I shut my eyes and thought about his ruthless fingers and dispassionate air.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think so. But like I said, real life isn’t like that, is it?’
‘Keris, we’re at a fetish ball. We aren’t in real life. Forget about that for tonight, yeah?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Good. Now let’s go back into the fray and enjoy ourselves. Or I’ll have to punish you.’
We went back to the great hall and spectated for a while. I saw a great many things, some of which I wished I hadn’t, while others fired my imagination and my lusts.
A girl strapped to a wheel was turned slowly round and round while a shirtless man whipped her helpless body, the lash falling anywhere and everywhere, from feet to shoulders.
Two girls in harnesses and butt-plug tails offered rides around a small enclosure, their slight bodies straining under the mounts of varying sizes and weights who enjoyed their service. At the end, they pushed their faces into nosebags full of something – presumably not hay.
A man in a hood lay back on a bed while his mistress inflicted exquisite pain on his cock and balls.
A woman, handcuffed and on her knees, gave blowjobs to a series of men, her mouth held open by an O-ring gag.
‘Is any of this appealing to you?’ Justin asked.
‘Not really. It’s all a bit further on down the road than I’ve reached,’ I said. ‘Some of it’s a bit scary.’
‘Hey, you take whichever bit of the road appeals to you,’ said Justin. ‘There’s no one way of doing it. Spanking doesn’t lead automatically to branding.’
‘No. I guess not.’
I looked sideways at a guy in full drag being given a public enema by a woman dressed as Mary Poppins.
‘Oh, Justin, can I?’
Maz was clapping her hands as we approached an alcove signposted “The Spanking Booth”.
‘Go on, then.’
Justin watched as Maz scurried behind an old-fashioned pillory affair, talking to the bearded man at the back of the tableau. He took out a key, unlocked the pillory and put Maz in it, so that her face wasn’t visible to us – only her back view could be seen by the passing crowds.
The man walked around beside her, then lifted her little toga slip and tucked it into her belt, so her bare bottom was on display. He came to stand beside the pillar at the front of the alcove, drumming up trade.
Pretty soon, a queue of hopeful spankers had been drawn, and the first punter chose a short-handled flogger to use on the wriggling bottom he had paid to thrash.
I watched with fascination as Maz’s bottom turned a luscious cerise shade under the onslaught of the suede lashes, holding on to Justin’s hand and squeezing it tight.
Next Maz had to take twenty strokes of a leather strap, the pink darkening to a bright welted red in no time at all.
Before she could draw breath, a ping-pong paddle smacked hard into the centre of her furiously flushed skin, making her jump and squeal with each of the ten hard whacks.
‘Don’t you want a go?’ I whispered to Justin, Maz’s treatment turning my horniness dial back up to ten.
‘I’m going to wait till later,’ said Justin softly. ‘Conserve my strength for when His Lordship is watching.’
I fluttered and clenched my pussy at the reminder.
His Lordship. The man who wanted to dominate me as more than a friend or a fellow in kink. The man who wanted to be my master.
What did masters expect of one? I wondered about this as a ruler paddle fell sharply down on Maz’s poor bottom. If you accepted one, did that mean you had to do everything they said without question? What if I changed my mind? What if he wanted me to give up work? What if he turned out to be a complete monster? What if, what if, what if? The more I learned about this thing, the less I seemed to know.
I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I was a free agent operating in a free world. I didn’t have to do anything that didn’t suit me.