Kevin was just signing off on the legal summary for his new office complex when the door to his study opened. He glanced up and was surprised to find Jessica approaching with a tray. He had checked on her a little over half an hour ago and had found her curled up with a purring Trinity, fast asleep in front of the Honeymooners.

"What are doing up, baby?" he asked, smiling to show it wasn't meant as disapproval.

She smiled back and set the tray on his desk. It held a china pot, two matching cups, and small plate of oatmeal cookies and oreos. "I was thirsty and thought you might be ready for a cup of tea too."

Ever thoughtful, his little Jess. While she poured the tea he took an oreo and unscrewed it to lap at the creamy filling. Jessica laughed at him and started to pull up a chair, but he gestured her to his lap instead.

Settling in, Jessica sampled the oatmeal.

Good girl, he thought, washing his down. He could imagine how hard it was for her to turn down her favorite, but chocolate was strictly forbidden at the moment.

"How is it going?" Jessica asked, wiping the crumbs from her lips and tipping her head toward his documents.

"Actually, I just finished. In more ways than one. This is the last summary before we go to construction."

"The Walnut Street complex?" she asked with new interest.

He nodded and tapped the stack of pages. "If all goes well, we should be laying the foundation by early December."

"That's the best news I've heard all year," she smiled happily, leaning back to kiss his cheek. "When can we move in?"

Kevin laughed at her eagerness. Walnut Street was to be the new location of her rapidly expanding art gallery. He had promised her a prominent block of first floor suites and had even gone to great pains to bully his designers into making them a masterpiece of interconnecting warrens with more than the normal amount of wall space. She had alternately laughed and cried the first time she had seen the blueprints.

"Are you that eager for more work?" he teased, understanding the immensity of the undertaking.

Jessica groaned good naturedly. "As if I didn't have enough already. With Glen Hesh giving his showing at the end of the month, the next two weeks are going to be sheer chaos."

Kevin's good spirits took a nose dive immediately. Damn it! Didn't she ever listen for longer than a heartbeat? He grimaced at having to be the one to remind her.

"Jess," he began, silently praying for the strength to keep his patience. "Did you listen to Marcus at all?"

"What do you mean?" She scooted to the edge of his knee to face him, perplexity creasing her delicate brow.

"I mean that Marcus said it was important for you to avoid excessive stress until your system adjusts to the medication. He also said it's going to make you tired and that you'll need plenty of rest. Now, considering the gallery always wears you down and stresses you out, there is no way that you're going into work next week." "What?" Jessica nearly jumped to her feet before he stopped her. "Kevin, that's absurd. I can't possibly be gone for a week, especially now, not with the Hesh showing coming up. There's too much to do."

"And too much to irritate you're condition," he pointed out. "Besides, you wouldn't last a full day."

"I'll make it just fine." Jessica was beginning to get angry now. Not a wise move considering is own blossoming temper.

"Jessica." Kevin tried to reason with her, hoping to avoid a lengthy battle. "You'll be ready to drop after the first few hours and there's no reason for it. You're always telling me that your assistant, what's her name? Janet?, can run the place with her hands tied behind her back.

"Forget it, Kevin." Jessica refused to listen. "I'm not going to put that burden on her. That wouldn't be fair."

Well, maybe now was as good a time as any to tell her, Kevin thought. "You don't have to," he informed her. "I've already called to tell her you won't be coming in and she said she was glad you were finally showing good sense and that she would take care of everything."

"You what?" Jessica fairly screamed. "How could you? You didn't even...."

"You're not going, Jess," he interrupted firmly.

"Yes I am," she declared. "There's no reason I shouldn't. I've managed just fine today."

"Oh, really?" he chided. "And tell me, just how many hours have you slept today?"

"That isn't the same."

"No, it's not," he agreed. "After tomorrow's treatment you'll probably spend the next day in bed."

"No!" Jessica gave the startled cry and jumped up, managing to free herself this time. "Marcus didn't tell me that."

"He didn't tell you or you didn't hear?" Kevin accused, gaining his feet as well.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Taking a deep breath, Kevin struggled to stay calm. It was difficult. This was the very reason he was doing all this in the first place. "You don't listen, Jess," he explained evenly. "That's your problem. As soon as someone says something you don't want to hear you just tune the rest out, regardless of the consequences."

