Betsy Finds Her Muse

The car pulled slowly into the gravel driveway on a county road five miles from nowhere and came to a stop. The left-rear door swung open, and a tall, leather-clad woman unfolded herself from the back seat, walked to the mailbox and used a handful of grass to wipe away the grime hiding the name.

Tossing the grass aside and nodding to the driver, she grinned and fingered her rivet-studded belt before re-entering the car.

Wheels crunching on the gravel, the car inched forward again toward the house a quarter-mile away.

Betsy had been preoccupied most of the morning as she did the chores and waited for the laundry hanging outside to dry. It was another hot, sunny day; she squinted at the sky but saw nothing that would suggest the slightest bit of rain to break the two-month drought. The two windmills on her spread were enough to keep the stock tanks replenished for her modest herd, but she knew that at some point, the shallower of the two wells might run dry. Then, she grumbled to herself, she would have to sacrifice her long baths and find other ways to get additional drinking water to the livestock.

She sighed aloud as she wiped down the kitchen sink and gathered her plastic jugs in preparation for a trip to the hillside spring. At least she had enough sweet water for drinking and cooking, even though it was a nuisance to haul the water from a mile away.

"Always trade-offs," she thought to herself sourly, wondering rhetorically why the well water, after being run through the water softener, had to be great for laundry but awful for drinking.

On her way to the front door, she paused in front of her computer, where her latest effort for the story site was on the screen. She still didn't have it quite right, she mused, and she didn't want to have still another story rejected.

The grammar books piled beside the computer seemed to mock her as she looked at them. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, she turned again toward the door.

As she pulled it open, her eyes widened at the sight of the group standing on her front porch. The water jugs clattered as they fell from her lifeless hands to the concrete stoop.

Before she could recover and without a word, the burly, bearded man in the group took her by the arm and began to guide her back into the house. She jerked away, preparing to scream, when one of his companions, a petite blonde with a pixie hairdo, gestured at her to be quiet.

"Don't be afraid," she said. "We're here to help you. We're the intervention team from Literotica."

Betsy stood quietly, still resisting the pressure of the hand on her arm but not moving a muscle. From the corner of her eye, she saw the third member of the trio, a woman in a skin-hugging leather jacket and pants, smile faintly and rub her hands together.

After a few seconds, Betsy recovered some semblance of control and tried to voice her unsettled outrage. Nothing came out but a phlegmy rattle and, clearing her throat in irritation, she tried again.

"What's an intervention team?"

"Have you read the site rules, dear?" pixie-hairdo asked. "You've been on the edge for several months now. Your stories are sometimes good enough to pass muster with the editors -- barely -- but many times aren't. You're causing the site a lot of work, and we're here to intervene."

"That's right," the beard echoed. "You can either cooperate or the site will block your IP address. We're tired of trying to decide precisely how many comma splices or misused words you can have in a story before we bounce it. We're not ready to lower our standards to accommodate you, but you're not hopeless, either. So here we are to intervene."

Ms. Leather snickered. "Sweetie, you have two choices. We can do our thing today, or you can find somewhere else to post your erotic fantasies." She paused for a few moments and caressed her thigh with her fingertips. "And I must say some of those fantasies would have been hot if not for the crap you call punctuation and grammar."

Betsy flushed and opened her mouth to reply, but Mr. Beard squeezed her arm in warning and said, "You have a choice. Cooperate or be banned."

"That's not fair," Betsy protested. "I don't even know what you're going to do!"

Ms. Pixie shrugged. "Cooperate or be banned."

Betsy stood silent. The Web site had become an important part of her life during the year since her husband died. Still in her mid-30s and with a figure that the ranch chores had preserved rather than damaged, she was an object of interest to most of the single older men in her part of the county and more than a few younger ones. But she had dreams of escaping the ranch once the farm economy turned around, the drought had broken and she could find a buyer for the land.

Until her dream came true, though, she had to cope with her own needs after ten years of lusty sex with a husband who could leave her drained and content. The Web site was a good complement to her hidden stash of toys, and even though she knew she wasn't the next A. N. Roquelaure, she enjoyed the arousal that went with both reading others' stories and writing her own.

"How do I cooperate?" Betsy asked nervously.

Ms. Pixie grinned, and Betsy thought she saw a hint of malice -- or perhaps lust -- behind the grin.

Mr. Beard answered in her stead. "You just relax, Betsy, and let what happens happen."

Ms. Leather fingered her belt again, her eyes a bit dreamy and unfocused. Betsy looked at her speculatively and moved her eyes to Mr. Beard, who returned her gaze impassively.

"Intervention," Betsy repeated nervously.

"Intervention," the trio chorused.

-----

Betsy moved aside to let them enter her house. The two women filed past her, but Mr. Beard returned to the car, opened the trunk and lifted out a strange-looking apparatus of pipes and hinges and padded boards as well as a hard-sided navigator's case. With a slight smile, he motioned to Betsy to precede him into the house.

