* * * *
In the end, we made a new spreadsheet.
Complex arrangements of suitable chastisements and their relative misbehaviours were described in each rectangle of the document. For simple oversights and memory lapses, I’ve found myself over Dexter’s lap for a hand spanking, whereas deliberate disobedience or dishonesty has merited a trip to the Dreaded Cupboard for a cane or a whip. For added salutory effect, Dexter has used butt plugs, nipple clamps, vibrators or good old-fashioned home-made techniques to devastating effect. But, on the closure of the spreadsheet and the learning of the lesson, I was rewarded with treats behind the bedroom door.
One night, shortly after I moved in, portrayed a good example of our rituals and routines. Dexter arrived home from work, ejected me from the computer chair where I was working—naked, as was our house rule—bent me backwards for a breath-stealing kiss, then spoke the fatal words, “Open the spreadsheet, Lara.”
This phrase always induced the Pavlovian shaking of the hands, and my fingers trembled on the keys, my mind racing through a speedy recap of all the ways in which I had failed to achieve perfection over the last few days.
On this occasion, there was a clutch of Latenesses for Meetings, a Failure to Charge the Mobile Phone, and a shamefully long list of Wasting Work Time on the Internet.
Dexter breathed down my neck behind me, his hands on the chair back, his tuts travelling directly into my ear.
“It doesn’t look good for you, Lara,” he said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I’m very sorry, Sir. I will try harder, I promise.”
“We’ll make sure of that, shall we? Fetch the cuffs, the bench and the crop, please. Oh, and the large vibrator, I think.”
Words of doom, they were enough to line any heart with lead. So why did they make mine leap? I had to hide the spring in my step en route to the Dreaded Cupboard and conceal my flushed face and sparkling eyes behind my hair while I dragged the specially constructed whipping bench into the room. It had a padded step for my knees and a handy rope-tie feature on the corners so my ankles could be fastened with my legs spread apart. Leather cushioning also protected my stomach from too much discomfort. Too bad Dexter didn’t extend the same tender care to my bottom.
Once I was bent and tied in position, Dexter cuffed my wrists behind my back, leaving me helpless, my bare breasts squashed against the cold leather upholstery of the bench. Now all I had to do was wait.
It sounded simple. Just bent there, waiting, with no need to perform any further task. But for me, the waiting was the hardest part of the whole ritual,
worse by far than the slashes of hot pain across my rear.
Sometimes he made me wait for an hour or more, while he sat at the computer and worked, or made dinner preparations in the kitchen. This, he said, was because I needed time to reflect on my misdeeds and consider my position. It’s quite a position to consider, bent and spread and naked, posed for a good, hard whipping. On that night, I had to think about my Perpetual Lateness, and how it affected other people and how it was a sign of my disrespect for myself, and the world in general. I was getting better, I really was, but I was still far from good enough. I thought about it. I thought about it for a few minutes, then I started to think about the cool air on my exposed bottom and sex, and the slow, inevitable dampening between my thighs, and the crushed sensation of my breasts. This had me thinking about the aftermath of my punishment, and wondering how he would take me. Mouth? Pussy? Arse? I thought probably the latter. I’d learnt that it’s a firm favourite of his, and I no longer flinched when my sore, hot bottom was dripped with lube and readied for a corrective reaming.
So by the time he came back into the room, I was wet and churned up with lust, a fearful flicker at the pit of my stomach keeping me from out and out carnal frenzy.
He prowled around behind me, picking up the crop and slapping it into his hand because he loved the way I tried to jump in my bonds when I heard that fearsome crack. I wanted to ask him, “How many?” but of course, I wasn’t permitted to speak. When he was in a kind mood, he’d tell me in advance, but on that night he wasn’t in a kind mood, so I had to breathe and clench and moan through every hard, loud swipe, having no idea how many more I would have to endure.
“Thirty-four,” he said at the end, running the tip of the whip along each throbbing welt.
It seemed a rather random number, and he knew I would be wondering, so he was good enough to explain.
“The number of minutes you have kept me waiting in the last four days since our last session.”
It seemed fair enough, though fairness was usually the last thing on Dexter’s mind.
“I’m going to get the arnica. Those are going to bruise,” he said.
His hands soothed and kneaded my punished cheeks, working the remedy deep into my skin, transferring the flaming heat from my bottom to my already-quite-hot-enough-thank-you pussy. His thumbs travelled the ridges and slid into the crack, stopping to give my arsehole a little nudge—a foretaste of pleasures to come that made me shudder.
I released a helpless little, “Oh!”
Then his fingers were underneath, testing me for wetness, though it hardly seemed worth bothering—he knew perfectly well the effect his treatment had on me, and today was no exception to that rule.
“Such a slut,” he said, his voice triumphant, approving. “You really need this, don’t you?”
“Yes, Sir.”
No gag today—it was sometimes a sign that he meant to use my mouth, though not always.
“Where do you want it, Lara?”
Oh, he was going to make me choose. I always found that part so embarrassing, but I suppose that was why he did it.