Bare Assed (6 page)

“I didn't think to,” is what I actually say.

“I didn't think to,
Sir
,” he corrects me. My legs weaken and moisture seeps between them. I repeat the phrase. “I think we can categorize thoughtlessness under the heading of disrespect, Beth.”

I bite my lip. Disrespect always means the cane.

He writes out my sentence, then signs it with his usual flourish and pushes the ledger across the desk for my perusal.

“Read it,” he instructs.

“
Ten strokes of the number-two strap for general disobedience, followed by six strokes of the cane.”
This is never easy to say; my voice seems to blush as it reads.
Sometimes he makes me repeat the words, but today he does not, which is one scrap of relief to hold close. I sign my name under his, my scrawl messy and disorganized beneath his perfectly reined-in script. He even has Dom handwriting.

“Good,” he says briskly, glancing at the book before opening the Drawer of Pain. “We shall proceed. Over the desk, please, Beth.”

I arrange myself carefully, hinged at the waist, my hands reaching to grasp the far rim of the desk, while he reaches into the drawer and withdraws just one of a vast range of nasty leather and wooden implements. This one is maroon leather, not the thickest nor the stiffest, but still capable of delivering a memorable sting. Ten strokes with it will warm and redden my bottom just sufficiently to prepare it for the cane.

Sinclair places the strap on the desk, rises and moves around behind me. I am wearing the light skirt and sheer white knickers he specified. He runs his hands over my jutting backside, rubbing at the whisper-thin cotton, pulling it taut and then letting it go slack before dealing two ringing smacks to each cheek.

“When will you learn, Beth,” he asks, lifting the hem to my waist so that only my tight mesh knickers offer any posterior protection, “that I take disciplinary matters very seriously indeed? Hmm?”

My only response is a yelp as a volley of faster smacks hails onto the barely there fabric.

“After two years of Sundays spent over this desk,
one would expect something to have sunk in,” he says, peeling the knickers off my pinkening rump and letting them rest at midthigh. “And yet, here I am again, faced with the unenviable duty of visiting punishment on your recidivist bottom.” He sighs, a little over-theatrically, and I stifle a giggle. He does lay it on a mite too thick sometimes.

Amusement is soon replaced by clenching of muscles when he applies his hard, smooth hand to my bare bum, over and over and over until I can barely maintain my ignoble position. My breathy grunts cloud the perfect polish of the desk so that my nose tip is dampened, skidding around in time with the smacks. My fingers cling to the edge, but at the same time I must take care not to let my nails mark the surface. From this position it is difficult to focus on anything but the direction, speed and solidity of the next stroke, but somehow I have learned to keep a part of my mind concentrated on what Sinclair calls
appropriate behavior.

No swearing. No badmouthing him. No kicking up with my feet or reaching behind to shield my bottom. I can plead all I like, but only the invocation of my safeword will make the slightest shred of difference.

None of this is unmanageable at first, but once the strap is flexed and flipped and brought to bear on my bottom, the alert level changes. I start to think about my breathing, I start to think about how many, mentally placing myself at the end of the ordeal before it begins. Always, about two or three strokes in, the question,
Why
do I do this, why do I like this,
blares across my brain in panicking neon, but I know the answer well enough to take another bracing breath and push my stoic behind back out.

The strap falls with its primitively satisfying crack, over and over. It is stiff enough to penetrate to my muscle, flexible enough to sting a red stripe across my skin. I know why this is so—I oil them myself once a week. On a Saturday morning, I take a spray bottle containing one part white vinegar to three parts linseed oil and use it to keep Sinclair's straps and tawses and leather-covered paddles in the optimum condition for striping my backside. I spray on the mixture and rub it in with a soft microfiber cloth, then I soak the canes in a bucket of water to keep them pliable and whippy enough for Sir's purposes.

I certainly seem to have performed my task with admirable efficacy this week—the strap slaps down, painting its localized sunburn in a pattern of regular rectangles across the fleshiest section of my rump. I make it to ten, then relax, twitching across the desktop like a fish on dry land, moaning my relief.

