‘Did you get hard?’ I asked him. ‘When you watched me?’
‘Of course I bloody did, you little minx.’ He pushed his body forwards into mine. He was hard now. I could feel the outline of his erection just under the cheeks of my arse. ‘I had to put my programme over my lap. It was fucking inconvenient. I know there are rumours about me, and people would have been watching for my reaction. And you knew that. And believe me, you’re going to pay for it.’
‘I know I’ve been bad,’ I said, shutting my eyes in rapture. ‘I know I’ve misbehaved.’
‘He gave it to you hard, didn’t he?’
Sands’ breath was hot in my ear, and his lips brushed the tender skin behind it, kissing then nipping.
‘Leo? Petruchio. Yes, yes, he did.’
‘How did it feel?’
‘Even with the petticoats, it stung. He left red marks on my bum. I looked at them in the dressing room afterwards.’
‘Mm, I bet you did. Did it turn you on?’
‘Yes. I rubbed them. Then I rubbed myself. Lower down.’
‘You dirty little bitch.’
‘Mmm.’ I pushed myself back against him, wriggling my hips.
He took off his jacket and threw it over a wooden painted cloud.
‘I think I’d better get the deed done before I end up bending you over and fucking you senseless, Ms Reddish, what do you think?’
‘Either way,’ I moaned, butting my head into the hollow of his neck.
‘That’ll do, Miss Sex Mad,’ he said primly with a preliminary smack to my bottom. ‘Now let’s determine the sentence. I want you to take off your dress and stand on that chair over there.’
‘Take off my dress?’
‘Yes,’ he said, so calmly that I started to do it immediately.
The tight-fitting silk with its non-existent back had meant I couldn’t wear a bra, so when I pushed the shoulder straps down my arms, my breasts were soon bared to his inspection. He didn’t flinch, just watched with avid greed.
‘Your nipples are hard,’ he said, folding his arms.
I didn’t really have an answer for that.
My beautiful sparkly sequins slid to the none-too-clean floor. I didn’t stop to consider my nakedness until I’d picked up the gown and folded it neatly on a table. But, that done, I could no longer ignore my sheer stockings, my tiny thong or my bare backside. All of them were on show to Peregrine Sands.
I climbed on to the chair and stood, feeling three times more exposed, on its seat.
‘Are you going to review me?’ I asked.
‘None of your impertinence, madam,’ he said. ‘But yes. I’m going to give you a review. A long, painful and scathing critique, which will be given not in words but in actions.’
Oh dear. I was for it now.
‘Now then,’ he said, coming to stand in front of me. His eyes were directly in line with my crotch; what a happy coincidence. ‘I need you to give me your own honest assessment of your performance. And I don’t mean your performance on stage. I mean the little subterfuge that led you into this position.’
Not sure what he wanted me to say, I shook my head.
‘Well, uh, I think it worked out pretty well,’ I said. Strange words to speak, when standing naked on a chair, with a man who meant to spank me hard glaring into my pubic region. I’d stand by them, all the same.
‘No, that’s not what I mean. Of course your little scheme was successful. You won the award and you’re about to get your personal prize. I want you to list all the bad things you’ve done, Ms Reddish, en route to this ignominious position.’
‘Oh, I see. Well. I suppose I was a bit sly. Crafty. I used some insider knowledge to nobble the jury. The jury being you. And I—I used dishonest means to get my way.’
‘Yes, that about sums it up. Dishonest means to get your way. Is getting your way very important to you, Ms Reddish?’
‘Yes. I suppose it is.’
He put a hand on my thigh and patted it. I nearly fell off the chair.
‘I understand. I’m the same. I like to get my way. Which of us is about to get it now, I wonder?’
‘Maybe both.’
He smiled at that, quite a tender little smile.
‘I hope you’re right. Spread those feet a little wider. Put your hands behind your back.’
He inspected my parted pussy lips at close quarters, dipping his head so close that his breath warmed the moistened slit. He held me upright – just as well, because I might have collapsed otherwise – with his hands on my inner thighs.
‘Wet,’ he murmured. ‘What a very bad creature you must be. Do you always get this wet when you’re about to be spanked?’
‘I don’t know,’ I whispered.
He looked up sharply.
‘How can you not know?’
‘I’ve never done it before. Apart from, you know, on stage.’
