Necessary to her Good

This story originally appeared in Bound to Love: A Collection of Romantic BDSM Erotic Stories, edited by Maria Isabel Pita, Published 2006 by Magic Carpet Books, New Milford, CT., USA.

This story contains graphic depictions of BDSM consensual sex, intended for adults only. Readers are strongly cautioned.

At first it was not sexual. Not overtly. I was too young. It was more my erotic imagination at play, my fingers furtively between my legs. I was touching my clitoris–although I had no word for that place yet. Did not know the word clitoris. I touched myself there without fully knowing I was doing it, feeling ashamed of myself because I’d been punished and yet delighting in my shame, reliving my punishment with my fingers between my legs until it seemed more than I could stand. The shame blossomed in me so exquisitely that I felt as if I needed more and more of it, until I was drowning in delicious shame. It shook my legs. That was an orgasm–though I had no word for it yet, either. The only word I knew really was ‘spanking.’ I’d been spanked. The secret damage was done, a lifetime’s worth.

She somehow learns to drive a car. She graduates from school. She is an adult. She does adult things. Yet she never feels like an adult. She doesn’t remember growing up because she didn’t; she simply got older. She merely ‘behaves’ without recognizing her behavior. All she’s after is the eroticism of it, of her behavior–the sexual pay-off. The orgasm.

She craves her punishment. She wants it repeated. Her father is dead now, he died long ago. By anyone’s definition the spanking had ended. But not for her. In her mind, it had never stopped.

Her humiliation has never stopped. It is why she is willing to do so many seemingly degrading things. Why she wants it up the ass. I am always secretly begging for it ‘up the ass.’ It’s her punishment on a grander scale. She has fantasies of it, thrilling pictures in vivid colors: her rape. Her rape up the ass. She wears fancy clothes for her rape. She imagines the finery of her surroundings in detail. This way, when it is forced up her ass, she is even more unlovely in comparison to her surroundings or even to her clothes. Her degradation is somehow enhanced, made more degrading, by her lovely clothes.

When she meets him she is without guile. Everything about her is straightforward. It is why her belly flutters so. She has met him unexpectedly on the street. She hasn’t time to toss up that false image of herself, the one she comfortably hides behind.

He takes her by the arm. He is so cavalier now. What happened to that private detective? Why is it no longer a concern? “Come on,” he persuades her. “Let me at least buy you a glass of wine.”

The wine tastes unusually seductive. She is horny now. Horny for him. He will walk her home. He will want to come up. For old times’ sake. To kiss her, he says. And she will betray herself, her lust. There is always that lust for him. Even while she tries to keep it buried.

In a wooden box, down deep under the earth with only a small hole to slip a straw through to the surface. That is how deep I have buried away my lust for him.

And almost without realizing it, she is out of her clothes in her gloomy apartment, bending over for him and clutching the edge of her bed, letting him slick her asshole with Vaseline because it’s handiest, feeling his finger working it in, getting her ready. He fucks her up the ass while she grunts like the lusty animal she is.

The degradation is good. She orgasms from it. She kisses him on the mouth. Her passion is burning hot. Am I thanking him for defiling me again? He must hurry or ‘she’ will suspect; he must run home to have dinner with his wife. By now she is likely waiting, glancing at the mantel clock, food laid out on their expensive dining table.

After he is gone, she sits alone in her room, feeling little but she is an adult, betrayed by her lust. I am floundering in shame and lust. I cannot resist either of these feelings.

He’s gained the upper hand again. What is she supposed to do, not walk down the street? Always be on her toes and expect that he will be around every corner?

* * *

She remembers wondering: How long have I been holding my water? It could have been yesterday, she recalls it so vividly. The pressure is tormenting her. She won’t let go until he tells her, “Let go.” She knows better.

Why won’t he look at me? Has he forgotten about me, that I’m squatting here, my knees spread, exposing myself? I know he could not have forgotten about me. He’s only ignoring me.

She looks down at where her bladder bulges beneath her tight-fitting tee shirt. It actually bulges, it is that full. She is naked except for the tee shirt. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it.

At last he remembers she is alive. He comes over to her. He is still fully dressed, immaculately dressed. He squats down in front of her. But he doesn’t say, “Let go.” He inserts two fingers up her slick hole instead and kisses her full on the mouth. His fingers feel roughly around inside her and she is delirious from the exquisite pressure, her bladder is so full.

“How do you want it?” he asks quietly.

She wants to say over your knee. She always wants to be over his knee. She feels safest there. Instead, she says, “However you want it. That’s how I want it.”

He commands her onto all fours, like she is a bad puppy. He swats her bare bottom hard with his open hand. Then harder still. She endures the smarting blows and won’t let go until he says, “Let go.”

When he tires of swatting her, the torture continues. He commands her back to the squatting position, her knees spread wide. In this position, it is hardest to hold it. He walks away and ignores her again.

She silently counts the tiles on the floor, keeping her mind occupied, her thoughts off her bladder. She can hear him in the kitchen. He is preparing dinner. When he re-emerges, it is to set the table.

