Yvain held her position, and her ankles, as Karl’s strap landed. The contact between that hard leather and her soft bottom was as small an instant of time as there can be, she thought. But the pain and the burn afterwards: that lasted and built. It was still deepening and spreading when the second lash came.

She kept her teeth clenched. She’d been told to take the twelve strokes in silence, and she knew she’d get extra strokes if she so much as breathed audibly. The third stroke landed. Karl was paying no attention to niceties, like letting her wait between strokes. He was simply delivering her allocated strokes with precision and efficiency.

Yvan, feeling her shame and the bright blush on her face, tightened her grip on her ankles. The fifth and sixth strokes delivered their payload of heat and pain.

Still, in her mind Yvain was relieved. She was halfway through.

But the beldam, who had been watching her flogging with – Yvain, greatly daring, had once raised her eyes to see – an ironical smile on her face, suddenly raised her hand. “Just a moment, Karl. Well, little one. I think I’ve allowed you to be too graceless while you’re being rightly punished.”

Yvain kept her position, looking down at her hands on her ankles, her feet well parted. said nothing. She knew she hadn’t been allowed to speak, and anything she said, even “Yes ma’am”, would only lead to extra strokes.

The beldam walked forward, and Yvain felt her hand on her bottom. “Nice and warm already. And beautifully coloured too. I think I can guess what position he’s going to have you in, first.” Yvain felt her blush deepen, but she said nothing.

The beldam smacked her suddenly, hard across her left cheek.

“You’re too self-composed, little one. We won’t have that. From now on,” she smacked Yvain’s right cheek, so hard the room rang with the impact of it. Then her fingers explored the soft flesh between her buttocks, and then deeper still, touching the folds of her delicate cunt.

Yvain knew she would find proof of her body’s treacherous reaction, when she had the whip. And the shame was delicious: worse, and better, than anything she’d experienced before. She felt the beldam’s fingers enter her. So easily, so well prepared for her. Yvain had to stop herself from moaning or making any other sound from that wonderful contact.

Yvain knew that Karl had watched, and now knew her reaction to his punishment. The beldam said, “A perverted girl. You will inform the Seigneur that punishment makes you wet.” She smiled again, and pushed her fingers into Yvain’s mouth.“Clean me, little slut.” She sounded almost fond.

While she still had her fingers in Yvain’s mouth, with her tongue and lips removing all trace of her own arousal, the beldam said, “You’ll count the strokes aloud, and thank Karl for each one. Then you will address me, apologise for speaking out of turn and beg my forgiveness.”

Yvain nodded, as submissively as she could. She knew she didn’t have a right to speak except exactly as she’d been ordered. The beldam stepped in front of her. She raised her hand again. “Resume, Karl.”

The leather cracked across her bottom again. The lull made it even harder to bear,.

Yvain’s voice was shrill. “Seven, thank you, Karl! And, ma’am, I’m sorry I spoke out of turn, and I beg you to forgive me.”

The beldam smiled. “No, stupid little peasant girl. Counts start at one, you should have been taught that. Wel, I’m sure you’ll remember now. You’ll call the next stroke correctly, as stroke one.”

Yvain’s heart sank. She felt a moment’s anger against the beldam, and shocked herself with that. She knew anger was dangerous, and she should be grateful for being taught what was expected from her, in this castle. The leather whipped across her bottom again, and she called out, “One! Thank you Karl!” Then she kept her head down but rolled her eyes up so she had eye contact with the beldam when she apologised and begged her forgiveness.

When Yvain presented herself at the castle after her wedding and knocked at the gate, a manservant had opened the door, expressionless. He wore green pantaloons and a green tunic: that was the Siegneur’s livery.

He lifted her wedding gown over her shoulders and off, in one practised gesture, so that she stood naked before the crowd of her fellow peasants. She’d expected that. She’d seen it done to other girls. She turned to face the castle. 

Some of the women in her party were weeping. This had happened to them too. There was always a lord in the castle, and he had the right of the first night with any of his peasant girls who married. Every married woman on the estate had given themselves to at least two men: the Seigneur, and her husband. The lords always used that right. It was part of life.

The manservant clasped her ear and pulled, so she had to crouch as she walked naked into the castle. Only when he had slammed the gate behind her did he drape her in the simple off-white robe he’d had over his shoulder. He made her walk in front of him as they climbed a long, stone, spiral Starway. The robe reached to the lower slopes of her buttocks: from below she might as well be naked.

