Author: Tiffany Reisz

She laid the flogger back on the table.

“And this…you know what this is, don’t you?” She lifted another object, this one similar to the flogger but more sinister looking.

“A cat-o’-nine-tails, ma’am,” Michael answered.

“Very good. This is a lighter variation of the kind used to discipline sailors in the British Navy. Even this lighter version could break your skin if I wanted it to. But if I use it on you correctly, you’ll have the loveliest freckle bruises on you tomorrow courtesy of these little knots on the ends of the cords. Here,” she said, handing it to him.

Michael accepted it with almost trembling hands. He touched the knots, hefted its deceptively light weight.

“You know, there was an even smaller version of this that was used on the cabin boys aboard ship,” Nora said with laughter in her voice. “Guess what it was called?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said shrugging.

“A boy’s pussy,” she said, grinning wickedly. She took the cat back from him. “You didn’t know you were going to get a history lesson tonight, did you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I believe in the value of a thorough education. Tawse,” she said, naming the heavy leather strap that lay next to the flogger. “Used to discipline schoolchildren in the nineteenth century. It won’t break the skin but it will burn like fire. And this,” she said sliding one more object off the table, “is exactly what it looks like.”

“A cane, ma’am.”

“Exactly. Rattan cane, ten millimeters thick, seventy-six centimeters long. So painful that its use on prisoners has been condemned by the United Nations. It can not only permanently scar a person but permanently disable them as well. Even used lightly on the buttocks or thighs, the pain will be so intense that you will choke on it. Traditionally six strokes are delivered at a time; five horizontal and one diagonal. That is called barring the gate. It’s sadistic enough that your own priest rarely uses it on me. Although, admittedly, sometimes I do deserve it.”

Nora stepped back and with astonishing expertise twirled the cane in her fingers like a baton. He could hear the hissing sound as the reedy wood sliced through the air.

“Now…” Nora placed the cane back on the table. “Choose.”

“Choose?” he asked, unable to take his eyes off the dozen or so various kinds of floggers, whips and canes on the table.

“Yes. Pick one. Whatever you pick I will use on you tonight. So think about it carefully.”

Nora stepped away and left him alone at the table. He heard her opening a trunk near the bed to take out something. But he didn’t dare turn around to see what it was.

Michael raised his hand and passed it over the objects on the table.

I could beat you with this until you  cried.

Loveliest freckle bruises.

It will burn like fire.

You will choke on it.

“This one, ma’am,” he said, picking up the cat-o’-nine-tails. He turned around and Nora gestured for him to bring it to her. She was standing at the foot of the bed. She took it from him. His pulse quickened as she twined the lashes through her fingers.

“Angel,” she said as she gripped the thongs and pulled them taut. “This will hurt you. Badly.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Nora raised her eyebrow at him.

“One for you. And one for me.”

She tossed the cat onto the bed and picked up the cane again. Michael swallowed hard but said nothing.

“Come,” Nora said. “Stand dead center between the bedposts. Face the bed. Back to me. Take heavy, deep breaths. Focus on the heat from the fireplace. Let it seep into your muscles.”

Michael obeyed as best he could. He knew he needed to relax. As he stood and breathed as instructed, Nora clamped leather bondage cuffs around his ankles. The tension in his legs started to dissipate. She grabbed his scarred wrists and yanked them behind his back. As she cuffed his wrists, the stress he carried in his arms and shoulders flowed through his veins and out of his fingertips. He inhaled sharply as she brought a black leather collar around his throat and buckled it at the base of his neck.

“Now, Angel,” Nora whispered in his ear as she ran her hand over the one part of his body that remained tense, “let’s spread your wings.”

She raised his left arm and bound it to a leather cord at the top of the bedpost. With his right arm she did the same. His arms stretched out into a full, wide wingspan.

“Breathe the heat of the fire into your arms,” Nora said as she strapped a two-foot spreader bar to his ankles. “Feel them getting longer with each breath.”

Michael pulled on his bonds and found he couldn’t move. They had no give at all. He couldn’t run away, couldn’t escape. Trapped, imprisoned, helpless…

Nora picked up the flogger from the bed.

There was nowhere else in the world he wanted to be.

“What’s your safe word?” Nora asked.

“Wings.” Michael answered.

“You’ll say that word if you want me to stop, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good boy. Now take one more breath. This will only hurt a little bit. Oh, wait,” she said, laughing. “No, it won’t. It’ll hurt a lot.”

With that one last taunt, Nora took a step back and landed a hard blow right in the center of Michael’s back. He gasped from the shock of the pain. He had the time to inhale and exhale only once before the second blow hit. The third one struck his left flank, the fourth his right. Nora painted crosses across his back with the flogger and each slash left him crying out.

Fire…she’d lit his back on fire. When the blows finally ceased, Michael could do nothing but drop his head to his chest and pant. His heart raced, his blood burned. He’d never felt calmer in his life.

“Here,” Nora said as she brought a small glass of water to his lips. “Drink.”

