There was fingernail skittering at the bedroom door, quite low, like a cat scratching to be let in. I said, “Come in!”

A second passed, then the handle turned. Another second passed and the pair of them emerged into the room, Stephanie on her hands and knees, and Maires on her back riding her. Both were naked, their clothes presumably shed in the kitchen. Maires had one hand on Stephanie’s right ear, while her left hand was behind her, holding the riding crop against Stephanie’s left thigh.

Stephanie’s face was a bright red, with darker patches at her cheekbones. Her eyes and nose still ran.

She had, after all, just taken a more severe whipping than I’d ever given Maires, or any submissive. She looked at at the carpet, uncertain if she had permission to look at me or speak. A glistening drop ran down her nose and onto the carpet. I realised that the darker red around her cheekbones wasn’t due to embarrassment but abrasion. When Stephanie had been serving Maires, Maires had clamped her face hard between her thighs, and Stephanie had had to push hard to work her mouth and tongue while tightly held.

Maires said, “Thank you, Master.” She might have been thanking me for permission to enter or her use of Stephanie.

“You’ve obviously had a good time, Maires. But has my new girl had a good time as well?”

Maires said, “I don’t think my ride has ever been so certain, before, that she’s in the place she belongs. And she’s happy to be in her place. Would you mind if I show you, Master?”

“Of course.”

Maires took Stephanie’s right ear in a firmer grip and pulled. Stephanie began to turn, Maires still riding her, until she presented her – and Maires’s for that matter – buttocks and thighs. But while Maires was only lightly marked from discipline I’d given her earlier, Stephanie’s bottom and legs were one large and painful-looking red blotch: a vista of red with occasional darker stripes where the crop had taken her particularly hard.

Maires stood then, her thighs straddling Stephanie, and dismounted. She crossed to the bed and passed me the riding crop. She said, “She took her floggings, and her service well, for a new slave. If I’ve done wrong, Master, please punish me.” She turned away from me and bent herself like a jackknife, her fingertips touching her toes. That was a position she always found slightly uncomfortable, and by choosing it she was making assurances to me about our relationship.

Both women were beautiful, desirable, and presented. I was tempted to take Maires’s offer, and whip her while she was presented, for my own pleasure. Perhaps also because I was slightly ashamed of myself for not having understood the depth of submission that Stephanie wanted, and I was slightly cross with Maires for having been more astute than I’d been.

But while those might be reasons for wanting to flog Maires, they were not good reasons for actually doing it.

I said to Maires, “I’ll deal with you later. For now, get up, love, and stand with your nose to the wall.”

“Yes, Master.” Maires put her hands on her head and walked to press herself against the wall, feet a little apart. She walked to the wall and put her hands on her head, a lithe woman, a clever woman, a woman who knew the relatively pale state of her own skin would not last.

I looked at Stephanie, on her knees with her back to me, her bottom and thighs thoroughly and remorselessly whipped. “You on your hands and knees! Come here!”

Stephanie made to turn and I said, “No! Backwards! Come here, girl.”

She made a sound of understanding, then said, “Yes, Master.” I watched her approach, her cunt and smaller hole seeming to watch me as she crawled. She stopped when I laid the shaft of the crop on her lower back.

I said, “Spread,” and she acknowledged the order then moved her knees about half a metre apart, her back arched like a cat. I clasped her cunt, hard, between two fingers, not seeking to give her pleasure or reward. She was wonderfully wet,  slippery, engorged: I released my grip on her labia and spanked her, starting at medium hard and quickly building up to full punishment spanking.

But I’d have to stop soon, I realised. It was hard not giving Stephanie loving words, to let her know that though we hurt her physically we loved her. As well, she was enjoying the feel of my bare hand against her cunt too much. I shouldn’t be giving Stephanie pleasure. Her world had to be harsh, for now. So I stopped the spanking and said, “Maires taught you a lot about your place, didn’t she?”

“Oh, yes, Master. Thank you, Mistress!” Maires, her body pressed against the wall, said nothing. She knew she didn’t have permission to speak.

[To be continued]