Behind These Wings

Misbehaving Lips

Before she had left Drew used to come into the bathroom all the time when she was in the shower. When you are sleeping together you tend not to have any reservations about your husband seeing you without your clothes. When you are sleeping together that is.

Now was different. Drew was more than cautious around his timid wife and Izzy was less than inviting if he did feel the need to make an advance. Consequently Izzy was in the bathroom alone, and hating every second of it. The problem with being alone was that you were left to your thoughts. A dangerous concept for someone like Izzy who spent far too much time caught up in her thoughts already.

Quickly stripping, Izzy flung her clothes across the room in her old haphazard way; there was no one here to judge her. She turned the shower to boiling and stepped under the rain of scorching droplets ready to burn away the memory of the Ball.

Slut.

Not good enough.

Never good enough.

Pinching the ripple of fat around her stomach as she caught sight of her profile in the mirror, Izzy wondered how Drew had ever brought himself to sleep with her before she had started to follow the rules. Shuddering at the thought she pushed it away and focused on rubbing the shampoo through her dry hair. Rinsing quickly she combed through some conditioner and repeated the process. Shutting off the water she reached for her dressing gown.

Unfortunately her hot shower had caused the room to steam up to a considerable level so, when she exited the shower, she didn't see the edge of the scales she had been using earlier and her weight fell oddly onto her other foot as she tried to compensate for the stumble. Struggling to remain standing with the slippery surface of the tiled floor and pain radiating through her foot, Izzy lost the battle and fell, twisting her ankle in an odd position as she did so.

Lying on the floor she attempted to hold in her scream of pain as her ankle felt as if someone had snapped it in two. But she knew that she could not scream. On falling the dressing gown had slipped from her grasp and now she lay naked, in too much pain to move and with the gown just out of reach.

The whip came down on her back again and again. Sisan was the worst of the enforcers and he was not going easy on her today.

Having woken up late, she had missed her morning session with Englas and all the girls knew what that meant.

Ten lashings and if you made a sound it would be doubled and again and again until you were in no fit state to make a sound.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Isabelle counted down the strikes until she could leave this hellish room and return to the sanctuary of her bedroom but she knew, deep down, that she should be thankful. This was the fourth day in a row she broken one of the rules and Englas could have chosen to kick her out and then where would she be? Definitely no closer to getting back to Drew that's for sure.

Eight.

The whip came down in just the same place as it had previously and it took everything Iz had not to shriek at the horrendous pain that shook her to her very core. Panting at the exertion, there was no let up.

Nine.

Isabelle flinched so hard that she fell off of the make shift contraption that was keeping her in the bent position and she couldn't bring herself to get back up.

"Get up." Izzy knew that she would only be told once but she struggled to carry out Sisan's order.

Mustering every last drop of energy she hauled her exhausted body onto the contraption and lay there.