When they reached the top of the stairs, and stepped out of the stairwell turret into a small anteroom he came up behind her and held her, his arm under her breasts. He pulled her back, slightly off balance. Her bottom pressed against him. He was erect. 

A woman, who she had not seen at first, rose from a chair against the wall. She was tall and solidly built. She greeted the servant – Yvain learned that his name was Karl – and did not smile at Yvain.

She walked up to her, parted her robe at the front – it had neither buttons nor ties – smacked her belly with her great ham-like hand as a warning to keep still, and pushed one thick finger, then two, into her slit.

Yvain gasped. She had not expected this indignity. She felt the woman’s finger reach an obstacle, and the woman finally smiled, though at Karl, not at her.

“Holy blessed mother of god,” she said. “We’ve got a good girl!”

“A virgin? Really? Her husband must be the stupidest peasant in all the land.”

Yvain jerked her body forward, trying to escape Karl’s arm. “My husband is not a – “

But the beldam only slapped her face, and she stopped, cheek blazing. The beldam looked at her, and for the first time smiled. Yvain felt fear. “Were you told to speak?” 

Yvain, eyes wide, shook her head. 

The beldam smiled. “So the Seigneur gets a good girl with a little colour on her arse to show she’s capable of being bad. He’ll be very happy with you, my dear. Twelve strokes, please, Karl.” 

Yvain’s heart sank. She’d been whipped before, and the hurt of it was part of her everyday life. But she’d not expected to be delivered to the Seigneur shamed in this way.

But Karl released her, pushed her a little way forward, lifted her robe off her shoulders and dropped it on the floor. She was naked again, not that the robe had offered much privacy. Or protection.

Karl detached the strap from the rope at his waist. “Put your hands on your ankles, girl. Don’t make a sound, and don’t move.”

Yvain sighed. She’d brought this part, at least, on herself.

She bent forward, assuming the position, as Karl instructed. 

We woke up in mid-afternoon. 

We hadn’t known each other very long. And yet the sense of rightness, with enthusiasm, couldn’t be ignored. So I looked at Monica, trying to stay serious, “I’d like to give you a collar. It means – “

“I know what it means. It’s like Change of Ownership Papers, for a car, or deeds for a house. I wear a collar to show I belong to you. And you can whop me if I forget to call you Master.” 

“I suppose I’ll have to work out the rules, for you. But yes, that’s one of them.” I looked her in the eye. 

“Master.”

“Better. Anyway, we have a shower, we go to Newtown, we eat and then I take you to meet a friend of mine.”

•

In Newtown, after tom yum soup, we climbed the steps to Silverworks. It wasn’t really a shop. It was Kaatia Sorenson’s workshop, where she made delicate, arty silver thong. She’s submissive herself – we’d once, long ago, played together, but she likes things that cut the skin more than I do, so we didn’t follow up on it – and so she knew what I meant when I said a day collar. 

The idea is that it has D/s meaning, but the only people who would correctly read it as announcing Monica’s enslaved status were also depraved enough to think that that was nice and they hoped her Master was good for her. 

So Kaatia told her she was obviously a good girl, and fortunate, and with my permission told her to kneel. There was no need for the kneeling, of course. That was purely to help Monica feel that something symbolic, solemn and out of the ordinary was happening. While she measured Monica’s neck she asked me, over Monica’s head, whether the girl should be able to remove it.

I said no, of course. Then we considered the options of solder (a bit risky, because the whole collar will heat up), or  a small lock. I chose the lock and stroked Monica’s ear. “Head down, little one. Look at your knees.”

Monica said her, “Yes, Master,” in her littlest voice. The ceremony was reaching her, psychologically. Kaatia winked at me, and we exchanged smiles.

I chose a simple, slender silver band, with an inscription very personal to Monica and me, to be on the side that touched Monica, and invisible to outsiders. So personal that although I’ve said a lot of things, I’m not going to reveal it here.

Some other things

Once Kaatia has a sketch that represented what I wanted, I signed a commitment to purchase.

Kaatia said, “It’ll take me about two weeks to get to it. There’s a lot of on. But I’ll call you when it’s ready. Congratulations to both of you.”

