She did stop, at this moment. She stopped in sheer exhaustion, and sank down again on the side of the bed, panting convulsively. She turned her head and looked at his back and bottom, drenched in blood. She had told him that she was going to cut him into strips but she had said it more to excite him than as a serious promise. She now saw that she had indeed cut him into more strips than she had intended. She gazed at the welter of bleeding weals and sucked in her breath with satisfaction.
"Yes," she said, leaning forward and ruffling his hair from behind, "that was quite a good thrashing. I enjoyed it very much. Did you?"
He turned his head slowly. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, failed, swallowed, and tried again. His voice came in a croak. "Have you finished?"
"Yes. Was it nice?" She knew it could not possibly have been. He was not sufficiently masochistic-except in his mind. But she could not resist the temptation to tease him. "Did you enjoy it?"
"Don't be damned silly! Of course I didn't enjoy it."
"What a pity. I wonder why. You wanted me to thrash you, didn't you?" A quick stab of fear crossed her heart. Perhaps she had really gone too far. "Didn't you?" she repeated, ruffling his hair again.
"Yes," he said grumpily. "But not like that. Not so hard as that." He twisted himself over on his side. "Good Christ!" he said, as he saw the state of the car-cover. "Look at all this blood!" The rubber of the cover was covered with hundreds of large and small spots of blood, which had risen into the air with the lashes, and had fallen in an arc on either side of him.
"Yes," she said silkily. "Your blood. I wonder how much you've lost."
He frowned. "But seriously, you really did let yourself go, didn't you?"
She smiled. "Yes, I did. Do you mind very much? I mean, do you want to cancel our arrangement-and not do it again?"
"No," he said at once. "I don't want to cancel our arrangement." Now that the thrashing, and its immediate insufferable agony, had ended, he started to enjoy the thought and the memory of it. His penis began to stiffen. She had given him a tremendous thrashing-and he had been strong enough, tough enough, to take it. "You can do it again whenever you want."
She breathed an inward sigh of relief. "That will be very often."
He lifted himself up a little and looked at what he could see of his bleeding bottom and legs. "Good Christ!" he repeated. "Tell me. what do you get out of this? You're a sadist, I know. But why? What do you get out of it?"
She put her elbows on her knees, and her head on her hands. "I'm not sure." she said slowly. "But I think it is the idea that I, a mere girl, can subjugate a member of the strong, superior sex. The lords of creation! Isn't that what men are called? Well, I have just thrashed one of them. I ordered him to lie down on his bed. I told him not to get up. I didn't have to tie him down to the bed because I knew he would obey me. You see? He, a lord of creation, would obey me, a mere girl. And he did obey me, didn't he? He lay there and took a thrashing-quite a severe thrashing-from my hand. He cried out for me to stop, but naturally I took no notice." She was silent for a moment "Yes, I think that that is the principal thing I get out of it. Power. Of course, though, I love the idea that I'm giving pain. That's why I can get a thrill out of thrashing a girl or a woman. I am giving them pain. And pain is really something clean and poetic. You said that a whip is. You are right. But it is clean and poetic because it gives such clean and poetic pain. But it is never so pleasant, so thrilling with a woman. The really great thrill comes from the total subjugation of one of the lords of creation. And when he happens to be big and strong-like you-it's quite the most sublime thrill in the world."
"I see," she said. "Yes, I think I see. But do you get anything out of ordinary sex?"
"Goodness, yes," she said. "A tremendous amount. Much more than a woman does who is not a sadist. You are going to make love to me now. And because I have thrashed you I am going to enjoy it twenty times-a hundred times-more than I would if I hadn't thrashed you. I'm all a-tingle because of what I've done to you." She put a hand to his half-erected penis. "I hope this will not let me down, though. Oh no"-it stiffened immediately at her touch-"I see it won't. Good. Move over. I'm coming." She stood up and slipped out of her negligee. She stood, naked, looking down at him.
"You're going to lie in all this blood?"
"Of course. I brought it, didn't I? I love it. It belongs to me." She lay down beside him, shivering a little at the coldness of the rubber. "I want to roll over and over in it. I want to cover my body with it." She threw herself over his back and legs, pressing him down on to his stomach and face again. She wriggled and squirmed against his lacerated flesh, pressing her mound into the blood of the weals on his bottom. She put her mouth to the weals of his shoulder-blades. She put out her tongue and ran it lightly along one of the weals. "I want to drink it," she said, taking her tongue back into her mouth and savouring the taste of the blood that had gathered at its tip. She swallowed what she could, and put out her tongue again. She ran it along another weal. "Does this hurt?" she asked, as she felt him flinch beneath her.
"Yes."
"Very much?"
"Yes."
"Good." She swallowed again. "Does it hurt as much as what caused it?"
"No, not as much as that."
"No, I suppose not. I must bring some salt up next time and rub it into you. But for now-what shall I do to give you some more pain? Oh yes, I know." She slid her hands under his chest and took hold of his nipples with her fingertips. She squeezed them hard.
He cried out at once.
His cry made her feel weak with sexual longing. She rolled off his back and lay flat. She seized his penis. "Come on," she said, pulling it roughly. "Turn over and make love to me."
He turned on to his side again and crawled on top of her. "For God's sake don't pull it like that. You'll pull it off. And then how shall I make love to you?"
She released his penis and took hold of his testicle bag. "Shall I give this a little squeeze?"
"If you do," he said seriously, "I certainly shan't be able to make love to you tonight."
She sighed, and sank her fingernails lightly into its flesh. "What a pity. All right, I won't squeeze it tonight. But I promise I'll give it such a squeezing one of these days-when I don't want you to make love to me. I'll do it the day I tie you down for the whole of the day." She guided the knob of his penis to her vagina, which was very wet. She agitated it backwards and forwards against the vagina-lips. "Don't hurry. Don't go in yet. Let me do this for a little while."
He lowered his head and took one of her nipples in his teeth. He bit it lightly. She gave a small moan of pleasure. He did the same thing to the other nipple. Then he raised his head. "Don't you want me to put something on myself? You don't want to have a baby."
"I'm quite all right," she said. "The safe period."
"I hope so."
"So do I. But we can't stop now." She gave a deep shuddering sigh and pushed his penis inside her. She put her hands up to his shoulders and gripped them hard, her nails sinking into his flesh. "Come on now. Be rough with me. Be violent. Take me."
He rammed his penis home as hard, and as far, as he could. He took hold of her hair and twisted it round his fingers, pulling her head roughly from side to side. "All right," he said between his teeth, "I'm one of the lords of creation again, eh? You need me for this sort of thing, don't you?"