“Twenty-seven,” I say. Five more.
Except that the flogger doesn't fall against my flesh again. Instead, he walks a few steps away. I hear some things moved about, and it finally occurs to my addled brain that the heavy thing he set down was some sort of box that he's searching through.
He returns and lays something else beside me.
“Touch it,” he says.
Again, my mind goes to a dirty place even though I know he means for me to touch whatever he took from the box. It is long and thin, hard.
“It's a cane,” he says, as if I would never have divined this on my own.
I understand on a certain level that this man could make any implement hurt if he put enough of his power behind it. Likewise, he can use each implement in a gentle way—in a caress—no matter what that implement is. But a cane is... serious. A cane is meant to hurt. In countries that use these in punishment for crimes, it often scars people for life.
Tears that didn't trouble me during the last few minutes, stream down my face in fear and anticipation of this abrupt escalation in my punishment. He pries the cane from my questing fingers and presses it lightly against the top of my head which still rests on the floor.
“Raise your head and kiss it,” he says.
I do this, my lips pressing reverently against the bamboo as if this act can appease him, as if this obedience will make him say the magic words, I think that's enough for tonight—words I didn't want to hear two weeks ago, but desperately want to hear now.
“Please,” I whimper.
“Thirty-two errors, Cassia,” he says as if this explains everything about why we're here. “You will count. Start at twenty-eight.”
I feel the brush of air as he moves behind me.
A moment later, the cane slices through the air to land against my ass. I cry out.
“Count,” he demands.
But the breath has left me for a moment. “T-twenty-eight,” I manage when I catch my breath again.
“Good girl.”
This praise irrationally pleases me. I should be angry. What is this man doing to my suddenly fragile mind?
Before I can think about that, the cane falls again, just below the first strike. I shriek. I know he's holding back. He's not trying to actually harm me, but still it's an intense screaming sort of pain. “Twenty-nine,” I say, tears coming faster.
After the next one, I beg him to stop. But he is implacable.
“Two more.”
I count the thirty-first and beg again. “Please... please... I can't take anymore... please...” I'm sobbing now. Even though I know it's just one more, one more is still too many and seems impossible.
The cane falls again, this final sting feeling as though it grips me and shakes me and breaks me apart.
“T-thirty-two,” I gasp out.
“Good girl.” He sits beside me, pulls me into his arms, holds me, strokes my hair and my back, runs his fingertips lightly over the welts he left, and just lets me cry it out. A hand slips between my legs, his finger pressing into me.
“You are so fucking wet. So perfect,” he growls against my ear.
I cling to him, my hips moving in answer to his exploring fingers. He presses his lips to my forehead, then tilts my chin up, claiming my mouth in a searing kiss.
Yes, my mind sighs.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Yes, Sir.” And I am. The cane hurt. It was intense, but I know he hasn't damaged me. And he wasn't angry. This wasn't anger. This was controlled. I can feel his erection through his pants. What just happened was as stimulating to him as it was to me.
