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.