Chapter 29: Stress Relief

With Jason and Clara gone, life returned to its routines of classes and work projects, and all of the domestic chores that went with living together and keeping house. We were quite busy, and as the semester wore on, the workload ramped up significantly, giving neither of us a lot of free time. We both managed to make the most of our time together, without consciously making any arrangements about it.

One of the things that I had noticed was that I was not getting as much exercise as I was used to. I solved the problem of a lack of real movement by starting to run to and from the campus, rather than taking the bus, although it did cut down on some of the time we could spend together. The other issue for me was the lack of any weight-lifting time. I had become quite used to an hour or so every few days of lifting weights in the home garage, and without it I could feel my upper body muscles starting to soften. For her, she spent a fair amount of time in the pool swimming laps, and did yoga in the yard; the combination did wonders for her physique, and her flexibility. We did our best to test that flexibility as often as possible.

I was still searching for a way to get some upper body exercise when I decided to put Rhonda's dungeon to use for the first time. I set up one of the practice dummies on cables from the ceiling, and started working with various single-tailed whips on it. The dummy's outer covering was made of heavy cowhide, so pretty much no amount of whipping would hurt it. I soon discovered that an hour of whipping a dummy gave me almost as good an upper body workout as lifting weights, and I soon worked up quite a sweat.

After I had been at the dummy for about forty-five minutes, Rhonda came down the stairs from her house, and stood to one side, watching me work with a flogger. After about five minutes, she said, "You need to use a bit more wrist. Too much forearm and you'll raise welts, which you don't want to do with a flogger. It's all about sensation, not pain."

I altered my technique, and saw her nodding her head as she continued to watch me. After another ten minutes, I needed to rest my arm, so I stopped what I was doing and grabbed a towel, and a drink of water. I wandered over to talk to her. "I'm a little surprised to see you. I thought you were out."

"I was, but I'm done with my errands. There's a light upstairs that goes on when someone is in here. Obviously, I thought it was you, so I wandered down. I've never seen you work a whip; you really do have a nice touch with it."

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, and grinned lopsidedly. "I can always hook you up, and you can check my touch firsthand."

She barked a laugh, and said, "Yeah, right. Do you really think that I'd let you whip me if I won't let you into my pants?"

"Ah well, it was worth a shot."

"Smartass."

I went back at it for another fifteen minutes, under her watchful eye, and with the occasional tip from her, then decided that my arm had had enough for the day. As she watched me rubbing my sore bicep, she said, "You need to change arms while you're working it. Don't always whip with the same arm, especially with a flogger. You can easily flip back and forth with a flogger since precise control isn't necessary."

I realized that she had made an excellent point, and also that it would quickly balance my workout. After I had put the dummy and the whips away, I walked up to her and spontaneously hugged her. "Thanks for the tips, and whenever you're ready to take the place of that dummy, just let me know." I was sure she was going to punch me, but she just laughed off the remark, then looked at me without pulling out of my arms. Our lips came together, and I reflected on the fact that I really did like kissing her. A moment later we separated, and we each climbed a different set of stairs.

After that first day, it became a regular event for the two of us. I would start a workout in the dungeon, and Rhonda would come down at some point, to kibitz, offer tips, or make sarcastic remarks about the way I was wielding a particular whip. The mood between us was always light, and I found that we were rapidly becoming good friends, with this shared skill between us. Every now and then she would demonstrate some new technique, and I quickly realized that she truly was a master of the whip.

While there was never any physical intimacy between us, we did share hugs, and kisses, and I still reminded her about how gorgeous she was, and how much I liked kissing her. She called me a smartass on many an occasion, and we realized that we just enjoyed each other's company.

By early November, I started noticing that my love and I both seemed to be wound a little tight, primarily from the volume of classwork, and its higher degree of difficulty. We were both maintaining very high academic standing, and neither of us was concerned about losing our scholarships, but we both admitted that it was a strain. In the back of my mind I started thinking that we needed some kind of outlet, some form of 'stress relief'.

The solution should have been obvious, but too many things were clouding my mind. The next day, as Rhonda was once more chiding me about my technique with the whip I was using, the answer came to me. I realized that I had been somewhat stupid for not seeing it sooner, especially given the facilities that were available. What we needed was a round of endorphin-fuelled sensations for her, a workout for me, and some mutually explosive and satisfying orgasms for both of us. Thoughts of school work would certainly not penetrate any kind of performance of that nature.

