Sa’afia rolled her eyes, and didn’t care who saw it, even if it was the man with the rod in his hand, who was using it to tap her bottom with some force now. To show her I’d seen that eye-roll I swung the stick a little harder, this time making an audible impact and leaving a vertical stripe down her left buttock.

She shook for a second, and arched her back. She was very beggy.    

“You know, you have no idea how beautiful you look. And hot.” This wasn’t quite true. She knew I was hard. When I’d pushed her head forward she’d rubbed my cock with her forehead, like a cat claiming ownership of a human’s hand.

I pressed her against my cock while I swung the rod again and striped her right buttock. Sa’afia hissed in breath, then turned slightly to kiss my inner thigh through the wool of my pants. 

With that kiss, some things became urgent. I considered making her open my belt and my fly with her teeth, but it’d take longer than I was ready to wait. I unbuckled and unzipped, and let my cock free, pronging the air in the general direction of Sa’afia’s nose.  

I tightened my grip on Sa’afia’s hair and guided her onto my cock. Her lips pressed a soft ring around the head, and I pressed forward. We both said, “Hahh,” at more or less the same instant.

I waited, holding the rod high until Sa’afia forgot, for a microsecond to be tense. I struck quickly, still medium hard. Hard wood and soft thigh met, loudly. I could feel the impact, transmitted down the length of the rod to my hand. I could feel the sweet resilience of her. 

Sa’afia’s sensations were intense where mine were subtle. She shook her head under her clasped hands. “Ahh-ooahhhh.” It was breathed through her obediently open mouth, not spoken. She puffed twice more, until the pain was under control. In a few seconds it would start to feel warm and sexually strong. The new line on her thigh formed and darkened. Her marks were beautiful.

I nodded. “Good. Good girl. Now, can you remember how many strokes you’re going to get on the back of your thighs?” 

Sa’afia nodded. There was a little shine of saliva at the left corner of her mouth. “‘es, sir.” She kept her mouth open, as instructed, even when she spoke. “Ten.” 

“Good. You’ll bend over and touch your toes for them. No, stupid girl. Not yet!” 

“Sir?” 

“One other thing first. You can put your hands down now.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And keep your mouth open, stupid girl, or I’ll punish you.”

The first time I’d said ‘stupid girl’ I’d worried if it was traditional, or just a cliché. Well, the next thing I said would be both. 

“Now, girl. Kneel.” 

Sa’afia said, “ah.” 

Sa’afia held the rod clasped between her upper thighs. I lifted it a little, so it pressed against her cunt. Sa’afia moved her left foot a little further leftwards, and moved her hips forward so that a little sliver of the rod disappeared beteeen pink folds. I lifted the rod a little to make the angle more pleasing, and Sa’afia closed her eyes, riding a cock horse. A couple of centimetres of the rod gleamed darkly in the light. She’d got it wet.

I took it away again once she’d relaxed. It was crueller than striking her thighs with it. She opened her eyes wide, shocked, and her mouth to protest. The rod had been wonderful. Why was it gone? I tapped her left thigh, below the first stripe, now slightly raised. I said, “You’ve got two stripes on your right side, and just one stripe here. Is that fair?”

“No, sir.”

“And so…?”

“You’re going to cane me on my left thigh, sir.”

“Holy fuck.” I was jolted out of role. I held up the stick. “You call this thing a cane?”

Sa’afia frowned. “Yes?” She couldn’t see what I was getting at. “It’s always called a cane.”

“Well, okay.” It wasn’t a cane. It was something fiercer, harsher, than a cane. But I was getting off track again. “That case I’m going to cane you. Open your mouth.” 

Sa’afia looked a little bewildered, but obeyed. She’d been quiet so far, when she’d felt my hand or the rod. I wanted to make it harder for her to stay silent.

I didn’t explain that. I knew she’d like being told how to hold her mouth while she was being disciplined. It showed that I cared about her, in detail. “And keep it open until I tell you you can shut it.” 

Sa’afia closed her eyes and nodded, open-mouthed. I tapped her with the rod. “Open your eyes, stupid girl.” She watched, jaw dropped, while I raised the rod and held it poised, letting her wait. 