His wife's face paled with fury and she opened her mouth, but an instant later she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I am not going to argue about that right now. It's completely beside the point. The point is that I can't do this." She skirted the desk and headed for the door, the firm globes of her bottom jostling beneath the green satin of her shirt.

"What are you saying, Jess?" Kevin was unwilling let desire distract him. He was too angry.

Her hand was on the knob and she didn't look back. "That I've had enough. I'm not taking anymore of Marcus' treatments, Kevin, and I am going to the gallery. After the Hesh showing I'll see someone else and....

Jessica had started to open the door, but the sudden immovable weight of Kevin's hand stopped it at a mere few inches.

"You don't seem to understand, Jess," he breathed in her ear, in a voice of suppressed fury. "You don't have a choice."

Jessica tried to spin, to confront him, but his body pressed her's to the wood, keeping her pinned and reminding her of her helplessness against his strength.

"Don't try to fight me on this, baby," he continued, accentuating each word. "You'll only make it harder on yourself. You aren't well, whether you like that or not, and if you can't be trusted to do anything about it, then I'll take any measure necessary to make sure someone else does."

"Let me go!" Jessica hissed, unwilling to accept the sense of defeat that was already washing over her. She wouldn't give in. She just wouldn't.

"Only when you swear to Daddy that you'll be good and obey him."

"No!" Jessica ignored caution and tried vainly to pull at the door. "I've done enough. This is serious, Kevin...."

"Yes, it is!" he declared, releasing the door so suddenly it knocked her off balance.

Kevin had planned it that way. He took advantage and threw his arm around her waist, lifting her, bent in half, like an insignificant sack of flour. Jessica tried to kick free, finally grabbing the door frame in desperation.

Muttering annoyance, Kevin crouched and pried her fingers from the wood. Slapping her hands down, he then threw her up over his shoulder, far enough so that her hips rested on the bone and her face bounced against the small of his back, and headed for the stairs.

"I have had about enough of your behavior," Kevin stated flatly, trudging up the steps none to gently. "In trying to keep you happy, it would seem that I've been far too lenient. I've neglected your punishment, but now I'm going to have to remedy that. It's time I gave you a lesson you won't soon forget, Jess. Maybe then you'll stop acting like an infant."

His declarations sent a thrill of panic through Jessica and she began to struggle in ernest, shrieking curses.

"Keep it up!" Kevin bellowed over her. "And for every foul word you use I'll add to what you've already earned."

Furious, Jessica swore in defiance.

"That's five," Kevin counted. "Six. Nine."

At eleven Jessica finally stopped, but only because she was out of breath. She would be glad for that later.

By the time she had regained some of her wind, Kevin had reached their bedroom door. He locked the door immediately behind them and went straight to the linen closet in the bathroom where his "bag of tricks" was currently stored. He fished inside and then carried her to the bed where he dropped her on her back.

Jessica instantly rolled away, but Kevin had anticipated that and seized her arm, snapping a handcuff around her wrist. Before she knew it her other wrist was bound and both were captive behind her. To complete the task, Kevin then snapped an additional pair around the chain between the first and secured it to the post at the head of the bed. "That should hold you for the moment," he announced, backing off to watch her struggle. He smiled wickedly. "Don't go away now."

Kevin left the room then, locking the door behind him. "Damn you!" Jessica hissed after him. She stood on the bed, running the cuffs up and down the post in the vain hope that it would miraculously give way. Of course it wouldn't and she soon sat down again.

"What now?" she murmured, knowing she had little time. Suddenly she recalled a tidbit of information that she had discovered long ago, strictly by accident, that could prove to be her salvation. The spare keys. For the sake of safety Kevin had hidden a set of spare keys - to the house, bedrooms, cuffs, toy box, everything - in the back of the nightstand drawer. His nightstand, on his side of the bed. The side she was tied to!

Praising luck, Jessica wiggled around and extended her foot to curl agile toes around the drawer's handle. She pulled it out and then set to work burrowing through paperbacks and letter writing materials, until her toes touched something cold and metallic. She probed deeper, almost catching the ring. Another second and....

A hand seized her ankle and pulled her foot so quickly she rapped her head on the bedpost.

"Found those, did you?" Kevin's voice rang through her disorientation.

Jessica regained her senses just time to see her husband pull the ring and all its jangling, precious keys from its previously secret hiding place. Miserably, she watched them disappear into his pocket.

