"Amy, Amy, Amy," I sighed. "How many times have we been in this same position now?"

"Many times, Master." 

Amy Richards knelt on the floor in front of me as I sat in my recliner in the living room of my home. Amy was my submissive, and I her Master. However, her submission was still a difficult concept for her to put into practice. Her heart was in it, but her mind and will still needed a little convincing!

"Yes, we have. For various reasons, I'll grant you. You seem to always find new ways to get into trouble!" 

"I'm sorry I'm so much trouble, Master." 

"Well, I was warned that you'd be a handful. Your former owner told me that you had trouble following his rules and commands. Apparently, you have authority issues and he said you required disciplinary actions on a regular basis."

"Yes, Sir." 

"He eventually got tired of trying to get you on the straight and narrow and just let you go. Isn't that right?" 

"Yes, Sir. He took his collar back and freed me. It was terrible, Master." Her voice quivered as she remembered that awful day.

"Yes, when a submissive has become too much trouble for their worth and is made a free woman, it's like leaving a three-year-old alone in a big empty building with the lights out. It is scary and she doesn't know what to do or where to turn. She is lost—emotionally and psychologically—and until she finds another to serve, is out of place and has no grounding. She's a kite in a hurricane. 

"You were lucky, Amy, that your former Master still had feelings for you. He may not have been able to deal with your rebellious nature, but he knew me and thought that maybe I could make something out of you."

"Yes, Master. I'm glad he did, and I'm grateful that you took me in. Thank you for that."

"Amy, I have known of other submissives that when they were let go like you were, never found their way back. They were lost and a couple of them felt like they were just worthless unwanted trash. Others turned from The Life and never returned."

"That's awful Master. So sad." 

"Indeed. I hate to see a submissive with potential not put it to use—especially when she knows it's what she wants and needs. It's a terrible waste of good talent." 

"Yes, Sir."

"You have that potential, Amy. I have seen you when you put it to work. You can be a very good submissive when the spirit moves you. The problem we have is moving that spirit in you."

"Yes, Sir." Her eyes had not left the floor where they were supposed to be until I told her otherwise. She knew what she was supposed to do, it was just a matter of her doing it. Motivation, I felt, was the root issue.

"So tell me, Amy, what am I to do with such a disobedient, rebellious, little slut such as yourself? What would you do if you were in my place? How would you handle a submissive that just couldn't seem to keep out of trouble?"

That's when she broke protocol and looked up at me. "Please Master! Please don't get rid of me like Master Paul did! Please, I will be good I will I promise! Please, please, don't turn me away too! Please, Master! I'll do whatever you want! Please!" she begged, clutching my legs.

"Amy, how long have you been here with me?"

"Six months, Master. Six wonderful happy months." 

"And in those six months have you ever known me to make a snap decision on anything important?"

"No, Master, you are very level-headed and you consider things before saying or doing anything." 

"Exactly. So what makes you think I would be hasty in making a decision whether to keep you or not?"

"Master, I know that I am a lot of work and a lot of trouble. I really do try to behave, but sometimes... I don't know what gets into me. I don't know if I forget the rules, or if I just don't care. I think I might have A.D.D. or something—I am easily distracted and have a hard time focusing on what I'm supposed to do.

But whatever the reason, I don't get out of bed in the mornings meaning to be such a bother to you. I really want to be a good submissive and a good girl for you. I'm sorry, Master. But please, please, don't give up on me!" I saw a tear running down her cheek as she talked.

"I need to think about what to do with you. I want you to go to your room and stand in the corner. I want that mischievous little nose stuck in the corner and I don't want it to come out until I call you. Do you understand what I am telling you?"

"Yes, Sir." 

"Repeat it back to me then, I want to see if it registered with you."

"I am to go to my room and stand in the corner until you call me, Master."

