Lloyd leaves me in the café with a shot glass of Dutch courage while Rachael and O whisk him off to ‘set up’.
The party doesn’t start for two hours yet. How much setting up do they need?
The people all around me are preparing to party, in hilarious high spirits, brandishing their riding crops and dog leashes while they down expensive bottled beers. None of them seem nervous. I guess they are all old hands at this kind of thing.
‘You look lonely,’ says one man, his bare chest strapped up in some kind of harness. ‘Want to join us?’
His coterie stops behind him – three girls wearing tiny leather miniskirts and very little else.
‘I’m waiting for someone,’ I tell him, crossing my legs. I’m still dressed for work – Rachael promised to help me get changed in the office later.
‘Are you sure you’re in the right place?’
Am I? Good question.
‘Quite sure, thanks.’
‘OK, well, enjoy your play.’ He drifts off towards the bar with his acolytes in tow.
Rachael appears from the stairway door and waves her hand, gesturing me away. I am to be prepared.
In the office, she takes a bag from under O’s desk and rummages through it.
‘So,’ I say, faux-casually, ‘is the set up all done?’
‘I think so.’
‘Where’s Lloyd? What’s he doing?’
‘Mal’s lent him some gear. He’s getting dressed. I think Mal was going to give him a few pointers about tonight too.’
‘Pointers? He’s not doing knife play, is he?’
Rachael laughs, emptying the bag so that the contents jingle and clink on the desk. ‘Don’t be daft. I might do a bit though.’
‘Really? You’re into that?’
‘Only with one dom. I wouldn’t let just anyone near me with a blade. Don’t look so scared, Soph. It’s all about limits. Mine might be a bit further out there than yours.’
‘Blimey, no one’s ever said that to me before.’
‘There are all sorts of things you might do that I wouldn’t be comfortable with either. It isn’t like “Oh, she’s into BDSM so she must want to do x, y and z.” It’s different for everyone.’
‘Do you like being watched?’
‘Honestly? Not really. I’m self-conscious about my looks. I don’t enjoy it, but I enjoy the feeling of doing something that scares me, for my dom, to please him.’
‘I don’t really get that.’
‘You’re in a different headspace than me. You play the way you do because it’s what you want. If Lloyd wanted it and you didn’t, it wouldn’t happen, would it?’
‘No.’
‘Because you don’t have that kind of relationship. I get off on the idea of service, of subordinating my own desires to somebody else’s.’
I pause for a moment, unsure what to say. ‘Each to their own,’ is my lame conclusion.
‘Exactly. Each to their own. Now look, are you going to get dressed or are we going to stand here debating kink psychology all night?’
‘Sorry. I’m nervous. Love your outfit, by the way.’
Rachael is wearing a black velvet number featuring a cleavage with more plunge than a bungee jumper and a huge slit up both sides of the long skirt. She appears to be nude underneath.
‘Thanks. Get a shimmy on then.’
I begin to rid myself of the sharp trouser suit, inspecting the contents of the desk while I unbutton.
It looks like a corset.
‘Is it a corset?’
‘Yes, and I hope it fits you. Really, they should be custom-made. But I reckon we’re about the same size, even though I’m taller, so I thought it was worth a try.’
‘What if it doesn’t fit?’
Rachael shrugs. ‘There’s a load of costume gear in that cupboard over there. Something will.’
As it happens, the corset is hideously uncomfortable, but for reasons that are nothing to do with the fit, which is fine.
‘Not so tight,’ I gasp as Rachael reins me in so fiercely I expect to hear the cracking of bones.
She relents and lets the laces out a bit. I breathe again.
‘I forget sometimes that you aren’t a veteran at all this,’ she says. ‘Sorry.’
I look down at myself. I seem to nip in and flare out much more than usual, in a sleek black and red satiny kind of way. My breasts spill up and over the cups, two indecent pale pillows, thrust out and ready for handling.