"You're quite resourceful, Jess," he said with a wicked smile, shaking his head at her. "And you can believe that it won't go unrewarded."

"Damn you, Kevin Kenhill!" she snarled, furious with herself for not hearing him come in and lunging at him in vain. "You...."

"That's twelve," he cut her off. At the same time, he reached back into his pocket and removed the ball gag. "Now open up, baby, unless you want to make it... shall we say.... seventeen?"

Jessica clamped her jaws shut.

"Alright, seventeen. Do you want to try for twenty-two?"

She didn't know what his counting was being applied to, but his wry grin was ample warning. Jessica reluctantly opened her mouth.

"That's it," Kevin beamed. "Daddy's girl is learning."

The gag slipped into her mouth before she dared risk another oath and the band was tightened around her head. Next, the blindfold he must have retrieved from downstairs appeared and was tied over her eyes. Blind and mute, Jessica listened to her husband move about the room.

"Let's see," he murmured, making rustling noises. "Here we go. Ok, baby, stand up off the bed."

Sulking, she did and waited. There were sounds of the bed being stripped and then Kevin was pushing her down again, on nothing but the fitted sheet. "Put you're legs on the bed." As soon as she was reclined against the post the soft leather straps were fastened around her ankles. Kevin then worked his arms behind her and attached another set to her wrists, working under the cuffs. When he was finished with that he released her from the post, still in the first set of cuffs, and rolled her to her stomach, pushing her to the center of the bed. Only after he had spread her legs and tied them on short leads did he undo the cuffs and tie her arms. On her stomach and helplessly spreadeagled, Jessica begin to sob. It turned to muffled protests when her nightshirt was pushed up past her waist and a pillow was slipped beneath her hips, lifting and spreading her bottom. "Now there's a pretty picture," Kevin laughed. It was followed by the unmistakable click and whirr of their polaroid. "Mmmmmf!" Jessica screamed, fear giving way to fury. How degrading! Ignoring her beyond the point of absently stroking her bottom, Kevin mused to himself, "I think I'll title this one 'before'." Before? What the hell was he planning to do? Jessica squirmed in dread. "Be still," Kevin commanded, smacking her behind. "Now let's see. You've already been spanked, and paddled. What will Daddy do next?" Dread turned to fear again and Jessica jerked uselessly. He really was going to punish her. Seriously! He had only done that once, the time she had ignored his warnings at the Goldsmith's christmas party, had a little too much champaign, and flirted with one of his business cronies. Too tipsy to recall that the man was a dangerous leacher, she had naively let him draw her to a back room where he had nearly managed to take her dress from her. Fortunately, Kevin had been alert enough to follow and had knocked the drunk cold, but he was furious. The whipping she'd received, after his staggering lecture, was one that she would never be able to forget.

Lost in the memory, Jessica nearly jumped from her skin when something tapped her bottom.

"Paying attention?" Kevin asked, letting the object rest across her cheeks.

She recognized it instantly. The riding crop!

Falling into tears, Jessica cried muffled pleas, willing to swear she would never cross him again if he would just reconsider. Nothing hurt like the crop!

"Too late," he said, as if reading her thoughts. "Now, let me see. I think twenty strokes will be enough to cover your willful behavior and refusal to take care of yourself, but there's also the seventeen for your foul mouth and disobedience. That's thirty-seven all together, baby."

Jessica wailed into the gag. He was going to kill her!

But Kevin Kenhill would never brutalize his wife. When the first stoke fell it cut across her right cheek hard enough to leave a stinging red mark, but not so viciously that it actually raised a welt.

"MMMF!" Jessica cried, feeling the sting radiate up her back and down to her toes.

"That's good, baby. Count each one for Daddy."

Three more blows feel in rapid succession, cutting the air with a whine, crisscrossing the same tortured cheek.

Jessica's responsive cry was long and piercing despite the muffling effects of the gag.

It was also a mistake from Kevin's point of view. The strokes stopped suddenly, but the tip of the crop tapped thoughtfully against her bottom.

"You're not doing it right, baby," he pointed out, sounding vaguely impatient. "Do you want me to repeat them?"

"Mmmnnnn!" she protested, shaking her head hard enough to make herself dizzy.

"Well, then...."

"Mmmf! Mmmf! Mmmf!" Jessica dutifully cried the missing count, sobbing at the trails of fire he had ignited. The velvety blindfold was now damp and clinging.

