“You were saying, dear?”
It was a polite inquiry, moderate and urbane. Drusilla debated whether to scream again as her only vent for frustration. But she deemed it late. It would be misunderstood. Her response was urgent.
“I’ll be good! I’ll behave! Honest!” And then, in a small, pathetic voice: “I’m sorry I was smart ass.”
“That’s better, sweetheart. And I think you still wish to make a request?”
“Oh, yes—of course! Yes! Will you please whip my bottom the way you—like those first two?”
“The ones you complained about?”
“Yes, dear. I’m sorry about that.”
“Your beef was ill founded?”
“Was it ever!” Drusilla’s exclamation was heartfelt.
“You realize I was letting you off lightly?”
“Yee-e-s-s... ”
“You don’t sound all that certain?”
“I am! Oh, I am! Please whip me like that!”
In the momentary suspense awaiting the next stroke, Drusilla had time to marvel at the words she had just uttered. Their humility was both laughable and frightening. That they had emerged from her own lips would have been incredible a month ago. That they expressed only a deep sincerity was a thing of wonder. She had just asked Bryce to whip her in a certain way and been anxious that her request be granted. How crazy could a woman get?
Number five was admittedly more bearable. Bryce had returned to the rhythm of his original blows. Drusilla found she need not scream. She fought the straps but did not move. The effort was a substitute for writhing. Diana’s cane had inured her to shock. She held panic at bay while her immobilized bottom received her punishment. She was completely absorbed by the pain as the tawse slashed and seared and extracted responses from every crevice of her being. But she could not fail to know her punishment was moderate. Diana’s cane had been more cruel. With Bryce she was simply a naughty girl being reasonably whipped. The tawse was teaching her a lesson. Everything fell neatly into place within the context of what she and Bryce had set out to do. She counted the strokes silently. Surely it would not be more than ten! Drusilla clutched at the round number with an anxious hope. When it passed and the tawse continued to scorch her skin With eleven and twelve she was about to utter a resentful plaint, but was stopped by her husband’s announcement.
“Thirteen! That should be about right for a start. What d’you think, sweetheart?”
Drusilla schooled herself to caution. She was very helpless and very naked. “I expect it is,” she ventured noncommittally.
“Not sure, darling?”
“Oh, Bryce, don’t tease. I’d have been glad to stop at ten—or even five.”
“Your bottom’s beautiful.”
“It doesn’t feel beautiful.”
“How does it feel?”
“As thought a fire’s burning on it.”
“But you’re not dying?”
“All right, Bryce, you’ve proved your point. I can be whipped and survive. If you’re a little bit kind about laying it on I can manage not to scream.”
“I’m proud of you, ’Silla.”
“I’m proud of myself.” Drusilla cocked an anxious eye.
“But it’s not going to be a daily event, is it?”
“That’s up to you.”
Bryce’s serious rejoinder made the straps seem very tight. “You’re reducing me to childhood, aren’t you? I’m either a good girl or a bad girl. If I’m bad I’m punished?”
“And I lay down the rules.”
“O.K. We’ve gone over this before,” Drusilla agreed wearily. “I’ve just made the discovery that, even after what you’ve just done to me, I don’t want to call it off. I have to be crazy but that’s how it is.” She paused, half ashamed of her admission. Then added, more carefully: “I guess we’ve proved something. You can let me loose now.”
There fell a silence. For the naked woman strapped to the bench it was more eloquent than words. Her heartbeats quickened. She knew!
“In the morning, love.”
“Bryce!” Drusilla’s exclamatory word vibrated with emotion. “You’re not going to leave me strapped to this damned bench all night?”
“Yes, I am, pet.”
Drusilla drew a deep breath and warned herself inwardly: “Careful, girl, careful!” Bryce was no longer predictable. A couple of wrong words and the tawse could be cutting at her again. She forced her tongue to moderation. “Isn’t that taking a mean advantage of me?”
“I don’t think so. You could have asked the same about the handcuffs.”
She was forced to examine his proposition in a way she would not have done in freedom. He was right, of course. Her punishments would vary in degree. But the principle was established. “Do I deserve it?” she asked cautiously.
“Not in the sense you’re thinking of,” he admitted. “But in this—this—thing we’ve agreed on you have to lose a lot of freedom. Some of the loss will be uncomfortable.”
“All right!” She allowed some of her resentment to seep into her words. “Strapped tight like this! I can’t move!”
“Don’t beef, sweetheart. You’re lying down. You’ll sleep.”
“I won’t! I won’t! It’s awful!”
“It can always be worse, ’Silla. Would you prefer standing against the post?”
His tone was a warning she could not ignore. Angrily she knew it best to accept what she must. If she was going to play this experiment out with him she must not be constantly shaming herself with outraged exclamations. She contented herself with sad reproach.
“Oh, Bryce! All right—all right...!”
He kissed the back of her neck and left her alone. Immobility! Helplessness! The totality of it was scary.
For a few moments Drusilla fought the straps to assure herself again of the impossibility of escape. Then desisted. It would be too easy to get into a panic. She hoped it meant something that, despite the indignities, she wanted to hold on to her husband’s regard. A screaming, hysterical woman would get neither of them anywhere. She possessed a safety valve. She must make it sustain her over the humps! Resolutely she closed her mind against an unattractive vista.
On his way out Bryce had lowered the light. The bench and its nude captive reposed in a dim yellow gloom. Chafing at the restraint imposed on her by another’s will, Drusilla became aware of an enemy. It was the strap around her middle. It held her with a venom in which there was something almost personal. Idly she savored the strangeness of being unable to touch herself. Her hands were way off in a captivity of their own. She could not use one to reach down and seek easement. She could do nothing beyond wriggling her fingers and toes or resting her cheek against one or the other of her prisoned arms. She wondered if her pussy was wet! But that was a test impossible. Ignoring discomfort, the woman in bondage turned her thoughts to the increasingly exciting glimpses of eroticism which she had, at first, refused to recognize. She had enjoyed the handcuffs. Silly perhaps, but true. In retrospect, the punishments of her flesh had left her with a glow that burst into flame every time she allowed her mind to dwell on them. At that very moment her bottom was imparting a myriad of messages to which the cleft between her legs was vividly responsive. The straps holding her motionless were the imposition of a male hand—a hand that had loved her! By morning she might hate them. But now, save for the nag at her waist, they bound her with an erotic intimacy that joined forces with her burning bottom to excite... Drusilla’s mind drifted back and forth across the spectrum of her domestic captivity. Soon she slept.
Drusilla had decided to greet her husband in the morning with a remark couched in such a way as to make him properly ashamed of what he had done to her. But the flaring light and his cheery “good morning” caught her dozing in the aftermath of sleep.
“Oh, Bryce... !” Annoyed, she knew her greeting held nothing but thankfulness.