Four Tamings: A Novel of Erotic Domination

Chapter Four-1

Chapter Four

Nicole was in quite a state as the panel truck pulled up to the rather imposing automatic metal gate granting entrance to the property where she was to be spending the next indefinite period of her life. Rafe entered the security code on the keypad next to the road, and the gate swung open to admit them to the narrow canyon almost completely filled by the burbling stream and the well-maintained asphalt roadbed. The sun was westering as they drove slowly through the arroyo, which seemed so rocky and forbidding that the naked new inhabitant wondered at what a desolation she must be coming to inhabit. But within half a mile the road and streambed took a sudden left turn and opened out into a stunningly verdant idyllic small valley bathed in the red glow of the setting sun.

The Foreman smiled while enjoying the customary surprise of yet another first time visitor to the unexpected transition from badlands to well-watered and long cultivated fields: ‘Welcome to Rancho Arroyo Escondido, naughty girl! There is the Casa Grande where the owners live on the knoll to your left. They won't be in residence for the next month due commitments elsewhere, so if things go at all well, you may even be wearing at least some clothing when you are introduced. The main barns are next to it on the flatlands, and we'll be driving through the vegetable farms and orchards that occupy the lower three quarters of the valley for the next seven miles or so. Then we'll go through a gate to the alfalfa fields that provide fodder for the horses and beef cattle, heading for the satellite barn and our destination.’

The nude prisoner, still sitting somewhat uncomfortably on her well-spanked buttocks against the leather seat of the van, marveled at the wealth that must support such a well-kept little hidden kingdom. She saw workers making their way out of the fields as their day was ending, and hoped none of them could see into the van to witness her ignominious state of punitive unclothing. Would she be on naked display to all of these men who were waving at her handsome companion in such a friendly fashion? But as they entered the alfalfa fields, there seemed to be no more inhabitants, and she didn't see another soul until the truck pulled up at a smaller barn where she could see beautiful horses turned out to graze on a green pasture next to a line of stalls, all meticulously well-kept.

Rafe announced: ‘This is where we will be conducting your training over the next few weeks, naughty one. Your Uncle tells me you've been riding since you were a little girl when you'd spend your summers at his spread, so helping me break the new horses should be not entirely foreign to you. But we'll be staying at a different place, a little cabin we call the Foreman's retreat up at the head of the valley where the spring is dammed to create the reservoir that irrigates all of this. It's kind of out of the way and off the grid, though there is power from the solar panels on the roof, but you will appreciate its isolation unless you particularly enjoy being naked in front of the workers, let alone having them witness your punishments. Those crates we found so handy to deliver your spankings contain the fresh food we'll need for the next week, so we will have the cabin entirely to ourselves for that time while all of our focus will be on getting you sorted out.’

The smoothly paved road that had carried them up the gentle slope of the long valley now changed to a carefully graded and compacted gravel path just wide enough for the truck. It wended its way through Central Coast live oak woods another half mile before ending at a rustic wooden cabin which, save for the solar panels on its roof and that of the adjacent barn, would have looked familiar to inhabitants of a century earlier. The front porch looked out over a lovely little pond perhaps two acres in extent, into which the spring descended in a burbling waterfall at their right as they looked westward into the now setting sun. Nicole had been allowed to keep her low-heeled cheap prison-issue tennis shoes, and these completed her attire as Rafe came around and unlocked her door and opened it to beckon her into the venue she was to occupy for the next unknown length of time.

The evening air felt warm against her skin as she stood on the gravel parking area next to the cabin. Her captor remarked: ‘I thought this would be a good place to begin your rehab, since even when the farm workers are in the valley, they never come this far up. So there's no chance of us being disturbed no matter now much noise you might be needing to make. Go ahead and unload the fresh food while I open up the cabin and air it out, since no one's been there for months. You'll be cleaning it up some while I get dinner started after you put the food away.’

The lanky redhead was glad to be off of her tender bottom, and it was good to have something to do, though she had always hated household chores. Her Mother had made doing them a requirement that the rebellious girl constantly fought against. In fact, most of her Daddy's spankings of her before he left had been for disobeying her Mommy's commands to help out around the house. By the time Nicole was a teenager, she had completely rebelled and never lifted a finger to help her resentful mother, who finally threw up her hands and stopped trying to get the sullen girl to pitch in. And by the time the rebellious redhead reached sixteen, she was already avoiding the house completely and running wild with her equally nihilistic crowd, getting into trouble.

