“Yes, I know it hurts like hell,” he said as I stiffened in agony, “but I think that’s for the best.”
The cane fell again, and I screamed again as I fought to escape. We were half a minute into this punishment and I was dying. Oh my God, oh my God. I would never, ever survive this. It killed so bad.
“You’re getting ten of these” Whack. “and then I’ll work you over” Whack. “with the paddle” Whack. “and we’ll see where we are.”
Each time he hit me, the pain felt hotter and more impossible. The mask forced me into darkness, into my own agonized mind.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” I babbled, although the ball gag just turned my words into muffled nonsense. “Please, please, no, stop, please.”
Whack. I tried to turn away from each successive stroke, pressing down into the pillows, but I couldn’t do anything to get away.
Whack.
Oh God, I’m dying!
I cried louder through the gag, harder, as if that might move him. He only whacked me again. “Hush. I have neighbors.”
I needed his neighbors to bust through the wall and rescue me. He landed the last two strokes on the backs of my thighs. I squealed at the fresh slices of pain and wished I could go back in time and categorically refuse this lesson in surrender, our dynamic, everything. No more canes. Never. I tried to sob quietly but it was hard with the burning heat radiating from each throbbing stripe.
“Had enough of the cane?” he asked.
I nodded in the direction of his voice, trying to look apologetic. I’ve learned my lesson. Surrender only from now on. No more rebellion. No.
I felt the bed dip. He traced each of the ten cane tracks while I tried to collect myself. “Are you ready for the paddle now?” he asked when he finished. “It’s going to feel pretty torturous on top of those welts you already have.”
No. I didn’t want torturous. I wanted more stroking, and his reassuring weight beside me. He rose from the bed and I braced, squirming, whining, tensing my ass cheeks like that might protect me.
It didn’t.
I screamed through the gag as he gave me five hard paddle cracks in a row. The sting erupted in the shape of a big painful rectangle, rather than the razor fine line of the cane. Either way, it was unbearable. I needed to be untied. I wanted to be left alone to nurse my aching ass and my aching psyche.
“Are you letting go?” he asked. “From here on out, are you going to accept the fact that you like to surrender? That you live to surrender?”
It wasn’t surrender I lived for. It was his voice and his force and his capability. Even now, the more he hurt me, the more I wanted him. I was tired of trying to understand. I supposed that was surrender enough. I moaned behind the gag and nodded.
“Are you going to show me your fucking tits when I want to see your tits?” he asked. “No more sulking and whining and behaving like a brat?”
I nodded as hard as I could, making urgent sounds behind the gag.
Another spank, another shriek. “I’m happy to hear that.”
He might have been happy to hear it, but he paddled me some more anyway, at least a dozen hard, steady strokes on my one-thousand-degree butt cheeks. They felt like they were on fire, like flames must be licking up into the air and setting off his building’s fire alarm. I pictured the sprinklers dousing us, although I doubted even a deluge of sprinkler water could put out this fire. Ow, ow, ow… I understood now why he’d shoved so many pillows under me. I probably would have injured myself otherwise.
I’ll do better. I’ll try harder to surrender. Please…
My muscles strained within the bondage. I couldn’t turn my body, but I bounced up and down with every stinging blow. My face was damp, my eyes streaming with tears behind the mask. When he stopped, I kept crying, because I was afraid he’d start up again.
“I’ll take the gag off if you promise to be quiet,” he said.
I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t know if I could be quiet if he paddled me some more, or God, started in with the cane again. I felt his hands in my hair, pulling it tight between his fingers. “Are you listening? Will you be quiet?”
I just moaned, a plaintive, animal sound begging him to stop.
He left, walked across the room. I heard water running, probably in an adjoining bathroom. I wondered if I was bleeding, if he would have to patch me up. My ass felt swollen and numb and throbby, like he’d opened some spurting artery. He came back and unbuckled the gag, and wiped the drool from my mouth and chin with a damp cloth.