He took a step back, frowning.
‘Turn around,’ he said.
I presented my rear view.
‘No marks,’ he said. ‘Your Petruchio can’t have tamed you very much. He’s left the better part of the job to me. Do you think you can be tamed, Ms Reddish?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said, suddenly defiant. I wanted the conflict, the tension. I wanted to reprise my stage role and have him overpower me until I had to submit.
‘Oh, you doubt it, do you? There’s a challenge if ever I heard one. Very well. Kneel down now.’
I did it. The seat of the chair was uncomfortable on my knees but it was good to be able to cling to the back rung.
‘This is for your friend Emma,’ he said, laconically, ‘though I’ll be giving her the message in person, as well, make no mistake.’
His hand was at once sharper and harder than Leo’s. I think he had it held in a particular way, the palm open but the fingers tight. It was more painful than Leo’s fumbling lunges.
I yelped and almost tipped the chair forward, but he put a hand on my shoulder and carried on.
What was this like? Was it what I had expected? It hurt more than I thought it would, the peppery sting spreading across my cheeks. Peregrine never left me a moment to process each stroke, but laid them on quickly, until I was gasping and wriggling around. I held on to the chair, though, my knuckles whitening as the heat built.
‘And here’s something else for being a little schemer.’
If possible, he began to smack even harder. I was uncomfortable now, itching between my legs and sore above them. I felt my skin tighten under the onslaught. I waggled my feet and jerked out a plea to stop. I didn’t want him to stop. I just needed to catch a breath.
‘You’ve bitten off more than you can chew,’ he said
dispassionately, holding fire. ‘It’s not unusual. I’ve often rendezvoused with girls who promised more than they could deliver. Get your dress on and run along now.’
‘No.’ My voice ground against my lungs, low and hoarse. ‘I can take it. Just not used to it.’
‘Are you sure? Because what I just gave you was only a warm-up. You’ll find you can bear a bit more, perhaps, now that you’re good and hot.’
‘I can. I’m sure I can. Give me more.’
‘I’m going to try you with my belt. Don’t panic. I’ll start gently and build up.’
The sound of it, sliding sweetly through the loops, did nothing to stem the flow of juices in my pussy. I squirmed with anticipatory dread.
‘This is for your barefaced cheek, madam,’ he said.
It was no more than a little flick at first, a localised dart of sting, almost a caress after his mean, hard hand. I sighed with the unexpected pleasure of it and pushed out my bottom for more.
‘Yes, you like this, don’t you?’ he purred.
The next stroke was harder and made a gorgeous splat sound against my skin. I felt the stripe sizzle into a welt. I hoped it would leave a mark.
I hoped my whole bum would be one swollen mass of red stripes when he came to throw down his belt and grab my hips and enter me from behind. But I was getting ahead of myself.
First I needed to live through this whipping. Breathe through it, clench through it, survive it.
The strokes came harder and faster. At first I was almost wild with the relentless pain, but before I could jump away or beg for mercy, something happened, and the heat became sweet instead of fierce.
‘You deserve this, don’t you?’
‘Yes, oh yes. I deserve it.’
I wasn’t sure if I was falling into some kind of delirium, but I was convinced I could take this forever. The glow possessing my bottom cheeks was moving inside my body, lighting it up from crown to sole until I felt as if I were made of neon. Horny neon.
I shimmied my hips and pushed my bum out further. He could do his worst. I was never going to be taken to my limit. I didn’t seem to have one.
But, of course, I did really, and he found it in the end.
‘Please,’ I gasped, when the soreness was huge in its magnitude and my skin stretched over my rounded cheeks so tightly I thought it might tear.
‘Aha. You’ve had enough. Well, that was very good, for a beginner.’
I let my shoulders sag, searching for breath. Now he had finished with his belt, I noticed the ache in my knees and I unglued them, one by one, from the seat.
I was trembling. I hadn’t realised I was trembling.
‘Have you learned your lesson?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘Which is?’
Ah, now he was asking. I wasn’t sure what the lesson was supposed to be. All I felt I’d really learned was that I enjoyed being whipped with a leather belt.
‘I should respect you,’ I decided upon.
He liked that a lot.
‘Yes,’ he said, a smile in his voice. ‘You certainly should. Has any other profound epiphany stricken you while you were being struck, as it were?’