"That's right. Now go!" Amy got up and scooted off to her room at a brisk walk. She knew she was in trouble with me and didn't want to get into any more. I heard her go upstairs and I heard her door shut. We share the master bedroom but we use the guest bedroom as her punishment room when she needs a timeout like now.

Amy's infraction wasn't all that severe—she had not gone grocery shopping like she should have and I had run out of beer. A minor thing, but she knows how I look forward to her serving me a nice cold beer when I get home from work. I like the service as much as the beer but without it, I am denied both.

The real problem is that all these little infractions keep on happening. It's a cumulative effect and they are things she should be picking up on easily. It's not hard to look in the fridge and see that I'm low on beer or milk or whatever. Or look in the pantry and notice Mother Hubbard's cupboards are looking a bit sparse. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see when the laundry needs to be done or that there are no clean dishes to be had.

No, I wasn't going to give up on Amy and turn her out. Not over forgetting my beer or her failure to keep clean clothes in my drawer or anything else. Even if those things were cumulative, I was a long, long way from reaching that point, if ever. But I wasn't going to let her know that just yet. She was afraid that I would be like her former Master and get tired of her and release her. But unlike Master Paul, I had a lot of patience and I saw that this little spitfire had the heart of a wonderful submissive if she just applied herself.

I was going to use that fear of being cast out to work on her imagination a bit. I could just picture her upstairs standing in her corner, fingering her collar and wondering what life would be like for a submissive without a Master. What would she do with herself? How would she get by?

Amy was a smart girl and she had a good education. I knew she could find a job fairly easily and I knew she could support herself if she needed to. I wasn't worried about that even if I was to turn her out. She might have been worried about it, but I had no doubts. It would definitely be a change for her—right now the only thing she had to worry about was making sure I was pleased with her. She had her chores to take care of, but in the end, pleasing me was job number one. 

But if she was on her own, life would be a lot more complicated. She would have to work outside the home as well as inside. She would have bills to pay. She would have to deal with the problems that always came up in life on her own. It would be a radical life change for her—one I was certain she wasn't looking forward to.

I let her stew on her precarious situation for a good while. I wanted that imagination to carry her off to places she didn't want to go. To circumstances and predicaments she didn't know how to get out of, and scenarios that would frighten her half to death. I wanted the "what if's" to overwhelm her until she realized that life without me is no life she wants any part of.

I gave her a couple hours to ponder her fate and decide what path she wanted to take from here on out. Then I went upstairs to get her. Before I went into the guest bedroom, I stopped in our bedroom and quietly got a few things out of our "toy box"—a hope chest with a cushioned top that we kept some bondage equipment and other playthings in.

I got some rope, her leather wrist and ankle cuffs, a wooden paddle and a bamboo cane. I picked up a ball gag and thought about using it, but with what I had planned for her, I wanted her to have the power of speech for safety's sake.

I went into the room and watched her. She knew I was in there—I could see her body tremble and see her shift positions, but she didn't turn to look and see me. She knew I would have gotten angry with her if she had. After a minute or so of watching her fidget in the corner, I moved into the room and over to the bed.

I set things up on the bed the way I wanted them. I tied ropes to her wrist and ankle restraints so I could tie her to the bed. I set up a couple extra ropes to go over her legs at the knees and across the small of her back when she was laying there. I set the paddle and cane on the edge of the nightstand and went into the bathroom to get some baby oil.

When I came back into the room again, I put the baby oil down next to the paddle, then sat on the edge of the bed facing Amy.

"Come here," I commanded her. Amy turned around and came to me, kneeling down as she had been taught with her knees spread wide and her head down looking at the floor in front of her.

"So have you thought long and hard about your actions—or in this case, lack of actions?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Look at me, Amy." She looked up and I saw her face was wet with tears. "I'm glad to hear that because you have a decision to make young lady and it's a decision I want you to make right here and right now. You are either going to be my good, obedient submissive or you aren't. You are either going to follow my rules and commands every time, or you are going to live on your own as a free woman."

