“I just…can’t.”
He tapped me under the chin with a finger, and the word came rushing out.
“A spanking.”
“Good. Was that so hard? Have you been spanked before?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame. Although, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now if you had. So, do you think you’d enjoy it? A spanking, I mean?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it would hurt?”
“I suppose it would.”
“Have you…ever…y’know…dabbled, then?”
“Dabbled?” He laughed softly, a snuffle almost, and put a finger so close to my cheek I thought he was going to stroke it—but he thought better of it and pulled it away at the last minute. “Yes, I’ve dabbled. More than dabbled.” He sighed briefly. “You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve had this ki
nd of conversation with a client.”
“Oh God, really? I’m such a cliché!”
“No, no. You’re not. You’re by far the quickest off the mark. It usually takes months…but I’ve never agreed to it before. I think I could make an exception for you, though.”
“An exception? Really?” I felt utterly flattered that this austere, poker-straight man was willing to smack my arse. It made me quite warm inside.
“You’re so extremely in need of it, Lara,” he said. I could have curled up and fallen at his feet. What a thing to say. I thought I may be in love. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl so desperate for disciplinary attention.”
“So…if you turn down the clients…where have you got your experience from?”
Please don’t tell me you have hot and cold running slave girls at home…please, please, please…
“Ex-girlfriends. Experiments.”
Yeah for the letter ex! I smiled, far too broadly. I wished I could be enigmatic. “So…what’s the verdict? Should we try this? Do you think it’ll work?”
“I’ve no idea. Given that you’ve never been spanked before, it’s hard to tell. In fact…yes…I really think that, before we can move forward with planning the new regime, you need to know whether your idea of corporal punishment matches up with the reality.”
“You mean…?”
He sat down in the kitchen chair and slapped his palms down on his thighs.
“I mean, you should come here and put yourself over my lap, Lara.”
Chapter Two
I gasped. I had never seen anything sexier. Then he started to roll up his shirtsleeves, and I had seen something sexier. His forearms were strong and his hands were broad and he was going to…
“Now!”
He patted his lap and I almost dissolved with lust. I took his point about my finding this all a little too enjoyable for it to be a punishment. But, hell, I was sure I could pretend otherwise. He wasn’t doing this in the spirit of self-sacrifice, after all. Whether I loved it or hated it, we were both winners in the end.
“Feels a little surreal,” I hedged, rendered immobile by the intense oddness of it all.
“Believe me, my dear, it will be feeling anything but surreal in a moment or two. Now bend over my lap or I’ll take my spreadsheet and leave.”
No! Please don’t take the spreadsheet! I was almost giggling as I tried to arrange myself as neatly as possible over his sharply creased trousers. I was concerned for him, worried that the weight of me would crush his thighs, but I soon realised that my anxieties were misplaced, for his lap was rigid and strong and I fell across it like a big, clumsy rag doll. What I must have looked like to him! I wondered how my backside compared to the others of his acquaintance, but then I remembered that comparison with ex’s is the way to madness and I resolved to hang on to the moment and extract the maximum amount of fantasy juice from it. Who knew how many long, cold, lonely nights I’d need this memory to warm me?