Kevin praised her and resumed his work, giving due attention to her left cheek and then jumping irregularly between them, lashing steadily until the count had reached twenty-six.

"Mmmfmmmf!" Jessica whimpered the last. Her rear was completely ablaze now, the remnants of each stroke pulsing hotly with a fiery life of their own. Her wrists and ankles joined the symphony with a pain uniquely theirs, chaffed from all her twisting.

"Only ten more," Kevin supplied, slightly breathless. His hand touched her agonized globes, making her flinch and weep harder into the sodden blindfold.

"Too many I think," he speculated, drawing away. "Do you think you've learned your lesson?"

Praying that he was serious, Jessica violently nodded her head, accenting it with muffled agreement.

"No more swearing?"

She was so relieved she didn't think quickly enough to respond.

Whack!

The crop landed vertically between her cheeks, igniting her sensitive anus and stinging the exposed part of her sex.

"MMMMMF!" she shrieked.

"Twenty-seven," Kevin agreed. "If you don't have an answer, Jess, I can keep going."

Jessica shook her head wildly.

"Good girl, that's what I want to see," Kevin praised.

He left her then, she could hear his footsteps on the carpet, but he returned a moment later, his presence making itself known by another click and whirr of the camera.

"This one is 'after'," he declared. "And would you just look at that color."

Defeated by pain and humiliation, Jessica lay limp and said nothing.

Presently, after various sounds of coming and going, Jessica felt the bed shift and realized Kevin had come to sit beside her. A moment later she felt the wondrous coolness of lotion being squeezed on each of her burning cheeks. Kevin smoothed the cream all around and then down her cleft, careful not to apply too much pressure, and even mercifully gave up the traditional patting.

"Lie still for a while," he said kindly, leaving the bed. His lips brushed her temple. "Just try to rest. Daddy's going to go find his angel some dinner."

After what she'd just experienced, Jessica would have said that she wasn't hungry, but when the door opened again, a long while later, the rich scent of food made her stomach growl noisily.

"Hungry, baby?" By the humor in his voice, Kevin had obviously heard.

Jessica was untied, the straps removed completely, and allowed to roll on her back where he leaned her against a pillow. He took the gag from her mouth and didn't retie her, but he refused to remove the blindfold. Her bottom still hurt, making her shift uncomfortably, but the promise of what he was offering made it seem suddenly insignificant.

"Open up," he said, sitting on the bed beside her.

The food he brought was a rich brothy stew, filled with the scant amount of beef she was allowed, but plentiful with vegetables. He fed her slowly and efficiently, neither dallying nor spilling a single drop. When the last scrape to the bottom of the bowl was made, her meal was washed down with a rare taste of creamy milk. Sated and drowsy, Jessica sighed and lay back, hoping he was finished with her and would allow her to go to bed.

"Daddy's baby is tired, isn't she?" Kevin asked sweetly, trailing his fingers lightly over the blindfold and down her cheek.

"Very," Jessica agreed in a murmur.

"In that case," Kevin said more briskly. "I think I can be persuaded to postpone the rest until tomorrow."

"The rest?" Some of her drowsiness abated. She certainly didn't like the sound of that.

"Well, you've already had your punishment, and you did very well I might add, but that was just the beginning. Tomorrow I think it's time we got down to business and worked on discipline."

"Oh no, Kevin!" Jessica immediatly sat up, fully awake. Discipline was the worst possible of lessons. With all his loving consideration, she had hoped she had escaped the possibility.

"It's for your own good, baby," Kevin insisted, in a voice that said he wouldn't be swayed. At the same time he gripped her shoulders and started to push her back.

"Please," she begged, straining against him, prepared to plead shamelessly.

"Forget it, Jess." He tightened his fingers. "It won't work and if you don't stop now I may just decide to start with the ten strokes you still owe me."

He was serious and, already sore, she relented. If she obeyed now maybe, just maybe, she could sway him tomorrow. She collapsed back in apparent defeat.

"You can try," Kevin said, knowing her too well. "But either way you still need some sleep. Lie all the way down now."

Jessica squirmed down and laid flat, her head cradled in the pillow. "Stomach?" she suggested.

"Not tonight, baby."

That figured, but she knew better than to argue. She stayed still on her back and didn't protest when the straps were refastened, not until he pulled them tight, spreading her completely.

"I can't sleep like this," she objected, testing the tightness of the bindings and finding she could barely move.

