Tom handed her the long pole with the cuffs at either end.
Maria knelt to attach one of my ankles, then the other, forcing my feet apart. Now I felt even more unstable and ready to swoop forwards, straining my arm muscles beyond endurance, but Maria surprised me by pulling up a length of the leather tiling to reveal flagstones beneath. She used the remote to call up a pair of eye bolts from recesses within the stone, and attached each cuff to one of these bolts. Now I was securely in position, unable to move in any way except a cursory swivel of the hips.
‘What do you think, Tom?’ said Maria, rising to stand once more.
‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Great presentation.’
‘Isn’t it? The beauty of this,’ she continued, walking around me, ‘is that you have access to all of her, front and back. Perfect for subs who like to have their tits whipped as well as their booties. And lovely for double-teaming too.’
‘Er…’ I said, alarmed by the mention of tit-whipping. Definitely not a fetish of mine.
‘Yes?’ Maria’s tone was severe. ‘I’m not sure I asked for your opinion.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But I don’t really like anything painful done to my, uh…front.’
‘Really? No nipple clamps?’
‘I don’t really know…haven’t tried…but I definitely wouldn’t like them whipped. Sorry.’
‘Oh, you don’t mind a bit of a tweak,’ said Tom, before coughing madly and adding, ‘I’m sure.’
‘Perhaps that’s an experiment for another day,’ said Maria. ‘When you are with a trusted Dom. Tell me what you’d like us to do to you. Would you like to be blindfolded? Spanked? Touched, by hands or any of my lovely toys?’
There was a question. I wanted all of those, but only from Tom, and minus the audience.
‘Um, perhaps…a blindfold might be nice.’ Then I could pretend they couldn’t see my face. ‘And…that flogger looked interesting. The suede one.’ By ‘interesting’ I meant ‘not particularly painful’. I hoped that was understood.
‘Ah, a good choice,’ said Maria, heading back to her cupboard. ‘I can instruct you in its use, Tom. I take it you haven’t used one before?’
‘No, never,’ he said.
Now that they were both behind me, I had to listen carefully in order to work out exactly where they were. The padded flooring muffled their footsteps. Only their low voices and the light swish of their clothing as they moved revealed their whereabouts.
A prolonged silence led me to believe that they were still by the cupboard, sorting through its perverse delights, so I squealed in shock when cold silk blocked my eyesight, tickling my skin. Deft hands tied the blindfold tightly behind my head – to whom did they belong? A tiny touch on my neck gave it away. It was Tom.
‘Brave girl,’ he whispered into my ear before stepping back.
‘Let me show you,’ said Maria. ‘It won’t hurt her. Not to begin with, anyway. A flogger can’t do serious damage, but I hold by the rule that we don’t hit any higher than the centre of the cheeks. The sensitive, more erogenous zones are all lower anyway. Do you know the sweet spot?’
Tom chuckled. ‘It all looks pretty sweet to me.’
‘Yes, but the area you have to aim for if you want to set off a fire inside her is down here, almost at the curve…’ She swung it. I heard the tails tangling, then a stroke landed just beneath the hem of my dress, on my exposed knickers.
It didn’t hurt – it was a kind of ticklish buzz – but it made me arch in my bonds like a weeping willow in the wind.
‘Ooh!’ I cried.
I drew in a giddy breath, the consciousness of being whipped by a strange woman while my lover looked on hitting me harder than the flogger. God, it was hot. I almost regretted my blindfold, thinking it would be a fine thing to look at in the mirrored wall. Not being able to move or see sent the sensation beyond titillation into a boiling sea of hotness.
‘There’s an additional issue with a flogger,’ continued Maria educationally. ‘You need to avoid wraparound – by which I mean, the tips managing to overshoot the buttocks and land on the hip. For a sub, this is painful without being at all pleasurable, so it’s important to get your angle just right. Stand far enough away and watch where the tips are going. If you think they’re going to overshoot, then retract the stroke and aim again. Until you are fully confident, it’s probably best to aim for the centre of the far cheek and no further. Like so.’
A swoosh and a tingle, a little sharper than the first time, landed on my lower bum. It was followed, unexpectedly quickly, by three more. I twisted beneath my hook and let the sweet heat flood in. The spread state of my legs was now cause for concern – could they see the dark patch of arousal spreading into the fabric of my knickers? What a good decision the black cotton had been – white would have been too mortifying.
‘Try it, Tom. You’ll need to stand a little further away – your arms are longer than mine.’
Tom’s hand was also heavier. The flogger fell with a surprising sting, making me yelp and try to jump, but of course I couldn’t.
‘Good,’ said Maria approvingly. ‘You have a good eye. Ellie, are you all right with this?’