‘“You deserve this,” they say, “after what you did to me.” You make small yelps with each stroke, but you are determined not to give them the satisfaction of tears or struggles. As the last one retires, you are glowing all over your bum, feeling the soreness radiate out and dampen your pussy. This can’t be turning me on, you think, mortified, but you aren’t the only person who has noticed the telltale glisten at the split of your thighs. All the 24 other occupants of the room have seen it too.
‘“You need this,” I tell you, and the first stroke of the cane whistles down, catching you unprepared, and you scream as the first line throbs into life across the broadest section of your bum.
‘I make you count, and I make you thank me for each breathtaking stroke. By six, your resolve is wavering, and by nine you are wailing and sobbing while the audience murmurs approval, some of them laughing and calling out to you. “About time you got your come-uppance,” they say. Nobody seems moved by your misery and indeed, after I lay the twelfth and final stroke, some of them insist that you should get more.
‘“I’m sure she’ll get more,” I tell them. “Just not today. I think she’s had enough for an introduction. But don’t worry. I’m accountable to you. This girl will be punished until each one of you feels she has repaid what she owes you and the rest of society. You will each be intimately involved with her ongoing discipline. Trust me.” This satisfies them and I invite them up in turn to closely inspect your throbbing welts, feeling them with curious and delighted fingers, pinching and prodding.
‘Once the last witness has gone and only you and I remain, I place a damp cloth over your bottom, pressing it close and caressingly to your burning flesh. You are crying. I stroke your hair and murmur words of comfort. After all, you don’t know what’s coming next.’
Yes, I do! I am!
There was a hideously tense silence and I began, beside myself, to rub at my clit. Say the word, please say the word.
‘OK,’ he typed. ‘I’m not going to drag it out any further. I’ve been cruel enough, haven’t I? You may come.’
I doubled over in ecstatic gratitude, working my fingers harder than they had ever worked, pinching my nipple so hard I yelped. My orgasm lifted me out of my body and threw me around the air, bump, bump, bump, until I fell back to earth with my forehead on the computer desk.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.
‘YW,’ he said.
Chapter Four
SPIRITS WERE EVEN giddier than on an average Friday afternoon, and my last lesson of the day was more or less a write-off, a sacrifice to the gods of the impending half-term. I put on a video recording of Gleeand let 8KY get on with it while I planned the next rehearsal of West Side Story.
It was going well. The Jets and the Sharks were slowly taking shape, while the girls couldn’t get enough of the dance scene, imagining themselves in the circle skirts and neckerchiefs, clicking their fingers at their bequiffed admirers. The nasal timbre of Kacey’s voice was receding, replaced by a pretty serviceable soprano. Tunde was excellent as ever. And Superhead was … Well, he knew how to direct. He was a man who understood the mechanisms of control, using his voice, his stance, his body, his hands … I shook my head. Daydreamer. Forget it.
There was a vacancy in my fantasies, ever since I spooked SecretSadist by asking for webcam contact. I hadn’t heard from him since – four weeks had passed.
It had been a blow, of course. We had been messaging a matter of a couple of weeks, but in that time I had grown so strangely close to him. Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps I came across as needy or suffocating. Don’t make excuses for him, Cherry. He’s married, or in a long-term relationship of some kind. He’s unavailable and he played with you. But that’s hardly surprising. That’s what you let yourself in for when you get involved in this – kind of thing.
This kind of thing.
I should just accept that my sexuality, my kink, was always going to be taboo, sordid, disgusting, sleazy. But what could I do? I’d tried vanilla, and it hadn’t worked. Was I going to have to settle for a life of self-love?
It looked like it from here. I’d tried a few other doms on the site, but the correspondence had been desultory, the connection nowhere near as instant and killer as what I’d had with SecretSadist. Pale shadows. Should it matter who whips you, so long as somebody does? This was a question I couldn’t answer.
I’d given up for the time being, left MasterMe.com alone for a couple of weeks and switched all my focus to the musical and the plans for the new studio. Of course, this wasn’t entirely safe. It left me open to my stupidly adolescent yearnings for the man whose click of the fingers had furnished all this wealth. Super, stupefying, Superhead Marks.
He was waiting for me when I arrived in the hall, dropping music scores here and there on the scuffed parquet in my wake.
‘Somebody help Ms Delaney,’ he ordered, shaking his head at the collective apathy of the performers, and Tunde stepped in, gathering the papers up like confetti in reverse.
‘I ain’t singing this,’ said Kacey, thrusting her copy into my face.
‘Why not?’
‘I ain’t saying I’m gay.’
The hall erupted into mirth.
‘What are you talking about?’ Superhead asked long-sufferingly.
‘The lyrics say “I feel pretty and witty and gay”. I ain’t saying that. I ain’t no lezzer.’
Superhead raised an eyebrow. ‘If it’s what’s written down, then it’s what you’ll say.’
‘It’s OK,’ I flustered, rushing to Kacey’s rescue. ‘Those scores are rather old. Most productions use an alternative version – “pretty and witty and bright”. Then they substitute “today” with “tonight”’ for the rhyme.’