She tilted the glass and he drank the water with a grateful gulp.

“You did very well,” Nora said. “You took a lot of pain for a beginner and didn’t even beg me to stop. Think you can take more?”

Could he take more? Did he want to take more? His entire back smoldered from neck to hip.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“God, I love masochists,” Nora said, setting the glass aside. “Such gluttons for punishment.”

Nora slid the cane off the bed and Michael’s body stiffened in fear.

“Six-bar gate,” she said. “Just one. Upper thighs. Then we’re done. Ready?”

He couldn’t bring himself to say yes. But he swallowed air again and nodded. Behind him he heard that hissing whistle again.

“You know, Angel, some people say it’s the sound of the cane that’s the worst part. Personally, I think that’s bullshit. What do you think?”

At that, he experienced a pain so excruciating that it would have dropped him to his knees had he not been tied up.

The second strike came before he could recover from the first.

“You see why it’s used for interrogations?”

“Yes—” he cried out as the third blow fell. The pain stabbed into his legs and shot through to his stomach. The agony was so acute, the pain so precise he could feel exactly where Nora placed each blow. Perfectly spaced, one inch apart.

The third felt like a knife on his skin instead of a cane.

The fourth and fifth he couldn’t even feel.

But the sixth landed diagonally across all five and the sound that escaped his lips sounded foreign to him, strange, like the cry of a wounded animal instead of a person.

Michael sagged in his bonds, barely aware of his surroundings. When Nora untied his arms, they dropped like dead weight to his sides. She unshackled his ankles and he hardly noticed.

Nora pressed her body into his burning back.

“Good boy,” she whispered. “I’m very proud of you.”

Proud of him? When was the last time anyone said they were proud of him? If Nora said she wanted to cane him again, he would have said, “Yes, ma’am.”

She stepped away and sat in a large leather armchair. She snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor by her feet.

Michael floated to her more than walked. A pleasant light-headedness gripped him. The sharp pains in his back and thighs had turned into a gentle throbbing. When he knelt at the floor by Nora’s feet, he half hoped she’d let him curl up in her lap and sleep.

“You did such a good job, Angel, that I’m going to give you a reward. Well, both of us a reward really.”

Nora’s shifted in the chair and draped one leg over each chair arm. Underneath her short, tight skirt she wore absolutely nothing.

“Do I need to tell you what to do?” Nora asked.

Michael licked his suddenly dry lips.

“Good start,” she said.

Heart pounding, Michael laid his hands on her inner thighs and brought his mouth to her. He’d dreamed of doing this to Nora, servicing her sexually. And now he could feel her swollen clitoris against his tongue. He took the little silver ring that pierced her hood between his lips as he brought his fingers up and slid two of them inside her. He had no idea what he was doing. Apart from a few awkward preteen kisses and gropings, he’d never been sexual with anyone other than Nora. He had zero experience with oral sex and nothing going for him but enthusiasm. From the sound of her ragged breathing, the enthusiasm seemed to be doing the trick.

She felt so wet and warm on his fingers, tasted so sweet and tart on his lips. How did Father S get anything done with this woman waiting for him back at the rectory?

Michael pushed his tongue far into her and her hips rose off the chair.

“Stop,” she ordered and Michael pulled away, wiping his lips off with the back of his hand. “On the bed. Now.”

He remembered Nora’s instructions and moved slowly, not hurrying too much to do her bidding. Kneeling on the bed, he waited as Nora came to him and shoved him onto his back. She grabbed his arms and pushed them over his head. Using a snap hook to connect his wrist cuffs, she secured his hands to the bars of the bed.

“Knees up,” she said. “Spread your legs.”

Just then he noticed the tube of lubricant in her hand.

“Forgive me,” Nora said. “I’m just a little a curious about something. Some men love this. Some hate it. Some are indifferent. I don’t care either way. Your order is to be honest and tell me if you like it or not. Say ‘yes, ma’am’ if you understand.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Michael said, his hands going numb with nervousness. He wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do to him. But if it involved lube he had a fairly good idea.

She rubbed the liquid over two fingers on her right hand, and with her left hand, moved his knees farther apart.

“Shallow breaths, close your eyes,” Nora said. “This won’t hurt but it will feel weird at first.”

Michael nodded and obediently closed his eyes. He felt Nora’s fingers on him. If he had any shame or pride left he would have been mortified by how ridiculously aroused he was. He inhaled sharply as he felt Nora’s cold, wet fingers on him. Gently, so gently he sighed, she slid one finger inside him.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She pushed in deep and went deeper. Michael fought the urge to tense, to push her out.

“Now you know what women go through every time we get penetrated,” Nora said. “Like it?”

“It’s…intense.”

“Good word for it. It’s about to get more intense. Ready?”

Michael nodded.

Nora slid in deeper and Michael felt her fingertip against what felt like a tight knot of tissue deep inside him. Gently she rubbed and Michael’s back arched off the bed as a lightning bolt of pleasure shot through him.