Chivalry Is On Life Support Ch 27

Brooke and I cleaned as well as we possibly could in the hour or so before Luke got home. I say "home," but it was my home and Brooke's, not Luke's, wasn't it? A man's home is his castle, right? But the reality is, when Luke stays with us, it is his castle, not mine. Brooke is either his queen or his wench (or, at times, some odd amalgamation of the two), depending on his mood. I am his servant on good days, and his slave on middling or bad ones. This day promised to be a bad one. Brooke frenziedly mopped the kitchen floor, emptied and loaded the dishwasher and scrubbed the countertops while I frantically scrubbed the bathroom toilets, sinks, showers and floors. We got started on the bedroom and living room, but it simply wasn't possible to finish by the time Brooke heard Luke slam his truck door shut. She yelled up at me that he was back, and I hurriedly stripped off my T-shirt, yoga pants and panties. I momentarily debated what would be worse: to leave my clothes strewn about the bedroom floor, or to fail to be in position--naked and kneeling-- when he walked through the door.

I decided the latter would be worse, and practically killed myself running down the stairs naked. In fact, I stubbed my toe quite painfully on the railing. Brooke was virtually ripping off her panties as I got downstairs, and we both ran to the entrance foyer and quickly dropped to our knees on either side of the front door as our king entered, dressed not in robes but in a sweat soaked football uniform and cleats. I stared fleetingly at Brooke's proud breasts and anxious face, before bowing my head down like her and looking at my caged cock. I was too worried to even be aroused at that point.

We both knew from past experience that some serious kowtowing was called for in this situation to hopefully at least reduce the ferocity of our inevitable punishment. Luke said very little, which somehow made things even scarier-- for me, at least. He walked into the living room, plopped down on the couch, snapped his fingers and pointed down to his feet. We both crawled on our hands and knees to where he was sitting, one of us in front of each foot. I more or less followed Brooke's lead in removing his cleat, covering my nose with it, inhaling deeply and then pulling off his sweat sock. We then brought the damp socks up to our noses, and again inhaled deeply. It was all I could do not to gag from the overwhelming, acrid odor. I don't know if Brooke is simply much better at acting than me, or if she was behaving genuinely, but she appeared to almost savor the odor of his sock, taking second and third deep, long whiffs. Both of us then started vigorously massaging one of his bare feet, planting kisses on the bottoms intermittently.

After about 30 minutes of massaging and kissing, during which Luke barely acknowledged us while reading his iPhone, he said to me, "Cuck, iced tea?" And to Brooke, simply, "Pits."

When I walked back into the room with his iced tea, she was hungrily nuzzling the right armpit of his sweat stained football jersey. I knelt before him and held out the glass. After about five minutes, my extended hand began to shake a little from the stress of holding it out and he finally took glass and drank from it.

He then said, "Let me take a look at the condition of this place. Cuck, get a pen and paper and follow me. On your fucking knees. Disobedient slut, stay here on your knees, hands on top of your head."

He then proceeded to inspect the entire house in his usual methodical way (which he usually did after I cleaned without Brooke's assistance) and instructed me to write down anything he found to be lacking (including our discarded clothes, books and papers out of place on my desk, the half made bed, a couple of small hairs in the bathroom sink, etc.). I actually crawled up and down the stairs on my hands and knees behind him as he inspected our work.

When his inspection was finally complete, he said, "Get the strap, cuck. Both of you bend over and touch your toes."

We were standing in the middle of the living room. He then proceeded to pull back all of the curtains and raise all of the blinds in the room. Our house was not right up against the street and had some large trees, fortunately, but anyone walking up to the front porch would have had a fairly unobstructed view. Mercifully, no one did that day (at least not to my knowledge), but Luke's message was clear: disobey him, and all bets were off. Retribution would immediate, brutal and (potentially) public (in the future, there was no "potentially" about it, we were to learn).

Our king proclaimed our sentence: fifteen stokes of the strap on our on bare backsides, ten for disobedience and five for deficient cleaning. Both judge and executioner, he then delivered ten unsparing strokes of the strap, alternating back and forth between us. While administering the punishment, he became more vocal.

"When I'm sleeping in this house, I'm the one who calls the shots. I'm the one who decides if, and when, the cuck is unlocked."

SMACK SMACK "Got it?!"

"Yes, sir," we answered in unison.

"I'm the one who decides if, when and how the cuck gets to come."

SMACK SMACK "Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Every time. Do you college grads fucking understand the meaning of the word 'every'?"

SMACK SMACK

"Yes, sir."

Brooke was crying by the seventh or eighth stroke. I tried my best to hold back my tears, but as I noted, my ass was still badly bruised from the tawse at the Ren fair, so I too was crying by the ninth.

