I was home. I’d written a long email to Sa’afia. She was married now. She’d sent me photos of the wedding. She looked beautiful, of course. There’d been a lot of absurdly handsome men and pretty women with parasols, wooden verandahs painted white, intensely green greenery, and tropical flowers. It looked like a good party.

I’d complimented her on her dress, and made a show of saying something nice about Paul, and then turned to safer subjects. There was something oddly haphazard about the way the houses were spaced, for example. Was that because they were built on communal land?

That gave Sa’afia something to write about, and so we talked. I wanted to ask her if she missed me, if she loved me, and if she wanted to come back, and I wanted to tell her I wanted her. If she said she wanted me, then I’d do what it took to have us together again. That was all I wanted to say, and I couldn’t say it. If she felt anything similar she couldn’t say it either.

So writing the emails hurt, at least at my end, and they said nothing of the things that mattered. I got back emails that didn’t tell me how she was. But they were all I could expect.

Te Waka Huia Choir

I put on Crowded House’s Together Alone, just the last, title track, with the Samoan log drummers and the Te Waka Huia Choir. The end, where the Samoan drummers and the Maori singers take over the track, still makes my hair lift at the back of my neck. Then I played it again, and swallowed a tumbler of whiskey.

Then I played it again, and poured more whiskey. But I wasn’t sure that I even wanted to get drunk, so I put the tumbler down again.

I was tempted to throw the tumblr at the wall. But the gesture only lasts a second, and then I’d have to face the fact that I liked the tumblr, I hated cleaning whiskey – or anything liquid – off rough surfaces, not to mention pulling tiny glass splinters out of my feet. 

Then I said, “Ah, the fuck.” It was after ten. And someone had just knocked at my door. 

By now I had more clients. There was Merick, who’d defrauded the company he worked with for a little over ten thousand dollars, which he’d blown on gambling. He was lucky, in a way, that he’d only worked for a kitchen products business. If he’d been able to get his hands on millions he’d have given it all to the on-line gaming companies just as surely and just as fast. 

There was Tyree, who’d shot his father, non-fatally. I hadn’t talked to him yet. 

There was Mo, who’d broken into a drug store in the early hours of the morning. He was so small he could fit between two of the roof panels, which hardly had to bend to admit him. He was so stupid that he didn’t know about movement sensors. He was so luckless that he found five dollars and seventy cents in the manager’s drawer, but didn’t find the safe. Not that he’d have been able to move it or open it. And so thoughtless that he’d stolen the manager’s half bottle of Irish whisky. If he’d left that alone, the manager probably wouldn’t have bothered to press charges. I could keep Mo out of jail, I expected. There was a girl who liked him, inexplicably enough, and he liked to be told what to do. 

There was Effa, who turned tricks and wasn’t in trouble until she’d got her fourteen year old sister to work for her. Now she was in major trouble. At the time I still didn’t know just how much. I’d had one interview with her, and she’d spent a lot of it hitting her own head. That was alarming, but she was on worse trouble than that. Well, I’d find out. Someone put a bullet through the side of the Bedford, while I was driving it, because of Effa’s trouble.

But that happened much later.

I’d slowly built up a client list of thirty-five, so I was now as overworked as everybody else. There was no way I could see my clients once a week, or even once a fortnight, once I’d handled the ones who needed intensive help.

So I went through my client list. I sorted them into people I’d have to work with a lot. Then people I could see for an hour a week. Then people I could see fortnightly, and a few souls who were out of trouble and doing well, and I could reduce them to one appearance a month.

I arranged them into piles. At last I held Ana’s file, and weighed it in my hand. It was a thick, heavy file, but it hadn’t put on much weight lately. She’d stopped generating paperwork. If I put her onto monthly reporting, I’d only see her twice more before her probation was up.

I sat there with the file, feeling angry at Ana, and myself, and Sa’afia and, obscurely, at Minnie Mouse. “Fuck,” I said at last, “Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck.” Ana’s file landed on the monthly pile, span and came to rest.  

