Rewards (continued) by Don Sample

Chapter 39

Xander stayed in the pool, swimming back and forth, trying to wear himself out while Anya and Dawn got their massages from Buffy and Faith. Maybe if he got tired enough, his cock would soften. It wasn’t like it wasn’t getting lots of action, and he shouldn’t be thinking that way about Buffy’s kid sister. He tried to think of other things: the work to be done on the apartment; the inlay pattern of wood in the table he was making for Joyce’s friend; building code stuff that he had to know for his new position heading the interior carpentry crew.

He was still in the pool when he heard Anya ask Dawn if her mother was expecting her to be home for dinner.

“I guess so,” said Dawn. “I told her I was coming over to see you guys. I didn’t tell her when I’d be back.”

Anya picked up the phone, and dialed the number for Buffy’s house. After a few seconds she said “Hello, Joyce? … Is it okay if Dawn stays for dinner, or should we send her home now?” She listened for a few seconds, before lowering the phone. “Do you want to have dinner with us, Dawn?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Dawn.

Anya lifted the phone back up to her ear. “Okay, Joyce. We’ll send her home after dinner…” She looked back at Dawn. “Is your homework all done?”

“Yeah,” said Dawn.

“She said ‘yes’,” said Anya into the phone. She listened for a bit. “Okay, we’ll have her home by nine. Bye, Joyce.”

Anya put down the phone. “You’re staying for dinner,” she told Dawn. “Since our kitchen is currently non-functional, that means we’re ordering out. Chinese or Italian?”

“Huh?” asked Dawn.

“You are the guest, so you get to choose. Are we ordering Chinese or Italian food tonight?”

“Um…Chinese?” asked Dawn.

“Okay.” Anya punched more numbers into the phone, and after a few seconds of waiting for an answer, she placed her order. When she was done she hung up, and called out to Xander, who had been treading water in the pool, listening in. “I think we should dress for dinner!”

The expression “dress for dinner” conjured up formal wear in Xander’s mind, and the Reward light flashed. Buffy and Faith were suddenly dressed in top coats with tails, and lapels that wrapped around their breasts, highlighting their white blouses with bow ties. Their legs were sheathed in fishnet stockings, held up by garters stretching down from beneath their top coats. The stockings lead down to their stiletto healed shoes.

“I think that’s a little too formal,” said Anya. “Dawn and I can’t dress like that.”

Xander shrugged. “I still don’t have complete control over this. Whatever you’ve got is fine with me.”

What Dawn had was the clothes she had been wearing when she arrived: a t-shirt and blue jeans, but she decided to leave the bra off when she got dressed again.

After getting dressed, she left Buffy’s room and went to the bathroom that Buffy had pointed out earlier. What she found amazed her. The floor and walls were covered in tile. Most of it looked ceramic to Dawn, but there was a border in natural stone around the floor, and a marble chair rail around on the walls. There was a bidet beside the toilet, and a double vanity with matching vessel sinks. A ginormous, stand alone bathtub stood on one side of the room, and a huge, walk-in shower was on the other. It was the sort of bathroom that Dawn had only seen on TV design shows.

When she was done in the bathroom, she came back out into the hall. She noticed that the double doors that Buffy had pointed out earlier were now open. She went to them, and knocked on the door-frame. “Xander? Anya?”

She didn’t hear any reply, and stepped inside.

Her feet sank into the deep pile of the carpet covering the floor. She looked around. In the centre of the room was the biggest bed she had ever seen. Dawn hadn’t known that beds came that big, but since she knew that Xander, Anya, Faith, and Buffy were all sharing it, she figured that they needed it.

Dawn looked around some more. There were pictures on the walls, and a cabinet just a few feet away from her. She recognized the general form of the cabinet: it was just like the ones that Xander had made for her mother’s gallery, but this one was painted instead of having a stain that would accent the wood grain. Also, instead of glass, the doors on this cabinet had opaque, wood panels. She remembered some of the discussions about the cabinets Xander was making for the gallery, and knew that this one was probably made from less expensive wood. She suspected that Xander had made it first, for practice. Dawn opened the doors to peek inside.

