Elsie the Cow

It was two months before I had a period. I used them well. Anyway, I like to think I used them well. I taught him the joys of oral sex, and being the good student he is, he quickly learned to take me to the edge, as they say, and hold me there until I was begging for my release. He perfected his skills at anal stimulation and learned just how much we both enjoyed it. He learned to masturbate me and particularly enjoyed mutual masturbation when he discovered that skill.

But I wasn't the only one doing the teaching. It turned out, Benjamin was very creative.

We were playing tickle games one night when he found a spot I didn't know I had, high on the instep of my foot. He had been tickling my feet, leaving me helpless and giggling when he suddenly touched a spot and I damn near came. When he realized what he had done he rolled me over until I was flat on my belly, sat on the back of my thigh, holding me helpless, and started searching for that spot again.

Every time he brushed across it I jumped. But when he finally isolated that amazing spot and just pressed, gently my reaction, the sudden intake of my breath and the way my hips thrust I suppose, marked his success. As he held that light touch, I felt that wonderful pressure building, deep in my belly.

It was so slow, so gentle, that the excitement kept growing well past the point where I would have climaxed. His weight held me completely immobile, but that didn't matter. I had no desire at all to move.

What happened then can't really be called an orgasm or, to be crude about it, "cumming." There were none of the hard muscular contractions associated the a climax. Instead, I could feel that pressure building low in my belly and I could smell my excitement. It built up, and built up, and built up, but there was no urgency in my body to find completion.

And that surprised me because like, I suppose, all women, I want that completion, that sudden rush of pure ecstasy.

But I felt no such need. My breath was catching, my nipples were so hard they hurt, but the pressure kept building and I started to wonder how far along this wonderful path he could take me.

The completion, to avoid that loaded word "orgasm," was like nothing I had ever imagined. Low in my belly, I felt myself pass a point of no return, and I just started flowing. There were none of the hard muscular contractions I associate with a climax, none of that instant and intense release that whipsawed me from pleasure to pain and back.

This was ecstasy. This was bliss. This was a rapture that bordered on a religious experience. This was the purest pleasure I could imagine.

My entire body was covered with chill bumps of pleasure.

And it went on.

I realized I wasn't breathing and gasped, a big whooping breath.

And it went on.

I realized I was laughing and crying.

And it went on.

When he released my foot I just flopped, spent, boneless. Hell, I couldn't have moved right then if the damn house was on fire.

As I lay there, spent, in that dreamless not-quite-sleep that follows such a pure sexual release, I thought this would be the time for the last, and in some ways the most important lesson, a First must teach a New Man.

I lay there, panting, but also getting my role straight in my mind. I suppose you'd call what I was about to do "method acting." I lay there, relaxed, his hand caressing me, and set the scene in my mind. I thought it through until, as I read once, if I had been taking a lie detector test and asked if what I was about to say was true, I would pass the test. I pictured it in my mind until it WAS true, at least it was MY truth.

I rolled onto my side, what I was about to say, the lie that I was about to tell, driving my emotions as if it WAS the truth. I was crying softly, tears were running down my cheeks, my nose was running, and I knew when I opened my mouth to speak there would be thick strings of saliva and mucus connecting my lips.

"Benjamin," I said, holding his eyes, "I have to confess."

He chuckled and brushed tears from my cheeks. "Too much pleasure?" he asked.

When I didn't respond he turned serious.

"What did you do?" he asked, and as with his use of my cowname earlier, the tone of his voice showed that he had crossed the bridge into true Manhood in The Family.

"Wh-wh-when I went to my house," I said, the broken words partly acting, but the role had me now, and the lie WAS truth, "David said he wanted me and I just couldn't refuse him."

"You. Were. WITH. Another. Man?" he asked, each word a separate statement and the question more a statement.

I was bawling then, sobbing, my breath in great whoops.

When I didn't respond slapped me on the back of my head, the first time he struck me, and dug his fingers into my hair, twisting and pulling my head up, forcing me to meet his eyes.

"Did you?" he repeated, and the coldness in his voice frightened me.

"Yes," I said.

