Eleven Minutes

"Yes, sir."

He grabbed her arms and put the first pair of handcuffs on her wrists.

"You're going to get a good beating. Until you learn to behave yourself."

He slapped her bottom with the flat of his hand. Maria cried out; this time it had hurt.

"Oh, so you're complaining, are you? Well, I haven't even started yet."

Before she could do anything, he had placed a leather gag on her mouth. It didn't stop her speaking, she could still say "yellow" or "red," but she felt now that it was her destiny to allow this man to do whatever he wished with her, and there was no way she could escape now. She was naked, gagged and handcuffed, with vodka flowing in her veins rather than blood.

Another slap on her buttocks.

"Walk up and down!"

Maria started to walk, obeying his commands: "stop," "turn to the right," "sit down," "open your legs." He slapped her again and again, whether she deserved it or not, and she felt the pain and felt the humiliation--which was more intense and more potent than the pain--and she felt as if she were in another world, in which nothing existed, and it was an almost religious feeling: self-annihilation, subjection, and a complete loss of any sense of Ego, desire or self-will. She was very wet and very aroused, but unable to understand what was going on.

"Down on your knees again!"

Since she always kept her head down, as a sign of obedience and humiliation, Maria could not see exactly what was happening, but she noticed that in that other universe, on that other planet, the man was breathing hard, worn out with wielding the whip and spanking her hard on the buttocks, whilst she felt herself filling up with strength and energy. She had lost all shame now, and wasn't bothered about showing her pleasure; she started to moan, pleading with him to touch her, but, instead, the man grabbed her and threw her onto the bed.

He violently forced her legs apart--although she knew this violence would not actually harm her--and tied each leg to one corner of the bed. Now that her wrists were handcuffed behind her, her legs splayed, her mouth gagged, when would he penetrate her? Couldn't he see that she was ready, that she wanted to serve him, that she was his slave, his creature, his object, and would do anything he ordered her to do?

"Would you like me to take you f

urther still?"

She saw him place the end of the whip handle against her vagina. He rubbed it up and down, and when it touched her clitoris, she lost all control. She had no idea how long they had been there nor how many times she had been spanked, but suddenly she came and had the orgasm which, in all those months, dozens, no, hundreds of men had failed to give her. There was a burst of light, she felt herself entering a kind of black hole in her soul, in which intense pain and fear mingled with total pleasure, pushing her beyond all previously known limits and she moaned and screamed, her voice muffled by the gag, she writhed about on the bed, feeling the handcuffs cutting into her wrists and the leather thongs bruising her ankles, she moved as never before precisely because she could not move, she screamed as never before because she had a gag on her mouth and no one would be able to hear her. This was pain and pleasure, the end of the whip handle pressing ever harder against her clitoris and the orgasm flooding out of her mouth, her vagina, her pores, her eyes, her skin.

She entered a kind of trance, and slowly, very slowly, she began to come down; there was no whip pressing between her legs now, just sweat-drenched hair, kind hands removing the handcuffs, untying the leather thongs around her ankles.

She lay there, confused, unable to look at the man because she was ashamed of herself, of her screams, of her orgasm. He was stroking her hair and he too was breathing hard, but the pleasure had been entirely hers; he had not enjoyed a single moment of ecstasy.

Her naked body embraced that of this fully clothed man, who was exhausted from shouting orders and keeping tight control of the situation. She didn't know what to say, how to continue, but she felt safe and protected, because he had invited her to go to a place inside herself that she had never known before; he was her protector and her master.

She started to cry, and he waited patiently until she had finished.

"What did you do to me?" she asked tearfully.

"What you wanted me to do."

She looked at him, feeling that she needed him desperately.

"I didn't force you or oblige you to do anything, nor did I hear you say 'yellow'; I had only the power you gave me. There was no obligation, no blackmail on my part, only your will; you may have been the slave and I the master, but my only power was to push you in the direction of your own freedom."

Handcuffs. Leather thongs around her ankles. A gag. Humiliation that was more intense and more potent than any pain. And yet--he was quite right--the feeling was one of total freedom. Maria felt full of energy and vigor and was surprised to see that the man beside her was utterly exhausted.

"Did you come?"

"No," he said. "The master is here to drive the slave on. The pleasure of the slave is the joy of the master."

None of this made sense, because it wasn't the way it was in stories, it wasn't the way it was in real life. But here in this fantasy world, she was full of light, while he seemed opaque, drained.

"You can leave whenever you want," Terence said.

"I don't want to leave, I want to understand."

"There's nothing to understand."