Mina smiled in spite of her annoyance. “I know what a storm is,” she told him. “It’s just… this looks… severe.”
The creature considered her words, the red orb glowed thoughtfully, and she waited.
Ultimately, she was treated to a green check mark.
Whatever.
* * *
She had done her homework, because she always did her homework, and so there really was no reason for it other than pressure, and continuum dysregulation, and… well, that was all she could blame it on, really. It was a stupid, stupid mistake, but she was late, and Paolo’s message had been a full two minutes of haranguing, and she had distractedly thought again of how much she needed to make this deal work, and so perhaps that was why she forgot herself.
So when the Herstrakaa—an enormous specimen of an already formidable species—headed toward her as she crossed the blue and white tiled floor of the parliament chambers, she was suddenly aware of the Draquun speaker she had not noticed when she entered. She realized, with horror, that she had committed a huge cultural gaffe.
And she also realized, at that same instant, that she was going to be punished, in accordance with the Draquun cultural norms under which these negotiations were to take place. With ever-increasing horror, she also quickly realized that the Herstrakaa approaching her, vibrant red and purple skin crisscrossed by battle scars, his deceptively dull eyes shifting with what Humans often mistook for nervousness, was going to mete it out.
And it was, in accordance with Draquun customs, going to be humiliating.
She stopped in her tracks, which she realized later probably only added insult to injury as far as the Draquun were concerned. Her intention was to explain herself, right after making a deep bow and lowering herself to both knees in supplication, palms on the floor.
She didn’t have time for any of that, because she doubted herself for just a moment as she recalled all the information she’d memorized about Draquun culture. She was also disoriented by her disappointment in herself—here she was, borking it, right out of the gates. The Herstrakaa male had picked her up and spun her around before she could think or do anything at all.
Reality came to her on a time delay, for a few moments as if it was happening to someone else, and she was merely watching it. It took her a moment to orient herself: she was face down, her stomach pressed against a warm, heavy, material… not the floor… the legs of the Herstrakaa… and after a delay of several moments, she recognized the feel of cool air on her bottom, felt the tug of her underwear as they were pulled away from her skin.
But the complete picture: that she had been lifted from the ground and lain across the lap of the Herstrakaa, and that her pants and underwear had been pulled down, away from her bottom, and that her bare skin was on display for an audience of nearly 100 males with whom she was supposed to conduct business—the complete picture did not really reach her consciousness until she felt the hot sting of the Herstrakaa hand against her skin.
The bite made her gasp, but it was so sharp and unexpected that it immediately cut off all air, and she could not make a sound. Hot tears welled up in her eyes, and her mouth fell open in a silent scream, but the tears did not fall and the air did not move. A cold, queasy, but also oddly pleasant feeling blossomed in her lower abdomen, just as the sting of the spanking began to ebb away into waves of heat that seemed to only increase with each passing second.
It was then—just before the next smack landed on her already burning skin—that she realized in full what was happening. In accordance with Draquun customs, she was being punished with a spanking, which she believed would be ten smacks long.
In front of everyone present.
She had not anticipated herself breaching any customs, so she had never really given the reality of such a punishment much thought. Sure, she had thought about it and thought it was barbaric, but compared to some customs she’d witnessed, it wasn’t the worst.
She had not at all thought about what she would think or feel if such a thing happened to her.
But now that it was, and her tears threatened to spill over onto her cheeks, and the throbbing heat rolled in waves that crashed into each other, and the sting of each smack became sharper, adding to the fire on her skin—she found herself in an unimaginable situation.
Because beneath the pain and humiliation, fluttering deep in her abdomen, was a feeling of… could this be right?
Arousal?
She squeezed her eyes shut. It couldn’t be.
And yet she could also feel—and it made her chest feel hollow and cold with humiliation—that between her legs, her pussy was welling up with excitement. Just like her tears, it threatened to spill over.
The thought sent another wave of humiliation through her, which had the perverse effect of making her pussy throb and ache even more. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to will herself to not have the feelings she was having, but it did no good.
The same curious, surprising sensations had trilled inside her abdomen when she had done her cultural training segment on the Draquun, which had included a video of a punishment ritual. At the time, she had been able to dismiss the arousal, the strange thrill that had flowed through her, because the punishment was a theoretical event in her mind: she would never do anything so stupid as to get herself punished like that…
The slaps came more slowly than she had imagined, giving her ample time between each to feel the pain recede, the new heat roll into her still-burning skin, and—worst of all—plenty of time to consider the humiliating public nature of it all. She was half-naked, being spanked, and would be expected to apologize for her transgression by thanking her punisher profusely. Every second that his large, forceful palm hovered above her skin, waiting to come down on her bottom, she could feel her pussy throbbing and squeezing out more moisture.
A tenth smack cracked across her bottom, the hardest one of all, and tears rolled freely to her nose and dripped onto the floor, but she chewed her lip to keep from crying out.
“It is done,” the Herstrakaa rumbled in his native language.
She managed to wipe her tears away quickly as she stood up. She was unsteady on her feet and shaking as she pulled up her clothing and straightened it out. She could feel the eyes of the Draquun—who had watched on with their characteristic stoicism—upon her, and her skin burned with shame everywhere. Her clothing scratched at her burning bottom, and she desperately longed to rub her skin, but did not.
Her face flushed as she began the next segment of her punishment. She knelt on the floor facing the Herstrakaa who had punished her and bowed her head. “I thank you profusely for properly shaming me. I behaved shamefully and you have corrected me, for which I am grateful.” Now the really hard part, which she had been assured was a ceremonial gesture and, if done properly, would not be acted upon by the punisher.
