“One moment,” Neil said, as though he’d just remembered something. I saw the black satin only just before the sash covered my eyes. He was so practiced at tying the knot he didn’t even get my hair caught in it. “You can gag your sub, as well, but how are you going to learn if you can’t get their feedback?”
Was Emir going to cane me? We hadn’t discussed that, and, like the slapping, I wasn’t sure I was okay with it. But, as always, Sir seemed capable of reading my mind.
“I’ll be the only one delivering the strokes, Chloe,” he said, briefly dropping the sadistic tone. “Emir truly is learning tonight. You’ll receive eight. How would you like them?”
“Hard.” I gritted my teeth around the word—both from fear of what would come and the ginger that had subtly begun to sting me inside. I knew how hard Neil could hit, and the cane was serious business. In a scene, my mouth almost always wrote checks my butt couldn’t cash.
My literal butt.
“All right,” he agreed.
I heard the swoosh of the cane through the air, and my body tensed, a cry of distress choking me. The blow never came, and Emir chuckled. The ginger burned hotter now that I’d clenched on it.
“Anticipation is key in all spankings, as I’m sure you already know. But the cane—” Another swish interrupted Neil’s words, and my belly tightened, though I knew I was only making the ginger predicament worse. “—makes such an evil sound. Just listen.”
This time, the noise of the rattan slicing through the air didn’t startle me, and that was a mistake. The blow landed across my buttocks. I wasn’t ready for it, and I yelped in surprise. A hard strike from a cane feels like someone cutting you with a knife; Neil usually broke the skin when I specified “hard”. What might split my skin the width of a paper cut felt like a sword slicing through muscle and bone.
The ginger in my ass really burned now, intensified by the way I’d clenched in the aftermath of the strike. It melded with the lingering pain of the stripe across my cheeks, and tears rose to my eyes.
“Now there,” Sir said, and I hissed at the touch of his finger against the blazing welt. “You’re going to want most of your strikes to land in this area. Never above, and never on the back.”
Another cutting blow slapped me just below the other welt, close enough to refresh the pain of the first. I shouted again. Sweat stood out on my skin. Without the shackles holding me up, I would have fallen over.
“I would suggest that, the first few times you try this, you have your sub bent over. It will help prevent a misplaced strike,” Sir went on. The calm, measured way he gave instructions made my whole body tingle. I was just an object, a tool being used by them.
“If your sub isn’t gagged, you can ask them to request the next stroke.” Sir gave me a light tap with the cane. “Chloe. Ask me for the next one.”
I whimpered. A trickle of sweat leaked down my face from my hair. I wanted the pain. I needed it to get me to that floaty, distant headspace I craved. But I couldn’t pull the trigger, so to speak.
Neil walked slowly around me. I listened to every whisper of his footsteps on the marble floor. He stood close; I could almost feel his heartbeat in the disruption of the air between us. Every one of my cells was hyper-aware of him. I almost forgot Emir was there. That was the strength of my bond with Neil. I could forget the whole world existed beyond the pain he inflicted on me, and the pleasure that followed.
He tilted my chin up gently. “Ask me, Chloe.”
I squeezed my eyes shut behind the blindfold. “P-please, Sir. Hit me again.”
He kissed me, his lips barely pressing against mine. His breath teased my mouth, and I wanted to drink it in.
When he pulled away, I braced myself for the next stroke.
I received six across my buttocks, total. Every time, I clenched my entire lower body, and the burn of the ginger became worse. I gave up trying not to cry after the fourth stroke; my tears wetted the blindfold and leaked out where they could, to run down my face. I thrashed in my bonds. I couldn’t get my breath; I just kept pulling in huge gulps of air around my sobs. And all the while, Neil’s clinical description of what he was doing to me continued.
That turned me the fuck on.
“Now, as you can see here, there are some areas where the skin is split.” Sir dragged his finger along a welt, pulling a cry of agony from me. “So, we’ll leave this area and move on to…”
The cane struck me in the crease of my ass and thighs, and I screamed, loud and long, my hands squeezing into hard fists
. The ginger no longer burned, but my ass throbbed around it.
Neil pressed one hand on my stomach, his fingers spread. Just his touch immobilized me. “There, there,” he said gently. “I think that’s enough, for now. Emir, could you help me?”
The two of them worked swiftly to pull me down, and Emir removed the ginger. The ghost of the burn lingered. I trembled all over, and Emir held me up with an arm around my shoulders, because I couldn’t support myself. Sweat and spittle and tears wet my face. When Neil took off my blindfold, his face was the first thing I saw. He gave me a small smile, but his eyes were concerned.
“Sophie,” he said, using my real name for the first time all night, “give me a color.”
“What else do you have planned?” I asked, shivering from the sweat drying on my skin.
“If you need to stop, we can stop. Emir and I could finish together,” he suggested, pushing some of my damp hair from my forehead. “Or you could join us.”