Fortunately there were no crises at work. My clients turned up, went on training courses, and while no-one actually got a job, nobody did anything too obviously calculated to prevent themselves from being hired. Or got caught doing any new crimes.

Ana called me a couple of days after Sa’afia had gone. I’d dreaded that call, because I’d feared that she’d be cheerful, or suggest that other sexual and romantic possibilities were available to me. I wasn’t in the mood to hear anything of the kind.

I’d never lost the suspicion that Ana was at least partly responsible for Sa’afia’s sudden departure. Neither of them had ever explained what had happened on the night of the mysterious blow-job. Sa’afia had started that night happy, and finished it angry with me. But if Ana had had anything to do with that, it was Sa’afia who had brought her into my bed. So …

And that was all I ever learned. Nothing about it made sense. 

Ana kept herself on the right side of somber and sympathetic. I was grateful to her for that. But I wanted no consolation that she could give me.

It was a cold day, and once I’d dragged Sa’afia inside we’d gone straight for my bedroom. I’d left a heater on, so that once I’d closed the door she could be naked and still comfortable.

I pull Sa’afia’s dress up over her breasts, and then further so that it covered her head and trapped her arms. While she was helpless I pushed her so she landed on my bed, and I was on her and in her before she had recovered. The fuck was fast and extravagant, with nothing withheld or concern given for time or her pain or our energy. I struck her thighs as they pressed against my sides, wanting to rewaken the fire where I had already bruised her with her stick. She’d gasped, and those gasps had become orgasmic cries, her cunt contracting hard.

I stayed with her while she came, and pulled her dress all the way off. She face re-emerged, tousled. I said, “oh, there you are,” as if I was playing peek-a-boo with a baby. She stared at me without smiling, or answering, from a place where she didn’t know anything about words.

I started our fuck again. She began to scream a few minutes later, as the orgasms came in waves, each a little higher. I have stupid, nerdish prides of every kind, but I soon lost count. She didn’t stop. It seemed that she came with every movement we made.

She’d raised her knees to press against her sides, to get my cock into her as deep as it could go. We were in some magic place; I’d never known her, or any woman in this state before.

Eventually her orgasms got smaller, and I stopped through sheer exhaustion. Her hair was wet with sweat and so was mine. the bottom sheet had been crisp and it too was soaked with our sweat and her pleasure. I could feel my heart pumping, and hers below me. We’d run in some contest, which we’d eventually lost. I felt triumphant. 

I blew a lock of hair away from Sa’afia’s eyes. She looked at me, for the first time in what felt like a long, long time. I wanted to say something fond. I said, “Whoa. My god.” 

Sa’afia muttered something. It sounded like like, “it-pee.” 

I kissed her nose. “What?” 

“Hurt me.” 

“Ah?”

“Whip me.” 

I looked at her. She wasn’t saying anything to please me. She wasn’t capable, just then, of planning her speech for another’s benefit. She wanted all the sensation in the world. I pulled out of her. “Just a moment.” 

On Saturday morning there was a knock at my door, tentative so I knew it was Sa’afia come to be punished. It was quarter to ten, so I came out ready to pretend to be angry at her for being early. I’d intended just to tell her off and keep her standing out there, waiting. But she was wearing clumpy shoes and a simple white cotton dress that clung to her like a nightie. It was wet in spots. She’d run from her car, but it was raining. She carried the stick in both hands, behind her back.

She’d thought about the impact she’d make on me. Therefore she’d thought about being early. She’d wanted to give me the chance to do whatever I might like to do about it. 

I put my hand on her face, slapping her lightly but then holding her, my thumb under her chin, fingers still touching her face where the slap had landed. “I said ten o’clock!” As if I were angry. It’s a ridiculous reaction to a pretty girl in revealing clothing on my doorstep, but that didn’t matter. Sa’afia wanted to be in the wrong. She’d chosen to be in the wrong, with aforethought. She wanted to be put in that quiet, palely sexy place she’d thought about when we were on the phone yesterday.