I helped Monica to her feet, and said we had to shop for a leather collar, for when we were alone together, and cuffs and some other things. 

I enjoyed showing her this world, of slightly formal bdsm. She was wide-eyed: it had been a fantasy, and then it was simply reality.

Then I took her to my house. Astonishingly, we’d been together for such a short time that she’d not yet seen it. But I let her in the front door, and once I’d turned some heaters on so Monica could be comfortably naked, we set about exploring and discussing our new life.

[The End]

Monica washed my cock, as instructed, and then took it in her mouth. I was in no condition to get hard, having come in her ass not so long ago. But then she teased my balls with her breasts, nipples and beautifully soft skin touching sensitive skin. The sensdation was new to me, and extremely nice. After that she had a hard cock to play with.

But no matter what she did with her mouth and tongue, she wasn’t likely to get any come from me. Not for another hour, at least. I didn’t mind that. I liked the sensations, and I enjoyed the service, the feeling that my slave was serving my pleasure.

But eventually I pulled her head off me by her hair, and rolloed us over.

I slipped down her body, and she spread and lifted her thighs, holding her legs by the backs of her knees, while I tongued her. 

We stayed together, soft thighs against my ears, her feet occasionally touching my back. My face wet, and buried in her, the horizontal mouth and the vertical mouth, slipping and sliding. Monica laughed sometimes. I took it that meant she was happy, and not that I was ridiculous, so I decided to enjoy the sound.

But in time the laughter stopped and we had gibbering instead, and her cunt pressing harder, faster and greedier against me, my nose and chin wet with her. Her hand held my shoulders as she gasped, and then my ears, and she froze suddenly and came, with no screaming, just a happy, comfortable sound.

I kissed her cunt and then her belly, and said she was a good girl. Orgasms are self-rewarding, but I’ve always had the urge to reward them with praise as well. I like the way women sound and the feel of them when they come. I suppose in some way it feels like surrender to my Domly power. Doms are, perhaps, slightly insane, or perhaps only this one is.

I was going to say it was time to get up and go shopping for collars, but I realised that she’d fallen asleep. So I cuddled up her her side, and closed my eyes too.

I’d just asked Monica if she knew what a collar was. There was a silence. 

“They have them in those fucking awful Gor books, don’t they. ‘I will put my collar on you. You are wearing my collar. It is good that you wear my collar, little kajillion, or some name like that.’ The slavegirl lowered her eyes. ‘I am collared,’ she said simply. ‘I wear your collar.’ And so forth like that?”

“Good parody. I take it that actually you’ve read a few of those?”

Monica snuggled in closer. “Yes. They were really, really beyond terrible, I know. But when you’re fifteen and you’d like to – well, surrender a bit, they were fantastically sexy. I bought maybe four of them, before I realised they’re all much the same.”

“I bet they all fell open at the whipping scenes.”

“Oh yes. Once I’d owned them for a bit.”

“Yes, well. But the collaring idea has sort of floated free from the Gor books. Most people who do bdsm probably don’t even know that’s where collars came from. Now they mean whatever the people want them to mean.” 

“What do you want it to mean, Master?” She jabbed her elbow into my stomach, to underline, or undermine, that ‘Master’. So I smacked her bottom eight times, before getting a “Sorry.” Then I held her down with my left hand, and applied for six more smacks, making them much harder. She squirmed and said, “Ow!” She didn’t mean it had hurt. 

“Possession, little one. That you’re my property. We can do a contract if you want, setting out what you give me, which is you, basically. And what I give you, which is love and care. And authority. Discipline. Then we sign.”

“In blood! Has to be in blood!” She looked very appealing when she bounced. 

“Oh, all right. Anyway, think of it as your ownership papers, like for a car.” 

She rolled onto her stomach, and looked down at my cock. It had recently been in her ass. If she wanted to suck me, I’d make her wash me first, with a warm, soapy cloth. She’d wash me, I knew, till I was hard, and do the rest with her mouth. It’d be another of those little acts of service, that weren’t really about service.

“Shall we go and get me a slave collar? Or are you busy this morning?” 

“I think we plan to be very busy this morning. Go get a warm, soapy cloth.” 

She said, “Hmmf.” I smacked her again, then reached for the wooden spoon. She scrambled up. “Yes, Master.”