‘It’s like my rubber dress,’ I tell her. ‘But more so.’
‘You could try a rubber corset. They’re awesome. Now, I have this skirt thing for you.’
The skirt thing is a tiny lacy scrap that barely covers my arse. Not that it matters. I can’t imagine that my arse is going to stay under wraps for long tonight. Suspenders emerge from the high-set hem to link up with lacy stocking tops.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I see the classic saucy sexy minx. I practise a look of wide-eyed innocence, a pout, a wiggle of the bottom.
‘Do you think Lloyd will like it?’ asks Rachael, grinning.
‘Are you kidding? Lloyd likes anything and everything. A hairy gorilla suit would turn Lloyd on.’
‘Only if you were wearing it.’
I tut. ‘Nah, I don’t think so. He’s just a horny bastard.’
‘No, I think you’re wrong. I think it’d have to be you in the gorilla suit. I even think it’d have to be you in the sexy corset.’
I turn away from the mirror and put my hands over my exposed collarbones, my throat suddenly tight. ‘D’you really think so?’
‘God, yes. Don’t you?’
I wander over to the desk again, not trusting myself to answer. Wrist cuffs. ‘Do I have to put these on?’
‘I would, since they’re there. I guess it’s for a reason.’
She buckles them on for me, nice and tight. The leather is heavy, which is both sexy and reassuring. Instantly, I feel closer to the headspace I’m aiming for.
I pull on high strappy shoes and then I’m left with the last thing: a collar, with dog leash attached.
‘I don’t know about this,’ I say, picking it up.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it makes me think of dogs, and dogs don’t turn me on. I don’t really want to be treated like an animal.’
‘I guess I won’t invite you to the pony farm then.’
‘I guess you won’t.’ I snort. ‘You’re serious? That place really exists?’
‘I’ve told you! I went there the other month. I had a brilliant weekend. Look, put the collar on. Don’t think of it in relation to dogs. Think of it as a slave collar.’
Slaves? Isn’t that worse?
Rachael puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘It doesn’t symbolise anything you don’t want it to. It’s just a weird-looking necklace. It’s a piece of leather with some metal links attached. Whatever you want to make it, that’s what it is. And it’s a damn sight less uncomfortable than that corset.’
‘Where’s Lloyd? Is he coming to fetch me?’
‘Yeah, he’ll be here soon.’
I pick up the collar, weigh it in my hands. It’s just a thing. It can mean what I want it to mean. I’m not a dog, not a slave, I don’t belong to anyone. I do what I want, because I want to do it.
I put it on. It’s supple, the leather moulding itself to the contours of my neck. The chain dangles between my breasts, chilling them.
Rachael picks up the end of the leash and tugs on it playfully. ‘How does it feel?’
‘It’s OK. It’s good. Where’s Lloyd?’
‘Here’s Lloyd.’
He stands in the doorway – I pivot on my teeteringly high heels and look him up and down.
‘Wow. It’s a dom makeover.’
He looks like a sexed-up cat burglar, in black leather trousers (Mal’s?) and a black silk shirt, billowing and open to about halfway down his chest. Most fun of all, he is wearing an eye mask and a flogger in his belt. And shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather. His hair is slicked back and his smile is deadly.
I put a hand on a jutting hip and ask in my best husky purr, ‘Who’s this?’
He shuts the door behind him and crooks a finger. ‘Let me look at you.’
I swing the leash, burlesque-style, as I approach him, but he grabs it as soon as it’s within reach and uses it to hold me still and close, the length of chain wrapped around his fist.
‘Gorgeous,’ he says, putting his other hand to my neck, sliding it down over my bare shoulders. The intensity of his attention makes me want to step back, to make a jocular remark, to puncture the moment. Something stops me, though, holds me still just as the leash does. ‘Turn around.’