"NO MASTER! PLEASE!" she cried, "Please don't turn me out! Please, I will do anything you say! I will be anything you want me to be! Please, please don't turn me out! Oh, Master, I am so sorry. I am so sorry I displeased you. Please, Master, please give me another chance and let me show you I can be good!" 

"Well if your decision is to be my submissive then a punishment is in order. We cannot let your disobedience and thoughtlessness go unanswered. There has got to be some consequences for your behavior, don't you agree?"

"Yes Sir," I saw the relief in her face knowing that I wasn't talking about letting her go anymore.

"If an outright release is not on the table, then something must take its place. And that something will be a spanking. A sound spanking and one that will remind you the next time you sit down of how you nearly lost your collar."

"Yes Master," she replied, "Thank you."

"Now get undressed and get up on the bed then. Be quick about it; I want to get this over with. I want you in the center of the bed face down." She did as I said quickly, not wanting to push her luck any further. I attached the wrist cuffs and then tied her arms straight out from her shoulders to the sides of the bed frame. 

Once her arms were secured, I moved to her ankles putting them together and tying them to the foot of the bed. She was now in a T formation, face down on the bed. I tied the rope behind her knees to help hold her legs down and the rope across the small of her back to keep her ass down. 

I shoved a pillow under her chest to raise her chest up a bit so she could breathe easier. I took a couple of pillows from the guest bedroom bed and stuffed them at her sides where the ropes would hold them in place to keep her side to side movement to a minimum.

Then I stood back and surveyed my work, testing the ropes and making sure she was there to stay until I let her go. When I was satisfied that she was secure and not able to go anywhere, I got the bottle of baby oil out and squirted a little on my hands.

"Now, Amy do you know why you are here tied to my bed?" I asked her as I started rubbing the oil onto her upturned ass cheeks.

"Yes, Sir."

"Tell me. I want to hear it from you."

"Because I disobeyed you, and because I forgot your beer, Master."

"And what else?" I asked, still rubbing the oil into her soft pale flesh.

"Because I can't pay attention and keep messing up, Master."

"It's not that you can't, my little slut because I have seen you do it. It's that you don't concentrate. It's that you get easily distracted—you lack focus."

"Yes, Master."

"Well, I am going to help you with your focus, slut. I am going to help you concentrate and teach you that proper focus is important to being a good submissive."

"Thank you, Master. I do want to be a good submissive and a good girl for you."

"I'm happy to hear that, slut because I'd much rather pleasure you than punish you." As I said that, my oil-covered finger slid between her thighs and softly stroked her pussy. She moaned as she felt me finger her and tried to raise her ass, but the ropes prevented it.

"You see, when you are a good girl, I get to play with you... you do like me to play with you don't you, my sweet slut?" I said still rubbing her pussy. Amy was squirming around, frustrated that she couldn't open her legs for me and let me really play with her.

"Oh yes, Master."

"Good. I like it too. I like to see you writhe and squirm as I toy with you. I like to hear you moan and beg as I bring you higher and higher. And I like it when you beg and plead for me to make you cum. You enjoy my teasing don't you, my naughty slut?" I said in a low growl.

"Oh God, yes, Master. Please, please help me to be good for you." 

"Then so I shall," I said, pulling my hand away from her. I put the leather wrist strap on the paddle handle around my wrist; since my hands were coated in the oil, I didn't want the paddle to slip out of my hand.

My paddle, one of the instruments with which I would deal so harshly with her, was made from a choice piece of high-quality half-inch plywood, well sanded to be smooth as glass, with rounded edges and corners. Then to insure her safety and make sure the paddle lasted, I had applied several coats of varnish, sanding after each. It was a well-made piece of equipment that I would now put to good use on her ass.

