you out. Last I heard they were working on strongly regimented people incapable of rebellion.”
“They’re trying,” I whimper.
“I doubt I will succeed where they have failed, but I want to keep you alive.”
“Me too.”
He holds me in silence for a while. The only sound in the ship is my occasionally sniffling. The majority of the tears have dried, but there’s remnants of pain and shame that I think might have been implanted inside me with that wicked thing.
“I’ve never punished anybody before,” he muses. “I’ve spanked plenty, but never had to actually teach someone to behave.”
“Really? You seem like a natural.”
“You bring it out in me,” he says, his voice dipping into that low growl again. “I was going to leave you to your fate and choice, but I couldn’t. You have a hold over me, little human.”
“You were going to let them eat me?”
“No. Yes. No. Of course not. But for a moment, it seemed as though it would serve you right. The lash served you better though.”
We are both confused. I don’t think Zed ever intended to care about anybody. He’s an opportunistic scammer. And me, I don’t think I ever thought I’d be an explorer. I’m not good at it.