His hand on my shoulder steers me lightly. He lifts my skirt, the two pathetic flounces of frothy net, and checks that I am naked underneath. I look at the ground, conscious of Rachael watching us, conscious of Lloyd’s eyes on my bottom and pussy. There will be more eyes than his later, but I don’t think I could feel so naked if a million eyes were trained on my sex. I have never felt more laid bare.
With a tug of the leash, I am facing him again.
‘Are you ready?’ he says softly.
‘Are you?’
‘Not sure. Shall we skip all this and go home?’ His fingers caress my jawbone, his thumb drifting over my cheek.
‘Would that be a fail?’
I don’t even care. I don’t even care about the silly game. I want to tell him, yes, let’s abandon this, let’s go, let’s be lovers.
But when it comes down to it, I just can’t.
‘I suppose,’ he says. ‘Maybe.’
‘No, let’s do this.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I want to. I’m sure.’
He pulls me tight, really tight, into his chest and whispers in my ear, ‘I’m going to make you beg tonight. One way or another.’
‘We’ll see,’ I whisper back.
O and Mal arrive, cooing and smiling at our little tableau.
‘Getting into the mood?’ enquires Mal, searching the cupboard for his Dracula cloak. ‘It’s going to be a hot one tonight. Very well attended. Lots of the top players in.’
‘Who’s domming you, Rachael?’ asks O. ‘Won’t they be wondering where you are?’
‘Oh! Yes.’ Rachael gives her hair one final primp in the mirror and dashes off. ‘See you later. Good luck.’
Mal pours us all a glass of port and we stand around, slightly awkward, O and I baring expanses of flesh that seem to preclude polite chitchat. It’s left to Mal and Lloyd to banter self-consciously about fire regulations and door policy.
Mal raises his glass. ‘Well, I think a toast is in order,’ he says. ‘To beautiful submission. And the two very fine examples of it here in this room.’
Lloyd echoes the toast while O and I simper.
‘First night nerves, Lloyd?’ asks Mal.
‘Yeah, a few,’ he admits.
Mal slaps him on the back. ‘You’ll ace it, bud,’ he says. ‘Just remember what I taught you.’
‘And what was that?’ I ask, but Mal taps his nose.
‘Curiosity killed the cat. And did quite a lot of damage to the pussy too.’
He laughs uproariously. O shoots me an apologetic eyebrow raise. Life with the Benny Hill of bondage must be wearisome sometimes.
Our drinks consumed, our inhibitions mildly lowered, we prepare to enter the circus ring.
I reach for Lloyd’s hand and squeeze it, the squeeze lasting a little longer and ending up a little tighter than I intended. I want to tell him to break a leg, or something. Should I be wishing luck to a man whose immediate future involves visiting intense pain on my backside? All the same, I prefer my position to his. I don’t have to exude confidence or authority. I just have to obey orders.
Mal and O, in front of us, open the door. Lloyd removes my hand from his and takes hold of the leash. I am to walk behind him.
We process through the café, where bodies turn and eyes swivel to follow our progress. It feels unlike anything I’ve ever done before. I’m so used to displaying myself, yet I’ve never been put on display like this. My skin crawls, but at the same time, my cunt moistens, feeling puffy and heavy almost immediately. Lloyd’s arse looks fine in those leather trousers, so I concentrate only on its tight outline, swaying from side to side in front of me.
Down to the dungeon we go, down, down. The stairs are hard to negotiate in heels and Lloyd takes the descent considerately slowly. People mill in the flame-lit corridors. There are submissives kneeling at their master or mistress’s feet all over the place, even more so when we enter the dungeon.
A cross, a pillory and a spanking bench are all in use, small crowds and queues of people lining up to watch or wait their turn.
I peek from the corner of my eye at all the naked, willing flesh on show. At first, I’m drawn to their bottoms and thighs, their spread slits and marked skin, but after a while what I want to see is their faces. Twisted in pain, lips bitten, eyes popping desperately or screwed shut, none of them looks as if they’re enjoying the experience at all. There is none of the ‘ecstasy in agony’ one might expect. They look like I feel when Dr Lassiter or Lloyd is on the cruel end of the cane. True physical masochists are rare, I suppose.
