Chapter 37

Marty and Kelly were at their desks working when Susan Carlson and Mike Morris came into their office followed by King. Since the seven tigers had appeared at the firm offices, they often spent a lot of their time during the days with the very young children or in the school while their mistresses were working. They were always in the school during nap time where they took the place of the no-longer-used sleeping bags.

Now Ken and Andy always slept in each other's arms while being held by Prince. Susan and Mike always slept the same way on King. Charley Conrad rotated and slept with a different member of his harem each day, while the remaining girls paired up or slept with Bobbie on one of the other tigers.

Kelly's desk was closest to the door and she realized that Susan was crying while Mike was trying to suppress his own tears. When asked what was the matter, Susan said, "Miss Maguire, we need to be punished. What Mike and I just did was utterly inexcusable!"

"But what did you just do?" Kelly asked. Marty had stopped work and was now listening intently as well.

"Mike and I deliberately tortured King. We were supposed to be sleeping. I don't know what came over us, but we decided we would pull out the hairs of his chest fur one by one, in a way to cause him the greatest possible pain. Can you imagine? Doing a thing like that to an animal as good and sweet and pure as King? An animal that saved your lives less than two weeks ago at great sacrifice to himself?"

She stood up as straight as she could and said, "Mrs. Conroy punished us, and then sent us out of the room to see our parents. Then our mothers sent us down to see you. Since King is your friend and protector, you must punish us first."

Then she looked at Mike and gripped his hand saying, "Ten of the hardest spanks you can manage for each of us," Susan said. "I'll go first."

At that Mike Morris moved in front of Susan and said, "Please, Miss Maguire and Miss Bradford, I would like to accept all the punishment for Susan and myself. It was my idea—"

"It was not, Michael Morris! That's a lie," Susan exclaimed. "The idea was all mine! If anyone receives all the punishment, it should be me."

"But, Sue," Mike protested. "I just went along. I made no effort to talk you out of it..."

"That's because you love me too much for our own good, Michael Morris," she said softly. "You're incapable of saying no to me about anything." Then she glared at him, pulled down her pants, pulled up her skirt and went to lie across Kelly's lap. Kelly was dumbfounded and didn't know what to do.

Susan looked up at her and said, "I'm sorry, Miss Maguire, really I am. I know how hard this is going to be for you." Then her eyes brightened and she said, "But they better be hard spanks. If they're not so hard that they make me cry out, you'll just have to do them all over again. Clear?"

Kelly just nodded her head and then looked at the little girl's bare bottom. Only then did she see that it was already bright red. When she mentioned it, Susan merely reminded her that Mrs. Conroy had already punished them. Swallowing hard, Kelly began to spank the girl as hard as she could.

After three strokes, Susan rolled over and pointed out that she was using her wrist, rather than a full arm stroke. "Don't use your wrist, Miss Maguire. You might hurt it. Now start over again at one."

Doing what Susan said provoked involuntary cries with each spank. When she reached ten and stopped, the little girl climbed off her lap, took her right hand in hers, kissed the palm softly, and then licked it. "I'm so sorry you hurt your hand on my hard little ass, Miss Maguire," the little girl said tearfully.

Then she extended her arms and Kelly lifted her up to her lap. When she sat Susan down, the girl screamed and jumped up. Then she knelt on the chair straddling Kelly's legs and began to kiss her all over, concentrating particularly on her eyes and lips. She concentrated on kissing away Kelly's tears. Only when she moved her lips on Kelly's did Kelly taste something salty. Pulling away, she found that the girl's lip was bleeding. Susan just said that she had bitten it to keep from crying out while being spanked.

When Kelly grinned wryly at Marty and said that it looked like she was going to get to punish Mike, Susan pulled away and said, "Oh, no, Miss Maguire! I guess I wasn't too clear. You each punish both of us!" Then she looked concerned and said, "But do you think ten apiece is really enough?"

Then she looked at King and said, "Isn't there some punishment we can get King to inflict on us directly? He was the one we hurt, after all. When we asked him before, he just flat refused."

At this point King entered the conversation. "Miss Susan, you and Master Michael are making me very angry! Hurt me? Utterly impossible. What overweening egos you two have! Do you honestly think that the two of you, weighing about ninety pounds total, could possibly hurt me, weighing 600? Actually, your little fingers pulling at my fur felt sort of funny. It's not something I would like all the time, certainly, but it didn't hurt.

"But now I am getting very angry! Why? Because of what you're doing to my poor mistresses. Why are you mad at them? What have they ever done to hurt you? Yet you're hurting them terribly! Why?"

Suddenly the little girl broke down completely. Crying her eyes out, she stumbled blindly towards the giant tiger. While sitting up on his haunches, King extended his paws, caught the little girl and pulled her close to his chest where he just held her tightly while he listened to her uncontrolled, hopeless-sounding crying.

Meanwhile, Mike was standing before Marty and said, "Please, Miss Bradford, as a very special favor — and I know I certainly don't deserve one — please spank me as hard as you possibly can for as many strokes as you can bring yourself to do? Please?

"I know exactly what King means, and he's right, of course, but I couldn't live with myself if I stood by and watched Susan being beaten without ever suffering anything myself. I know how hard and painful it is for you to do, but please? As a very special favor?"

Marty was crying herself, but she just nodded her head. The little boy pulled off his pants and positioned his bottom where she could most comfortably hit it. He lay there silently while she beat him fifteen times. By that time she was crying so uncontrollably, she could do no more.

Then he took her hand and kissed it, then climbed on her lap to kiss away her tears all the while thanking her for the tremendous favor she had done for him. Then King growled, "That's enough of that, Master Michael! Now get over here where you belong and comfort your love. She needs you so!"

Then King lay on his back while Mike took the still-crying Susan in his arms, then climbed up on the tiger's chest while holding Susan tightly. He was kissing away her tears when King enfolded them both in his huge arms and began to purr softly.

"What do you think, roomy?" Kelly asked softly.

"I think it's going to be awfully tough being a mother sometimes, is what I think," Marty replied through her tears. "That was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Imagine! Spanking an angel." While she watched the children, now almost completely covered by King's huge paws, she said, "What did you think?"

"King," Kelly said, "please continue to hold and cherish those two cherubs. They have just given us another invaluable lesson in how to be a mother. I once watched one of the mothers crying her eyes out in the conference room while being held in the arms of another and being comforted. The woman was crying because she had just spanked her child while the other tried to comfort her and tell her she understood how hard and painful it was. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen!

"Well, it wasn't and it isn't. The mothers all know that it is essential for their child's sense of security to know where the boundaries of acceptable behavior are exactly!

"Since children are always testing, that means they get spanked once in a while when they go over the line. Strange as it seems, it makes the child feel better. He or she feels more secure because he or she knows the boundary is real and it will be enforced, although they may recognize how hard it is for their mothers to spank them.

"It truly does hurt the mothers far more than the children, but that's a price of motherhood, I guess." Then to the tiger she said, "King, darling, when the children calm down and we fix them up a bit, let's take them back to their mothers, okay?"

Then Kelly had an idea. She whispered it to Marty who dashed out of the office and then Kelly whispered it into King's ear. He smiled and communicated that it might work and was certainly worth a try in any case. When Marty returned, she had a large bowl of ice cubes. Then King told the children to take off all of their clothes and then bend over the seat of Marty's now-vacant chair.