Rob picked them up, shaking the excess drops of water into the bath, and swished them through the air a few times, practising his forehand then his backhand.
‘This is lovely,’ he said, reverently. ‘I’m going to be obsessed with the birch now. Show me your arse again.’
Lucy bent obediently over the sink and lifted her skirt.
Rob put down the rods and cupped her cheeks in his hands, tracing the leftover welts with his thumbs as if reading braille.
‘And it’s still so sore,’ he said, in a soothing, tutting voice. ‘I know what you need.’
He reached up to the bathroom cabinet and took out a bottle.
Lucy gasped.
‘Oh, no.’
‘It’s good for you,’ sang Rob. ‘A little iodine on your wounds works wonders.’
Lucy clutched the sides of the basin as the fire, only half-doused anyway, roared back into full flame at her rear.
‘Ohh,’ she moaned. ‘Noooo!’
Rob continued to dab an iodine-soaked cotton wool ball over her bottom, joining little points of scorching pain up like a dot-to-dot puzzle until conflagration was achieved.
‘We don’t want any nasty infections, do we?’ said Rob, tossing the cotton wool in the bin and stepping back. ‘You’ve gone darker red again. Stand up and take off the dress.’
Lucy obeyed, shifting from her left foot to her right in an attempt to distract herself from the sting. When she was naked, except for stockings and suspender belt, she put her hands by her sides, as he liked her to, and looked down at the floor.
Later on, after a sound slippering and an exhausting session of rear entry sex, Lucy lay with her head on Rob’s chest and her bottom off the mattress, cooling in the breeze from the open bedroom window.
She luxuriated in the throb, and the pleasant fatigue of her limbs, breathing in Rob’s scent of faded aftershave and fresh sweat, hearing his heart hammer in her ear.
‘I think I want to meet your Richard,’ said Rob suddenly.
Lucy raised her head, heavy eyelids flying open.
‘You don’t.’
He levelled a steady, serious gaze at her.
‘I do. We should definitely meet.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we have so much in common. You, in particular.’
‘What if I’m happy with the way things are. What if he is?’
‘You aren’t happy with the way things are, Lucy.’
‘I am.’
‘All right, then, you are. I’m not.’
She propped herself on an elbow, heart racing in dismay.
‘Rob, I can’t lose you. Please don’t—’
‘You’re not going to lose me.’