She debated what the right answer was, or if there was one, and before she could come to a conclusion, she felt the hot leather high on one thigh like an explosion of tiny stars.

“A cat-o’-nine-tails,” he said, and there were a thousand more stars, “is used,” and more, “to discipline little girls. Do you think you need to be disciplined?” he asked.

Her mouth steamed with saliva and her heart started to race. A million times she had played this in her head, and now it was real. Each explosion on her skin insisted it was.

“Hmm?” he said, and brought the whip down again.

“Yes,” she said, and it spilled out as if there were someone else speaking for her.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes … I,” she stuttered and tried to force the words out, “need to be disciplined.”

There was a pause, and she could feel him tighten his grip on the whip, feel him take a slow breath in and then out again. He stepped behind her and tapped the thin leather tassels against her thighs. “Yes, Sir,” he said.

The words snaked through her ears and into her brain, and she felt tickled harshly from the inside out.

“Yes what?” he asked.

She could feel the leather tapping insistently against her thigh, and she opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.

“Yes what?” he asked again, but this time it was not a question, and she felt suddenly safe in the command.

“Yes, Sir,” she whispered.

“Good girl.” He ran his fingers through her hair, brushed his lips against her neck. “Do you like this?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

He stood still, his fingers fixed in her hair, and waited. His other hand had found her breast, and soon he pulled his hand away and placed it firmly on the back of her neck. “I thought we had just gone over this,” he said. “I thought we had just talked about how you were to answer me.” He squeezed her gently. “Am I wrong?”

The blood drained to her feet, and she shook her head.

“How are you to answer?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Did you forget?”

“No, Sir.”

“So you disobeyed me on purpose?”

“No … Sir,” she said.

“Then you forgot?”

She spun in circles, wonderful, maddening circles, charged with the game and the unspoken rules, and how easily they had found themselves here. If it was a game, it didn’t matter, all that mattered was the force of his commands and the insistent flick of the whip.

“Would you like to know what I think?” He circled behind her. “I think you want to be disciplined. I think that you like getting your ass whipped, that it turns you on.”

Yes, Josie thought, I do, I do.