When she says, “Please punish me, Sir,” she’s being a conspicuously Good Girl. Every aspect of her presentation is a display that says, “I’m a good girl, really.”

Her eyes and her face are downcast, and her open hands hold out the instrument of her punishment. Her hands are open because she knows she’s not allowed to close her hands on the cane. She bent down, naked, to take it from the floor in her mouth, then released it onto her open hands. And then held out those hands to me, offering both herself and it. Details and body language matter.

The wool over the whipping bench, behind her, tells her that she’s going to be spending some time bent over there. That matters too. It would be a terrible world, boring, unloving, unsexy, if I didn’t pay close attention to her needs, even when delivering discipline.

She gives a perfect display of submission. It’s come just a little too late to save her bottom and upper thighs. But that doesn’t make this moment less enchanted, for either of us. I’m not ready to tell her she’s a “good girl”. Not yet. But I will be soon.