He released my hair then, pushing me away with a sudden thrust, literally throwing me away.

"Please, Benjamin," I wailed, rolling off of the bed and crawling to him where he stood there, breathing hard, his hands clenched into fists by his side.

"Please," I said, wrapping my arms around his knees, kissing his knees, and then moving down to kiss his feet, literally prostrating myself before him.

"Please," I said again, crying and brushing my cheeks against his feet.

He pulled free, and snapped, "Stay there," and I heard him move to the closet.

I knew what was coming and although I feared it, I knew it was a lesson he had to learn.

"Stand up Adulteress," he said, and I felt my bowels run hot at that terrible word.

In The Family, men and women are shared freely. No woman ever says no to any man of The Family, and children are raised by the woman's husband as if they were all his, biologically as well as culturally.

But there are two cases when a woman is exclusive to her man. One is after a woman takes her Marriage Walk, that first months until she proves pregnant, when she is exclusively her husband's. The other is a woman chosen as First. A newlywed, or a First, who breaks that taboo is labeled an Adulteress and the punishment can be shunning, the worst possible punishment, and those who are shunned, something that happens very rarely, almost always wind up as suicides.

A forgiving man can stop short of demanding shunning, though, and require the offending woman to wear the Sash of Shame, a red sash with a black stripe, signaling her transgression.

I stood there, sobbing, my head hanging, snot and drool coating my udders while I awaited my fate. Even knowing, down deep, that it was a lie and I was NOT an Adulteress, I was still sobbing helplessly and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the Sash of Shame in his hands when he returned from the closet.

"Forgive me," I murmured.

He slapped me, a hard slap making my head snap around.

"Keep your mouth shut, Adulteress," he snapped as he draped the Sash of Shame across my shoulder and jerked my arm up so the Sash laid across my back and my udders.

"Go fetch me a switch," he snapped and left me standing in the room.

I knew what was expected of me, so I left the house, naked except for the Sash, to the woods on the outskirts of town. I walked with my head held high, trying to ignore the whispers of those who saw me.

The Family had modified the traditional "Rule of Thumb" - you know, that rule that a man could not beat his wife with a stick greater in size than the base of his thumb? Well, if you think about it, that allows a stick to be used that would be big enough to break bones. In The Family, a proper switch was approximately the size of the woman being chastised's little finger, and fresh and flexible.

So I walked among the woods. This near to our Community, the woods were tamed and I had no fear although my bare feet were suffering. As I got closer to the little creek that flows by the community I saw what I was looking for. I suppose I had known, all along, where I was going. Every child in The Family knows

Old Willow Woman

, a huge willow tree on the bank of the swimming hole we had all used from time to time.

I moved into the canopy of the tree and began touching the long flexible branches. And when I touched the right one I knew, way down at levels below thinking. I traced it to its base, where it emerged from a much larger branch, and carefully broke it off. The branch was almost six feet long, slightly wider than my little finger at the base tapering to almost nothing at the tip where a final leaf hung.

I walked back to the First Cottage, naked and barefoot, the Sash of Shame proclaiming my transgression. Adding to my misery, Benjamin hadn't nursed and I didn't have time to pump. My udders were engorged and aching but I knew better than to detour to the MilkHouse.

Benjamin was sitting on the couch, the television on but I didn't think he was really watching it. I said nothing as I walked past him, into the kitchen. I used one of the big, sharp, kitchen knives to cut the big end of the switch square and trim that final leaf off of the other end. Then I sat at the kitchen table and carefully, using my fingernails to start and then my fingers to finish, I peeled the bark from the fresh switch. It took a half-hour before I had the last bits of bark off.

Finished, I took the switch to Benjamin and presented it to him, on my knees, holding it out to him laying on my palms as I held my hands flat. I didn't say anything, just held that position until he deigned to look at me.

"I love you too much to initiate a Shunning," he said, and I breathed a sigh of relief, "and I won't ask for explanations for the inexplicable."

I said nothing. I just held my position, offering the switch to him.

"Okay," he said, "I think a striping is appropriate, don't you?"

