'Shall we begin?' Stephanie just about kept her voice level, racked by a disorienting mix of lust and trepidation. Despite her - arguably - secure position Stephanie's doubts lingered. Ever since their arrival something deep inside her begged her to treat this whole thing with caution, but excitement and the urge to simply enjoy what she was about to witness were winning out. When the time came she simply watched as Lena helped the naked and painfully aroused Emily onto the table. Here, hands trailing softly over her smooth buttocks and back, she arranged Emily into an exquisitely vulnerable position with her knees apart, breasts flat on the mat and pale pink rosebud exposed to the hard light of the clinic.

'Not just yet, there's something I need to do first', Anya curtly announced.

She crossed over the room towards the table, defly handing the cane to Lena who accepted it, returning to her place by Stephanie's side. Stephanie had been surprised by many things that day, Anya's unannounced appearance rapidly becoming among the least of them. Nevertheless, what Anya did next shocked her.

Taking a place in front of Emily's upturned face, and placing a hand on each of Emily's, she locked eyes with her. She silently held her glance for a second, then said:

'Emily - you're back in the room'

The world Emily found herself in seemed to render around her slowly. The experience was like waking up from a dream - a warm and embarrassingly intimate one. For those first few moments, her consciousness cast around for rational explanation rather listlessly, like rope or seaweed under gentle waves. But slowly, a feeling of anxiety seemed to rise up, tinged with embarrassment and a terrible sense of knowing. Her absence of clothing was the first, but this was quickly drowned out by an awareness that she could not move, and that if she ever found the words to speak, they too would fail to materialise. But at the same time, she knew what she could do - she could leap from the table, run to grab her dress, cover herself, exit a situation in which no one could physically keep her. These were feelings that came as second nature, and had she stopped to wonder, she would have been puzzled that they had simply not occurred to her til then. But in that moment they wrestled with something else - a concept she understood in theory but made no rational sense under the circumstances: obedience.

But whether or not she understood, it was clear which feeling was winning. The rapid succession of thoughts served to create nothing more than confusion, and with it paralysis. And in her paralysed state, Anya commanded her full attention, and she took that as a sign to speak.

'Emily, this is the part you won't remember, but in the brief time you're able to understand I need you to pay close attention. I see that shouldn't be difficult even for you. What you're about to experience is not a punishment but a lesson. Now, do you see Lena over there?'

Anya turned her head to the others. Emily nervously followed.

'In a moment she is going to hand me the cane and I am going to give you two dozen sound strikes with it. It's going to hurt but pain is not the object here. Now eyes on mine - keep them there.'

As she said this, her hand snuck up under Emily's stomach, deftly grasping her member and sliding back the foreskin to expose her dripping, sensitive clit. Emily gave a sharp intake of breath that came out as a series of tense, whimpering gasps. But she did not look away.

'This is, to some extent, a practicality. I've kept you locked to keep you obedient, to keep you sweet and helpless - to keep you how I need you to be. And the way I do this is by stimulating your erotic desires so that you can focus on nothing else, until the need is so great that it overwhelms any sense of dignity or rational will that might keep you from obeying my commands, and submitting to my training. In this moment - and only this moment - I need you to understand that everything that's been happening to you has been directed to this singular purpose.'

Under her belly, Anya's hand slid another inch up the shaft of Emily's member and then pulled the foreskin down, but kept her fingers still gently grasped around the tip. Emily - summoning some distant shred of control - kept silent, but with Anya's eyes seemingly boring straight into her conscious mind she once again momentarily forgot herself. In that brief lapse, Emily found herself obeying something deeper. Lowering her hips just a fraction she eased her clit through Anya's waiting fingers, letting out a long shaking breath.

Anya, knowing this is exactly what Emily would do, let this happen for just a second. Then, feeling Emily tense up as if about to dare a second thrust, she withdrew her hand, teasing her now wet fingers across Emily's nipple. It took Emily a moment to realise what happened, and even tensed her back, mutely begging for Anya to continue her ministrations. It was only when she again met Anya's wry expression, eyes still trained straight on hers, that she realised what had happened, and blushed all over again, burying her face in the mat. This disobedience, however, Anya was not going to allow.

'Emily!' She snapped - instantly meeting her eyes, but this time her own were ringed with tears.

'That, is exactly what I mean. I'm sure right this minute you're telling yourself this is my programming, even though it pains you to admit how easily you let your mind be penetrated. But I'm going to let you in on a secret, for what it's worth. This is nine tenths your own horny little mind, Miss Forester. The truth is Emily, you love being humiliated, you love being bared for all of us to see, to be violated and punished and controlled, and most of all patronised. It feeds your desire, and your humiliation in turn. And you see, it's the chastity device that completes the loop as it will resume doing so very soon. But until then...'

Anya was standing now, crossing around til she was behind Emily (who this time did not follow her gaze). Placing a finger on the middle of Emily's back, she pushed firmly until Emily's back was again arched, then with a single nail, traced a line from her spine then between her buttocks, scoring gently over Emily's sensitive exposed hole - eliciting a shudder - then down between her legs where she once more wrapped them around her engorged clit. Emily did - somehow - control herself this time. Releasing her, she walked back to where Lena and the increasingly dumbstruck Stephanie still stood. Taking the cane offered by Lena she turned and addressed her from where she stood.