But behind those tormented faces, inside their minds, there must be fierce efforts of self-control and dedication to their dom/mes going on. I think of what I get from a good whipping – the endorphins, the tumble into the luxurious embrace of submission, the sense of being dealt with and controlled and made use of and yet cared for all at once. Really, there is nothing like it.
The man at the cross is untied and released. Now he has the beatific expression, dropping to his feet and kissing his master’s boots. O steps up and stretches her limbs in the required X-shape while Mal ties the ropes.
At the pillory, they seem in no hurry to finish their exhibition. The dom has finished flagellating his submissive, but he is rubbing something on her bum cheeks that seems to be exacerbating the soreness, by the look on her face.
The domme at the spanking bench releases her male submissive and leads him away by means of a leash attached to a cock ring. He is fully hard, gasping for breath, and, as she yanks him past us, I admire the deep crimson shade of his paddled bottom.
I wait for him to be replaced, but then a tug at my leash makes me stumble and I realise that it’s my turn.
‘Now?’ I whisper as Lloyd takes hold of my upper arm and turns me to face the amused onlookers.
‘Speak when you’re spoken to,’ he mutters from the side of his mouth. ‘Unless it’s to safe-word.’ He raises his voice, addressing the crowd. It’s not enormous, as most people are interested to see what’s happening at the pillory. Nine or ten people give Lloyd their polite attention. ‘Masters, mistresses and their devoted submissives, I’d like to introduce you to Sophie. Before we start, there’s one thing you need to know about Sophie, and that’s that she’s a very, very bad girl.’
There is an amused ripple from the crowd. He puts his hand, which is now gloved in thin leather, underneath my lacy skirt, and rubs it up and down my arse.
‘Tell them, Sophie.’
His gloved finger draws a line up my crack, squiggling between my cheeks. My pussy gushes.
‘I’m a very, very bad girl,’ I falter.
‘And I think we all know what very, very bad girls get, don’t we?’ More chuckling. ‘What do you think, Sophie? Any ideas?’
My mouth is too dry to answer. I think my cunt has used up all the moisture in my body and there’s none left.
‘Hmm?’ He pats my bottom gently with his gloved hand, still expecting his answer.
‘Do they get spanked, sir?’ I finally manage.
He joins in with the general revelling in my humiliation that’s going on around the bench. ‘Do they, Sophie? Are you asking me? I thought I was asking you.’
His head is cocked to one side, his lips curled in amusement, his eyes gleaming with lustful purpose. I want to slap him and jump on him, both at once.
I take a deep breath and try to edit the natural sulky tone from my reply. ‘They get spanked, sir.’
He claps his hands, making my collar wobble as the leash swings between them. ‘That’s right. They do. Now, I’m going to throw this open to the audience. I’m going to ask them exactly what kind of spanking a very, very bad girl deserves. The answer I like best wins a prize.’
‘What’s the prize?’ asks a domme in a peaked leather cap.
‘The prize, ladies and gentlemen, is that you get to administer the whipping.’
I wheel around, stunned.
They like that. The laughter is more than a chuckle this time.
I open my mouth to form a word, but then I remember what he said. Only when spoken to, unless to safe-word. Of course, I could safe-word now, in theory.
But why would I? Lloyd is offering me the chance to take my thrashing from a practised, experienced top. In a way, he’s doing me a favour. And himself, of course – I suspect his offer is driven by the fear of wielding a less-than-steady hand under public scrutiny.
I have to hold my nerve, that’s all. I have to beat him at his own beating game.
I press my lips together and lift my chin, staring ahead at the crowd, daring them to think I’m scared.
‘Eyes down,’ he orders, and the accompanying pat on the bum is less gentle this time, though the gloves add an extra dimension of sensuality. ‘What am I bid?’