The contents of the cabinet were much more interesting than it was. It contained an assortment of items. She could see handcuffs, and other restraints. There were paddles and whips. There were a variety of dildos, too. Some were smooth, vaguely phallus shaped objects in various sizes, from something no larger than a finger to others the size of her arm. Some of them were clearly anatomically accurate models, all of the same form. She was pretty sure that they were all based on the same model. She gingerly reached out and picked up one of the anatomical dildos. Its surface felt slick and smooth in her fingers. She squeezed it, and felt the soft outer layer yield under the pressure, but it had a harder inner core. It even included a set of fake balls, and at the base was a rotary switch. She gave the switch a twist, and the dildo started to vibrate in her hands. She quickly turned it off again.

She kept the artificial cock in her hands, lightly stroking it with her fingers as she looked around some more. The photographs mounted on the walls were mostly black-and-white images of the same two subjects: Buffy and Faith, either singly or in pairs. In most of the pictures they were naked and bound, either by themselves, or together. There were only a few splashes of colour in the pictures: the red of their lips, the pink of their pussies. In some of the pictures they were ‘dressed’ in various sorts of fetish wear.

She paused, looking at one picture showing Buffy and Faith on their backs on a table, their arms bound beneath it, their mouths turned to each other’s, and bound together in a reverse kiss, their legs lifted up with their ankles bound to each other’s, and their legs spread wide apart by a bar between them.

“That’s how I first found them,” said Anya.

Dawn started, and looked around. “Sorry?”

“When the Reward started,” said Anya, “I came into the living room of our old apartment, and that’s what I found. Buffy and Faith, just like that.”

“And you took a picture?” asked Dawn.

“No, these just showed up yesterday, when when we were discussing what sort of decorations we wanted in the room. I suggested that we might like to have some pictures of our slaves, and the light flashed, and there they were.”

Dawn looked at a series of pictures of Faith, taken from different angles, showing her wearing thigh-high leather boots, a stiff black corset and little else, with her hands cuffed behind her back. A chain dangled from the rings piercing her nipples. “So, Buffy and Faith didn’t actually pose like that, for the pictures.”

“No, but they are all pictures of things that have happened,” said Anya.

Dawn turned back to the cabinet. “And you’ve used all of this stuff?” She pointed with the dildo that was still in her hand, before she realized what she had done, and quickly lowered her hand again.

Anya didn’t seem to have noticed what she was holding. “Not all of it. But I asked Xander to create it, so I could have it available, if I wanted to play with Buffy or Faith while he wasn’t here.”

Dawn couldn’t imagine Buffy letting Anya whip her, or enjoying it, but she’d overheard enough comments to know that it was happening. She still didn’t want to think about that aspect of the relationship her sister now had with Xander and Anya. She turned her attention back to the assortment of dildos. She recognized one of them: it was the vibrator that Buffy used to keep hidden in her dresser, that Dawn hadn’t been able to find a couple of weeks ago. “Sheesh! With all these other dildos, and Xander, what does Buffy still want that for?”

“Mostly nostalgia,” said Anya, and Dawn realized that she’d asked the question out loud. “First day after this started, she appeared on our kitchen table masturbating with it. We used it on Faith, too, before Xander started getting good at making things just appear when he wanted them.”

Just then, Xander called from downstairs to tell them that dinner had arrived. Dawn placed the dildo she’d been holding back on its shelf, and followed Anya out of the room. If she’d noticed the expression on Anya’s face, she might have been a little worried.


Dawn left with Buffy to escort her home after Buffy and Faith had finished cleaning up after dinner. Xander turned to Faith as soon as they’d gone, and grinned at her. “I think we’ll try a new game tonight.” The light flashed. “Naughty schoolgirl.”

Faith was now dressed in a white blouse, with a dark tie loosely hanging from her neck. Her hair hung in straight plaits from a part in the centre of her head. She was wearing a very short, plaid, pleated skirt, and thigh-high sheer white stockings, giving her six inches of zettai ryouiki. Black high heeled Mary-Jane shoes were on her feet. “Let’s go upstairs.” Xander held out his hand toward the steps. “After you, Faith.”

She smiled, and turned to the stairs. “Yes, Sir.” Xander almost never went up the stairs first, if he could follow one of his girls, instead. Faith made sure she put a little extra wiggle into her ass as she mounted the stairs ahead of him. She turned to go into their bedroom.

“Wait, Faith,” ordered Xander.

