He didn’t speak, just took her wrists in his hand and slowly fastened the buckles and threaded the rope. She could feel her impatience building, and she clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. He pulled her slowly to the bed and bound her wrists to one of the tall bedposts. It seemed to take forever—each knot meticulous—and finally she couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Hurry,” she said.

He looked up at her slowly.

“I said hurry.”

His eyes blazed, and he slapped her across the face. Her hands went instinctively for her cheek, but the rope held her tightly. She looked down. The carpet rolled beneath her feet and then seemed completely gone. She was suspended in the thick murky air. She shook her head. She was not ready to go so far away so quickly. She wanted to be present in the moment, body and mind beaten together.

“You want to beaten, huh?” He stepped back.

“Yes,” she said, and instantly he snatched a light cat-o’-nine tails and brought it down firmly across the middle of her backside.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure you’ll be saying that shortly. I think you’ll be begging me to stop.”

“No, I won’t.” But she knew if he did it as hard and as long as she wanted him to, it would eventually push whimpers, cries, and then words up from her belly. She would have to bite something to keep quiet, and now she wanted him to gag her.

“Gag me,” she said. She didn’t think he would. He would tie her or gag her, but doing both left her no way to signal him to stop.

He didn’t say anything, just walked behind her.

“Gag me.”

“I suggest you watch what you say.”

“Gag me!” she said.

He brought the cat-o’-nine tails down quickly on her thigh. She jumped, but she knew that light whip would do little more than stripe her back.

“I said, ‘I suggest you watch what you say.’”

She stamped her foot. She needed to make him angry—really angry—to make this beating come from someplace violent and unfamiliar, to enrage him so much that he would finally punish her.

“I don’t want you to use that,” she said.

“I don’t care what you want,” he said, and brought it down again.

She caught her breath but held firm. “That’s a baby whip,” she said.

“Then it’s perfect for using on babies.”

“Use something harder,” she said.

“No.” He brought it down again, and she gritted her teeth.

“I’m not asking, I’m telling.”

“Stop it,” he warned.

“Coward!”

And then she heard the whip drop to the floor with a thud, the whistle of his belt through his belt loops, the swish of the leather through air, and then the searing pain on her right thigh.