Chapter 16 – Laying it Bare

"Ah…" Cait paused. "So, you heard that, then?" she asked.

"Oh, yes." Heather nodded. "At first, I have to be honest, I wasn't sure what I was hearing. I had woken up a few times already and then, it must have been the third or fourth time, I heard the rhythmic sound of something smacking against something else. It wasn't until I heard Curie's yelps and cries, that I understood what it was. That was Nate spanking her, wasn't it?" Heather dropped her voice.

"Yes, it was." Cait answered slowly, "I guess I owe you an explanation."

"Listen, I am not judging." Heather sat herself up a little more in the bed. "I have heard of synths being programmed to act as …. Well, you know, 'companions' to people, so why shouldn't Curie be Nate's little plaything. As long as you are ok with it. I mean, it has to be good if it keeps him away from spanking your ass." Heather laughed a little and then coughed.

Cait blushed, "Well, he's spanked me as well, on several occasions." She stated, deciding honesty was the best approach.

Heather looked at Cait, her mouth agape, blinking. "You let him spank you as well. Wow! What about …. Wait, PLEASE tell me he has spanked Piper too?"

Cait laughed, "Yes, he has. She has something of a skill when it comes to landing herself in trouble with our Mr Bossy." She responded. This was it, she thought, no going back now.

"Hang on, let me just savour that image in my mind for a little while." Heather closed her eyes and hummed in appreciation. "So, Nate offers you guys protection and in return you let him have his kinky way with you every so often? Do you all call yourselves his girlfriend, or is it just the spanking that he has you all involved in?" Heather asked as her tone turned serious.

"It's nothing like that, but before I explain, can I have your word on something please." Cait asked.

"Of course, whatever you need." Heather gave Cait a sympathetic look.

"I need you to keep what you have found out here today a secret." Cait stated. "I hope, by the time I have given you the full explanation, you will at least understand why we are the way we are. But I need to know that even if you don't stay and join the team, you won't go out and blab about us to anyone else. You did say traders like to gossip." Cait's voice also turned serious.

"What if you guys need some help though?" Heather asked with genuine concern in her voice. "I am not sure who I would tell, but..."

"We won't be needing any help, I can assure you of that but thank you for caring." Cait was genuinely touched by Heathers concern. "It is probably best if I explain and then leave you to make up your own mind about us and what you think needs to happen. What I can promise you is that I will hunt down and kill anyone who puts this," Cait waved her hand around to indicate the whole of Home Plate, "at risk or anyone in it in danger. I am deadly serious about that. But," Cait held up both hands, "for now, I just want you to sit back, relax and make yourself comfortable, as this is quite a long story."

"Okay," Heather complied, "the floor is yours." She smiled.

"Right, I am rubbish at this kind of thing and it should really be Piper speaking to you now, but I figured that wouldn't really help, so I am having a go." Cait looked a little nervous.

"I am sure you will be great, and you've asked me to listen, so I will. That's the least I can do for you guys having saved my ass." Heather offered a reassuring smile to Cait.

Cait took a deep breath, "Thanks." She smiled back. "So, it all began when Nate arrived at Diamond City. He was a vault dweller, well sort of, and came from one just north of Sanctuary, called Vault 111. He was actually alive before the war and was cryogenically frozen as soon as he entered the vault. He was the only one to survive the process. He thawed out a little over two years ago and gradually made his way down to Diamond City. It was about 18 months ago that he first met Piper, then me and then, as I explained earlier, our lovely Curie."

"What about Valkyrie?" Heather asked.

"She's fairly new, we met her when we were working for the Cabot's." Cait answered.

"Ooh those shady fuckers," Heather rolled her eyes. "You ever meet that Ghoul they have working for them?" Heather asked excitedly. Cait then gave Heather an unimpressed look. "Shit, sorry," Heather exclaimed, "I'll be quiet." She held up her hands.

Cait nodded her appreciation. "Ok, so there we were, a group of three and a robot, moving about the Commonwealth, helping out and earning a few caps where we could. Now before I go on, I guess I should set out where and why we partnered up with Nate. Piper was not popular with the mayor here, as she had written a piece about him being a synth, and so to punish her he had actually locked her out of the city." Cait laughed at the memory.

"Why does that not surprise me." Heather added.

"It wasn't only the mayor she had pissed off, she had uncovered some shady arms dealing that was going on. Mainly perpetrated by two of the more senior members of Diamond City Security, but she was sure the mayor was involved. She also discovered that the same pair were letting all sorts of people in, for money, through a gap in the wall covered up by a bookshelf. And it wasn't just them, there were some folk from Good neighbour in on it and, well let's just say they took exception to Pipers meddling and came after her and Nat." Cait looked at Heather expecting another barbed comment but she kept quiet this time. "Nate arrived just in time to save her life, and that of her sister and chase the goons off for good. Just as a precaution Nate asked Cathy and John at the Super Salon to take care of Nat and took Piper with him on the road. So that was the first damsel out of distress. Soon after saving her ass, he came across the Combat Zone, full of raiders and Tommy pulling his hair out over lost revenue. Well Nate was ex-army and so he and Piper soon had the place cleared, and this was when that sneaky bastard Tommy handed me off to Nate."

