What? I looked quickly over my shoulder, as if asking if he really meant it. His expression was granite stern. He meant it.
I pivoted at the waist, feeling the corset cup my breasts tightly, forbidding their natural inclination to swing free. Elasticated lace stretched over my buttocks, revealing more skin. My suspenders tautened, pressing into my thighs. I became aware of wetness between my legs, and felt dirty. Unfaithful. My mind apologised to Tom for the sluttiness of my body.
‘Spread your legs a little,’ said Keane, and I moved my high-heeled feet a few inches further apart. ‘Now bend right over – touch your toes, that’s it – and hold the position for as long as you can.’
It wasn’t likely to be very long, I thought, swaying already on my shiny black pumps. My muscles were strained from calf to backside, and I could feel the blood rush to my face.
I heard Keane’s chair scrape back on the terracotta-tiled floor, and his heavy footsteps approaching. I was just about to topple when he put one hand between my shoulder blades and held me steady.
‘You’ll be able to stand like this for much longer after you’ve had a bit of practice,’ he said. ‘And you’ll be taking the cane in this position, too.’
‘I’ve never been caned,’ I said nervously.
‘No. But you will be.’ His other hand landed on my bottom, rubbing it slowly in a circular motion. ‘You’ll have long red lines all the way across here. You’ll feel them for days.’
Mia had said that the cane was J’s favourite. I recalled a drawing of her voluptuous rear, neatly striped with twelve red lines while she stood in a corner with her hands on her head. The hair she had drawn was not like that woman, Olivia’s, hair. But then, perhaps it was fantasy hair. In art, we can be who we want to be.
‘But you won’t cane me straightaway, will you?’ I asked. My ears were rushing now and my voice sounded thick.
‘I’ll work up to it,’ he promised. His fingers tightened on my neck, gripping me tight, then a smack like a gunshot cracked into the air. It took me a second to catch up with the realisation that he had just spanked my bum.
‘Ouch,’ I said, but more in surprise than pain, even though it was quite painful.
‘I couldn’t resist that beautiful arse,’ he said, rubbing where he had caused a patch of heat to rise on my right buttock. ‘You like a spanking, don’t you?’
‘I think so,’ I said. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t be here if…’
‘Exactly. Shall we get comfortable?’
He straightened me up and led me to his chair. I knew I was going to end up draped over his knee, and I did, so the word ‘comfortable’ was relative. But his broad lap was well fitted to my torso, and I felt strangely secure in my peril.
I was taking one for the team. The Tom team. The thought sustained me through the spanking that followed. It was mild, compared to some of what Tom had dished out, but Keane’s hand was large and heavy and he had me well reddened in no time.
‘Thought you’d get dolled up for me, did you?’ growled Keane as he worked my bottom until sparks flew. ‘Thought you’d parade your little lacy knickers and stockings in front of me? Well, you’re getting what’s coming to you, you little tease.’
Between cracking spanks that must have been audible in the next street, and my pathetic little cries, I could hear the sound of crockery being loaded into a dishwasher, and the occasional raising of Maria’s voice. She laughed, then there was a male yelp.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Keane, halting in his onslaught to rub my bottom, then push his fingers inside the elastic. ‘I think you have enormous potential.’
His big hand explored my hot bottom, then moved lower. I twisted my ankles, squirming all over. This was getting very intimate very quickly. But I was undeniably wet and I wanted to feel his firm fingers between my eager lips. I wanted the choice taken away from me. I wanted the pure sensation of submission.
I soon got it. He pushed his fingers into my pussy, making an inchoate noise of satisfaction at how wet he found it.
‘Oh, a bad little sub,’ he murmured, pressing and massaging, finding my clit and making me sigh with pleasure. ‘Do you know what I do with subs who get off on a spanking?’
‘No,’ I whispered, and a hard, sharp smack fell on my hot cheeks.
‘No, sir,’ he said reprovingly.
‘No, sir. Oh.’ He pushed two fingers inside me, probing deeply. They slid inside as if I were buttered.
‘I do this first,’ he whispered. ‘Then, after you’ve come, when you’re still sweaty and confused, I punish you. And that’s when you really feel it.’
‘That’s…cruel,’ I whimpered, but my thoughts were spiralling up into nonsense, consumed by the way my climax inched closer and closer with each considered movement of his fingers.
‘Cruel to be kind,’ he said, increasing the pressure. ‘That’s what I’m going to be with you, Ellie.’
This dizzying thought tipped me over. Shame, lust and a bedrock of submission right at my core fuelled a climax that left me gasping for air.