Some hands go up in the crowd, which is growing. The action at the pillory appears to have ended.
‘Three minutes with a flogger,’ somebody suggests.
‘The birch,’ says another. ‘Has she been birched before?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, then maybe not this time. She’s been caned?’
‘Yes.’
‘Six for a bad girl, twelve for a very bad girl.’
‘And for a very, very bad girl?’
‘Maybe eighteen. Has she taken that many before?’
‘No, twelve is the current record.’
‘What’s she like with a wooden paddle?’
‘Oh, she hates that! With a passion.’
‘I guess I’d recommend the wooden paddle then! Maybe twenty.’
‘I like the tawse,’ says the peak-capped domme. ‘Gorgeous impact on a round female bottom.’
‘I like it too,’ says Lloyd. ‘I’m giving you the prize.’
Ugh, the tawse, horrid. Better than the cane though, and the paddle, so I congratulate myself inwardly while the domme is being congratulated outwardly.
Until Lloyd speaks again. ‘OK, how I’m going to organise Sophie’s punishment is like this. I’m going to strap her to the bench and warm her up myself, using my hand and the wooden paddle.’
Oh, you bastard! How can a wooden paddle be considered a warm-up implement anyway? It’s a travesty.
‘When I think she’s done, I’ll hand over to you, ma’am, and this rather wonderful Lochgelly tawse here, and you can give her, let’s say, twelve of those. After that, well, we’ll play things by ear.’
Lloyd’s improvisational skills are altogether too good, and I assume that, by the time the whipping is over, he will be well over his nerves. Perhaps mine should start kicking in now.
He unclips the leash from my collar and stretches out an arm towards the spanking bench in silent command.
Its design makes it obvious how I am to position myself. I straddle with my knees on padded shelves, my stomach over a large bolster that lifts my bottom high. My wrists are cuffed together behind my back while my neck rests on another padded insert, keeping my face in full view of the crowd.
The lacy skirt is barely worthy of the name now. It slides frothily and independently towards my lower back, baring my bottom in its corseted, suspendered frame to the view of the audience. Once I am secured, Lloyd moves the bench so that I am looking outwards at the crowd. Only by shutting my eyes can I avoid their gaze. On the other hand, they won’t see my bottom and my widespread pussy lips.
Except they will, because Lloyd invites a select group behind me, promising to change the aspect later on.
‘Now, Sophie, you are to keep your eyes open and face the good ladies and gentlemen who have come to join in your discipline. If anyone reports to me that you have shut them at any time – except to blink, or if there’s a very hard stroke – then you’ll get the cane on top of all this. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
My pathetic squeak draws another laugh from the crowd, who are loving Lloyd’s showmanship.
I shiver and let out a little moan as his shiny, smooth hand rubs itself all over my bottom and thighs, grazing the soft inner flesh, taking a few sly pinches that make me jolt, as far as I can.
‘Ready, Sophie?’ he says very quietly.
‘Yes, sir,’ I whisper. I wish I could see him. I feel like one of those hog roasts on a spit – a piece of doomed meat, stripped of all dignity. But I like it. I want it.
I want it even more when Lloyd’s palm falls, stinging but sweet, on my arse. Those gloves soften the blow and give it a sexy edge I haven’t felt before. I want to squirm and offer myself up, higher, more. Give me more. He does.
He spanks firmly and thoroughly until every inch from the bottom of the corset to my stocking tops feels warm and glowy.
‘She likes that,’ says someone in the crowd, knowing I can hear, knowing I am watching them speak. ‘Dirty girl. Bet she’s wet.’
‘She is,’ says one of the people behind me.
I am.
‘Well, that’s nothing new,’ says Lloyd, his hand falling over and over again, speeding up the pace until I start to bite my lip and dig my fingernails into my palms. ‘A spanking always gets this little trollop good and wet. Sometimes I’ve had to fuck her first, so she doesn’t get too excited by it. Anyone else tried that?’