"Like you were some property to be bought and sold?" Heather looked disgusted.

"My contract. I had signed with Tommy and for a measly wage, food and a place to sleep, I fought for him. Problem was, I was so high most of the time I was becoming a liability. A liability to him, to myself and so he needed to do something. I have no idea how he knew, but when Nate turned up, he handed me off straight away on the promise that Nate would help me get clean. Well, Nate scooped me up, marched me off to Vault 95 and literally saved my life. I can guarantee that had I stayed at the combat zone I would be dead by now and I am pretty sure Tommy knew that."

"Ok, so you both owed Nate. Oh shit, I guess I do too, come to think of it. When will I be due my spanking?" Heather joked.

"Ha, I'll get to that bit in a minute," Cait gave Heather a wink. "But on the subject of ass saving, we then found Curie. Now you know about her, but to carry on her story, soon after she became human, we moved into here. Nate had spoken to Geneva, the mayor's assistant and found this place. Cost a fortune but he wanted a base of operations now that we were a team."

"I have no idea where this is or what it's like, but I look forward to having a tour." Heather responded.

"It's great and perfect for our needs, if a little loud at times." Cait grinned and was rewarded with Heather smiling at her joke. "With Curie, just as Nate had helped with Piper and myself, he was put to work pulling her from scrapes she would often get herself into just from being curious."

"I can imagine." Heather nodded.

"As well as making it a habit saving his three companions from self-induced dramas, Nate also decided that to make us more effective as a fighting unit, he would try and teach us some of the tactics he had learned when he was in the army. Especially around the subject of fighting as a cohesive unit." Cait continued.

"Yeah, Mum used to drill into Georgie and I that you were no good in the field if you didn't know what the person to your right or left was doing." Heather agreed.

"Yeah, Nate said your folks were Brotherhood?" Cait asked.

"Yup, both of them. Dad was a Squire and Mum was a Paladin." Heather leant forward trying to grab one of her pillows from behind her.

"Here, let me do that," Cait stood and helped Heather rearrange her back rest. "Yes, Nate's idea was sound and obviously something all you military types are taught, but for us it didn't really seem that important. I guess we were happy as things were. Anyway, we agreed, but I have to say we were not easy students and tried that man's patience to near breaking point." Cait smiled at the recollection. "Not that you could tell we were pushing him to his limits as he was always cool and calm and … patient. Until one day when he wasn't anymore and suggested that we break up as a team because we weren't acting as one."

"That's a bit harsh, isn't it?" Heather asked.

"Well, yes and no." Cait shrugged, "He had been injured by Piper throwing a grenade too close to him and we were a bit wild when it came to gun fights. He said that in a fire fight he was often dodging our bullets as much as he was the enemy's."

"Ah, yeah, that's not good." Heather nodded again.

"However, when he told us that he was intending on breaking up the team, we suddenly realised that we had screwed things up pretty monumentally and that we needed to fix it and fix it fast. There was no way any of us were willing to let this team break up and so, over the space of a night and the next morning, we had to come up with an idea so shockingly good that Nate had no choice but to continue with us, as we were, as a team." Cait looked at Heather to measure her reaction.

Heather looked quizzically at Cait. "So, you …" she started and then stopped.

"Yes, we told Nate that we weren't going anywhere, but to truly show him that we were sorry and that we were invested in giving his tactics and training a proper go, we asked him to give us all a good spanking." Cait opened up her palms. "We figured that would be guaranteed to shock."

"You guys' asked Nate?" Heather looked genuinely surprised. "How… I mean, was he into that kind of thing?" She asked, still looking amazed.

"Well, Nate is naturally a bit bossy, and would often joke with one of us by saying 'We need to have a conversation, you and I', type of thing, you know….. but no, as far as the spanking idea goes, that was all us." Cait sat back in her chair. "We were desperate and we absolutely needed to shock him. We needed to find something that you can't fake, pretend or do half-heartedly. If that makes any sense." Cait looked to Heather for her understanding.

"Well, yeah! That would certainly fit the bill." Heather laughed, "but I mean, how did you even get to asking him to spank you, it's not like you can just walk up to someone and say, 'I know your mad at me right now but how about we make up and you spank me." Heather lowered her voice on the last two words.

"Well, yeah, that's kind of exactly what we did." Cait smirked.

"Wow, sister, that's some balls you guys had." Heather sounded genuinely impressed, "But, OK, so you did just ask him straight out, but why spanking? I mean, why not promise to do some extra house chores?"

"Well, it kind of went like this." Cait answered, pulling her chair closer to Heather's bed. "I started it by saying that whatever it was that we decided to do, we needed to do something to show that we were really willing to put our arses on the line and that we meant it. Curie then asked a little time later whether we thought he would want to punish us for how badly we had behaved, bless her, and then Piper just stitched the two bits together. When Piper mentioned it, I just thought 'perfect!'" Cait exclaimed. "I know that wasn't what I should have thought, but it did just seem so perfect. We had been brats to him, pushed him to a point where he wanted to call it quits. It's not difficult to see that we deserved a good skelping for what we had done, especially for putting the team at risk like that, so when Piper actually said it out loud, the answer seemed so simple."