She stopped and turned toward him. She dropped her face toward the floor, and clasped her hands behind her back. “Is something wrong, Sir?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Xander. “I just want you to wait out here, while Anya and I get ready for you. While you’re waiting, I want you to think up all kinds of naughty things that a bad schoolgirl might get summoned to her Headmaster’s office for. When I call you inside, you will believe that you are that schoolgirl, Anya and I are the Headmistress, and Headmaster of your school, and that our bedroom is our office. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Headmaster,” said Faith.

Xander grinned at her, placed a hand under her chin, and lifted it up. He placed a quick kiss on her lips. “This won’t take long.” He and Anya disappeared into the bedroom, and Faith stood at attention by the door, thinking of all the naughty things she had done, or considered doing, while she’d been in school.

“Come in!”

Faith stepped nervously through the door into her Headmaster’s office, wondering why she’d been summoned here. She loved this school. She was learning a lot, and no other school had let her indulge her appetites the way this one did. She hoped that it wasn’t all coming to an end.

She didn’t think the other teachers had been complaining about her and Buffy passing notes, and whispering to each other in classes. For one thing, if that was the problem, Buffy would be here with her. It couldn’t be about the stink bomb that they’d tossed into the boy’s locker room after last week’s football game either, for the same reason — though they had timed it perfectly. Nearly the entire team had retreated back outside, with nothing to wear but their towels. A couple of them hadn’t even taken the time to grab towels. No, it was probably about—

“You know why you’re here,” said Headmistress Jenkins, standing beside the Headmaster’s desk in her severe suit, wearing a slim pencil skirt below her tailored jacket, with a scowl on her face. Headmaster Harris was sitting behind his desk, with a stern expression on his face.

Faith stood in front of the desk, with her gaze downcast, and her hands clasped behind her back. “I—I’m not sure,” she said, looking at the two foot long leather strap laying there. The whispering wasn’t enough of a transgression to rate that, and the Headmistress had been struggling not to laugh along with the rest of the girls at the naked football team.

“I’m sure you can think of something,” said the Headmistress.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Faith. “I—I was talking with Buffy in english class…”

“The extra homework your teacher assigned you has already taken care of that,” said Headmaster Harris.

“There was the stink-bomb we threw into the locker room…”

“I’m happy to learn who was responsible for that, and we might have to have the both of you back later, to pay for that transgression,” said the Headmistress. “But that isn’t the reason you are here now.”

“I— I cheated on my last history test,” said Faith. “I copied Buffy’s answers.”

“Why would you do that, Faith?” asked the Headmaster. “You’re every bit as smart as she is.”

Faith felt warmed by the compliment. “I hadn’t studied, Sir, and I knew that Buffy had.”

He pursed his lips at that answer. “You realize what this means,” he said.

“I get an ‘F’, Sir?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes, and more than that.”

“I get the strap, Sir.”

“Yes, you do, Faith,” said Headmaster Harris. “The question now, is now many?”

Faith was already wet, in anticipation of what was to come. “T-twenty, Sir?” she asked, letting a bit of a tremble into her voice.

The Headmaster considered that, for a moment, before looking to Headmistress Jenkins. “I think we’ll save the last five for your co-conspirator,” he said. “Buffy could have stopped you from copying, but she didn’t. I think fifteen will suffice, don’t you agree, Ms. Jenkins?”

“Yes, Mr. Harris, I think it will.” The Headmistress picked up the strap from the desk. “Drop your panties, Faith.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Faith lifted her skirt, and took hold of the waist band of her cotton panties. She pushed them down to her knees.

“Bend over, Faith.”

Faith bent over the Headmaster’s desk, resting her forearms on it, and bringing her face to within a few inches of his own. His hands took hold of hers, and he looked into her eyes. “Count them out,” he said to her, and she felt the sting of the Headmistress’s strap against her ass.

One!” cried Faith. The strap struck her ass again. “Two!

The next strike came against the backs of her thighs, above the tops of her stockings, and Faith screeched out in pain before crying “Three!” Her hands squeezed harder around Headmaster Harris’s, but for some reason she didn’t squeeze as hard as she could.

