The Taming of Tara

Chapter Three

"Conjugation," he had announced quietly, tapping the blackboard with the junior rattan cane, which gleamed in the dim light. "First person?"

"This slave," she replied dully, too exhausted to fight anymore at the moment. Barely ten seconds passed before the cane swished through the air and scorched across her alabaster backside. She screeched in pain.

"Wrong, the first person as far as you are concerned is "Master", is me. You've still got so much to learn."

"No shit," she thought mutinously, her butt stinging like crazy.

"Second person."

"This slave?"

*SWISH-CRACK* her bottom-cheeks quivered with the impact of the second blow, and she choked back a scream as the pain coursed through her backside.

"Second person?"

She ground out the words like an oath. "Th-there is only one person. One Master. You…Master." The final word somehow forced its way past her clenched teeth, but the tone was flat and utterly without sincerity.

"Much better, slave." Inwardly, he sighed - it was as if he was fighting a losing battle, with all his theory and previous practice worthless. Of course those he'd trained in the past had been willing, had wanted nothing else but to be his, but therein lay the problem. Once a slave was fully compliant and he'd always discarded them, knowing that the training was the only worthwhile challenge. He'd had his pick of beautiful submissive women, but none with the "spark" he sought. Until now…but her rage, her obstinacy, was undiminished, even with the passage of time. She was the challenge he had been seeking, but was proving to be more difficult than all the others put together. In the dead of night, he'd lain awake wondering if it was time he reviewed his methods, but deep down he knew they were right. He was not sadistic, he didn't unnecessarily humiliate or bully. Patience was always the best way, and he knew that he had to take this slowly and carefully.

At that precise moment they were having to repeat her first ever lesson all over again.

***

She had failed to thank him when he had removed her gag the previous evening and he had, almost regretfully it seemed, announced that yet again, he would be forced to refresh her memory on basic grammar. As a further aid to recall, she had spent the night in a tight hog-tie, soft cotton ropes keeping her arms twisted painfully behind her and her ankles joined to her wrists. Her gag had replaced by a circular, rubber-coated ring of metal, which wedged her mouth wide open, leaving her drooling impotently. Her bed had been the cold flagged floor of her cell, which had grown harder and more uncomfortable throughout that long sleepless night. "Perhaps this will assist in encouraging you to think in future." he had said gravely and he had left her in discomfort and humiliation.

***

And so to today: another repeated lesson in the dark, cold "schoolroom". By the feel of the stale damp air and the dim utility lighting, this was as much as part of the cellar as was her own cell. Her inability to tell for sure was due to the fact that she was always blindfolded when moved between rooms, a practice designed to increase her uncertainty and disorientation. She was guided up or down flights of stairs several times a day, sometimes into warmer, better-lit areas, other times, into dark dinghy holes like this. She loathed the "schoolroom" most of all.

Of course, her entire existence since she had been captured had been one long "lesson", but here took place what he liked to think of as the intensive sessions, where her mind was tested as well as her body. Day after day he battered away at her reserves of self-determination, individuality and ego. She fought back as much as she could, but was beginning to fear that she was losing herself. Not that he was particularly brutal or abusive. On the contrary, he spoke in that damned deep, but quiet, voice as ever, never losing his cool, rarely changing his expression. If anything the only emotion he ever displayed was sorrow. A "sadness" that she was so slow to learn, so quick to lapse into bad habits. And, what was worse, he then repeated whichever lesson it was that she had so obviously not learned, again and again and again if necessary.

Both were stubborn in their own way. She, determined not to break, calculatingly letting slip the odd error or act of defiance, just in order to prove she was still Tara, still her own person. He, with that maddening calm, just going over and over the lessons, with the result that she had never gotten past Lesson 7 "Proper Attitudes of Submission", before he took her all the way back to Lesson 1 "Punctuation and Grammar".

She shivered beneath her thin clothes in the depressing damp room, bare save for the school desk and chair, the old-fashioned easel-mounted blackboard, and the impressive collection of rattan canes, neatly arranged in their rack along one wall.

She was kneeling, as usual, on the chair, which had been turned around so that its back abutted the front of the old-fashioned sloping school desk with its twin inkwells. The seat, also of rattan, interestingly enough, dug painfully into her knees, and she shifted as best she could to redistribute the pressure, however her movements were severely limited by the leather cuffs buckled around each ankle. These were connected by a D ring to a short length of close-linked steel chain, which terminated in a steel cuff. Each cuff was looped around the front chair leg and ratcheted tight. Her upper body was pulled down over the desk and secured in a prone position by a wide leather strap that ran around her waist, and was also buckled around the desk legs. As a final touch, and a permanent reminder from Lesson 7, her ever-present leather collar was attached to another chain, and this was padlocked to a ring-bolt set in the dead centre of the back section of the desk, exactly halfway between the twin inkwells. This kept her head forcibly lowered, facing the flagstone floor, upon which was stencilled in stark white lettering, the single word "OBEY".

Her "uniform" was a travesty of an outfit, but slightly more than she usually got to wear. A plain white school blouse, although with the buttons removed, and knotted just below her firm breasts, allowing them to hang freely, with one succulent brown nipple peeping out from the gap in the blouse; a grey pleated skirt, but the protection and modesty afforded by this garment was somewhat counteracted by the fact that it was always worn pinned up at the back, exposing her smooth round bottom, both to his visual attention and that of the canes, as necessary. Naturally, she had not been allowed the luxury of panties. Her hair was tied into two bunches with pink ribbons for an adorably cute look that she absolutely detested. The finishing touch was the lacy white ankle socks and the black patent leather Mary Jane school shoes, although these had five inch-heels, and she HATED heels! It was the closest she ever came to being fully dressed again, but upon reflection she felt she would rather be naked than humiliated like this.

The sharp edges of the desk bit into her waist, and her neck ached from the position into which it had been forced. Her knees were sore from kneeling on the hard chair day after day, and then, of course, there were the sensations from the vibrator thrust deep into her throbbing pussy. He seemed to enjoy doing this to her, even though that deep patient voice had spoken only of self-discipline and concentration. Should she dare to orgasm, he had explained, then he would recognise that she had failed to concentrate on her lesson and she would be disciplined accordingly.

The discipline…those canes lined up like weapons in an arsenal! She had felt each one, from most junior to senior, depending on the severity of her error, or the depth of her inattention. Not that he ever used them to excess. He never did anything to excess. No, the canes were used only when he deemed absolutely necessary and only in accordance with the tariff of punishments he had drummed into her during lesson 2. He had thought it best not to reveal yet that the tariff was subject to amendment at any time and without notice, but he had played fair. So far…

He moved on to the next part of the lesson. "What is the correct form of address to your Master?"

"Duh..'Master'?" she muttered. The tingling warmth in her butt was only slightly diminished and she was unable to hold back the sarcasm.

This time she did not fight the scream as agony flooded her rear end. She bucked against her restraints, driving the fiendish little vibrator deeper inside her and, despite the pain, the humiliation, and the rage, could not longer hold herself back. The orgasm flowered within her, flowing through her very core, her cries of pain mingled with passion, straining against metal and leather until she was spent. Even as she panted with the exertion, she glared at the floor, thankful that she had to keep her eyes lowered, so that he could not have the satisfaction of seeing the tears of shame gathering in them nor the hatred reflected there for what he was turning her into.