Wedding Bells

“I didn’t want to do this. But you have left me no choice. This is all your fault, Sara. Quit blubbering. Stupid girl, you have no right to feel sorry for yourself. Now, feet apart!”

Mr. Harley kicks the inside of my shins, forcing my legs to move where he wants them.

He returned from the Church just as furious as when we left. Bringing back a heavy sack that thumped when it hit the floor. It was a Groom’s Bag, he called it, given to newly-wed men whose wives would not adjust to marriage. The Vicar had tried to explain to him that it was usually given as a last resort, but Mr Harley was not a man people said ‘no’ to, not even our Vicar.

The moment we got home, I was stripped down and made to stand before him. I was to be punished.

The zip ripped open, and he pulled a strange contraption of metal and brown leather straps, dropping it underneath my feet and forcing me to step into it as he roughly held my ankle. I don’t know what it is or what it is for, all I know is how angry he is with me. I pray hard that whatever this Groom’s Bag is will help us.

“Please, husband! I’m sorry, I-”

His hand is across my face in an instant, so quick I don’t feel its sting until well after my neck snaps right. He drops the strange device to instead clasp my shoulders, shaking me as he screams in my face. “How dare you! You have no right to call me that! You have earned no such affection you filthy, sinful harlot! You will address me properly until I say otherwise, do I make myself clear girl?!” he hand rising again in preparation.

---

I remember asking my mother before the ceremony. She had always called my father that. I knew from the Preachings it wasn’t the common, formal way a wife speaks. But my parents weren’t formal with each other. How was I supposed to know any different?

“It depends, Sara.” mother smiled as she fixed my dress, smoothing the white folds until they were perfect. “Mr. Harley is from a more traditional generation. He might expects you to address him properly at first, but I’m sure you’ll be using all manner of endearments in no time.”

---

My husband shoves the thing up my legs. I look down anxiously at the metal shield now covering my sex. The thick leather straps dig into my hips and lock in tight circles around my thighs. The most uncomfortable part is the back of it, an ugly metal ring encircling my most private place, forcing me to open. It’s at that moment I realise the shield has a grate so that I can relieve myself through its guard. It is made so it can be worn permanently. The sudden understanding brings fresh horror to my face.

“Please, my Master… I-I was only doing what I thought you wanted of me. I didn’t mean to sin! I won’t ever touch myself there again, never except to wash, please, I beg you, please you don’t have to do this! Please, I don’t like it! Please let me out...”

He ignores me as he firmly adjusts the straps, ensuring my curious fingers will never be able to explore through the metal. I didn’t intend to be sinful. Nobody explained to me what I had to do now that I am married. I wasn’t allowed to know about those things. But I have to do my duty. I was only trying to learn so that I could be better prepared for next time. I just wanted to learn better about myself and my wifely body. If only so that it did not hurt as much.

Mr Harley finishes with a padlock, curling through the central ring connecting the straps and shield together - clicking it shut, locking the contraption in place. He gives it a tug to make sure there can be no escape.

“It is uncomfortable you say? Stupid girl. I will teach you the meaning of uncomfortable. Turn around, bend at the waist. We are not finished.”

---

I had known Mr Harley since I was little. He was often at our house. Always curious to see me. We didn’t speak much, but he wanted to know how I was ‘coming along.’ Whatever that meant. Then he would talk with my father, usually bringing with him more papers to sign, while mother and I prepared dinner.

He would bring me a present too. Occasionally he asked what I liked, and I told him about my favourite books, my love for art. I showed him the stubby ends of my chalk set and my frayed paintbrushes. But Mr Harley didn’t bring me presents like that. He only gave me dolls.

I don’t remember exactly when I was first promised. But it must have been during a summer, as mother’s allergies were bad, her eyes were red and sore when she and father told me. My father was thrilled of course, he allowed me a small glass of wine with our dinner that night. He had worked hard to grow his business, and now with Mr Harley’s support, he was going to open a new shop in the heart of our town.

---

I do as I am told. Bending forwards and touching my fingers to the floor. I’m too frightened to look back at what my husband has planned for me next. Already the locked up belt digs into my hips with its ugly straps. I shiver at the idea that I will have to wear this for any amount of time at all.

“I’m sure you know what this already eh, girl?” He shows his palm over to my hanging head, in it sits a shiny bauble, smooth and thick in the middle, pointed into a rounded tip at one end, while the other finishes with a ring, perhaps where a rope or ribbon is tied through so it can dangle like an ornament for a Christmas tree. I shake my head. “N-no, my Master, I have never seen one. What is it for?”

Mr Harley gives a doubtful grunts as he kneels at my caged behind. “Don’t you dare lie to me! You think just because I am old that I don’t know how your generation behaves. Always so eager to violate your own innocence! I should have demanded your father lock you up from the very moment we were betrothed. I was promised a good, obedient wife! Chaste, pious, a virgin, a true daughter of Mary. Instead I am given a whore!”

