Oblivious to my internal struggles, she said, “If you know what you’re doing, you can make light pressure look heavy. Okay, now you try.”

She shrugged out of her jacket and started unbuttoning her pants.

“What are you doing?” I sounded as freaked out as I felt.

“I’m taking some clothes off. It’s easier to show you closer to skin. Don’t worry, I’m wearing boy shorts, Mr. Chase. I’ll try not to compromise your virtue.”

I muttered incoherent swear words and tried to sac up. I was not a lecherous coworker who had inappropriate thoughts about someone trying to teach me.

Shit, except I was.

And said teacher seemed to think it was funny. “I ask you to take your clothes off and you don’t even blink, but I reach for my pants and you turn into a blushing adolescent. Don’t you do naked scenes all the time? We’re both professionals.”

“Maybe I blush like a teenager for those too.” It was the best response I could come up with.

She switched places with me, bending at the waist and lifting her butt.

I was doomed.

I needed to focus on not making an ass of myself. Not her gloriously plump ass. That she was asking me to spank. Fuck.

I mimicked the way she’d stood next to me, left hand unsteady as I placed it on her lower back and lined my right up with her ass cheek. Then a new worry occurred to me, and I hesitated. “I don’t want to hurt you. I mean, I know the point is to hurt you. But I’m so much bigger and stronger than you.”

“That’s good. That instinct is healthy.” She looked back at me over her shoulder with a saucy smile. “But two things. One, I’m asking you to do it, so you need to respect my desires and not make your sub feel shame for wanting you to do it. And two, I spent years as a pro sub, so there’s not much you can do to my ass with your bare hand that’s going to faze me. I’ll let you know if you’re getting heavy. Remember, you want to stay away from my tailbone, hips, and spine. Aim for the fleshier parts of my butt or the upper thighs. Start light and it’ll be fine.”

Fine. It’ll be fine she says.

I took a deep breath, cupped my hand like she’d shown me, and experimented with light slaps, focusing on the mechanics of how it felt and what it sounded like instead of how soft she was and how her ass bounced alluringly when I tapped it.

“I’m not going to break. You should experiment while you have the chance. Try cupping or flattening your hand more and see what it changes in terms of sensation, sight, and sound. What makes it jiggle? What feels like it sinks deeper? Learning the difference between stingy and thuddy pain may not impact your performance much, but the more you know, the more authentic you can be.”