His fingertips brush the heated flesh, assessing its temperature.

“Nicely warmed up,” is the verdict. One finger ventures lower, into the depths, finding the lips swollen and sticky. “Hmm,” he says, as he always does. “Lesson not learned yet, Beth?”

“Oh, yes, Sir, it is,” I tell him, trying to split my sex
on this one lean visitor, to enfold it and vacuum it up.

“Then, why…so…wet? Oh, no, I don't think we are finished here.”

Ah, how cruelly he withdraws his foraging digit, moving around to the front of the desk and making me lick it clean.

“Stand up, Beth, and fetch me a cane. A nice thin one, I think.”

Fetching the cane: a simple enough act, and yet one that can never be unthinkingly performed, for it requires such a fine pitch of submission. I am absolutely conscious of what I am doing when I stand and make my way neatly to the umbrella stand where the canes hang. I select one, nice and thin as requested, and picture the imprint it will make on my body. Even knowing what is in store for me, I make a steady journey back to Sinclair and hold my offering out to him in upturned palms.

“A good choice,” he says, picking it up and flexing it to its utmost capacity. “This one marks so exquisitely.” He holds it out in front of him, its slender length curtailed at each end by his knuckles. I know what is coming next. He raises it so that it is a whisper away from my lips. “Kiss the rod, Beth.”

I graze my lips against the rattan. The air is heavy with expectation. Now I must say the words. The most difficult words in the language.

“Please punish me as I deserve, Sir.” I almost always stumble over the word
punish,
which usually comes out sounding like
punch
—though he would never take me
up on such a request, thankfully. Sometimes he asks me to speak up, or enunciate more clearly. Today is such a day.

“Please…what?” he asks, tilting his head down toward me.

I bite my lip and regain my breath. “Punish me,” I mutter.

“Punish you? Is that what you want?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good. Because I intend to punish you, Beth. Now let's have you back over the desk, please.”

Questioning my sanity as ever, I drape myself back into position. I am still aglow from the effects of hand and strap, and I half wish I could see my bottom in a mirror. One thing I constantly regret is not being able to watch my flesh coloring and jiggling and acquiring those cruel but lovely patterns Sinclair delights in creating. Perhaps I can prevail on him to film us one day. Until then…

I must content myself with the sounds, with the shivers, with the buildup. He swooshes the cane through the air at my hind, then he taps it gently across my bottom in a series, then he lays it flat where my buttocks swell broadest. I am never prepared for this. I know that it will be painful and hateful, but I know that the pain and hate will be worthwhile, and that, give or take a day for the marks to stop pulsing, I will want to do it all over again.

The fearful swish comes faster than I expected; I am caught off guard by the slice of white heat and I scream,
jumping up and letting go of the desk. My hands almost forget the rule and flit back to cover my vulnerable bum—a crime that would earn me at least two more strokes—but I recover my position just in time.

“Don't tell me you weren't expecting that,” says Sinclair, sadistically amused. “Are you struck dumb?”

“No, Sir. One, Sir.” The count is an essential part of the business, cruelly forcing my mind to stay in its present instead of drifting off to safer places. If form is anything to go by, the next stroke will land just half an inch or so below the first. I shut my eyes and visualize its impact, the whiteness then the redness as a line of roused blood rushes to the surface. Somehow this helps.

With each stroke I contemplate the use of my safeword, yet I am certain I will not say it. Although we do this every Sunday without fail, Sinclair is always so mindful of my prevailing emotional weather that if he knows I am not up to the full force of the law, he will do something else, such as put me over his knee, and his voice will be softer, his lectures gentler, his hand still sharp but only in the knowledge that we both want that glow at the end of the process. If I were not in the right frame of mind for the cane, I would not be bent over this desk, here, now, bottom aflame, lip chewed to raggedness, waiting and hoping for more.