Another stroke of the strap came down on her ass. “Five!” She blinked back tears, and looked directly into the eyes of her Headmaster, seeing that he was feeling just what she was, that this was hurting him as much as it was hurting her…and that it was exciting him as much as her, too. The strap struck her ass again. “Six!

The strap kept coming down across her ass and thighs, and she called out each strike. “Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!” Each stroke raised her to a higher level of arousal. “Eleven! Twelve! Thirteen! Fourteen!

The Headmistress paused before delivering the final stroke. Faith wanted it. She needed it.

The final stroke of the strap came down on her buttocks. “Fifteen!

Faith wanted to come, but she couldn’t. She wanted Headmaster Harris to take her over his lap, and spank her. She wanted to kneel in front of him, and suck his cock. She wanted to feel his seed spurting into her cunt as he came in her.

“Go lie across the foot of the bed, Faith,” said the Headmaster.

“Yes, Sir.” Faith straightened up. Her panties had fallen down around her ankles, and one of her stockings had fallen down to below her knee. She considered bending down to lift her panties back up, but decided to step out of them instead, before going to the bed. She knew that the Headmaster and Headmistress spent many late hours working hard, and so they had a bed in their office in which they could catch naps, when they needed them.

She crawled onto the bed, and lay down on her stomach across the foot of it She didn’t want to put her burning ass down on anything. She placed her face against the blanket, so she couldn’t see what was going on around her.

She felt the bed depress as the Headmaster sat down beside her on it. “Bring me the salve, Ms. Jenkins.”

“Yes, Mr. Harris,” said the Headmistress. A few seconds later Faith felt her skirt being lifted, and a cool liquid being poured over her buttocks.

“This will sooth your pain,” said the Headmaster, and she felt his hand against her ass, slowly and gently spreading the lotion over it.

Her burning ass cooled under the Headmaster’s tender touch. It still hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been. It wasn’t just the lotion that was soothing her. It was Mr. Harris’s hand, and he wasn’t restricting it to just her buns, and thighs. His hand was also dipping between her legs, to caress her pussy, driving her arousal even higher, and distracting her from the sting in her rump.

She felt the bed move again, as Ms. Jenkins got onto it too. “Come here, Faith,” she said. “It’s time for you to thank me for being so lenient in your punishment.”

Faith lifted her face from the blankets, and looked toward her Headmistress, who was now sitting at the top of the bed, with pillows between her back and the headboard, and her legs spread, letting Faith see all the way up her skirt, to her bare pussy.

Faith licked her lips as she rose up onto her hands and knees, and started to slowly crawl toward her Headmistress. “How may I thank you, Ma’am?”

Ms. Jenkins pulled her skirt up her legs. “Come here, and lick my pussy.”

Faith ducked her head in acknowledgement of the order, and to focus her eyes on her mouth’s target. “Yes, Mistress.” She felt it was appropriate to shorten her title that way. She crawled the rest of the way up between Ms. Jenkins’ legs, and lay down between them, where her mouth and tongue would have ready access to her Mistress’s snatch. She knew that the Headmaster was behind her so she spread her own legs, giving him an open invitation.

She started by softly kissing Ms. Jenkins’ inner thighs, at first just lightly brushing her lips against her skin, but moving on to licking and nibbling at her skin, before wiggling a bit farther in, to place a soft kiss just above Ms. Jenkins’ clit.

Faith heard the sound of Mr. Harris’s belt opening, and his fly being unzipped. She gave Ms. Jenkins’ pussy a good lick as she felt him moving in between her legs. She pressed a finger into the pussy in front of her as Mr. Harris’s cock sank into her own. Ms. Jenkins’ pussy was just as wet at her own had become.

She synchronized her licking of Ms. Jenkins’ clit, and the thrusts of her finger into her pussy, with the thrusts of Mr. Harris’s cock into hers. This was why she loved her school. What other school had a Headmaster that would fuck her brains out while she ate out the Headmistress’s pussy?

“More, Faith,” said Ms. Jenkins. “Give me more!”

Faith slid another finger into her pussy.

Headmaster Harris’s cock drove deep into her.

“More, Faith! I want more!” cried Ms. Jenkins. Faith added two more fingers to the ones that were pressing into her cunt.

“Oh, yes, Faith! Like that! Give me more!

Faith folded her thumb in with the fingers driving into her mistress’s cunt, and drove her whole hand into her snatch. She curled her fingers into a fist inside her, sinking her hand up to its wrist inside her.

