‘So, how do you want me?’
‘I don’t follow. I don’t know the form – you do. You’re going to have to help me out here.’
‘The point is, Lulu, you tell me what to do.’
‘Yes, but I don’t know how to do it.’
He sighed.
‘Think of me, think of what I was like when I was nine. Be like that.’
I really wasn’t sure I could do it, then all my memories of that time came rushing in at once and I knew I could. I owed it to that shivering, scared seven-year-old girl to make her bully understand the effect he’d had on her.
‘Get on your knees,’ I said, and he dropped at my feet before I’d even finished speaking. I looked down at the crown of his head, at his luxuriant dark hair. He wouldn’t be thinning any time soon. ‘I’m going to hurt you.’
He said nothing, but bowed his head a little in acquiescence.
‘I’m going to do it,’ I continued, letting the strands drape over his shoulder before dragging them up his cheek, ‘but first I want to hear you beg me for mercy. Really beg me, even though it won’t have the slightest effect on what I do to you. I just want to hear it. No, don’t look at me,’ I said hurriedly, for he had raised his eyes to mine. ‘I can’t do this if you look at me. Keep your eyes on the floor.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, then he cleared his throat. ‘Erm. Please spare me, ma’am,’ he said. But he wasn’t taking it seriously enough, his manner overly theatrical.
‘That won’t do,’ I told him. ‘Plead.’
‘OK.’ He seemed to steady himself, furrowing his brow in thought. ‘What about … I beg you not to hurt me. I promise I’ll be good now. I’ll behave myself. I’ll do anything you want, anything you say.’
‘You’re not feeling it yet,’ I said. ‘You’ve forgotten, I suppose, how I used to cry and beg you to let me go. Have you?’
‘No. Of course I haven’t.’
His voice was whisper-quiet.
‘So?’
‘So perhaps that place is too dark for me to go back to,’ he said.
I gasped.
‘Too … are you serious? Too dark for you to go back to? Did you actually say that? Too dark for you?’
‘OK,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’m sorry. This wasn’t a good idea. There’s too much –’
‘Shut up,’ I said, lashing out to grab him by the wrist. ‘Shut up and bend over the bed. Now.’
He thought he could get away with this, but he was dead wrong. I was going to calm my troubled spirit by thrashing his gorgeous arse until he begged me properly. I deserved this. I owed it to myself – and to him.
He obeyed straightaway, kneeling at the foot of the bed with his upper torso pressed against the mattress. The cream linen trousers strained a little over a backside slightly more generous than I remembered, but still splendidly peachy and firm.
‘I want those trousers down,’ I said.
He said nothing but his breathing was hectic as he fumbled with the fastening then lowered the trousers over his bottom.
‘Boxers too.’
‘Lulu,’ he said, and I could tell by the quiver in his voice that he hadn’t realised until now what he had let himself in for.
‘Don’t you dare call me that,’ I shouted. I brought the flogger down with a swish on his perfect buttocks and he sucked in a breath. ‘Don’t you ever!’ I lashed again. ‘Call me.’ Again. ‘By that name.’ Again. ‘Again.’ And again.
A pink glow was spreading across his skin. Men’s bottoms were too hairy for this, I thought, trying to picture mine in the same condition. It gave me a weak, dizzy feeling to imagine our roles reversed; Joss with the whip, me bent over for chastisement.