I spring up, grabbing hold of her before she can get far as my hands snatch around her throat.
“I think you have forgotten yourself, Dumpling. You have forgotten your place.”
“No.” She screams, jerking violently to try and get free.
And that pisses me off more. Have I not been kind? Have I not spoiled her this last week?
“I will tame you, Grace. And you will learn to be tame.”
“You were doing so well, Pet.” I say as I stand behind her, running my hands slowly down the tense muscles of her back, over the gentle swell of her arse. She shivers under my touch, a tiny, involuntary whimper escaping her lips.
She is a vision of perfectly forced submission, bound spreadeagled to the St. Andrew’s cross. The dark, polished oak is a stark contrast to her pale, flawless skin. The restraints are firm to be just a little cruel at her wrists and ankles, but also allow for the subtle, telling tremors that will soon wrack her body.
Her head is turned to the side, her cheek resting against the cool wood, her eyes closed.
Her chest rises and falls in a rapid, shallow rhythm. Anticipation. Fear. Regret.
It’s a potent cocktail, and I can smell it on her.
I select the flogger from the wall; a beautiful piece of craftsmanship with twenty soft, supple falls of black deerskin. It’s the perfect choice for tonight’s lesson. It will bring the heat, the sting but not the sharp, cutting pain of more severe implements.
“I don’t like personally punishing my pets.” I state, dragging the end of a flogger down her spine. “As I’m sure you’ve realised, I prefer to do the pampering and leave the punishment to others, but today you have given me no other choice.”
“Mmmaster.” She stammers, and I hear the absolute fear in her.
“Shhh,” I murmur, my voice a low thrum in the quiet room. “Breathe. This is a gift. This moment, this feeling. Don’t fight it. Open yourself to it. Embrace it. We both will be so much stronger after this.”
I draw my arm back and bring the flogger down in a smooth, practiced arc. It lands across her shoulders with a soft thump as she jolts against her restraints, a sharp cry torn from her throat.
“The first lesson, Pup,” I say, my voice taking on the instructional tone of a professor, “is that pleasure and pain are not opposites. They are neighbours on the same street. Intimate friends. You must learn to welcome both, for both are necessary to please me. Your pleasure alone is a shallow victory. Your pain, endured for me, is what real devotion is. But the two combined… that is ecstasy. That is worship.”
I deliver another stroke, slightly lower this time.
Her cry morphs into a moan. I see her fingers curl into fists, and then her whole body jolts as I make that vibrating piercing come to life around her clit.
“No...” She gasps.
“Yes.” I reply, setting a rhythm that is slow, relentless.
The sounds of her responding cries and sobs create a symphony of sensation as I deal out both pleasure and pain.
A pink blush begins to spread across her skin, a beautiful, heated canvas that I am painting with careful, deliberate strokes.
“Your body is learning,” I tell her, never breaking rhythm. “It is learning to translate the signal. Your nerves are screaming ‘danger,’ but your mind, the mind that belongs to me, will tell it a different story. It will tell it that this fire is a gift from me, that this ache is a reminder of my attention. That this sting is a precursor to my praise.”
I intensify the blows, focusing on the meat of her arse and the tops of her thighs. She is panting now, her body glistening with a fine sheen of sweat. Her sobs are continuous, a low, desperate melody of suffering that goes straight to my cock.
“You see?” I croon, laying stroke after stroke upon her heated flesh, dragging the flogger through her cunt and then spreading the evidence of her arousal over her skin. “It’s already changing. The line is blurring. You don’t know if you want this to end or never, ever stop. That is the precipice I want you on, Pup. That is where true surrender lives.”
I finally cease the flogging, dropping the flogger to the floor.
Her entire body is trembling, her skin a beautiful, rosy map of my attention. I step close, pressing my clothed body against her heated back, and run my hands over the warmed skin. She leans into me, while a sob catches in her throat.
“So beautiful,” I whisper into her ear, nipping the lobe. “You take your punishment so beautifully, but the lesson is only half complete.”
I move around to stand before her. Her eyes are glassy, unfocused with pain and endorphins. Her lips are parted, her breath coming in ragged pulls. I cup her face, forcing her to look at me.
“The other half of the lesson is learning to find pleasurewithinthe pain. To make them inseparable.”
