The cane impacted low across Emily’s bottom, the sound of rattan on skin sharp and loud. A second later Emily grunted. The sounds were to be remembered. As was the ripple in her flesh, and the slight, quickly controlled jerk of her hips. And the mark of that first stroke, flaring neat and thin across her bottom, emerging as a cream-coloured line that quickly turned pink and then red.  

Emily’s posture gave her immense sexual power, as she knew. She was posing, doing a show for her … whatever I was. I was Emily’s lover, obviously, but what was I becoming? We wouldn’t go back to how we’d been before. I didn’t think she’d want me to relinquish the rights I’d just acquired. I didn’t approve of my new rights, but I didn’t want to relinquish them either.

Emily moved her left foot to firm her stance. The movement signalled acceptance of whatever came, and that excited me. I swung the cane again. Lustily. It landed, loudly, an inch or so below that first stripe. Emily’s head and shoulders jerked up, her hair flying, but she almost instantly returned to position, releasing her breath in a sweet, low gasp.

Her fingers hovered a few inches above her feet. I’d told her to touch her toes, but I let it pass. The second stripe declared itself, a little below the first stroke, which had by now raised itself into a welt. Emily couldn’t see me as clearly as I could study her, but she could see when I braced my feet. So she sucked in air and held it when I raised the cane.

I arced the cane down, resisting the urge to make the stroke gentler, and watched a third stripe bloom, a parallel line across the best-padded part of her bottom. Emily’s third expulsion of breath was voiced.

Some time later I stopped to watch Emily’s bottom squirming, her movements blatantly sexual though she was no longer aware of or concerned about how she looked. Her buttocks were decorated by five straight, separated stripes. Her hands still pointed obediently down, but had moved beside her ankles, the fingers and thumbs splayed and taut. It was an effort not to put them in the way of the cane. Tears ran down the bridge of her nose, tracking down her forehead to her hairline. She made a small keening sound, more in her nose than her mouth.

I reached down and stroked Emily’s hair, and teary forehead. The other hand, still holding the cane, I put round her waist and pulled her to me. The keening noise was louder, though she sounded in some way comforted. Emily pressed her hip against me. I wanted to tell her, reassuringly, that she was a good girl, and then felt the absurdity of that. In what way was I an expert on goodness?

But I had to say something.

It was my first attempt at this sort of thing. “You’re so beautiful. You’re so brave. I love you.” And, because it seemed called for, “you’re a good girl. Really. I do know that.” Emily’s keening became sobs. So she had wanted to hear that. I stroked her hair. She reached her hand to take mine, the hand holding the cane.

Emily’s sobs slowly subsided while I held her, and she said, “ah-huh, ah-huh”. She was agreeing with something, though I wasn’t sure what.