The bitterness in his voice makes my legs tremble, I have never heard any man speak like this. The way he talks about me is obscene and untrue, but nothing I say can convince him out of his rage. All I do is apologise over and over, begging God for mercy, begging to be shown any path that makes me a better wife for my husband.

“Ugh! What – what... Stop it, please! I beg of you, please stop pushing it in!” I clamp my eyes tight as I feel the most unnatural sensation behind me. Whatever the bauble is, he is forcing it inside of my naked, exposed backside. The ring of my muscle widens painfully, and then stubbornly accepts it. A horrible, alien pain and grotesque humiliation following as I realise my bottom has opened for it. I wince, fighting my own body as I close around the thickened ball, swallow it inside.

Mr Harley returns to the Groom’s Bag, bringing small chains to the back parts of my belt. I try to work out what is happening from his touch, I can feel the exposed end of the bauble poking out of my hole. I gulp as I realise what is happening. The ringed end is not so it can dangle from a Christmas tree. The ring is so he can thread chain through it, and fix it to my belt’s straps, preventing me from trying to expel the horrible, fat object.

“Stay still! Stop fidgeting. All you do is fidget! Another sign of your soured upbringing. Spoiled brat that you are!”

---

In the days after our engagement, I was allowed to start wearing a white ribbon in my hair. Everyone in town was kind and excited when they saw me. The women all stopped to say hello or give flowers for my mother. All of the men came by father’s shop. They gave him a bottle of fine whiskey, invited him to play cards in the club. They stopped multiple times a week, buying things they didn’t even need from him.

Everyone wanted father’s friendship. Sometimes mother and I laughed together as we stood on the landing in our house, watching down as father desperately tried to make his excuses to say his goodbyes despite his visitors’ chatter. “You will put in a good word with Mr. Harley for me, won’t you!” they’d call out as he shut the door with exhaustion.

I missed my friends though. I couldn’t go back to regular school, even though I would be engaged until at least my eighteenth birthday. Now that I was ribboned, I went to Church for my education. I went to learn how to be a good wife. There was no painting and no chalks. If I ever strayed with my pen from the lesson’s repetitions to draw a bird, or tree, or doodle in the margins of my book, my knuckles would be cracked under Sister’s cane.

I spent days and days learning the same passages from the Bible. I listened to lectures about seeds and soil. How fruit opened and blessings were planted within. It was so dull.

And I repeated the Holy Mantra of Mary. Every day. Again and again.

“Cut is the tongue that spake ill of her betroth’d”

“Blessed is the womb that rests above kneel’d thigh.”

“In Heaven my heart will sing joyful, if bravely on Earth I silence.”

---

Mr Harley produces a pair of handcuffs from the bag. He pulls my arms behind my back, locking my wrists together, the connecting chain is put with another padlock to join with the straps on my belt. I can’t move except to walk and bend, and every step makes the thick insertion move painfully.

“There!” Mr Harley turns me around, lifting my wobbling chin so I look in his eyes “Now those idle fingers of yours can’t dare pollute what belongs to me, can they girl?”

I don’t know what to say, apologising only seems to do me more harm, I just shake my head and close my eyes.

“But even so, who knows what disgusting and creative ways you’ll find to disgrace yourself when I’m not looking! You’re probably already plotting how you’ll sneak away from me to keep plucking at yourself!” a mocking sneer crosses his wrinkled mouth as he returns to the bag.

“I’m not, my Master.” I shake my head “I’m sorry for what I did, I won’t ever disgrace you ever again! Please you can trust me, you don’t need to make me wear this ugly thing!”

“Crocodile tears and fake promises, that’s all I get from you, little liar! No matter. I can’t always have you in my sight, but at least I can watch you with my ears!”

Mr Harley produces two new items from the bag, dangling them in front of my eyes, making them ring aloud in a high pitched jingle. They are a pair of bells, on chains, with brutal looking pinchers at the ends. I look down at my belt, already embellished with the thick bubble forced in my behind and the handcuffs.

How much more will he put on this horrible thing?

It’s as if he hears my thoughts. Perhaps he can. Perhaps that’s what it means to be married. Mother always said she could tell what father was thinking before he even knew it himself. But right now, I don’t know if I’d even want such a power.

“No, Sara. These don’t go on your belt.”

---

The first time I saw Mr. Harley angry was on our wedding day. We were not supposed to see each other, of course. But there was no alternative option. The protestors had blocked the main entrance to the Church and so we all had to fight our way in together, hurrying through the guarded side doors while covering our heads under the men’s jackets.

“It’s outrageous!” he seethed to the Vicar as we waited, the congregation working together in the main hall to move seats and furniture down to the back rooms where we would be more shielded from the noise. Someone from our congregation had been speaking to journalists from outside of our community. Obviously such a thing was strictly forbidden, but Mr Harley and the other members of the Church hadn’t been able to find the culprit.