She heard, and felt, Ms. Jenkins coming. Until now, Faith had been being punished for cheating on her history test, so no matter how aroused she had become by being strapped across her ass, or fucked by her Headmaster, she hadn’t let herself come. But now, with Headmaster Harris’s cock driving deep into her, her mouth on Ms. Jenkins’ clit, and her hand deep in the Headmistress’s snatch, she let herself go.

She was riding the crest of yet another incredible orgasm when she felt the greatest sensation of them all, the sensation that she had been craving ever since she’d entered the Headmaster’s office. She felt Mr. Harris coming into her cunt.

She was still licking vigorously at Ms. Jenkins’ snatch when he collapsed across her back, and she felt his lips kissing the nape of her neck. She pulled away from her Headmistress’s snatch, and pulled her hand out of her pussy. She lifted her hand up in an offering to the Headmaster, to let him have his own turn tasting her nectar. After giving her hand a thorough licking, he turned his attention to Ms. Jenkins’ snatch, and Faith turned her attention to his softening cock, sucking it into her mouth, tasting herself on it.

It wasn’t long until she felt him swelling again. She drew her her mouth away from his rejuvenated organ, grasped it in her hand, and guided it toward Ms. Jenkins’ cunt. She aimed the head of his cock at the entrance to her pussy, and pulled him toward it.

Faith sat back on her heals and watched her Headmaster fuck her Headmistress. She had an uncontrollable impulse to smile as she watched him drive into her.

She admired his power. She admired the way his gluteus maximus contracted as he thrust into her. She admired the way he made her Headmistress scream out his name.

Mr. Harris collapsed on top of Ms. Jenkins, and then he beckoned toward Faith, for her to come join them. She lay down beside them, and was drawn into his embrace. He kissed her, and then she kissed Ms. Jenkins. While they were tasting each other’s mouths, she felt Mr. Harris’s lips against her ear. “The game is over, Faith. We’re just Xander and Anya again.”

Faith blinked, coming back to reality. She looked around the room, not believing that she had believed that this was the office of a school Headmaster. Even ignoring the decorations on the walls, and a bed that was much larger than anyone needed for quick naps, the “Headmaster’s desk” was Anya’s vanity, pulled out into the centre of the floor.

“Did you enjoy that, Faith?” asked Xander.

“Oh, yes! Can’t wait till we get Buffy back here to take her strapping for letting me cheat off her.”

Xander smiled at her. “I might let you do it, if she’s okay with it.”

Faith hesitated for a moment. She knew that Xander had made her hair look like Dawn’s. He had made her look like a young brunette student. She knew that he had been using her as a surrogate for Buffy’s sister, and thanks to their link, Buffy knew it too.

But deep down, Faith knew that Buffy understood. She might give her, and Xander, some grief about it, but she had shared her own attraction to Dawn’s blossoming womanhood with her sister Slayer, and knew that Buffy was starting to recognize — on an intellectual level — that Dawn was becoming hot young woman.


Buffy was just leaving her house, where she had left her sister. She’d had a nice visit with her mother, updating her on how her classes were going, and the progress they were making in the renovations of their new apartment. She tried to ignore the way her ass was burning, in sympathy with Faith’s, after the strapping she’d received. The Reward light flashed, putting her into her Slayer uniform, for tonight’s patrol.


Dawn went up to her bedroom, and upended her backpack, to dump out its contents onto the floor. She gave it a good shake, to make her bathing suit, towel and bra fall out, so she could move them into her laundry hamper. She was startled by something hitting the floor with a hard thump.

She looked in surprise at the object on the floor. It was something she had held in her hands, just a couple of hours ago. It was the dildo.

She knew that she hadn’t put it into her pack, but she remembered the smile Anya had given her. It was Anya who had gone back upstairs to fetch her backback, just before she had left the apartment.

Dawn’s lips quirked into a grin. She knew that she could have a lot of fun with the object now lying on her bedroom floor, but first she started tossing her towel, bra, and bathing suit into her laundry hamper. She also found a piece of paper, that had hand written instructions on it, telling her to wash the dildo with soap and water between uses.


