Game

I send my obedient serf on his way with a polished toe to his rear, stalking him and swishing the crop, making it land in light little pats on his skin.

‘On your feet.’ I encourage him with a slightly harder stroke.

‘Are you really going to beat me with that thing?’ he asks, appealing to my mercy. ‘I mean, really hard?’

‘Of course I am. You were unforgivably insolent just now. I have to punish you for it.’

‘Oh God.’ He is rueful but compliant, holding up his wrists for me to cuff.

‘Regretting this? I’m not failing it, if that’s what you were hoping. Not a chance. I mean to pass this test with flying colours.’

I click the cuffs shut, then pull on the length of chain that acts as a pulley, lifting his arms so that they are way over his head. It’s hard work, because I’m lighter than him and have to rely on his co-operation, but he helps me tighten it until he’s on tiptoes. He did this to me once and my arms were sore for two days. Revenge is sweet.

Except it isn’t. Sweet is the wrong word. Grimly satisfying on only one of many levels. Aside from that, I feel sorry for him. He looks so helpless I want to rescue him.

‘You can just concede this and we can go home,’ I whisper to him.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m going to make you hurt me.’

‘You’re insane.’

‘Well, you can always concede this and we can go home.’

‘I’m not letting you win!’

‘Right. Best get to it then, ma’am. And make me scream.’

I pick up the flogger, a gentler instrument, and study its plaited strands. He is evil. He knows there’s a very good chance I won’t be able to hurt him.

I swoosh it against his backside.

‘That tickles,’ he says laconically.

I ply it harder. God, he looks good in bondage. That element of the punishment is pleasing me a great deal. His body, stretched and supplicating, cries out to be touched. But his voice doesn’t cry out at all.

I keep going, doggedly, trying to change the colour of his pale bottom and not getting very far.

‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ he says, ‘but have you started yet?’

‘Argh!’ My frustration puts weight behind my stroke, and the next one hits the spot, rewarding me with a grunt.

Gradually, his skin flushes pink, but it takes a lot of flogging by me and gritted teeth by him to get to that point.

‘I’m going to use the crop now,’ I tell him, worried I might wear out my arm.

‘OK, but you have to do it hard,’ he says.

‘Do you think you could stop topping from the bottom for a few moments?’

‘I’m sorry, but it’s important. This won’t work if you don’t really lay it on. I want you to make me beg you to stop.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to see what you’ll do. I kind of need to see what you’ll do, actually.’

‘You should have a safe word, like I do when it’s the other way round.’

‘No, I don’t want a safe word. I want you to carry on. If you want to win this, you have to carry on.’