I had not told her about Rhonda's playroom, but I thought that this would be the ideal time to introduce her to it. If my scheme worked, it would also be the ideal way to cope with the stresses of academia as our university careers went on. I settled on the upcoming Saturday night as the best time, since neither of us would have classes to worry about, and we would both have Sunday to use as a recuperative period.

I made sure to fix us a light supper on Saturday, and ducked out for a moment to turn on the hot tub. When I returned, I found her in the bedroom, folding laundry. "We need to spend a little time together this evening, and tonight."

She lifted an eyebrow, and asked, "How so?"

"We both need a little stress relief, because we've been too wound up about school things, and I think I know the best way to deal with it."

"Are you suggesting a few hours of skin to skin contact, or something else?"

"Well, that will certainly happen, but actually something else initially. Something we haven't done in a long time."

At that statement, she stopped what she was doing, and looked a question at me, with one hand on her hip. "And what might that be?"

"I can't tell you right away. I know that you'll enjoy it in the end, but I may need to put your collar on you at first."

Her hand flew to her neck, and her face paled noticeably. "M-my c-collar? Why?"

I stepped up and took her by her shoulders, looking down into her suddenly fearful face. "I don't want to collar you. I want this to be mutual, and enjoyable, but I need you to trust me, and to agree to go along even before you know what it is. I can promise you that there will only be you and I involved; I wouldn't suggest putting your collar on in order to bring in other people."

She looked at me with a totally blank expression, and I could see that the mention of her collar had shocked her. "Always remember that I love you, and I would never suggest anything that would jeopardize that. This isn't a punishment; it's simply a way of making us both forget about school for a while."

After a moment, she nodded, and looked down. I hugged her to me, kissing the top of her head, then stepped back and said, "This starts with you getting undressed." I watched as she began to strip, then went and got a pair of shorts for myself. I removed the rest of my clothes, and put on just the shorts, and a pair of sneakers. I told her to put on a pair of sandals, then took her hand and headed downstairs.

She balked for a moment at the doorway, but I said, "It's okay. We're just going across the yard, and you know it's clothing optional."

"Easy for you to say; you're still dressed."

"Remember, you agreed to go along with everything."

She sighed, and rolled her eyes at me, but then gave me a small smile, so I knew we were all right. I took her hand and guided her across the yard. When she saw that the cover was off the tub, she started trying to go in that direction, but I pulled her back. "No, not now, but maybe later."

I saw her looking at me strangely as we entered the garage, and again as I positioned her with her back to the workbench. I flipped wrenches, slid toolbars, and pulled the bench out, then unlocked the door and turned on the lights. I stepped up and turned her to face the door, holding her from behind. In her ear, I quietly said, "Where we are going is a place whose existence you must swear to keep secret. You must also never enter it without me."

Now she was truly puzzled, and it showed on her face as she turned to look at me. I fixed my gaze on her, expectantly. In a soft voice she said, "I swear, even though I don't know what this is all about."

"You'll see everything in about two seconds." I guided her to the door, and down the steps. When we entered the main room, she stopped dead, looking around. "Oh, my..."

"Feel like any place you know?"

"I can't believe this. It's incredible ... it's even bigger than the one the Mistress has."

"Yep ... and all it's all ours to use whenever we want."

"Rhonda said you can use this?"

"Even better, she has been helping me with my technique. I've been using this place for workouts for a few weeks. There are whipping dummies over there, and it turns out that swinging a whip for an hour is almost as good a workout as lifting weights."

"And so your evil plan is to use my poor tender body in place of one of your dummies?"

"Precisely my dear." I gave her a short cackling laugh, then got serious. "You know that I won't hurt you, and with the practice I've had, I'm even better than I was the last time we did anything like this. I think we both need this—an endorphin rush for you, what should be a couple of screaming orgasms, and then a session in the hot tub to finally wash away any stress or worrisome thoughts you might have."

She looked at me thoughtfully for a minute, then smiled and said, "I hate to admit it, but you might actually be right. My submissive side hasn't been taken out for a walk for a long time, and this might actually work as a crazy form of stress relief. This just might have to be labeled as another one of your good ideas." I started to grin, but she stopped me with, "However, I will reserve judgement until after it's all over."