"Oh, you'll sleep," he laughed confidently.

Worried about his smugness, Jessica was helpless to do anything but wait. Presently, Kevin's hand patted her hip.

"Lift up for Daddy, angel."

She didn't want to, suspecting his intent, but raised her bottom anyway. Sure enough another diaper was slipped beneath her. This time, however, Kevin didn't fasten it.

"Hummmm. We can't have Daddy's baby getting a rash," he said almost to himself, running his hand over her naked pubis. "How about a little baby oil?"

It was all for her benefit. Kevin already knew what he was going to do. Even as he spoke, Jessica felt the first oily drops dribble over her mound and trickle downward. The oil was cool and tickled her sensitive exposed parts, making her squirm. Kevin responded by increasing the flow until she was slick from the thin riverlets.

Laughing, Kevin didn't stop until she was completely bathed in the stuff, to the point where it had started to trail over her unprotected anus. There was a moment's pause, as he presumably discarded the bottle, and then his warm hand was cupping her.

"We have to make sure you're well coated," he teased, running his fingers over her lips and down between them.

Moaning, Jessica pressed her head back into the pillow. His slow firm movements, seductively pressuring the edges of her aroused sex, were driving her wild with desire. He worked diligently, his fingers massaging and caressing the oil into all of her folds and crevices, but never quite reached her sensitive nub.

"Oh God!" Jessica begged, squirming as best she could to urge him further.

Her husband laughed deeply and responded by slowly, sensually, slipping his index finger inside of her.

Jessica groaned and bit her lip.

Moving the digit in and out, spreading the warming oil to mix with her own hot juices, Kevin murmured appreciation at her uncontrollable undulations, but refused her any respite.

For a long while he continued to tease her, eventually adding his thumb and forefinger to the fray to brush and roll her swollen clit.

Jessica moaned, begging him to yield enough pressure to release the tide of pleasure building within.

But Kevin wasn't finished with her yet.

As soon as she was on the verge of cumming, her body racked and shaking with blissful anticipation, he suddenly withdrew his fingers.

"Please!" she whimpered, bucking her hips in a desperate attempt to resume the contact.

Kevin had no such intention.

"I'd say you're oiled enough now," he laughed, leisurely pulling up the diaper and fastening the tabs.

Half out of her mind with need, Jessica writhed and sobbed. "No! Please, Kevin! Please don't leave me like this!"

"What is it, baby?" he asked casually, placing his hand ever so lightly on the front of the diaper. "Does my angel need something from her Daddy?"

Jessica jumped at the contact and rolled her hips. "Please," she sobbed, knowing what he wanted, but not wanting to say it.

"You have to ask Daddy," Kevin prompted, wiggling his fingers. "Tell him what you want."

Humiliated, but helpless against the fire of desire, she had no choice but surrender. "Please, Daddy," she chocked, hating her weakness. "Please make me cumm."

With a soft laugh, Kevin rewarded her, but not in a way she appreciated. Instead on slipping his fingers into the lining and caressing her to fulfillment, he ran his hand firmly up and down over the diaper, digging his fingers in to achieve the maximum pressure, deliberately bringing her to pleasure with the very object of her misery. "No! Oh, God!" Jessica screamed, trying vainly to deny his manipulations.

It was no use. She was too close to the edge.

"No! Oh! Aaaah! Aaaah! Noooooaaaaahhhhhhh!

Jessica arched against the limited range of her bindings, lost in a torrent of emotional agony and physical pleasure. She sobbed, and convulsed, and screamed, until, shaking violently, she dropped back into a haze of misty blackness.

"Oh, baby, that was beautiful," Kevin breathed, bathing her face in shower of loving kisses.

Jessica was too dazed and too numb with exhaustion to utter a sound.

"Baby?" Kevin patted her face. "Jess?"

"Mmmmm," she finally managed against the pull of oblivion

"Are you still with me?"

Another pat touched her face, almost a slap.

"Mummmm?" she whimpered

"That's my girl," her husband murmured, still sounding pleased. "Now, I'm going to be sleeping in here tonight, but not until later. I don't want to startle you, alright?"

"Mummmmm." She dimly understood.

He stood and kissed her forehead. "Think you can sleep now?" he asked, teasing.

Already halfway there, Jessica nodded sleepily.

"Good," Kevin murmured, lacing it with ominous promise. "You're going to need your rest, angel."