“Do it until I can’t take any more,” muttered Milan. “Until I fall on my knees.”
Hackmeyer looked impressed, Sarah a little scared.
“You don’t have to do this, Milan,” said Lydia, her voice faltering.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “Do it. Don’t hold back.”
Karl-Heinz took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves to the elbow. Lydia had seen him do this many times, but it still gave her a weak-kneed feeling, even though it wasn’t her bottom in the line of fire this time. She was going to see how he looked when he was delivering a flogging—the missing part of the fantasy.
Suddenly, she didn’t know whether to be horrified or aroused anymore.
Milan looked so delicious, a blank canvas for Karl-Heinz’s sadistic artistry. She had changed her mind about not wanting to look.
Now she wanted to look quite desperately.
Karl-Heinz drew back his arm and lined the whip up with the centre of Milan’s back. Then he flicked it forward, so fast it blurred, and the leather tongues licked Milan’s skin, swishing down, leaving faint red splotches.
Milan neither flinched nor made a sound. It must hurt, on his back like that, Lydia thought. She was sure she couldn’t take it. It was bad enough on the cushioned flesh of her bottom.
Karl-Heinz seemed a bit miffed at Milan’s lack of response and he laid the next stroke in the same spot, rendering the red marks a deeper and angrier shade.
This time there was a tightening of Milan’s shoulder blades and a tiny gasp. Lydia saw the tendons stand out at the back of his neck.
Karl-Heinz kept up the pressure, whipping fast and steadily all over the lower portion of Milan’s back. She saw Milan bow his head, clench his fists. She saw welts of crimson scored all over his skin, then saw that skin become sheened with sweat.
On about the fifteenth stroke, he let out a moan.
“Okay,” said Karl-Heinz. “Take down your underpants now. I haven’t finished.”
Milan let the wispy silk flutter over his firm, tight buttocks and fall to his ankles. Lydia was relieved that the focus was off his poor back, but now Karl-Heinz would make it even harder, she was sure.
She looked sidelong at Hackmeyer, who had reached for Sarah and sat her on his lap. His fingers were busy under the netting of her skirt.
Karl-Heinz’s first stroke of the whip on Milan’s bottom was a scorcher, landing with a fierce crack, creating half a dozen instant weals.
Milan inhaled sharply and made a noise a little like a steam whistle.
“Oh, don’t hurt him!” beseeched Lydia.
“Hurt me,” begged Milan. “More. Give me more.”
She saw the sweat pour off him with each new stroke. She watched his bottom and thighs turn into a swollen red mess of blotches and stripes until no pale skin remained. She saw him flex all his muscles, shift from foot to foot, shake his arms, do everything he could to try to endure the pain, but when he started to buckle at the knees and sob she could watch no longer.
“Oh, stop it, stop it,” she cried as he fell forward on his knees, shoulders shaking.
She rushed around to the front of him and threw her arms around his neck, crying with him. She heard the whip fall to the floor, aware of nothing else but Milan’s hot, damp body pressed to hers and his tears soaking the shoulder of her dress.
“Darling, my darling,” she whispered, rocking him in her arms. “It’ll be all right.”
It took her a moment or two to realise that she wasn’t the only person holding Milan in a tight embrace. She looked up to see Karl-Heinz, crouched beside him, his arm around Milan’s waist and his cheek against Milan’s wet cheek. And Milan had his arm around Karl-Heinz too.
It should have been awkward, or strange, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt right, a natural expression of emotion, the outward symbol of forgiveness.
“Are you okay?” Karl-Heinz asked.
Milan simply brushed his cheek against the other man’s, holding on to Lydia as tightly as he could.
“Thank you,” he said, under his breath. “Thank you so much.”