When his fingers touched them, I felt such terrible pleasure that all I could do was moan.

"You going to break down my door again?"

"Never," I whispered.

"You going to defy me in any way in particular?"

"Never in any way ever."

"Further words?"

"I love you."

"I'm sure."

"But I do," I said sniffling.

The stroking of his fingers on my hurt flesh was insupportably delicious. I didn't dare raise my head. I pressed my cheek against the scratchy embroidered coverlet, against the great picture of the lion stitched into it, and I sucked in my breath and let my tears flow. I felt calm all over; this pleasure robbed me of any control of my limbs.

I closed my eyes, and there came his lips on my leg. He kissed one of the bruises. I thought I would die. I would go to Heaven, that is, some other higher more delicious Heaven even than this Venetian Heaven. Beneath me, my groin was alive with thankful and desperate and isolated strength.

The burning blood flowed over the bruise. The slightly rough stroke of his tongue touched it, lapped at it, pressed it, and the inevitable tingling made a fire in my closed eyes, a blazing fire across a mythical horizon in the darkness of my blind mind.

To the next bruise he went, and there came the trickles of the blood and the lap of his tongue, and the hideous pain departed and there was nothing but a throbbing sweetness. And as he went to the next, I thought, I cannot bear this, I will simply die.

He moved fast, from bruise to bruise, depositing his magical kiss and the stroke of his tongue, and I quivered all over and moaned.

"Some punishment!" I suddenly said with a gasp.

It was a dreadful thing to say! Instantly, I regretted it, the sassiness of it.

But his hand had already come down with a fierce slap on my backside.

"I didn't mean it," I said. "I mean, I didn't mean it to sound so ungrateful. I mean, I'm sorry I said it!" But there was another slap as hot as the first.

"Master, have pity on me. I'm mixed up!" I cried.

His hand lay on me, on the warm surface that he had slapped, and I thought, Oh, now he's going to beat me till I'm unconscious.

But his fingers only gently clasped the skin, which was not broken, only warm as the first welts from the switch had been.

I felt his lips again on the calf of my left leg, and the blood, and his tongue. The pleasure moved all through me, and helpless, I let the air escape my lips in a rosary of sighs.

"Master, Master, Master, I love you."