I nodded but inside I was thinking,

"God, he DOES love me. He has decreed the least punishment for what I told him I did."

He tested the switch and said, "Good switch."

Then he stood and said, "Come on, Elsie."

In The Family, there is no delay between transgression and punishment. And no, that's not that women are believed to be like dogs and wouldn't know what they were being punished for if there was a delay. It's the most humane way of handling punishment. During delay, a woman punishes herself much more than any man ever would.

And so we walked to Punishment Square. The Community is laid out around a central park, and in the center of the park is Punishment Square. There is a pillory, a whipping post, and a broad tree laid horizontally, with the top bark stripped and the wood sanded very smooth. That last was the Striping Log.

He said nothing, just gestured. I moaned softly and mounted the Striping Log. He removed the Sash of Shame and then secured my wrists to the eyebolts sunk into the wood, using the professional leather cuffs, the kind you would see in old movies where hospitals used restraints, heavy leather with soft wool lining. My legs were pulled straight and bound in similar restraints, holding me immobile, face down on the smooth wood. He carefully lifted my long hair, twisted it into a thick rope, and passed it through the fifth eyebolt at the end of the Log, forcing me to pull my own hair if I moved my head.

I was shocked, although I don't know why I would have been, when I heard a very young voice ask, "What's he doing, mommy?" and a woman's voice replied, "She was a naughty girl."

Discipline was always administered publicly, but this was the first time it had happened to me. I was ALWAYS a good girl. I felt my face redden and get hot as I blushed in my shame.

"Elsie admitted to being an Adulteress," Benjamin announced, "Her punishment is a striping."

It wasn't fear of the pain that had me crying, it was the shame and humiliation. The pain would come, but first was the required period of mortification. I had been to punishments and knew how it worked. I would be left in this position, naked, on display, and the word would spread. People would come to see what punishment the Man of the House had decreed. He would allow at least an hour although one time I recalled when a woman had said "no" to her husband, the truly unpardonable sin in The Family, and she had been left in the pillory for 24 hours, available to all for punishment and, more important given her transgression, to be fucked. By the time her husband returned with the whip, yes, a whip, not a switch or a belt, semen was running out of her pussy and down her legs.

So I waited, the general ache building as my shoulders started to cramp and my udders were so engorged it felt like they might burst.

The only comfort I had was knowing it was a lesson initiated by a lie.

That was a small comfort indeed when my oldest son's voice asked what I had done.

No woman being punished is allowed to speak, so I said nothing, just lay there, hurting and crying.

It seemed like forever but Benjamin told me it was the minimum one hour before I heard his sweet voice again.

"I love this Adulteress," he announced, "so I have decreed the minimum punishment for her transgression. I invite The Family to watch as she is chastised."

I couldn't help the little writhe in my body as I heard the swish of the switch as he swung it through the air.

A striping is exactly what it sounds like. He would strike with the switch, starting at my hairline and working his way down to my heels, each stroke leaving a bright pink welt, the stripes of the chastised woman.

I flinched when he touched my neck, but he was just moving a few stray hairs out of the way.

And then it began.

The first stroke was right at the base of my skull, just below my hairline, and it felt like a hot iron had been laid on the skin there. I shuddered, and cried out, "Forgive me!"

He waited until my body stopped moving. I couldn't help the way my fingers clenched or my legs tried to move. These movements were involuntary, initiated way down at the lizard brain level where that lizard tried to escape the pain even if it pulled his tail off.

The second stroke was across my neck, lower, but the blow still absorbed on a single point of skin.

"Forgive me," I cried.

As the striping continued, the pain didn't relent, it built up.

It was the stripe below my shoulder blades that made me throw up, and my humiliation increased as I heard several voices, many sounding quite young, call out, "ewwwwwwwww," and one voice, with laughter in it, cried out, "Look out, she's blowing chunks."

I was crying helplessly, my nose running, my mouth drooling, my face smeared with puke and snot and drool, and my cries of "Forgive me," sounded bubbly.

The tiny part of my mind that could still think allowed me a tiny bit of relief as the stripes moved down my thighs. It could see an end.

