“Come in, pet.”
“Thank you, Sir.” She put her purse, phone, and glasses on the counter and turned to face him, ready to drop to her knees at his signal.
Instead of the expected gesture to kneel, his hand shot out and grabbed her ponytail.
Now she knew why he’d ordered her to wear her hair that way.
He forcefully pulled her head back, so she had to bend her knees to follow the movement. It forced her to look up into his eyes as he leaned in so close she could feel his breath.
So close she could kiss him if he’d just lean in a millimeter closer.
His voice dropped to a deep growl. “You were a very disrespectful pet Wednesday night.”
Her juices flowed as fear and desire struggled for domination in her body.
Unfortunately, desire fought dirty and kicked fear in the balls before locking it in a closet.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” she whispered.
“I know you are. Not as sorry as you will be. You agreed to punishment, correct?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Punishment does not include a safeword. Not this time. You have two choices. You accept my punishment, or you leave and we part amicably.”
“Punishment, please, Sir.” The words left her without hesitation.
The hint of a smile returned. “Good girl.” He marched her by her hair, still bent over, to the playroom.
He took her to one of the spanking benches and forced her across it. “Stay.” When he released her hair, she froze in place, barely breathing and wondering if he could smell how wet she was.
He buckled the leather cuffs around her wrists and ankles and then grabbed her hair again, pulling her back into a standing position. “Dress off.”
She lifted it up. He switched holding her ponytail with his other hand so he could take the dress from her. He tossed it onto the floor, then bent her over the bench again.
“Hands down, and hold on to the bench.”
She reached down and grabbed the base on either side.
“Legs spread apart.”
She did.
Only then did he let go of her ponytail. He knelt next to her. “You are accepting your punishment. I will not restrain you. If you fight me or get up, the session ends and you leave. If you really want to continue, you will take every stroke I give you. I will not force you to take them. You will choose to take them. That’s why you have no safeword, because you are free to get up and walk away. Understand?”
Her fingers tightened around the bench. “Yes, Sir,” she whispered.
He stood and walked behind her. She couldn’t see where he went, but when he returned and she heard the first zwip cut through the air, she knew exactly what he held in his hand.
Only a rattan cane made that sound.
“Twenty-five for disrespect. Count every one out aloud. If you miscount, I start over. We will stay here as long as it takes, even if it means missing dinner and the club, for a full count of twenty-five. Understand?”
She felt the endorphins kicking in already. “Yes, Sir.” She tightened her grip on the bench even more, knowing these would hurt like a motherfucker.
And she’d show him she could take it.
She’d show him how sorry she was.
She’d prove it.
“Here we go.”
She closed her eyes as she heard the cane’s path even as it struck her squarely across the ass. She let out a cry as a stripe of fire seemed to follow in the same breath. “One, Sir,” she said with a shaky voice.
She was sobbing by the time he hit five, and suspected the endorphins had really driven her deeply into subspace because every stroke, while painful, felt lighter than the last from number ten on out, although they all hurt like a son of a bitch and drew a loud cry from her with each impact.
By the time they reached twenty-five, she hadn’t missed a single count and she was sobbing so badly a puddle of snot and drool had formed under her cheek where it pressed against the bench.
He grabbed a towel and walked over to her, tenderly tucking it under her face. His hand lightly stroked her ass and thighs where she knew there would be welts and marks visible to the whole dungeon that night.
But she’d done it. She’d taken them for him. The fire in her ass from every stripe he’d laid in her flesh was worth it.
He gathered her against him. “That’s my good girl,” he softly said, rocking her in his arms. “There’s my very good pet. All the bad gone. The board’s reset, and my pet’s all good again.”
She sobbed even harder, so relieved to hear the tenderness return to his tone. She clutched at him. “I’m sorry, Sir. I’m so sorry.”
He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “All’s forgiven, pet. In the future, you will code and talk to me, no matter how uncomfortable it feels. I will be patient with you, but you cannot fight me like that. You have to talk to me.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Tony wondered how long it would take her to discover the ruse. She’d howled like she’d taken a hell of a beating, and in her distress that was what she thought she had.
She had two, maybe three cane stripes on her ass that would probably fade by the end of the night. The rest were light strokes he delivered with a thin metal rod he’d grabbed from the freezer in the utility room just before he started. In her deep subspace, she’d processed the cold as pain, especially when he’d combined it with swishing the real rattan cane in the air with his other hand to make the sound as he’d touched the cold rod to her ass.
When he saw she genuinely wanted to atone, he’d gone for the mindfuck, glad to be able to use it and not having the heart to truly whip her ass. Mark her head to toe in fun?
Sure.
Punishment?
He hated having to do it. She’d obviously beaten herself up mentally far more than he could ever in good conscience beat her physically.
And she hadn’t let go of the bench once. Not even after the first couple of blows from the rattan cane, which were physically the hardest strikes he’d delivered.
When she finally calmed, he waited until she blew her nose in the towel to point to the floor. She slid to her knees.
“Greeting, pet,” he softly said.
She immediately bent to kiss his feet, the sight of her rounded back as she did stirring his cock. Then she kissed the backs of his hands.
Then she nuzzled the front of his slacks before looking up at him, eyes red and puffy from crying.
She was beautiful.
He helped her to her feet and handed her dress to her. “Good girl. Go clean up, pet, and meet me in the living room.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He was sitting on the couch when she walked in a few minutes later looking confused.
That didn’t take long. “Problem, pet?” He patted the couch next to him and had her curl up with her head in his lap.
“I’m confused, Sir.”
He bit the inside of his lip to stifle the laughter. “Why?”
“You gave me punishment.”
“Yes?”
“And I counted out twenty-five strokes.”
“Yes?”
“I only have a couple of marks, Sir. Not that I’m complaining,” she rapidly added.
He laughed. “Oh, my sweet pet. Let me tell you about the art of a truly fine mindfuck.”
Shayla awoke late Sunday morning with a sore ass and a happy heart. She’d laughed along with Tony when he explained the various ways to mindfuck someone in a scene. Including relating a firsthand anecdote he’d read from someone who’d been convinced they’d had chunks of their flesh taken from their body, which was then cooked and fed to them, only to find out a few minutes later they didn’t have a scratch on their body.
Obviously, that had been the extreme end of the scale, but after having been through it she could understand it.