For the usual reasons, I can’t show Arethusa’s face. So you have to miss out on her smile. She’s not smiling at me, though she knows I’ve come round to take this photo. It’s an inward smile. It’s that she’s contented.

Sure, she’s tied across a table, getting her ass strapped and caned. Her arse is certainly red and striped, and she passes the legendary Masters’ hand-temperature gauge: yes, in fact that ass is hot!

But a hot sore arse can be a beautiful feeling to the person who experiences it, in the sense that all those yummy nerve endings down there are connected to others that tingle in her cunt and ultimately reach her brain. Wouldn’t work for everybody, but it does for Arethusa.  

But still, it’s punishment. And being tied down is a warning that it’s going to be severe. Rhetorically, that is. Really she’s tied down because she told me it’s hotter when she can’t move.

But even though we’re both enjoying ourselves, and we both know it, this also really does work as the expiation of a fault.

In a slave’s life of course misconduct has to have consequences. But once the consequences have been delivered, she knows it’s her duty to move on and not feel guilty for that failing ever again. It’s paid for and done. So there’s peace there. And therefore beatific smiles. 

And she knows she’s turning me on, and I know I’m turning her on. Genitals engorge; we’re ready for each other, once I’ve finished my duty.

A table. Of contentment.

Modigliani has always been one of my favourite artists. I don’t think I could claim he was great on a par with Botticelli or Turner or Ernst,* but he might be the painter whose work I like most. Mostly because of his nudes, but not entirely. 

Anyway, here are two reclining nudes. The nude of flesh, not paint, has painted herself, to some extent, but I couldn’t help adding some colour of my own. 

Modigliani said, “You are not alive unless you know you are living.” That sounds like a Deepity, one of those Inspirational Quotes that don’t mean anything in particular, but it’s about reflecting on yourself and on your dreams and desires, as you live them. You must be alert, self-reflective and conscious to fully experience beauty and pleasure. 

He also said, “With one eye you are looking at the world, while with the other you are looking within yourself.” That’s what human and especially woman’s beauty does for us, or maybe I just mean me. It makes us want to be aware, and to work to achieve that awareness.  * Wot? No Impressionists, no Cubists, no-one whose stuff might get in one of the Guggenheims? Yeah, nah.  What a wank most 20th century art was, especially the stuff curators and critics dribbled over.

When I bent Arethusa over a bed, my belt keeping her warm and red, she couldn’t always keep still. A wiggling girl, presenting a moving target. But keeping herself presented, just the same.

Time gets blurred, red and hot too, when Arethusa was over a bed.

Some days you just don’t want to get out of bed. But it doesn’t matter what you want: you’re staying where you are. Help less. Your Master has a riding crop in his hand and an erection. He is smiling. You can guess some of the things that will happen soon. But not all.

So bed is a good place to be. 

We’d been fucking constantly for nearly two days. Her cunt and my cock were getting tender, though she was a wet girl and we hadn’t lost any skin. We stopped fucking only for occasional bursts of food.

She’d made soup the day before, so that and warm bread was what we had when we weren’t fucking. The only other reason for not fucking was for me to apply my paddle or my belt to her arse. I liked the heat of her arse when I fucked her from behind her behind. 

But we’d discovered each other, and we woke up something in each other: skin hunger. We needed to hold tight, to fuck, and I needed to colour her beautiful arse and thighs as much as I could. Her skin needed to feel me, hard, in every sense, on her skin. We still weren’t finished with each other. Skin hunger.

But then, while I was spanking her with my hand, after I’d put down the paddle, I realised she wasn’t quite with me any more. She’d fallen asleep while getting spanked. I’ve never had that happen before, or since. So I got onto her bed and pulled her up beside me. She settled in my arms and kissed my neck, still asleep. I probably dropped off too, for an hour or so. 

But we weren’t finished. 

Some girls get dick pics. Slavegirls get pics of a nice pervertable, found in a supermarket, plus a “?” 

She texted back, “Yes, please!” 

So my shopping was done. But as a good, loving Master, I still had work to do…

After a caning, and a cuddle and other comforts, Arethusa was supposed to think about her misconduct. And wait for me to come back with tea, bickies and condoms. 

But … you can’t always wait, can you?

Heat, colour and desire, in the dark.

Arethusa in disgrace. Hands on head, nose in the corner. 

I didn’t make her do that often, and when she had to wait for discipline, she knew I thought her offence was serious and the punishment was going to be serious as well.

In this case she’d handed an essay in two days’ late, so it only got marked out of 80%. She’d both disobeyed a direct order AND harmed her own interests, and she knew that those were the two things I said I’d never accept. 

When I took this photo I said, “You know you deserve what’s coming, don’t you? You can speak.”

Arethusa said, “Yes, of course I know that, Master. I don’t know why I can’t get started on essays till it’s too late. Even though I know you’ll punish me.”

“I know, punishment doesn’t fix all of the problems. But I’m afraid it’s part of the answer.”

She nodded to herself. This was true.

“Afterwards,” I said, “We’ll talk about it.”*

• Actually, afterwards there was care and after-punishment sex, and then after-sex sleep. So the talking part of “afterwards” began quite late. The solution involved Arethusa keeping me advised of each essay topic and hand-in date, with a compulsory slavegirl/Master talk about how she was going to approach her essay a week before hand-in day, and the essay to be sent to me the day before hand-in deadline, so I could proof it for typos, clarity etc. She never did completely avoid university crimes, after that, but at least the serious ones became rare.

Sometimes I make her arse hurt. With my hand, usually, because I love that touch, skin to skin, and that impact, her beautiful round arse, her little movement under my hand, and her yelp. I love those things so much.

But it’s only fair that I hurt her a bit. She’s cute. She’s playful. And so sexy it hurts.