She gasped, “Five,” as he dropped another smack.
“Six.” Her voice grew stronger.
“Seven.” Control slowly returned.
“Eight!” she cried, triumphant.
And on he slapped, till she’d counted to sanity and collapsed, in exhaustion, across his lap.
Milton rocked his wife in his arms and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Her rage, thank God, had passed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Milton.” Elizabeth stirred on his lap. “How did you …know?
“Know what, luv?”
“Know to … do what you just did?”
“Because I’ve needed it meself. We’re not so different, y’ know.”
She paused. “I do not understand, sir.”
He pulled her closer, stroking her hair. “When I were…” He corrected his speech. “There was a time, Elizabeth, when I was younger, that I lost control all too easily, my temper too readily riled. Li helped me find an outlet for that anger, a means of controlling my emotions by letting go the impulse to control.”
“You mean you allowed others to do to you what you just did to me?”
He hesitated to reveal more, yet he needed her to trust him in this business with Finch, with her sister and Arty. “Yes, only I did not just allow it, I welcomed it, as, I sense, you welcomed your own release just now. That does not mean I continue to need it. I am better at controlling my impulses. But I have sensed in you a similar need since that day in the park. What I did justnow, Lizzie, was not done in anger, it was done to assist. It can be done even upon request.”
She pulled her tear-streaked face from his waistcoat, making his heart constrict.
“You mean to say that if I asked you to … spank me you would … indulge it?”
“Of course. I enjoy it, Lizzie. Not to cause you pain—though pain is involved, that is not the point—but to help you gain peace. It is not unlike the release found in bedsport, is it not? One can give and receive pleasure in this manner, too.” He feared he’d said too much.
“And if you needed such release yourself, would you ask me to aid you too?”
“Hmm.”
“Well,” she pressed, “would you?”
“If you were able, yes. Only you were not able before, if you recall, when I offered retribution.” He did not wish to remind her of his awful, past transgression.
“But that was different, Milton, you were asking me to?—”
“How was it any different?”
“That was not spanking, sir, that was flogging with a ruler.”
“Hmm.”
“Surely there is great difference between?—”
“Is there?”
She frowned, her face, however, now curious.
“Elizabeth, whether one uses ruler, hand, switch, or whip matters little, in the end, so long as the desired result is achieved, the outcome willingly agreed upon by both parties. What I did to you that time was?—”