As she was making trip after trip into the cabin, carrying groceries and staples against her otherwise naked torso, Nicole lost the glow of post-spanking affection she had been feeling towards Rafe during the second half of their long drive to the Ranch. Who the f**k did this guy think he was, ordering her around like some sort of f*****g slave, and spanking her like he was her Daddy and she was some kind of misbehaving child? By the time the last load of groceries had been brought into the rustic kitchen Rafe had opened all of the wooden shutters that were left over the windows when the retreat was unoccupied, as was most often the case. He had thrown the windows open to the cool evening air, allowing the light breeze to ventilate the stale space. Then he walked into the kitchen, where his tennis-shoe clad but otherwise naked companion stood grumpily, the groceries piled on the wooden countertops in an unsightly jumble.

Like all first rate doms, the Foreman was exquisitely attuned to the slightest variations in the moods of his submissives. Such sensitivity was a sine qua non for effective domination, whose strategies had to be constantly adjusted to the actual emotional state of the recipient of his attentions. What most people outside the Scene failed to understand is that almost all healthy dom-sub relationships amounted to what the cognoscenti of that world would term 'topping from below'. The formal meaning of that term was when the submissive was actually controlling the actions of the dominant. But in practice, true sadists could not thrive in that world for long, since word would get out about their cruelty, and only true masochists would choose to affiliate with them. Only a tiny per cent of those who played in this erotic theater met those definitions, and indeed, those truly misogynistic dominants reveled in the infliction of pain without regard for the feelings of the recipient.

Most submissives indeed eroticized having painful things done to them, but only in the context of ultimate concern for their well-being and optimal erotic satisfaction. In order to accomplish this, the top needed to be in total control of his or her actions, and in deep empathy with the experience of the bottom, so he or she could constantly adjust the stimulation being provided to strike the delicate balance between not enough and too much. Thus, well-regarded dominants were expert observers of mood, tone of voice, facial expression, and body language, all of which were carefully monitored in order to achieve the mutual goal afforded by this most intense of erotic spices: unmatched erotic pleasure for both parties involved.

So Rafe was instantly aware that Nicole's 'pink cloud' post-punishment and pleasuring state of mind had shifted to something far less rosy, as he knew it must. After all, a girl this beautiful and bright did not accumulate the number of black marks on her record that resided in her dossier if she didn't have a pretty well-developed nasty side. The time for further behavioral therapy was at hand, and his appetite for delivering such had barely been whetted by the three spankings in the van. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall and observed ironically: ‘I see our naughty girl has decided that she's not so pleased with the task she was assigned, or the venue in which she is to operate...and apparently her initiative to finish the job got a bit sidetracked by her mood, am I right?’

Nicole flushed, a bit surprised at being called out so forthrightly by her way too canny captor. But as almost always happened, her temper got the better of her, and as usual, hardly to her benefit. She snapped back: ‘f**k yeah! This place is a dump, and my ass hurts, and I have to pee, and I have no idea where you want me to put all this crap, and I'm sure a control freak like you has very specific ideas in mind for how it's all supposed to be done, and I'm probably just signing up for another ass beating no matter what I do, 'cause it's just not going to be good enough to please you!’ And then she burst into tears, which were only partially manipulative.

Rafe watched her in ironic amusement, enjoying both her outburst and her realization that she was digging her own grave even while she could not control herself from doing so. That awareness signified a mind he could work with, even if it was currently way out of control. And this also dovetailed neatly with his theory, which he could not have known paralleled Mamacita's almost two centuries earlier but passed down each generation, about why spanking worked for such problems. In order to take the application of painful force in a humiliating way, a person had to develop the ability to master their reactivity even under the most extreme circumstances imaginable. Being bent and bared and having one's buttocks blistered constituted a physiologic emergency for almost anyone. Developing a way to tolerate that situation and achieve true contrition built a mastery of one's own emotions that he was sure would benefit the fiery redhead standing naked in tears in the shambles of the kitchen.

He spoke laconically: ‘Well, young lady, you are right about some of those things and not so right about others. But first, why don't you go pee, and once you come back, we'll discuss all of it.’ Nicole sniffled her concession that this sounded like a good idea, and went to find the bathroom (which she was grateful to find had normal indoor plumbing). She let out an involuntary yelp when sitting on the commode seat, her bottom reminding her of its recent adventures, more of which seemed almost certain to be on the way. And as she sat there emptying a very full bladder and feeling very sorry for herself about her predicament, the rebellious side of her took over again. There was no way she was going to tolerate another spanking, no way in Hell!

So when she was done peeing she clambered through the bathroom window, which had been cast wide open like all the others in the cabin, and took off running. She dimly recognized that if she headed down the valley, she would be going into territory that Rafe knew well and might be occupied by people who worked for him. So the opposite direction seemed the way to go, and she sprinted into the woods north of the cabin as fast as her long legs would carry her. Perhaps she could find something to cover herself with once she worked her way off of the property, or maybe she'd just have to hitch a ride naked and claim she had been attacked and escaped her potential rapists...