"Now ordinarily, I would have you count after each stroke, but since I'm not going to pause between them this time, you don't have to. This is going to be a harsh spanking, Amy, because you need to be taught that focus and concentration are very important. I can't have a submissive that I have to go around behind and make sure she does her work. I need to be able to rely on you doing what you are supposed to do—I have enough work to do on my own without babysitting you in yours. Understand?" I explained.

"Yes, Master. I am sorry to be such a bother."

"Well, we will work on you NOT being such a bother," I said. "Now are you ready to begin?"

Amy braced herself grabbing onto the edge of the pillow under her. I could see her tensing up for the first impact. "I am ready, Master."

I smiled... and waited. I waited until she relaxed a bit; until she thought that maybe I had changed my mind or something. But I hadn't. As soon as I saw the tension in her ass cheeks slacken I began.

With a rhythm of about a "one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand", I began a long string of hard smacks on her naked ass. I didn't pause between them I didn't break the rhythm until I had delivered all forty blows. It only took about thirty seconds, start to finish, but it was the longest thirty seconds of her life!

As the first sensations of pain hit her brain, she went into a pretty much constant scream broken only by an occasional "Oh My God!" exclamation here and there. To keep the noise down a bit she buried her face in the pillow screaming at the top of her lungs as her ass caught fire. Her legs tensed and her ass clenched as I knew they would, her thighs trembling as she held them stiff throughout the whole ordeal. 

She could not move, she could not get away from the endless pain I was inflicting on her - all she could do was scream and bear it until I was finished. I hadn't given her a set amount of blows so she had no idea how long this torture would last; she only hoped she wouldn't pass out before it was over.

With her ass now a bright cherry red, I relented temporarily after the forty blows. She slumped down on the bed breathing hard and moaning as her ass burned hotly. I ran my hand over the tender redness and it was indeed heated well. She would have a hard time sitting for a while after this.

"Don't get too comfortable there, slut—we aren't done quite yet!"

She looked up at me "T-There's more?" she asked incredulously.

"Oh yes, my naughty slut. We have only finished with the paddle. We still have the caning to get through!"

"Oh God, Master! Oh, please! I'll be good, I promise!"

"Oh, I know you will be good, slut. This will just insure you stay focused. The paddle, you see, showed you the pain of getting distracted. Its blows were spread over a wide area, showing how your mind works now... you are all over the place with no concentration or center.

The cane, however, is narrow and doesn't spread the pain out as much. When it strikes, you will feel the coalescing of pain to a particular focal point. This is what I want your mind to do as well. Bring all that scatterbrain stuff to a focal point and concentrate. Don't let outside influences deter or distract you," I explained.

Amy just moaned. She knew I was right and she also knew I was not going to change my mind. She'd been with me long enough to know that I was single-minded in what I wanted and what I needed to do to get it. She had tried, unsuccessfully, to talk her way out of other punishments before this. She'd promised me she would be good, she'd promised she wouldn't do this or that again. She'd pouted, batted her baby blues, and even cried. But none of it worked, and she only ended up getting what she deserved in the end anyway.

I picked up the cane and stroked it softly across her flaming ass. She whimpered softly as it stroked her... this cane could bring so much pain and yet could also bring pleasure. It was this dichotomy—this two sides to the cane—that kept her on edge. She hated the tool, yet she loved it. Hated it for the pain it brought, but loved it because that pain proved I loved her. Loved her enough to discipline her and try to make her better.

Had I not used it, she would have worried that she wasn't worth the trouble and that I was about to put her out. But caning her, for all the pain it brought, was somehow comforting to her. It proved our relationship could survive even her worst disobedience.

I stroked her with the cane a couple more times making sure that I went between her thighs once or twice so her pussy could feel the hard shaft as well. Then I raised the cane up off her ass to watch her tense up for it. I put it gently back on her ass stroking it again. A couple more times I did this until she whimpered "Please, Master, don't tease me. If you are going to do this, please get it over with!"

