‘Spread your legs,’ said Joss.
I was reluctant for a moment, then I moved my feet wider apart. It was easier to balance that way anyway. On the other hand, the rapid cooling of my lower lips, which were damp, told me that he could see them, and what lay within.
‘Good,’ he said again. I could hear that he was closer, near enough to get a serious view. ‘Push your bottom out more. Legs wider.’
My posture went from indecent to blatantly obscene. Now I felt dirty and degraded, a whore performing a trick. It made me even wetter.
‘We need to see everything,’ said Joss, in a strange tight voice. ‘Everything you’ve got.’
I strained to keep myself widespread, bottom high. I imagined what he must be seeing, then imagined him coming over and giving my bum a casual stroke then a smack. Perhaps he would do it. Perhaps I wanted him to … but I had made him promise …
He could lay claim to me. If he only knew it, he could do it any time he liked.
But he didn’t know it, and he kept his hands off.
‘We like that,’ he said. ‘We like that a lot.’
I wish he’d stop it with the ‘we’. I knew he was referring to the man he called His Nibs, keeping us focused on the task instead of carried away on the hectic tide of personal desire, but it was unsettling all the same.
‘I’m picturing you,’ he said, closer than ever, close enough that I could feel his heat on my thighs, ‘bent just like that but with pretty red lines all the way across your bottom and thighs. You’ll get them, one day, soon, and I’ll be the man to give them to you.’
I sucked in air, not sure whether I was fearful or avid for it to happen.
‘All right,’ he said, rather regretfully. ‘You can stand up again.’
I wasn’t sure I could, but I tried. My head seemed to join the rest of my body shortly afterwards, and my libido was still down there with my open sex and offered bottom. It would take some time to catch up.
‘It’s weird, having no clothes on when you’re fully dressed,’ I said, but I said it in this odd, meek voice that didn’t sound like mine. The nudity and Joss’s masterful behaviour were having their effect on me.
‘You might as well get used to it,’ he said with a sleek smile. ‘I just wish I could make it permanent.’
‘You keep saying that,’ I say, meaning to sound obstreperous, but coming out timid and respectful, ‘but I don’t think you mean it.’
‘Sh,’ he said, putting a finger to his lips. ‘Now you’re naked, you should speak only when spoken to.’
‘You did speak to me.’
He clapped his hands, then held one up to me, palm to the front.
‘This,’ he said, with heavy emphasis, ‘is my spanking hand. I wasn’t planning on introducing it to you tonight but …’ He raised an eyebrow.
Suddenly the floor was completely fascinating. I pinched my lips and swallowed the fifty or so objections that flooded on to my tongue.
‘Am I clear?’ he said after a moment’s pause.
I nodded.
‘That’s good. So. Shall we move on? Positions?’
Another nod. I was taking no more risks.
‘There are nine of these,’ he said. ‘The first one is Sit.’
‘It’s like dog training,’ I said, mildly shocked.
I was even more shocked when he held up his spanking hand again and said, ‘No more warnings, Lucy.’
‘Oh, God, this is weird,’ I moaned, then, ‘Sorry. I promise, no more interruptions.’