She continued; 'That's the overall plan, in case it wasn't clear by now. But before that we have some immediate things to address. Now, certain aesthetic preoccupations that I and a number of my peers share require you to be as bare as a woodnymph from an 18th century painting. That is the primary purpose of this session. But in order to get there we're going to need to deal with your apparent control issues. And while it's been made readily apparent that some light punishment' - casting a brief glance over to Stephanie - 'serves very much to heighten your arousal, what I'm about to impart will have the opposite effect, long enough at least for Lena to finish your treatment. Stephanie.'

The sound of her name broke her out of a reverie, but she soon recovered -

'Anya?'

'I want you to resume my position over in front of Emily. I want you to keep her gaze fixed on hers.'

Stephanie was confused but followed. Facing Emily, there was a moment of uncertainty over who appeared the most confused. But whether or not she anticipated this, Anya soon restored the balance;

'She's still a little red, Stephanie. You seem to have a knack for keeping girls in line.'

With that, Stephanie felt her confidence return. And she returned Emily's gaze with a silent air of dignity that made clear - at least to Emily - that this was how things were, and whatever sympathy Stephanie might have demonstrated, she would no more tolerate disobedience than would Anya. Even so, plans allowed for her to play good cop at least sometimes, and as Anya flexed the cane, getting into position, Stephanie brushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen over Emily's face, gently brushing her fingers through her hair before placing them back over Emily's hand. And as she did so, Stephanie caught the ghost of a smile, which she returned with a dignified nod that belied a wicked grin just below the surface.

'Before I begin, I want you to understand that this is as clear a demonstration as you're ever going to witness of your situation. By the time you leave her you'll remember this only as a thing that happened, that needed to happen. But until then you're going to focus on the humiliation but also the pain and the fear, because what you're going to feel is a vulnerability that goes beyond embarrassment, and a submission beyond obedience. But you won't remember these terms - because this isn't a lesson you can turn to. It will exist in the back of your mind as a hardwired encoding of your situation, a reminder of what will happen if you don't stay sweet and obedient and love your humiliation, so why do anything else?'

Swishing the cane one more time, and raising it above Emily's waiting bottom, Anya declared;

'Now Stephanie, now we begin.'

***

Emily did indeed learn her lesson well. Still burning with the shame brought on by her sluttish loss of control at Anya's touch, the first stroke caught her off guard. She internalised what was happening soon enough. Unlike her session over Stephanie's knee that morning, this stung from the second the cane touched bare skin. And while unable to speak, she could make sounds - growing from a choked moan, to an open-mouthed yelp, and a full shriek by the fifth stroke. But the pain was not yet enough to make Emily forget embarrassment. Indeed, mortified as she had been moments ago, she was still finding new sources of indignity. As a student of art history, she was well versed in reading a composition, and it was clear this was another avenue of Anya's talents she was to become all too conscious of. Fixed in place at the knees, she found her contortions that followed every blow forced her to arch her back and expose her sex even more conspicuously. Unable to turn her gaze from Stephanie's face, but all too aware of the view she must be presenting to Lena, she was a spectacle from all angles, and she became hyper-conscious her every movement and expression.

But gradually, another feeling was coming over her. Some version of what Anya had said just before they began was reverberating around her head, but each blow broke her train of thought. All she could get a clear fix on was an image and an idea - of her body as an object to be punished. And in spite of her still protesting consciousness, it began to materialise as a different kind of lust. No longer the titillation of exposure to clothed peers and strangers, but a desire for the punishment itself. Not out of masochistic pride or defiance, but a greed for sensation - to present her helpless flesh to the fullest under the searing lashes of the cane.

When it finally stopped, Emily felt somewhat blank - the intensity of that feeling was ebbing even as the last few swipes made contact with her livid buttocks, and so when the abated she felt only relief. Anya allowed her to lie flat against the bed in a position of relative comfort, to lie and reflect on what she had just undergone, and sob out the last of the pain. By the time she'd recovered, Emily's being was close to what it had been before, minus the still intense burning in her buttocks and thighs. So when Anya had her turn over to be met with the sight of Lena poised with a dish of warm water and a razor, her response was - in familiar pattern - a blush and a protracted moan of dismay.

Seemingly resigned to her fate at last, Emily was grateful that the caning had left her able to control her body - for now at least. After the build up, the lasering itself, though unpleasant, was little more than another sliver of shame on an already dizzying collection of parts.

Stephanie had stood by alongside Anya to watch the final stages of Emily's ordeal. Now, at Anya's quiet bidding, she resumed her place at the head of the table, now looking down at the prone Emily. The face she now saw was - she realised - the same she'd seen at the breakfast table, and knew that Anya's restoration of full consciousness had run its course. Emily's embarrassment was still there but it was different now. Emily had accepted it as part of her, and no longer resisting, had learned to enjoy it. Stephanie found herself returning Emily's gaze with a gentle smile, as Lena applied a cooling lotion to Emily's pubic mound, before Anya swept in to re-lock the cage.