After he delivered tenth stroke, Luke said, "I had a feeling you two were up to some shit when I was at practice. That's why I asked Kevin to check up on you. If you say jack shit about it to him, if you show even the tiniest hint of resentment towards him, I'm going to let him punish you both after he turns 18 next month. It's probably not a bad idea that he start to get involved in keeping you two in line, anyhow, once he's legal. Old enough to vote, old enough to beat your sorry, disobedient asses. Now each of you are due five more, but I'm not going to give them to you. You're going to give them to each other. If either of you holds back, I'm going to add ten more apiece. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," again in unison.

"You first, slut."

Luke handed her the strap and she struck me five times with force -- if not equal to Luke's, certainly approaching it. I kicked my shin and foot up and down, and fell to my knees at one point, before quickly resuming my position.

"Now, it's your turn, cuck."

As I pulled the strap back, hearing Brooke's subdued sobbing and seeing her lovely, battered bottom, I asked myself what knight in history has ever raised his hand against his lady. It was an abomination to even consider it. I couldn't possibly harm Brooke. My compromised sense of chivalry kicked in, and I acted. Did I act with courage? I will leave that for you to decide, dear reader.

I dropped to the floor and clasped Luke's ankles. "Please, sir. Please, sire, I beg you. Please don't make me hurt Brooke. Please give me the additional strokes, instead." I began kissing his bare feet frenetically.

"Cuck, if you don't give her the five strokes, at least as hard as she hit you, I will give her ten more. Harder than the first ten."

Brooke said to me, "It's okay, Walter. Do what he says."

In that moment, I truly despised Luke. He was a cruel, cunning, autocratic bastard. But Brooke wanted him there. Brooke wanted this. Wasn't the ultimate duty of the knight to obey his lady, to accede to her wishes and desires? Who was I to question them. Was me striking her part of the game, too? It was a twisted game, to be sure, but it was the game she wanted. There is a cliched, generally ironic phrase sometimes uttered when one is about to punish someone: "This is going to hurt me a lot more than it's going to hurt you." In this case, although I did not utter those words, I thought them and really believed them to be true. Because whereas my blows temporarily wounded Brooke's flesh, they permanently wounded my spirit; they were blows against my conscience and my sense of honor. Nonetheless, seeing no viable alternative, I delivered the five strokes, trying to achieve just the required intensity to appease Luke and not a smidgen more. Brooke cried out for the final two, and her entire face was tear stained when she stood up. Seeing this, I went into the bathroom and threw up.

Luke next sat down on the couch and turned on a college game, while requiring Brooke and me to stand naked on either side of the TV, legs together and hands clasped behind our heads, our fire red asses on display. He had inserted one of his sweaty socks into each of our mouths as a gag, taping them together from behind with duct tape. I remained conscious of the open blinds as we stood there for 30 minutes, both resisting any impulse to scratch an itch or rub our tender backsides. After the alarm went off on his phone, he ordered us to prepare him a steak, baked potato and creamed spinach. Still naked, we then served it to him, standing at attention next to the table while he leisurely ate his meal. Like naughty children, we were not permitted supper that night and went to bed hungry. After dinner, Luke watched a two hour action movie, resting one of his feet on my back from my position on my hands and knees and his other foot on top of Brooke's face as she lay prostate on the floor next to the couch. We were permitted one bathroom break, but the only other times we left our positions were to bring him popcorn or beers. Both of us were too cowed to sneak so much as a kernel of popcorn in the kitchen, terrified he would catch us and subject us to still more humiliating punishment. Finally, we went to sleep. Brooke was permitted to share the bed with him at least, while I curled up on the floor at the foot of the bed, pillowless, blanketless and shivering.

Luke certainly had delivered his message.

In the past, after enduring Luke's abuse over the course of a weekend, I looked forward to walking to campus on Monday mornings to teach. The classroom had been a refuge of sorts for me, a place where (my effeminate articles of clothing notwithstanding) I was still relatively in command, still safe. After the events of the Ren fair, that sense of security was now in doubt.

Kelly smiled brightly at me as she entered the classroom with one of her female classmates.

"Hi, Professor Rollins! How are you feeling today? I hope you're not sore." The other girl giggled. "From all of the walking, I mean. My feet were killing me yesterday."

In class, I was often left wondering these days if many of the questions and comments from my students were innocent or innuendo. Coming from Kelly, and her given her friend's giggle, I strongly suspected the latter.

"Yes, there was a lot of walking, but I'm fine."

Paul Betz walked in with Anna and sat down towards the back of the classroom. Paul rather disrespectfully propped his feet up on the seat in front of him. He regarded me with a smirk, as if daring me to ask him to take his feet off the chair and sit up straight (which I longed, but did not in fact dare, to do). I surveyed the room of nine students present that day to see if I could discern anything from their expressions to indicate whether Kelly, Paul and/or Anna had told any of the others about what had happened on Saturday at the Ren fair. To my relief, nothing obviously indicated that to be the case. Then again, it was only Monday. Was it possible they would honor their promise to keep quiet about it, and that Paul's threat was nothing more than teasing, possibly fueled by inebriation (I was fairly certain that they had been drinking, although they were probably under age)? I allowed myself to hope that may be true, but remained highly skeptical.