“I could have done this two years ago, you know! But I waited. I waited ‘til she was eighteen like you suggested! I waited out of respect for them!” Mr Harley gestured angrily towards the mob outside. “Can you fucking believe that? As if they have any right to dictate morality to us! To me! Did you read their vile signs? Who are they to judge me?! I want them gone this instant! Do you hear me? Gone!”

---

I look down as he brings the first bell to my chest. I don’t dare move or try to stop it, but when he opens the pinchers and has them poised around my nipple, I take a sharp intake of breath. He releases the clamp, and their metal fingers latch on to me. I yelp and step back, but it only shakes the heavy bell dangling underneath my breast, tugging the pincher’s chain.

“Stop fussing, let me get the other on!” his hands pull me back to my standing spot, and with the same precision he latches the second bell to my other breast. The weight of them pulling down, making the pinching clamps tug at my sore skin.

I instinctively hunch my shoulders, leaning forward to try to lessen the weight of the bells, as if it will somehow ease the way they hang and pull my breasts, ripping at my sensitive nipples so cruelly.

I burst into fresh tears, I can’t take one more painful humiliation. Mr Harley returns to the Groom’s Bag and I beg him to stop, but thankfully at last he seems to be finished, closing the zipper up, but not before I spy him quickly hide a final object behind his back. He steps away to sit down on his chair.

“Much better.” he looks my huddled, naked body all over, admiring the disciplinary devices now attached to me. “But while this may serve to improve your behaviour, it still leaves us with one problem, doesn’t it, Sara? I’m sure you think your belt relieves you of your duty to me! But I assure you I will not indulge a lazy wife!”

I can’t focus on him, I am too stunned and raw, unable to escape the horrible numbing pain starting to throb at my stretched nipples, the uncomfortable filling of my bottom, the suffocating bondage of my hands locked behind my back.

“Please, my Master, they hurt… they all hurt so much…”

“You should have thought of that before you touched yourself like a whore!” he bites back, unmoved by my pleas. I watch him with confusion as he starts to undo his trousers, pulling himself free. I can’t believe he is already ready, my eyes widening as I see his hardened member, its mushroom tip looking just as red and angry as his face.

In my current condition, there is no way for us to perform the marital act. I cannot understand how it would be possible. A moment of hope shines through me that he only intends to scare me with this punishment. Of course he wouldn’t force me to wear this belt all night long. Surely loves me, just as he promised he would, he could not stand me to be in this much pain, no matter his anger. And we are both bound to our duty, he will have to release me so that he may enter me as a husband.

“It would normally be improper to teach a woman such things, but given what a wanton slut you are I might presume you already know.”

I sniff, no longer able to use my hands to wipe away my tears or my runny nose. “Know… what, Master…?”

A crooked smile rises on my husband’s face. He reaches his hand forward to me, wagging his finger, I nod obediently, hoping the belt is about to come off as I take slow steps towards him, hating the mocking jingle of the bells underneath my chest.

I am put on my knees, and before I can think, his manhood is at my lips. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what is expected of me. This is obscene! I can’t fend him off, he continues to push and push until my lips part and I accept him inside of my mouth. His hands clasp around my head, not letting me move away. I am made to suck on him.

In moments my husband is groaning and wheezing. How can he feel pleasure like this? It can’t be possible. Despite his exertions he continues his lecture to me. Every sensation is pain and discomfort. My sore breasts swinging the bells as he jerks me back and forth, my head crushed, ears abused by cruel insults, my belt digging into my hips and my bottom swollen with the thick object that I can’t help but grip around.

“If my seed can’t climb up your filthy cunt... then it will have to... crawl down... through your greedy stomach… Nyah!”

He quickens his pace, panting like a dog as he grips my head tighter, snapping my neck back and then forcing me down to thrust so hard I gag and wretch, unable to pull my hands free behind me to push him away or refuse his member’s depth as it tortures my throat. My stomach muscles tug inward, I clamp my eyes shut tight. And then he explodes.

“Swallow… swallow… don’t you dare waste a drop!” he snarls as I feel it, wave after wave, slow pulses landing on my tongue. It’s so disgusting. He empties himself inside of me, thick and warm, I choke as I struggle to take all of it into my belly.

Finally, he pushes my head back, forcing me to open my mouth, to prove I have obeyed him. To prove I have done my duty and swallowed his seed. When he is satisfied, he reveals the final object he took from the Groom’s Bag. A black rubber ball shoved between my teeth, and his fast hands locking it in place, fastening a strap behind my head. My hair clings to the sides of my face, still wet with tears and red hot with the shame of all I’ve done.

“You will carry my child.” he says in both threat and promise “… You will pray hard that my seed catches from your gut to your womb, because I am not letting you out of that belt. Tell me you understand. Tell me girl, or I will whip you raw!”

I moan and beg, but no sense in my muffled words escapes the gag.

“Hah! Silly girl. From now on, if you want to tell me you understand, you ring your bells.”