‘Just that …’ I floundered for coherent speech. ‘I need this.’
‘You need it? You have a taste for it?’
‘Yes, yes. A taste. That was so different from the way Leo did it. You had so much more purpose. You weren’t afraid.’
‘You liked it, I can tell. It’s very obvious.’
In the air between my thighs, I felt a disturbance – his hand, so close to my lips, which I now understood were slick and juicy.
‘Touch me,’ I whispered.
His fingers were light and yet firm, somehow, stroking up and down the slit.
‘This is part of you, Ms Reddish. This need is in you and you can’t ever rid yourself of it.’
‘I know,’ I moaned, rocking back and forth to encourage his deeper touch.
‘But who will be there when you need to be soundly thrashed? Who is going to administer the medicine? I’m a busy man.’
He was: very busy. Especially his fingers.
‘I’m happy to oblige when our diaries allow, but I can’t always be on hand. With my hand.’
His aforementioned hand was doing sterling work. He rubbed my clit and filled my cunt with fingers that were still warm from their sharp contact with my bottom.
I was writhing like a serpent now, greedy for his masterful manipulations.
‘You need someone,’ he mused. ‘I think I know who, too. Are you close?’
‘Who-oo-oo?’ I wailed, so very near to that melting moment.
‘This young man I see watching us from the doorway,’ he said.
I was coming and yet I wasn’t coming, trying to stop
myself, unable to stop myself. I jerked upright and yanked my head towards the doorway, my face a rictus of unwanted orgasm.
Leo stood there, looking, frankly, rather terrified.
I gabbled senselessly, still impaled on the elegant digits of Mr Peregrine Sands, notorious theatre critic of the
Universal
. Leo could see exactly where they were, and he could see me, kneeling on a chair with my bottom bright scarlet and swollen with welts, naked and ashamed.
Dear God, what a moment. I still masturbate over it now.
I hid my head in my arms and sobbed out the remnants of my climax.
Sands pulled out his fingers and smacked me smartly on the rump.
‘You can’t hide, you know,’ he said.
Presumably he then turned to Leo and addressed him.
‘Well, don’t just stand there, man. Come in. Your leading lady has a proposition for you.’
‘I don’t,’ I muttered, but I made no move to stop the scenario from unfolding.
‘Me? What’s happening here?’ Leo’s voice was thick, syrupy. He was turned on.
‘I hardly think it could be much clearer,’ said Sands, dryly. ‘Your Katharina here is paying the price for some shrewish behaviour, in a manner Petruchio would approve. You do approve, don’t you?’
Leo said nothing for a while, but I surmised that he must have nodded, because Sands said, ‘Good.’
‘You’ll see a more detailed review of the performance in the
Universal
next week,’ he continued, ‘but I wanted to give you a small, and more focused, critique of your spanking style, if you’d care to hear it.’
‘Uh, carry on, by all means.’
‘It was rough and ready but with a certain crude effectiveness,’ said Sands. ‘However, you need to develop more finesse, particularly with your pacing. You also need to take care that you target the fleshier, lower portion of the buttocks rather than aiming too high. Don’t go in all guns blazing. You need to take a more considered approach. I’d give you three stars.’
‘Three. Thanks.’ Leo sounded as bemused as I felt.
‘You can improve. A little practice will take you to the required level of expertise. If you like, I can tutor you.’
‘Excuse me.’ This was enough now. I held myself upright and twisted my neck to glare at them both. ‘I am physically present, you know. I am here. And it sounds as if you’re making deals that might need my approval.’
‘Ms Reddish,’ said Sands, coldly. ‘You yourself have stated that you need to be spanked. I’m facilitating this for you. I don’t think the tone is quite called for.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Leo.
‘Don’t you want this?’ Sands was waspish.
‘I do. If she does.’
The ball was in my court. And my court was hot, and so over singles games. I wanted doubles now. Well, of a sort. Obviously I’d be unpartnered.
‘What you’re saying,’ I said slowly, ‘is that I can count on either of you for a bit of hanky-spanky fun whenever I fancy it? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Precisely. And young Petruchio here has said that he’s amenable if you are.’
‘M’name’s Leo,’ he mumbled uncomfortably.
‘A lion among men,’ said Peregrine. ‘Lions shouldn’t cower. Come over here and I’ll give you a lesson.’