"Well whatever works," Heather still looked shocked. "And Piper and Curie felt the same?"

"Piper was terrified of suggesting it to Nate as she thought he would laugh at her, rubbish the idea and tell her to not be so ridiculous, but we were all struck by just how simple this remedy seamed. Apologise to him, get a hiding to show we mean it and then move on as if there was never any risk of the team splitting."

"And I guess he didn't dismiss the idea then?" Heather asked, this time sounding genuinely interested and less dismissive.

"He was sceptical at the beginning. For one he didn't believe that we would just drape ourselves over his knee and allow him to tan our backsides without at least fighting back. He joked that were he to do this, he would then have to sleep constantly with one eye open." Cait laughed, "but he was gorgeous and let us persuade him into it."

"And…." Heather was now fully interested. "I assume you got your spanking then?"

"Oh my god did we!" Cait beamed, "Let's just say that I garnered a whole new level of respect for the simple domestic hairbrush."

"And you all lay there and just took it?" Heather continued to sound amazed.

"Ha! Hardly, I seem to remember a great deal of howling, wriggling, squirming and blubbering but we got through it." Cait nodded. "And as far as letting him do this, we wanted him to. As we explained to him at the time, if we wanted to avoid this or any other hidings in the future then we could; we could just get up and leave the team. But here we were desperate for him to keep the team, so we were going to take what he was planning on dishing out and we were going to say thank you afterwards."

"Did you say thank you?" Heather raised an eyebrow.

"I think I called him a bastard, but that was close enough." Cait laughed as did Heather. "We needed him to believe we were genuine and serious, and I think he believed us. I mean, boy did he test us! There was no going easy or holding back, once we gave ourselves over to him, he tanned us good and proper. But afterwards, just as we had hoped for, we were each scooped up and forgiven entirely for what had happened and he even promised that he would give the training another go as well. The whole thing worked so perfectly; I am just sorry we hadn't implemented it before."

"But you got spanked, right? I mean properly, by the sounds of it. Didn't that hurt? Didn't you want to just jump up and shoot him in the face?"

"It stung like a motherfucker!" Cait blew out a breath. "My god it was a whole new level of impressive, but for me, soon after it was over I started to feel a whole slew of reactions and feelings I had never thought would come about from me getting my arse spanked."

"Like what?" Heather returned to looking perplexed.

"Relief, joy, gratitude, warmth, and I don't just mean across my arse. I was floating on a wave of super sharp, super intense feelings and they were all good. Curie, the spoil sport would explain them as the endorphins coursing through your body after something like that, but for me I was on a high, the likes of which I had never had before, and I liked it. I liked it a lot."

"Well, fuck me!" Heather exclaimed.

"We had done what we had set out to do and, I know it sounds dramatic, but by laying myself across that man's knee," Cait pointed upstairs, "it saved my life. God, I get all goose bumpy just thinking back over what could have happened if we had let the team fall apart back then."

"Well, I can't say that I totally get it, I mean just the whole you're a grown woman getting spanked like a child thing, but I can kind of see how it might have made sense, sort of." Heather made a face.

"Listen, I know it sounds mad and yes, it doesn't sound any better trying to explain it to someone outside of our circle, but if you think about it, what alternatives did we have?" Cait looked questioningly at Heather. "I've tried to think of other actions that would have worked as quickly and as completely as our solution."

"What about Valkyrie, you said she is fairly new. How did you explain this set up to her. I bet she wasn't too keen to be hauled across Nates lap for a spanking?" Heather raised her eyebrows. "Welcome to the team Valkyrie, oh and skirt up, panties down, over you go."

Cait smiled, "Well Valkyrie wasn't wearing anything when we first met her, so that would have been unnecessary, but she was absolutely fine with it. However," Cait held up both her hands, "that's her story to tell. I can ask her to come and speak to you about it, if you are ok with that?" Cait asked.

"I would love to hear all your stories, seeing as I am your guest. I would love to get to know you all." Heather gave Cait a genuinely warm smile and then yawned

"But I am not going to get her now, I've talked your ear off enough about this team and its strange isms. I should let you rest." Cait pulled one of the pillows out from behind Heathers back, letting her lie down in the bed.

"But you guys do seem so tight, so perfect as a team. I have to say, when I first heard about you guys, I immediately thought that I needed to join that team. I would love this level of connection, you guys are very lucky." Heather pulled her sheets up to cover her shoulders.

Cait switched off the side light, and said softly, "and who knew that much of it can be put down to good old fashioned over the knee discipline."

Heather rolled over to look at Cait, "You actually mean that, don't you?" She asked drowsily.

"You bet your arse I do," Cait smiled, "but listen, you get your rest and I'll be back with Valkyrie a little later on." Cait left the bedroom alcove and the sleeping Heather and closed the curtain behind her.