Inside, Betsy looked questioningly at the two women and then at Mr. Beard, who was unfolding the apparatus with a skill and deftness that showed he was no novice at the task. Tightening down the final butterfly nut in the frame, he slotted one of the boards into place -- and suddenly Betsy realized what it was.

As Mr. Beard opened the navigator's case and pulled out a handful of leather straps, Ms. Pixie giggled and said abruptly to Betsy, "Strip."

Her heart sinking, the ranch woman began to protest, but Ms. Leather cut her off. "This is an intervention, and it's for the good of the community," she said roughly. "Take your choice: intervention or expulsion." Silently, Betsy began removing her clothes.

Ms. Leather licked her lips as Betsy's breasts came into view. Betsy caught the gesture and stifled a smile despite her unease. She knew that gravity had not conquered her body yet, and she began to moisten as she thought about the tall woman's reaction. With a seductive wiggle of her bottom, she pulled her pants and panties over her hips in one movement.

Ms. Pixie was also interested now, and Mr. Beard's reaction was as obvious as the bulge in his pants. He handed a pair of the leather straps to the blond-haired woman and watched as she knelt and began securing Betsy's ankles to two of the legs of the apparatus, spreading her legs widely in the process.

Ms. Leather looked on for a moment and then moved the padded board in the middle of the apparatus, which resembled an inverted U, to a pair of slots a little lower than its original position. Grabbing both Betsy's wrists, she fastened them behind her back and bent her over the repositioned pad, caressing her breasts as they dangled beneath her.

"Wouldn't it be better to have her arms in front of her, to bend her over more?" Ms. Pixie asked in a husky voice.

"Later, Kay," the man replied. "You'll get your chance with the strap-on later."

A thrill of mingled terror and delight went through Betsy. She wiggled experimentally, and found that the center board was low enough that trying to straighten up would put a huge strain on her abdominal muscles. Somewhat guiltily, she realized that she had no interest in doing so anyway.

Mr. Beard returned to his navigator's case and pulled out a small laptop computer. He opened it and watched for a few moments as it booted up. Moving his finger over the touchpad, he watched and tapped a few more times and then put the computer on the floor in front of Betsy, screen angled so she could read it.

With a shock, Betsy realized she was looking at her latest submission, which had been returned to her three days earlier marked "rejected." Mr. Beard, guessing what she was thinking, grinned at her.

"Not the first time, was it?" he asked.

Before she could reply, Betsy felt a pair of hands at her crotch, teasing, probing and caressing her exposed lips. She felt a gush of moisture, and closed her eyes with a small moan as the gentle attack continued. As her flow increased, the hands spread the moisture around her genitals, and fingers pushed her pussy lips apart. Then something cold and hard entered her.

A dildo, of course, Betsy thought to herself. She wiggled her butt against the intrusion, but the dildo slid further and further in. Two straps were attached around her thighs, holding the device inside her.

Soon Ms. Pixie appeared in front of Betsy, unwinding a cord attached to a small plastic box. She sat in front of the helpless woman and Mr. Beard joined her on the floor. Ms. Leather, smiling evilly, also moved into view, unbuckling and removing the leather belt from her waist. She joined the other two interveners on the floor.

As Ms. Pixie fiddled with the plastic box, Betsy began to feel a tingling in her pussy, at first almost undetectable but soon increasing in force. Mr. Beard looked at Betsy's face intently for a few moments, and then said quietly, "Back it off just a little, Kay. She's getting too turned on for us to work with her."

The vibrations subsided a bit, and a frustrated Betsy groaned and wiggled her ass in an attempt to resume her march toward a climax. Ms. Leather snorted, and Mr. Beard smiled as he plugged a mouse into the laptop and changed position so he could view the screen along with Betsy.

"Every time you answer correctly, Betsy, the vibrations will get stronger," he said calmly. "Answer wrongly, and down they go. You could be here all day unless you focus on the rules of writing. Do you understand?"

Betsy nodded mutely, half-tempted to laugh at the improbable combination of a vibrator in her pussy and a grammar lesson. Perhaps she was only partially successful in hiding that thought; Mr. Beard looked at Ms. Leather and nodded, and the tall woman stood up and moved behind Betsy, belt in hand.

"Now, Betsy," Mr. Beard began, "read this highlighted sentence for me."

Betsy paused and then said in a half-choked voice, "It was a dark and stormy night, Pamela was too horny for words."

"Do you see any problems there, Betsy? Other than the plagiarized trite opening sentence from a 'Peanuts' comic strip?"

Betsy sniggered, but quickly flinched and screamed as a loud "thwack!" echoed from the walls. Betsy's thighs were burning as Ms. Leather walked in front of her and said sternly, "Kiss this belt!"

Too shocked to resist and too pained to laugh at what even she knew was a cliché just as ridiculous as the one in her story, Betsy kissed the belt softly.

"It was a comma splice, Betsy," Mr. Beard said softly. "A compound sentence has to have a semicolon between the clauses, or a conjunction. Is that so hard to remember?"

He smiled thinly as he watched the tears beginning to well up in Betsy's eyes. "Shall we try again?" he asked. "Look at this one. Read it aloud."