In an effort to exert control, to reassert my authority in the classroom, I announced a pop quiz. Anna rolled her eyes and Paul almost imperceptibly shook his head at me (as if saying, "You will regret this."). The students dropped their quizzes off on my desk as they left the room. Reviewing them in my office immediately after class, the first two scores were 80 and 72. The third quiz I reviewed was Paul's. Written on the bottom of the page was the following:

Professor page boy,

You can save yourself the trouble of grading Kelly's, Anna's and my quizzes. We will each receive an A. You will meet me tomorrow at one of the back booths at O'Riordans at 6 PM. We have important business to discuss.

O'Riordans was a well known pub in a town a few miles away. It was less likely to be frequented by students and faculty than the bars closer to campus. I guess that was something to be grateful for, at least, because the rest of Paul's note caused me nothing but distress. First of all, how dare he demand that I falsify his, Anna's and Kelly's grades?! I took my job as a professor, and academic integrity, very seriously. I couldn't possibly artificially inflate the grades of certain students; it was unfair to all of the other students, not just in my class, but in the entire college. Out of curiosity, I graded their quizzes: Kelly scored an 82, Anna scored a 64, and Paul didn't even bother answering the questions. He was not that bad a student; this was a total power play on his part.

Secondly, it was now obvious that Paul was not teasing and had every intention of following through on his threat of blackmail, or extortion or whatever it was he had in mind.

That evening at home things were largely back to normal, or what had become my new normal. Brooke and I walked on eggshells around Luke, but he seemed to have largely gotten over his anger. He even permitted me the glass of wine I was entitled to from having exceeded my weight loss goals on my weigh-in on Saturday before the Ren fair. And he had missionary sex with Brooke, making allowances for her battered bottom; he was still somewhat rough and degrading, as always (slapping and pinching her nipples), but less so than usual. Dressed in turquoise colored tights, I was permitted to watch, my cock throbbing against my cage. Brooke's moans were as intense as usual. Though I was back in my bed that night, I slept very poorly for the second night in a row, filled with anxiety about my impending meeting with Paul Betz.

I had only one class on Tuesday, so was able to spend a few hours in my office doing research for my book. I was reading some of the scholarly literature on the Earl of Essex, aka "The Great Cuckold." To be more precise, Robert Devereux was the 3rd Earl of Essex, who lived life in the shadow of his father, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth 1. At the age of 13, Lord Essex married Frances Howard, only one year older than him and known as pretty, strong willed and spoiled. Soon after marrying her, he was sent off on the typical European Tour for two years, before having consummated his marriage to Frances. During his absence, she began a passionate affair with Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, a favorite of King James, Elizabeth's successor. Upon Devereux's return, Frances sought to annul the marriage on the grounds that he was impotent, resulting in a very public trial and tremendous public humiliation for him. He claimed that he was quite capable with other women and only impotent with Frances, because of the very poor, verbally abusive manner in which she treated him. The annulment was nonetheless granted and Devereux became a laughingstock at court and a "national joke." One suspects Frances' beauty undermined Devereux's claims that he performed adequately with other women. Frances married her lover after the annulment. Devereux got some measure of revenge three years later when Frances and Carr, who had meanwhile been named Earl of Somerset, were tried for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury. Devereux was a member of the jury and pushed for the death penalty for his ex-wife and the man who cuckolded him. They were condemned to death but the sentence was never carried out.

At the age of forty, Devereux married a second time to Elizabeth Paulet. Paulet bore him a son, who died of the plague within a month of birth. Devereux then filed for judicial separation (as divorce was not a legal option at the time) on the grounds of adultery, not believing the son to be his. Whether it was his impotence that was the reason for that, or simply his paranoia after what had transpired with Frances, it is impossible to know. But, without question, the failure of his second marriage cemented his reputation as "The Great Cuckold" and deepened his public humiliation. Devereux also had an undistinguished career as a military leader. He had some successes on the battlefield to be sure, but as many or more defeats, and his military career ended ignominiously in the First English Civil War in the Battle of Lostwithiel. Outmaneuvered by the Royalists, Devereux's 6,000-man army was forced to surrender while he shamefully escaped in a fishing boat to escape humiliation. Thus, compounding his ultimate professional humiliation, of course.

As I drove to O'Riordans to meet Paul Betz, my thoughts continued to dwell on Devereux, a failure personally as well as professionally-- in both the bedroom and on the battlefield--who became an object of public ridicule. It was impossible for me not to identify with this unfortunate historical figure. Clearly a failure in the bedroom, so that Brooke had to look to her abusive ex-husband to satisfy her sexual needs, I now seemed on the precipice of failing professionally, losing my position of authority with my students. And like Devereux, my humiliation was becoming increasingly public.

Was I destined to become "The Great Cuckold" of the modern era? History does have a funny way of repeating itself...