Page 83 of Shamefully Trained

My legs felt weak by the time I reached the bed. He followed me in, slower than I was moving, which somehow made it worse. There was no hurry in him. No doubt at all.

“Kneel on the bed.”

I obeyed.

“Bend over. Hands flat.”

The mattress shifted under me as I leaned forward. My pulse had begun to hammer. I heard a faint metallic sound from the vicinity of the floor. I heard fabric rustle, and my fevered brain put it together immediately: he had taken his belt from his discarded trousers. A whimper escaped me.

“Still refusing?” he asked.

I pressed my lips together.

The first lash landed across my bottom with a violent sting that made me cry out and arch. I thought of Gowry, and I realized with a gasp that Gowry had none of Porter’s skill in punishing women. My sponsor’s belt felt sharper, thinner, more shocking, the leather folding around the curve of me and burning into the skin of my bottom.

“Answer me,” he said.

I shook my head once, tears springing instantly to my eyes.

The second stroke came lower. I sobbed.

“Tell me what you were imagining.”

“I don’t want to.”

The third strike cut across the backs of my thighs and I broke, gasping. “Oh… oh, God…”

“Sir.”

“Oh, sir…”

The fourth lash made me collapse farther onto my forearms. My hair fell over my face. I could feel my own body betraying me already, the awful hot pulse between my legs answering the punishment instead of learning proper shame from it.

“Talk.”

I tried not to. I really did. But the belt came again, then again, each lash precise and terrible, and before long the pain had braided itself with the image in my mind so tightly that I could no longer tell whether I was being punished for the fantasy or driven deeper into it.

“I thought…” I choked.

He waited.

Another stroke.

“I thought about Gowry,” I cried.

“Go on.”

The humiliation of saying it seemed almost worse than the beating. My scalp prickled so intensely that it became actually painful. “I thought about… about you…” Another breath broke apart in me. “About you caning me in front of him.”

Silence.

I could hear my own ragged breathing, and somewhere beyond it the muted city far below.

Then, very quietly: “And?”

I shook with shame. “And then letting him…” I couldn’t finish.

The belt kissed my skin once more, not as hard, but enough.