I raised the cane again but this time I brought it down hard on her ass. She screamed as the cane's intensity struck her and she struggled against the bonds that held her. Again and again, I let the cane do its dastardly work. I knew her ass was pretty much numb now from the paddle and that caning her ass would have little additional effect on it. But her thighs, specifically the tender pale backs of her thighs, were another matter.

After a few slow-paced blows on her ass, I moved down a bit and gave the backs of her thighs a taste of the cane. This produced a whole different level of pain for her and elicited a more intense, more urgent scream from her. I knew that I had her attention now and I gave the backs of her thighs three more whacks, laddering them so I covered more area instead of going over the same spot.

I had given her eleven blows with the cane and was just about to land another on my way to my target of fifteen when suddenly I saw a gush of liquid pour from her and the strong smell of ammonia hit my nose. My Amy had wet herself! 

That was it. I had done enough. Anything more would have been cruel and I am not a cruel Master. I stopped what I was doing instantly and untied my poor battered slut. She lay still on the bed unable to move and knowing I hadn't told her she could anyway. I went into the bathroom and got a basin and washcloth.

I filled the basin with lukewarm water, a little on the cool side but not cold, and brought both back to the bedside. As she lay there sobbing quietly to herself, I soaked the washcloth in the water and very gently began to cool her inflamed backside. 

At first, she winced, not sure what I was doing back there. But when she realized it was over, she relaxed and let me tend to her. I washed her poor red ass with the cool washcloth, absorbing some of the heat she felt and cooling her ass down. 

Although her punishment only lasted less than five minutes, it would take another half hour of soothing her before she would feel some relief. I had given her a thorough spanking and it would be a while before she could sit comfortably. And sex with her would be... ginger at best, for a bit. But that would serve to remind her of the lesson taught today and help keep her mind on what it needed to be on.

After I had calmed the fire in her ass down to just embers, I let her rest for a bit. "When you are ready to come downstairs, I will be waiting. Meantime, you just rest and get yourself back together," I told her.

I went downstairs and made myself a cup of coffee. I sat down in my recliner and watched the evening news while I waited for her to come down. After another fifteen or twenty minutes, I heard her coming downstairs. She softly padded up to me still completely naked and knelt down, albeit slowly and carefully, between my knees. She knelt there, not saying anything, with her head down and her hands behind her back as she waited for me to speak first.

"Feeling better slut?" 

"Yes, Master. Thank you."

"Good. Now is there something you wish to say to me?"

"Master I am so very sorry that you had to punish me tonight. I am sorry that I displeased you and that I have been so... unfocused. I will try very hard from now on to do what I am supposed to do, to not get distracted or confused. I will do my best to concentrate on what I am supposed to do to please you.

Thank you, Master, for correcting me, for caring enough to correct me, and for not giving up on me. I promise you that I will do better, Master. I promise," Her voice was quivering. She didn't raise her head as she spoke until I told her she could.

"Raise your head slut and look at me." She did as I said, and I saw tears streaming down her face. I reached down and put my hand on her cheek. "My dear sweet slut. You are very important to me. I love you very much and I want you to be the obedient, and loyal submissive that you want to be. I want you to grow and become all that you wish, And no, I have no intention, now or in the future, of letting you go. You are mine - now and always."

"Oh Master!" she said, hugging my legs. "Please help me be what you want me to be! Please help me stay on track and stay focused. I want to be a good submissive for you - more than anything in this world. Please!" 

I pulled my girl up into my lap and she sat down carefully. She put her arms around my neck hugging and kissing on me. "Thank you, Master! My sweet wonderful Master!" 

We held each other tightly for some time and then a thought occurred to her. She pulled back to look me in the face.

"Master, I'm sorry I wet the bed when you were caning me. I will go change it right now."

I chuckled. "No it's all right. We have that plastic mattress protector under the sheets for 'wet' accidents of all sorts. The sheets will keep for a bit. You can wash them later. Until then, I like what we are doing right now." 

"Me too, Master," and she laid her head on my shoulder.