Betsy blinked away her tears and, voice quavering, read, "He licked the pussy he had just whipped slowly."

"What's wrong with that?" Mr. Beard asked.

"I don't know," Betsy wailed, fighting for self-control, a battle she lost decisively when another "thwack" announced Ms. Leather's displeasure.

"Betsy, what did he do slowly?" Ms. Pixie asked.

"Licked her," Betsy said with an edge in her voice. There was a rustle, which Betsy interpreted as a prelude to another blow. "Wait -- wait!" she screamed. "He didn't whip her slowly, so the 'slowly' should go before the 'licked.'"

"Good girl," Ms. Pixie said approvingly. "She's learning."

-----

Thirty minutes later, Betsy had been presented with two more comma splices, three more misplaced modifiers, four incorrect homophones and four punctuation errors, all in a story of about 3,000 words. She drew blanks on several other questions from Mr. Beard, and her ass and upper thighs were now burning. He had not told her -- either that or he did not object to Ms. Leather's own idea of an effective teaching aid -- that in addition to losing the vibrator speed she gained for every correct answer, every wrong one brought a stinging blow from the belt.

To add to her discomfort, Ms. Leather occasionally gathered a bit of Betsy's juice on a finger and twirled it around the student's puckered anus. Frustrated, distracted, horny beyond endurance and with a backside that throbbed in time with her pulse, Betsy finally broke down, weeping and begging.

"Please...please! I can't stand any more! I have to cum! I want to cum! Goddamit, let me cum!"

Ms. Leather stood in front of her, straddling the computer, and raised Betsy by the shoulders. After giving her a deep kiss, she rested Betsy's head on her shoulder and moved her hands down to her breasts, tweaking, kneading and caressing. One hand moved father down, finding Betsy's drenched clit and rubbing it lightly.

"Does this poor baby want to cum?" she cooed. "It's easy, Betsy -- five correct answers in a row and you'll be off to the moon. Then when you come down, Kay will take off that vibrator and replace it with her tongue. To get the most talented tongue in the world to work on you, all you have to do is keep that string of correct answers going until you reach seven."

Betsy sobbed in frustration. Mr. Beard got up and got her a glass of water from the kitchen; Betsy sipped once and spat it out.

Mr. Beard's face darkened and he said sharply, "Diane, she needs more of the belt."

"Wait -- wait!" Betsy screamed. "That's the wrong water! Get me some from the refrigerator! The tap water tastes awful!"

He relaxed, wiped off his face and returned to the kitchen. Ms. Leather, however, reached up over Betsy's shoulders, belt in hand, and landed another stinging blow to her backside. Betsy shrieked, and Ms. Leather said sharply, "Never spit on a Literotica intervener."

Betsy sagged, but revived long enough to get down a half-glass of water, determined to buy a satisfying climax with a good performance for her teachers.

-----

As the lesson continued with more of Betsy's submissions, she began to feel more and more ashamed of what she knew was some very sloppy writing. But as her shame grew, so did the buzzing of the vibrator as she continued to recognize her mistakes. She cried out in frustration after getting four in a row correct, only to stumble on the phrase "loosing control." The stupid homophones, she thought hazily, were keeping her from her climax.

Starting over, she quickly found a split infinitive (Mr. Beard was pretty old-fashioned, she thought to herself, even though her words, "to quickly cum," really didn't sound very elegant), two misspelled words, an unmatched pair of quote marks and a sentence that she realized made no sense at all.

With that fifth correct answer, Ms. Pixie grinned and twisted the vibrator control to maximum. Betsy arched, abs straining as she held herself at a 45-degree angle. Legs quivering, a long wail spewed from her mouth. She twisted and jerked, unwilling to wait for the inevitable climax that was roaring down on her like Katrina heading for New Orleans.

Suddenly she went rigid, eyes closed and arms raised as high as she could extend them behind her back. Then with a "whoof," she seemed to crumple over the center bar, panting and drooling and tingling all over.

It was Mr. Beard's turn to raise her upper body and support her on his shoulder. "Nice work," he whispered in her ear. "You're learning. Want to go for Kay's special touch?"

Betsy nodded weakly, although she wondered if she would ever be able to have a climax again. Fighting off the distractions, she quickly identified two more mistakes. A few minutes later, and again a few minutes after that, she found that she had plenty of explosions in reserve.

-----

As the sun began to set, Betsy watched from the window as Mr. Beard loaded the disassembled frame and his navigator case in the car trunk. She walked gingerly out onto the stoop, still nude, accompanied by the two women. Both of them also looked as if they had been through a wringer.

She kissed each of the women in turn, guiding Diane's hand to her backside to feel the welts crisscrossing it. Kay grinned and Mr. Beard, whose name Betsy still didn't know, smirked as he watched.

"Any time you want to gang up on me again," Betsy murmured, "you know where to find me."

-----

Two months later, Betsy had two stories in the upper reaches of the "Romance" top stories list and, in a first effort, an up-and-coming short tale for the BDSM section. With the help of a riveted belt and three tough-love advocates, Betsy had found her muse.