The sixth, as ever, almost breaks me, and my knees buckle while the varnished wood muffles my scream. It burns at the base of my buttocks, radiating heat downward to my thighs, sitting in exactly the right spot to
ensure discomfort for a day or two at least.

“Six, Sir.” Ah, I want so much to rub, to touch, to feel the heat, but I am forbidden and, after all, I will be disappointed if it fades too quickly, so I am obedient, maintaining my bent stance until I am permitted to rise.

“Good,” says Sinclair. “I will accept your thanks now, Beth.”

I rise, wiping chaotic stray hair from my face, which feels crumpled and hot. It takes me a little while to recover my breath and properly compose myself, but when I have, I turn to face him. His expression afterward is one of the sweetest thrills of the experience, though I still long to be able to see his face as he lays his strokes; it often appears in my fantasies. He still looks stern, but there is a gleam and a flush of pleasurable exertion; his impeccable hair might be slightly disheveled and his long fingers fidget with the cane.

I look him straight in the eye and say, “Thank you, Sir, for giving me what I need and deserve.” I have said it so often now that the words come easily, but they are never glib—my attention can never skid sideways and pretend I am saying something less mortifying. He would not allow that.

“You are most welcome.” He takes my elbow and leads me to the large mirror on the back wall, showing me the view he plans to enjoy for the next half hour—red stripes on pink, palpable soreness. Then he tucks my skirt firmly into its waistband and makes me walk, awkwardly given that my knickers are still around my
knees, to the designated corner.

I stand there for half an hour, holding the cane behind my back as a reminder, feeling the warmth march on and on, far beyond the borders of my punishment area, down to my weak knees, up to my stony nipples, across to my seeping slit. I want him now, want him wildly, yet he sits at his desk, rustling his newspaper, answering phone calls, watching me burn for him. Here is the real cruelty.

When the clock releases me, the mood will change. There will be kisses, there will be touching, there may be nuzzling and suckling, there may be fingering and licking, and eventually there will certainly be more bending over, accompanied by the spreading of legs and lips or even bottom cheeks. There will be a reestablishment of connection, a return to affectionate terms, and all will be well again.

But at the family dinner afterward, I will perch precariously on my seat, wishing I could ask for a cushion without occasioning unwanted interest. I will feel the swollen stripes when I bathe or shower, when I pull up my knickers, when I lie in bed, when I drive to work, when I walk wearing jeans or a tight skirt. And when I stop feeling them, then my mind will turn to next Sunday, and what it might hold in store for me.

TENILLE BROWN
is a Southern, shoe-shopping, wine-drinking writer whose erotica has been published online and in over thirty print anthologies, including
Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2007
,
Fast Girls
,
Making the Hook Up
,
Iridescence
,
F Is for Fetish
and
Best Bondage Erotica 2011
. She blogs at
thesteppingstone.blogspot.com
and tweets @TheRealTenille.

 

N. T. MORLEY
is the author of sixteen published erotic novels of dominance and submission, including
The Parlor, The Limousine, The Circle, The Appointment, The Visitor,
and the trilogies
The Castle, The Library
, and
The Office.
Morley also edited the anthologies
MASTER
and
slave,
and can be found online at
ntmorley.com
.

 

LANA FOX
is a writing instructor and assistant
magazine editor. Her erotic stories have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Clean Sheets and anthologies published by Xcite Books, Harlequin Spice and Cleis Press. She also publishes literary and fantasy fiction under a different name. Find Lana online at:
lanafox.com
.

 

VIDA BAILEY
is a teacher who would much rather be a writer. She lives in Ireland with her husband, daughter and Internet habit.

 

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
(rachelkramerbussel. com) is a writer, editor, blogger, and event organizer. She's edited more than forty anthologies, including
Spanked
;
Bottoms Up
;
Please, Sir
;
Please, Ma'am
; and
Best Bondage Erotica 2011
and
2012
. She is senior editor at Penthouse Variations, sex columnist for SexIs magazine, and covers sex, dating, books, and pop culture widely.