Faith ran through the streets of Sunnydale toward where she knew Buffy to be. She felt alive, energized. She felt great. She felt like she’d just had a terrific fucking, which she had. Her life seemed to have become a succession of terrific fuckings, and terrific other things. She had Xander, Anya and Buffy, and a job that she enjoyed that payed a pretty good wage. She was starting to form some new friendships with the guys she worked with.

Even Willow was starting to treat her better, since she’d helped them deal with Tara’s jerkass family. They may never be best buds, but Willow had stopped glaring at her whenever they met. She’d also stopped talking about finding ways to break the Reward at every opportunity. She still wanted to learn more about it, but that was just Willow being Willow. She wanted to learn more about everything.

She caught up with Buffy in an alley off Wilkins Street, just a few blocks from downtown. They’d found a place here a week ago that some vamps had been using as a suck-house, and had cleaned it out. Buffy had been very surprised to learn that there were actually people who would pay to have vampires feed off them, but Faith had encountered this sort of thing before. She had stopped being surprised by just how stupid some human beings could be.

They’d made a habit of coming back here, every couple of nights since they had cleaned it out, to make sure that some new vamps hadn’t set up shop here again.

There were still no vamps. Vamps had been getting pretty scarce, with both of them making regular patrols around town. They had cleaned out all of the usual hangouts. Deaths from “neck rupture” being reported in the obits were down. They hadn’t found a single newbie vamp rising from a fresh grave all week.


Dawn closed her bedroom door, and unwrapped the hand towel that she’d used to hide the dildo from her mother, if she’d happened to be upstairs when she came back from the bathroom. She hadn’t known where the dildo had been last, so she’d thought that it was probably a good idea to wash it, before putting it to use, and she intended to put it to use.

But first she made sure that her door was locked. This was another big advantage of moving into Buffy’s old room: it had a door that locked. Once that was taken care of, she stripped off her pyjama pants, turned off the light, and moved to her bed with the dildo in hand.

Dawn started by lightly brushing the tip of the dildo along her slit, imagining that Xander was there, and that it was his fingers gently caressing her. The dildo was slightly curved, so she found that she could press the top of it against the entire length of her pussy, from her clit down to the entrance into her vagina. She could start to press its tip into herself, while still applying pressure to her clit. She began to rub it back and forth against herself.

Each time Dawn brought the tip back to her entrance, she pressed it a little harder against her hymen. She had never had anything larger than a single finger inside herself, and the dildo wouldn’t fit past it. She pressed it against her barrier until it started to hurt, a bit, and then backed off again. Each time she could press it a little farther.

She reached for the knob on the base of the dildo, and twisted it on. It started to buzz, and she pressed it harder against her sex, feeling the vibrations that seemed to sink all the way up to her belly. It felt wonderful, and soon she was biting back a cry of ecstasy as she came.

She kept the dildo pressed against her slit, and tried again to press its vibrating head into her vagina. It went a little farther this time, and the pleasure it was giving her was almost enough that she was tempted to just ignore the pain from her stretching hymen, and shove it all the way in, but she was imagining that it was Xander’s real cock pressing against her, and not a plastic facsimile, and she knew that Xander would never do that. He’d be patient, and gentle, and he wouldn’t go driving himself into her until he knew that she was completely ready, so she kept rubbing the dildo along her slit, alternately pressing its tip — which was the part that was vibrating the most — against her clit, and fractionally deeper into her pussy.

She only needed one hand for her dildo, so she slid her other hand up under her pyjama top, to caress her breasts. Her nipples were stiff, and hyper-sensitive when she brushed her hand over them, imagining that it was Xander’s. She squeezed her thighs together around the dildo, and moaned deep in her throat as she came again.

Dawn eventually sated herself, at least temporarily, and rose from her bed to go back to the bathroom, to wash the dildo again. She could tell from the lack of light under her door that that hallway was dark, and she only had to cross it to get to the bathroom, so she didn’t bother putting her pyjama bottoms back on. She quietly opened her door, and peeked out, just to be sure that the coast was clear, and then quickly padded across the hall, and into the bathroom. She closed its door before she turned on the light, and blinked against the sudden brightness.

After letting her eyes adjust to the light for a few seconds, Dawn went to the sink to wash the dildo with soap and water, so it would be ready for her to try again, in the morning.

Chapter 38 Contents Chapter 40