They start swapping topping anecdotes while their submissives blush and flutter their eyelashes. I’d be amused, if Lloyd’s hand wasn’t starting to really hurt. A gasp jerks out of me, then several cries.
He stops, indulges in a bit of chat for a while, leaving me to process the heat and soreness of my arse and lament the fact that my first public spanking is far from over.
The people behind me are sent away again, and a new clique takes their place. They admire my bottom and my juicy pussy while Lloyd taps the paddle upwards from the backs of my thighs, preparing me. I am a little relieved to feel that it isn’t one of those ping-pong bat shaped numbers that wham themselves into the whole of your bum with each stroke, but a slightly wider version of a ruler. It’ll hurt, but not in such a universal and overwhelming way.
The first stroke is mild, but the second is not. I notice the audience cringing in advance of the ruler’s impact and I know it’s going to be hard, so I shut my eyes.
Busted!
They all rat on me in chorus and Lloyd tuts.
I’m too busy trying to absorb the sharpness of the blow to care. It fell right at the curve of my bottom and it throbs.
‘I’m going to let you off that one,’ he says, ‘because it was a little harder than I intended. I seem to have the spanker’s version of an itchy trigger finger. But make sure you keep your eyes open for the rest.’
He manages to keep his paddling arm in check for the remaining strokes, which fall with an even sting across my already warm bum, taking the heat deeper, broadening the pain.
I know that a bigger and bigger crowd is watching my shameful treatment, but somehow that seems to help me take the pain. The encouraging, somewhat wistful smiles on the faces of the submissives remind me that this is what we all love, what we come here for. They all understand the dynamic, which very much lessens the potential humiliation factor. What they see is a girl having a great time with her lover, where someone outside the scene might see a girl being exposed and punished.
The tops are seeing it differently, though – I can tell by their flushed cheeks and cruel smirks. They are enjoying my pain, silently judging Lloyd’s technique, hoping he’ll make me scream, or beg, or cry. I avoid their eyes and focus on the peak-cap domme’s very handsome sub.
Lloyd’s final stroke – a doozy – coincides with my sudden recognition of the handsome sub as the barista from upstairs. He gives me a heart-melting smile of sympathy when I yelp inelegantly and puff out my cheeks.
Lloyd puts down the paddle and rubs my other cheeks all over. The leather is not cool enough to soothe but I don’t care. I want those slick smooth fingers inside me. He fails to oblige, though.
‘Warmed up now?’ he asks me, leaning down over my ear.
‘Yes, sir.’ My voice is syrupy, breathy. I am well on my way.
‘Good.’
He puts a hand on my neck, standing beside me. I can almost make him out in full profile if I strain my eyes.
With his other hand, he beckons the winning domme.
She pats her sub on the head and orders him to behave himself before crossing the floor and taking up her position behind me.
‘Lovely leather,’ I hear her say.
Then Lloyd shifts the spanking bench around one hundred and eighty degrees, so my arse faces the crowd and I am looking up at the domme, watching her stroke the triple tongues of the tawse with blood-red taloned fingers.
She lowers the strap and brushes it across my face. ‘Kiss it,’ she says.
I do. Its smell makes my clit bloom. I want to breathe it in forever. But she withdraws it and removes herself from my line of vision.
‘Did we say twenty?’ she asks from my rear.
Lloyd laughs. ‘Twelve, I believe.’
‘Worth a try, wasn’t it?’
Lloyd drops to his haunches in front of me until our faces are level, then puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘I want you to watch me,’ he says. ‘All the way through. I want to see your face.’
I’m not sure I can do this. I try to shake my head, but he shakes his back, chewing on his inside lip. He smiles, a kind of scared rabbit-in-headlights twitch of the mouth.
‘Please,’ he whispers. His fingers press into my flesh.
