‘I cannot say, Sir,’ I breathed. ‘Perhaps … six?’
‘Six? Six strokes?’
Oh dear. It would be more, then.
‘I gave you six for the trifling matter of breaking a wine glass, if you remember. Didn’t I?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘So you must surely agree that these serious transgressions merit a somewhat stiffer sentence?’
‘I suppose I must, Sir.’
‘I suppose you must. Hmm. Well, then. How shall we have you?’
He looked about the room, sizing up various items of furniture, assessing which would best assist him in the caning of his errant submissive.
‘Over the footboard of the bed, I think.’
He put a pillow over the wooden top, to protect my stomach and ribs, and walked me by the elbow to the site of my forthcoming woe.
It was just the right height for the purpose. I had to stand slightly on tiptoe, which he always liked, and my bottom jutted right out behind me, even when he made me spread my legs. I hoped this didn’t mean he was going to aim any strokes at my inner thighs. He’d done that once before and it had been the worst pain by far.
But I didn’t think I’d be in a position to negotiate today. I’d made a pact with myself that I would take everything he gave me up to the point where it became truly intolerable and I meant to stick to it.
Once my bottom was up and my palms flat on the covers, he opened the chest that contained his collection and took from it two lengths of silken cord. These he fastened around my wrists, securing them to the lower posts of the four-post bed.
‘Don’t want any hands getting in the way,’ he explained, tightening a knot. ‘I know you and your wandering hands.’
I’d put them over my bottom during one scene and accidentally ended up with a very sore set of knuckles. He was right, but I still wanted to protest. I stood no chance of eluding any part of my discipline now.
He repeated the procedure with my ankles, tethering them wide apart and binding them to the bottom of the end posts. I could barely move a muscle now, held absolutely fast and without the smallest area of wriggle-room.
This was going to be really, really hard.
‘Now, I want your honest opinion, Sarah, and if I don’t agree with it, there will be a penalty. How many strokes do you deserve?’
‘What’s the penalty, Sir?’
‘I’ll add an undetermined amount of strokes to the number I deem fitting. So you could end up with many more than you were originally in for.’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ I wailed. ‘I can’t think.’
‘Try. Think about your misdeeds and try to translate them into a number.’
How many could I reasonably take without safewording? I tried to work it out. Six was horrible but bearable. The time he gave me ten, I nearly safeworded, but the time he gave me twelve, I started moving into a different headspace and felt like I could have taken more. Where was that magic number between ‘STOP NOW!’ and ‘CARRY ON FOR EVER’? I thought it must be ten or eleven. So maybe …
‘Eighteen, Sir?’ I hazarded.
‘Eighteen?’ He sounded impressed and I screwed up every nerve, desperately hoping I’d made the right call.
‘That’s quite an ordeal you’ve let yourself in for. I was going to say twelve. Ah well. Here.’
I saw the cane slither along the bed until he lifted it and held it to my face.
‘Kiss it,’ he murmured. ‘Kiss the rod.’
I let my lips linger on the slender rattan, marvelling at how such an innocuous-looking thing could inflict such exquisite agony.