Maria and Tom moved the pillory out of its storage niche and into the mirrored playroom. Once it was in the centre, she fixed the castors so they couldn’t roll and went to open yet another concealed storage area behind one of the other mirrors. In this were whips and chains of every description, but she didn’t reach for any of these. Instead she drew out a strong box and took from it a heavy metal key.
‘Now then, my willing victim,’ she said, opening the padlock and swinging the top bar of the pillory so that it was ready to accept malefactors. ‘Try it for size.’
Tom, smirking uneasily, put his wrists and neck on to the curved dips. He had to bend quite a lot, as he was tall and the pillory somewhat low, but that was all the better for Maria’s purposes, I imagined.
She closed the upper half, imprisoning his head and arms, and locked it tight.
‘Comfortable?’ she asked.
‘Not too bad,’ he replied. ‘You don’t have a stash of rotten tomatoes in here, do you?’
‘No, although clients have been known to request it sometimes.’
‘Really?’ I said, laughing.
‘Yes, I had a man once who liked having soft fruit squashed all over his genitals. I was happy to oblige.’
‘You should write a book,’ I said. ‘You must have the most amazing collection of anecdotes.’
‘Well, it has been mentioned,’ she said, stepping back and appraising Tom’s apprehensive expression. ‘Perhaps this would make an interesting chapter. Now, then, Ellie – come and help me choose a weapon.’
Moving around behind the pillory, I couldn’t help sneaking a peek at Tom’s behind. The low height of the pillory meant that it was thrust out rather nicely, the fabric of his jeans straining over two perfectly defined mounds. I could almost see what the tops saw in this sadism lark – it was such a tempting target.
Back at the cupboard, I was faced with an impossible choice. There were simply too many implements and they scared me, hanging there with their deadly glamour. I could almost imagine they were alive, ready to snake out of their racks and get to work.
‘Leather?’ mused Maria, running her hand along a row of straps. ‘Or wood?’ She picked up a thing that looked like a pizza oven shovel and whacked it against her thigh. ‘It needs to be something fairly hefty,’ she noted, ‘since he’s wearing jeans. He won’t feel a sweet little flogger like this one.’ She twirled the pretty suede strands of a pink and purple number around her fingers.
‘I like these,’ I said, picking a sleek, chic riding crop from its peg. It was stiff in my hand, but when Maria took it from me I saw that it could be flexible as she bent its gleaming shaft into a shallow parabola.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Maria, slapping the leather triangle at its tip into her palm. ‘I always enjoy giving a good old-fashioned thrashing with one of these. One client likes me to dress up in a Victorian riding habit and take him through his dressage paces. You can imagine where I put his tail.’
‘Oh, my God.’
She produced a strange crystal object with a fountain of luxuriant horsehair spilling from its end. Mia had extemporised on butt plugs in her blog, but this was a step further!
‘We won’t be pushing the equestrian theme that far with our Master Tom, though,’ she said with a wink, putting it back.
She strode up behind him, and I thought perhaps the leather flooring wasn’t quite suitable for her purposes – it would have been so much more atmospheric if her heels had click-click-clicked all the way. Then again, perhaps the silence was more intimidating for Tom, who wouldn’t necessarily know when she was close until her heavy perfume whacked him in the sinuses.
I had to admit, I was finding this exciting. Maria was perfect in her posture, her self-containment, her aura of absolute dominance.
‘Are you ready, young man?’ she asked in a low but firm voice.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ said Tom. Was he nervous? It was impossible to tell.
She laid the tip of the crop on the centre of his upturned backside and tapped it a few times, radiating outwards to cover both cheeks with light, teasing flicks.
‘That’s quite nice, actually,’ he said, and that was when she raised her arm high, held it stiff for a moment, then let the whip slash down. It landed with an echoing WHAP that seemed almost loud enough to shatter the mirrors.
‘Oh, God!’ His voice soared to a reedy soprano. In the mirrors, I could see the combination of pure shock and pain on his face.
I wanted to run over and pull the whip away from her, but at the same time I didn’t. Part of me rather thought that Tom deserved it, and needed to know how it felt.
‘Do you like it?’ I asked.
‘Please, ma’am, may I have another?’ was his reply.
‘Oh, he challenges us,’ said Maria. ‘Ellie, why don’t you give him the next stroke?’