The tawse whooshes through the air and cracks down hard. Raw, hot pain flares from my bottom and radiates outwards. I cry out, scrunch shut my eyes.
‘Look at me,’ insists Lloyd.
I look at him. He is making this happen to me. This is all his fault.
I can’t be angry with him for it. But I can be angry with him for this – for trying to turn a good strapping into some kind of fucking love-in. Why does he want me to look at him?
I ask the question. ‘Why?’
The space I leave for his answer is usurped by the tawse, falling for a second agonising time on the same spot she marked before.
‘Oh God!’ I pant, wanting to break free of the cuffs and defend my bottom. Ten more of these? Impossible.
‘You need to think about why this is happening,’ he says, while I wriggle in my tethers. ‘You need to remember why you’re here. I want to give you a constant reminder.’
‘I’m here because you’re a bastard,’ I hiss, tensing up for the next lash.
‘No, you’re here because you can’t make a decision. You’re here because you’re scared.’
‘Shut up.’
‘You really want me to punish you, don’t you?’
‘Shut up! Owwwwww!’
The third stroke is lower down, lighting up my lower bum. I imagine it vivid scarlet, glowing into the crowd so that they can warm their hands around it.
‘What do you want me to do to you?’ he asks, his face even closer, his lips almost brushing mine. ‘After this?’
‘I don’t know.’ I really don’t. I can’t think now, all other considerations pushed out by the dread knowledge that another stroke is on its way.
‘I’ll do anything you want.’
I take the next stroke with a belligerent cry. I’m getting close to swearing. I have to be careful.
Lloyd takes one hand off my shoulder and strokes my hair instead. ‘You know that, don’t you, Soph? Anything you want.’
‘This isn’t … I can’t talk … don’t make me talk.’
He cocks his head and smiles this insanely soppy smile. His eyes are misty-blue inside the mask, as if he might cry. He has that look I’ve seen in paintings and films, the look denoting Mad Love. Is it real? It’s certainly unnerving.
It’s more unnerving even than the prospect of eight more of Mistress Nasty’s worst shots.
I revise this opinion after the next one, which makes me shout, ‘Fuck!’ really loudly into Lloyd’s adoring face.
‘That’s not your safe word,’ he points out. ‘Use it, if you can’t bear it.’
‘I can,’ I insist through gritted teeth. ‘I can bear it.’
‘You’re not going to let her get away with that language, are you?’ asks Mistress Nasty. I watch Lloyd’s eyes flick upwards to her.
‘Sophie never gets away with anything,’ he says. ‘I see to that.’
‘I should think so too.’
Another swingeing smack knocks the breath from my body. I moan, my voice cracking, horribly near tears.
Lloyd puts both palms flat on my cheeks – not the ones undergoing the ordeal, the other cheeks – and lays his forehead against mine.
‘Halfway there,’ he says, which makes me moan even more. Only halfway!
‘Let yourself go,’ he says, then, taking me by panicked surprise, he fastens his lips to mine.
I try to shake away at first, but he holds me.
Is he serious? Kissing me while I am being strapped? Is this even possible?
But the tawse falls again and the burn drives me into a kind of hot, sensual fog where anything becomes possible. Lloyd’s ravenous mouth and probing tongue carry me out of my tense self-consciousness, even though I keep on whimpering and snuffling each time the leather falls. It is soft and lush at one end, hard and fierce at the other, or sometimes interchangeable. A murmur of heartfelt aws from the onlookers laps against my ears. I feel like I’m drowning, but that the vortex will lead somewhere good, better than life.
Lloyd, leather, pain, warmth, luxury, shock, lips, teeth, tongue, bite, lust, need, want. These things float in and out, up and down.
It takes me a while to work out that the twelve strokes have been given.
Regretfully, Lloyd breaks lip contact, stroking along my cheekbone with a butter-soft fingertip. ‘You did it,’ he says. He kisses my forehead then stands to shake hands with the domme. ‘A fine job,’ he says. ‘Exemplary. Thank you very much.’