The rod landed on Sa’afia’s upper thigh, straight wood biting curved flesh. It sounded like I’d slapped her copy of Charmaine Solomon’s Encyclopedia of Asian Food on the table. Sa’afia managed to keep still, and silent, except for straightening the fingers in her left hand. 

I watched the first mark form on her thigh, on plumpish flesh about an inch below her hip. I said, “How many strokes are you going to get on the backs of your thighs?”

Sa’afia opened her mouth but said nothing.

“You can speak to answer questions, stupid girl.” I had doubts about saying ‘stupid girl’. I didn’t worry that Sa’afia might wonder, even for a second, whether I really thought she was stupid. But I did worry that it made me sound silly, something like John Cleese’s Latin-teaching Centurion in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. But Sa’afia didn’t seem to think it was a caricature. Well, maybe it wasn’t a cliche. Maybe it was traditional.

So I added, “And if you think you have to say something, you can ask me for permission to speak. Um. You stupid girl.”

Sa’afia nodded, but still said nothing. She might have forgotten the question. I swung the stick again, catching her a little lower on her right thigh. Sa’afia liked to watch my eyes when I did that, it seemed. I’d ask her about it later. She puffed, as the pain reached her, and relaxed again a few seconds later. The first, fiercest, pain only lasts a few seconds. She made no sound.

I watched the stripe form where the rod had landed. Two dark red stripes, slightly raised, parallel. Like a corporal’s stripes, I thought idiotically. This is corporal punishment.

“Ten strokes. You’re going to give me ten strokes across the backs of my legs.”

Sa’afia was speaking quickly. She was a little high again from the pain – maybe we both were a little high – and she wanted to show me that she was being good. 

I touched the end of the rod to her pelvic bone, just a couple of centimetres from her lips. Sa’afia slipped her left foot just a little further to the left. I took the invitation and lowered it, pressing forward so she could hold it between her thighs. I said, “That’s right, girl. Ten strokes. But we have some other business first.”   

Sa’afia looked at me. “Yes, of course. When I was a girl.”

“So who used it? Your mom? Your dad?” I was on dangerous ground. I wasn’t asking out of erotic curiosity. I didn’t want Sa’afia to tell me a story about childhood discipline, or to think I was asking for one. There’s no such thing as a sexy story about Sa’afia being punished when she was little. There’s nothing sexy about a little girl, or anyone, getting hurt against their will. It’s just so.

“My pa. He’d take me to my room, and he’d whip me cross my bum. Backs of my legs. God, if I talked back I’d have bruises for weeks.”

I hate, vehemently hate, adults hitting children, but my own feelings aren’t necessarily any guide to how other people feel about their childhoods. I’d once told a parolee that his parents’ punishments had been borderline abusive. It had been a stupid thing to say, since there was nothing I could do to change the past and he wasn’t going to get any help from the State if he needed counselling. Unless it was from me. So I’d pretty much destroyed my rapport with that client, for nothing.

These days I shut up and was less judgemental. I also knew that Samoan families traditionally used levels of physical punishment that people from a lot of other cultures – mine, for example – would find unreasonably violent, if they knew about it. I still hated the idea of adults hitting children, but it was up to Sa’afia what she felt about her own life. 

I said, “Okay.” Then I pulled my embarrassed face. “So if there’s anything I should not do when I use this stick, because it could remind you of something, with bad associations … Then this would be a good time to mention it.”

Sa’afia looked at me, not pleased. “I have nothing to report, Mr Probation Officer, sir.” She was a little angry.

“Then I bet you were an absolute brat, and deserved everything you got.”

It was a wooden rod about the length of my arm and the thickness of my thumb. There was a silver handle at one end, carved with intricate patterns, with slight indentations to allow a comfortable grip.

The business end had been carved with long straight grooves, about two millimetres deep, at four millimetre intervals. It had been dyed a dark purplish brown.

It was a serious instrument of discipline. The grooves would bite and pinch the skin when the rod landed. It would hurt, and leave dramatic welts. It would be quite tricky to use it effectively without hurting Sa’afia more than I wanted. Whatever Sa’afia wanted. In her current state of mind and body, she probably thought she needed more hurt that I’d feel right about giving her. But in this respect as in others, she would not be choosing what happened.

I looked at her. I probably looked a little doubtful. She did not.

A thought struck me. “You’ve been punished with this before. Haven’t you?”