It was the stripe across the back of my knee that caused my bladder control to fail. I felt urine, hot and wet, running down my thighs and heard a young voice say, "Look, she's wetting herself."

For some reason, that particular humiliation got to me even more than what was happening. My "Forgive me," came out, "F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-ffffffforg-g-g-g-ivv-v-v-v-vv m-m-m-m-m-meeeeeeeeeeeee."

The final stroke was across my heels.

"Forgive me," I managed around my tears.

"The Adulteress is forgiven," Benjamin intoned using the formula that always followed punishment.

There was sort of an "ahhhhhh" sound from the group that watched.

Benjamin worked the knot of my hair free, pulling a little where it was tangled but being very gentle, and then surprised me by bending and kissing my cheek, ignoring the puke and snot and drool smeared there, and saying very softly into my ear, "I love you, First."

And that unexpected tenderness had me bawling again. I was helpless as he freed my ankles and then my wrists. I was still bawling, crying in loud whoops, as he supported me while I stood, shaky, wobbling.

I managed a bubbly "Thank you," as he held out the Cobalt Blue shift of a First. I lifted my arms and sighed as he dropped it over me, covering and claiming me again in that one movement.

"This is my First," he announced, "and I claim her to bear my first child. She is forgiven and I love her. Accept her now."

I raised my eyes and looked around and realized that there had to be about a third of The Family in attendance. I blushed, but this time with pride, as they applauded although I knew the applause was for Benjamin and his magnanimity. I was proud to be his.

As we started walking back to the First Cottage I was still oddly proud. Don't get me wrong, I was aware of what a mess I was, and I felt every step as it caused tiny movements in the skin of my back and the welts, suffering under the light touch of the material of the shift, reminded me that I was in for a few VERY uncomfortable days. But I was proud to be his First and proud to be worthy of forgiveness.

The witnesses followed us, almost a shivaree, and cheered as Benjamin closed the door behind us once we were inside.

"Benjamin," I said, laying my palms on his cheeks and holding his eyes for a long ten count before I went on, "I am NOT an Adulteress."

I couldn't help but giggle at the blank look on his face.

"I lied," I said simply.

He still said nothing, just looking at me, and one of those words you see written but never get to use in real life, was appropriate. He looked at me, dumbfounded.

"A Man of The Family," I said, stressing the words to make the capitalization appropriate, "Must be prepared to discipline his woman, no matter how much he loves her. Now you know you can do that."

"YOU MADE ME DO THAT?" he said, and his anger was manifest.

"Yes," I said, holding my ground. This was an important lesson. "If you think I transgressed we can go back to the Punishment Square right now."

His anger broke and he dropped to his knees, laying his cheek on my belly, and said, "Oh, God, Paulette," and I noticed he dropped my cowname, "I am so sorry."

"NO!" I said, sinking to my knees and capturing his face in my palms again, "No, Benjamin, no. You did EXACTLY the right thing, Honey. Don't you dare apologize. You did what every Man of the House SHOULD do in the situation as you knew it. You acted EXACTLY properly."

"But I," he started but I stopped him with a kiss.

"You hurt me, Benjamin," I said, kissing him between the words, "As you SHOULD have. As you were required to do. I knew what I was getting into when I lied to you, Honey."

His smile told me the lesson was complete.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

I giggled and worked the shift up and off.

"Suck or pump or something," I said, giggling and lifting my udders to him, "I'm about to EXPLODE!"

He smiled, stood, and helped me to my feet.

"Ummmm," he said, pulling the blanket and top sheet down from the bed, "are you okay on your back?"

I smiled at him and patted his cheek.

"Yes, Honey," I said, "I'll be sore for a while but I'm okay."

He helped me into bed and then quickly stripped before crawling in beside me.

He kissed me.

When he broke the kiss I giggled and pushed him down. "The tit, Baby, the tit before it explodes."

He chuckled and settled into the crook of my arm. As soon as his lips touched my nipple I felt my milk let down and start flowing.

He might have said, "I love you," but I didn't hear it. My body had been through a lot, and the sudden pleasure/relief of his nursing hit me like a shot of Propofol before surgery and I went out.