I nodded my agreement, and led her over to the cabinets at the side to equip her with a set of soft wrist and ankle cuffs, making sure that they were fitted well so they wouldn't chafe. Back in the middle of the floor, I positioned her over the floor chains, and hooked up her ankles, then lowered the upper cables and clipped her wrists into place. I hoisted her up, spreading her arms and legs, and checking the tension on her body once her feet had left the floor.

When I was satisfied, she was fully spread, and had almost no freedom of movement. I watched as she worked her shoulders and pelvis to equalize any strain, then walked around her to check for any problems. I rubbed a hand over most of her body, stopping to squeeze her rear, massage her breasts, and roll her nipples until they stood up. My final gesture was to cup her vulva; when I discovered that she was already quite wet, I dragged a finger between her folds and raised an eyebrow at her. Her response was to smile and stick her tongue out at me, so I knew she was not in any distress.

I left her hanging there while I walked back to the whip cabinet and selected two floggers of different weights, the two-tailed quirt, and a tit whip, this one of thin leather strands rather than braided silk. Since I wasn't planning on using it until the end, I wanted to make sure that she could feel it. My end game was a little open to improvisation; I might even decide to use a light flogger on her pussy if she was deeply enough into an endorphin-fuelled space.

I didn't say anything as I returned; I simply stood for a moment admiring the view of her back, ass, and legs. Her time in a pool over the years had done wonders for her muscle definition, sculpting what her good genes had provided into something that truly was a delight to look at. I loved the rear view of her almost as much as the front view, and pursed my lips as I thought about what I was going to do in the next few minutes.

I finally ended my reverie, and shook out the lighter of the floggers, setting the other whips to my side on a small table. I started with the lightest of strokes up and down her back, knowing that they would feel like little more than a tickle at this point, but my goal was to simply wake up the nerves. After working from her shoulders down to the backs of her knees, and onto her calves, I started at the top once again, this time striking horizontally and a little harder, so the swishing of the strands in the whip became slightly audible.

Down the length of her, then back up to the top, then down again, but harder this time. Change hands, and change direction, working vertically with the other hand. I stepped in a little closer for the next pass, letting the whip wrap around her legs and thighs, and even scoring a few hits on the sides of her breasts. I heard a small moan in reaction to each of these, so I knew that her skin was coming alive with the feeling.

For the next pass, I stepped in front of her and studied her face as I worked over her breasts and down onto her abdomen. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady, and she did her best to arch her back to present her breasts to me. I took advantage to strike the tender undersides a few times, and watched as the blood flowed into the tissue, bringing the faintest pink glow to those wonderful mammary projections.

Her mound and her inner thighs took a flurry of blows, but with a softer approach, given the tenderness of the target areas. I rotated back behind her and switched the flogger to my other hand so that I could pick up the heavier one.

With both floggers in hand, I started them rotating opposite to each other, and stepped up to work over the cheeks of her rear, then up her back. After a minute I dropped the lightweight flogger, and worked over the opposite side of her back, and the other cheek of her pert rear. The skin of her back was starting to take on a deeper pink flush. There were no individual whip marks on her back, which I was glad to see, since it meant that my work with the flogger was at just the right level of force.

As I started to work down the backs of her thighs, something moved in the corner of my eye and I flicked a glance to my right. Rhonda was standing there watching me work, but mainly staring at my fiancée, and I realized that this was the first time she would have seen her naked. A moment later her gaze flicked to me, and she gave a little start, knowing that I had seen her. She started to back away, but I waved her over as I continued working the flogger.

When she reached me, she leaned in to whisper, "I am really sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. I thought you were down here by yourself, and then when I saw her ... I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist staring. She's just so damn beautiful, and like this..." Rhonda's voice trailed off as she looked at the subject in question again, watching the flogger go back and forth across her ass.

I took a few vertical strokes along the insides of her thighs, and up toward her pussy, and heard a sharp intake of breath and a loud moan. I knew she was now moving into the space in her mind where her focus was about an orgasm, and she was no longer feeling any pain. Everything now was sensation, and the goal of coming, and every strike of the whip would move her in that direction.

I reached out to pick up the tit whip, and tapped Rhonda with it to get her attention. Her head whirled toward me, then she saw the tit whip and her brow furrowed in confusion. In a loud whisper I said, "Go work the front. Do her tits well, then down to her pussy, and keep at it until she comes."