‘Pleasure was all mine,’ she says, laying a hand on my burning buttocks. ‘Well, maybe not all mine. I think you might find her quite … receptive … to whatever needs you might have.’
They can all see how wet I am. I wish I could clamp my thighs together, but it just isn’t possible.
Mistress Nasty departs, with a brusque, ‘Daniel! Heel!’
Lloyd uncuffs me and helps me to my tottering feet. The room swoops and blurs around me. There seems to be a lot of fire and shadows.
When the skirt falls back down, he clicks his tongue with disapproval and takes it off. Everyone is to see what has been done to me. I am not to hide it.
I let him pull me into his arms for a tight embrace. I don’t know what to feel. Am I angry with him? Am I grateful to him? Am I happy or am I traumatised? Something about this experience has thrown me into confusion; its power lingers, seeping into every move, every thought. I wonder if this is what he wanted.
But I don’t have to ask what Lloyd wants. I know what he wants. I just don’t know if I can give it.
‘Where shall we go?’ he asks, holding me close.
‘Somewhere private.’ I hide my face in the whispery silk of his shirt.
‘I’m not sure there is anywhere private here.’
‘I want to be alone with you.’
‘OK. I’ll see what I can do.’
He leads me out of the dungeon, not on the leash this time, just hand in hand. I imagine the number of double takes from people turning to check out my bright red bottom, and the thought makes me realise how very much I would like to come soon. I need to find a private place with Lloyd and have him screw the wits out of me – not that I have many left.
Our best solution is a compromise – a divan in an upstairs room called the Boudoir that isn’t quite as exposed as the others, tented beneath a large expanse of parachute silk. People will be able to see our outlines moving beneath it, but not our faces.
He puts me on my back and fingers me with those wicked supple leather gloves on before I can utter a word.
‘I should have done this back down there,’ he says, spearing two, then three of the slim black intruders inside my cunt, keeping a thumb on my fat clit. ‘I should have made you come while they watched you. Would you have liked that?’
‘Mmm.’ I try to lift my sore bottom up so it doesn’t make contact with the mattress, but he won’t let me.
‘I asked you a question, Sophie. Would you have liked that?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I gabble, wanting the head of steam released quickly. He keeps slowing his pace, though, every time I think it’s coming.
‘Another time, maybe,’ he says, speeding up again. ‘I think you should get your arse whipped in front of strangers again. I think I should do it often. I think it’s what you need.’
I come hard, onto those shiny fingers, my bottom chafing on the velvet.
‘I don’t know though,’ he says, wrenching down the leather trousers, pulling wide my legs. ‘Maybe you’ll be better behaved now.’ He pulls me upright, moves me on to my knees, pushes my head down into the prickly pile. ‘Maybe you’ll do as you’re told.’
He fucks me hard, bruisingly, gripping my hips and pummelling my hot bottom until it’s even hotter and stings even sharper.
‘Maybe you’ll see what’s staring you in the face,’ he pants. ‘And stop giving me the run-around.’ He smacks my thigh in what seems like genuine punishment.
‘Don’t hurt me.’ My alarm is genuine. There is something a little bit feral about Lloyd tonight.
He sighs, slows down, strokes the hand-shaped glow on my thigh. ‘Don’t be stupid. You know I’d never hurt you.’
A strange comment from a man who has just beaten seven bells out of his girlfriend’s arse, perhaps, but it makes a kind of sense. The pain he inflicts is no more than skin-deep, and it isn’t even real pain. It’s pleasure pain, play pain.
He’s telling me my heart is safe with him.
He’s telling me he wants my heart.
I give him the next best thing, my orgasm, and he gives me his. The sex is good, hot, fast, hard, passionate, amazing, but is the orgasm enough any more?
Into the dying throes of my climax, a knot of fear intrudes. Have I found the point of no emotional return?