I reached behind Sa’afia and took the stick from her, and pulled her a little inside the alcove at my door, so she was out of the way of the street. A neighbour or passer-by who heard a commotion and looked through the hedge to see what was going on would see us. But we had some privacy.

“Put your hands on the door!” Sa’afia obeyed, and arched her back, presenting her ass. I could have punished her for obeying without verbally acknowledging the order, but she wanted to go deeper than she could go and still be verbal. Even “yes sir” would soon be beyond her, and I didn’t want to keep her earthbound. So I smacked her bottom through that dress, and put my hand under her tummy to push her ass out just a little further. Then I kicked her left shoe, and she grunted and parted her legs further, arching her ass up just a bit more.

I swept the dress up, ready to smack her bottom. I was still thinking of making her wait outside, ass burning a little while she thought about what was to come. Once I took her inside. But there was her warm, brownish ass and waist. I stopped. She wasn’t wearing knickers. Sa’afia jolted me, when I saw her naked. I hadn’t asked for that. I approved, but I hadn’t thought of it. I drew in my breath, audibly, and –

The thing is, I’m a simple system. My reactions can be utterly predictable, and Sa’afia had predicted this one. Sa’afia, near-naked, sexually available and presented on my doorway, made me hard. She’d set a time limit that hadn’t been there before, about how long I could spend before I was inside her.

I could have grabbed her hair then, turned her face and kissed her, without breaking role. Because I suddenly wanted to kiss her. But if I did she’d have known the effect she’d had. Instead I smacked her ass, hard, about a dozen times. Neither of us were counting.

If there had been a passer-by, he or she would have wanted to know what was happening on the other side of the hedge. I saw something in Sa’afia’s eyes, a kind of panic or excitement. She’d had the same thought.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “The neighbours know what a girl sounds like when she’s getting a spanking.” I smacked her again, hand impacting her ass lusty and loud. Actually, the neighbours on one side listened to sports on full volume when they were home, and on the other side was an old couple who seemed to be largely deaf. It actually was true that Sa’afia wasn’t the first girl I’d spanked on my doorstep, but I was sure no-one had ever heard a thing.

Still, Sa’afia’s eyes were wide and wild, so I added, “they’ll hear you screaming for forgiveness later. Won’t they, Sa’afia? So they’ll know what a stupid girl you’ve been.” She closed her eyes and dropped her head. A little humiliation was good for her. She liked it, anyway. So I said, “But if you make too much noise, I’ll send you over to apologise.”

Sa’afia mumbled, “oh god, oh fuck.” She’d be so wet, I knew.

“Now hold still.” I took the stick and pressed it to Sa’afia’s lips. She kissed it sweetly, wetly and full-heartedly, trying to show me she was good. I swished it, audibly, through the air a couple of times, and then tapped the undercurve of her buttocks. So she knew where she was going to be hurt.

“Yes, sir.” Sa’afia had received the news that I needed to punish and fuck her with calm that might seem odd to people who were not like us. But a dom is never sexier than when he or she is cruel and implacable, or pretending to be. We’re cute when we’re angry.

Wet, on the phone.

I knew that grey-bland quietness in Sa’afia’s tone, when she’d called me sir. She was thinking about submission, and already starting to submit, and she was trying to hide that. 

I softened my voice for a second. “If you behave yourself while I punish you, you might just get to be my good girl again. Would you like that?” 

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. It’s -” 

“Girl’, I’ve told you I don’t care. And Sa’afia?” 

“Sir?”

“This is going to be a hard lesson. Hard for you, that is. I’m going to hear you cry, darling, and I’m not going to stop just because of some tears. You’d better bring that stick.” 

“Oh! That stick really hurts!” Then she said, quickly, “Yes, I mean, yes sir, I’ll bring you the stick.” 

“Good. Tonight you’ll sleep naked. And you’ll have the stick under your pillow. And you’ll think about how hard I’m going to beat you, tomorrow.” 

There was a long silence. Sa’afia had gone into a good place. Eventually she said, “Oh yes. Um, Jaime, sir, I’m really -“

“You’ll be sorrier tomorrow. Don’t be late.” I hung up.