He is opening a bottle of red wine. “Are you ready to be honest with me?” he calls out to her.

She looks up at him. He is standing next to the table. Isn’t she always honest with him? “Yes,” she says.

He sets the bottle down. He comes over to her. He squats down in front of her and looks her in the eye. She exists once more. “How do you want it?” he asks again.

She wants to say however you want it until she realizes that this is not true. He is waiting on her reply, for her to be honest with him. I love you, she wants to say. “Over your knee,” she says.

He smiles. He helps her to stand.

This is her favorite thing and she so rarely gets to experience it, to be over his knee, to be spanked–just like a little girl. Only now she will have to endure it while tormented by her near-bursting bladder.

He leads her over to the table that is set for their dinner. He pulls out a chair and sits down. Then she is over his knee, her bare bottom square in his lap. In this position, the pressure on her bladder is extreme and he is wearing expensive, tailor-made trousers. She will have to be vigilant.

She waits in his lap, eager to feel the force of his hand, to delight in her punishment now that she’s in her favorite position. But he doesn’t strike her. He doesn’t touch her. Of all cruel things, he says instead, “Let go.”

No, she thinks frantically. I won’t do this. This is too humiliating. She doesn’t think it’s fair that she should have to feel vulnerable like this, in this un-erotic way.

“I don’t want to tell you twice,” he says. “You know better.”

She does know better. She won’t be told twice. She let’s go, she soaks his expensive trousers. The release is not a relief so much as an utter humiliation. Her ass, untouched now, feels exposed and unappreciated. She wants to shrink from his gaze. She knows he is watching her, looking at her “relieving” herself in his lap, ruining an expensive item of his clothing. It would take her a lifetime of scrupulous saving to buy such handsome, tailor-made clothes and here she is, pissing on him.

He has achieved his goal for the evening. She has done everything he’s asked, to the letter, and all she feels is ashamed of herself. Touché, my love.

* * *

That’s how he always was, honing in on what would humiliate me most and then forcing me to endure it because he knew I would. I wonder if he’s changed? She’s foolish to think he might ever change. What would be the incentive for him to change? He claimed that he was “never this way with his wife,” that he saved this behavior especially for her because he knew she craved it–the humiliation, the surrender, being punished.

These are things she remembers: The phone ringing in the late afternoon. She is tempted to not answer it but at the last moment, she does.

“I’m downstairs, on the corner. Let me come up.”

He sounds rattled–not normal for him. He is always cool and collected.

In her apartment he kisses her with a great measure of passion. He does not take off his coat. He holds her in his arms and kisses her. He clutches handfuls of her hair as he kisses her. He might devour her; he is kissing her so ravenously.

His wife has hired a private detective, he says. He will not be visiting again.

Their good-bye, their parting is so brief, so fleeting as to seem fragile, delicate, unbearable. In a heartbeat, he’s gone. There is emptiness to take his place, but an emptiness that brims with shadows, ghosts, the overwhelming specter of Eros. An emptiness that mocks how un-penetrated she remains for months. She masturbates. It is incessant–that urge. She masturbates and she remembers and it is never good enough.

Finally, she doesn’t even touch herself and the days go on.

* * *

This is how we first met: through a mutual friend. We were having espressos and Italian pastries in a small coffee house in the East Village. It was late in the evening. I remember it was fall. There were several of us gathered around the small bistro table. The conversations were lively and inane, but good-natured. We were all having a pleasant, easygoing time.

At one point, he got up from his seat across the table from me, pulled up a chair right next to mine and sat down. “I’m Armand,” he said. “I don’t think I caught your name?”

“I’m Elisa.”

“Elisa,” he said. “How beautiful. And not just your name,” he clarified quietly. “You’re beautiful.” He said this like a confession, like a personal plea for my ear, my undivided attention.

“Thank you,” I said.

He asked for my phone number. I saw the gold ring. I knew he was married, still he asked for my number. “We could meet for a drink?” he asked. He was handsome but I was reluctant to say yes.

When our little crowd was dispersing, saying our goodnights, he said, “Elisa, let me walk you home. It’s late.”

It was late and it was also a clear, inviting night. A night that would have only been enhanced by an agreeable companion, a handsome man to walk with for those few blocks to my apartment. “Okay,” I said. “Sure, Armand. Let’s walk.”

As we walked, he held my arm. We made the usual small talk. He was charming and he had an engaging smile, perfect white teeth set off by his olive-toned skin, his black hair and dark eyes.

When we reached my building, he asked again for my phone number. I sighed. “Armand,” I said. “I know you’re married, okay? I see the ring. Why would you want my number?”

“Oh, I can think of a few reasons,” he replied, coming up close.

I didn’t move away. His looks were appealing to me, married or unmarried. “And what might those reasons be?”

“There’s the ever-popular ‘we could meet for a drink,’ as I tried half-heartedly before.”

“Or?”

“Or, if you’re looking to make a considerable chunk of tax-free cash, I know of something you’d be perfect for.”

I was quietly astounded. “Excuse me? Is this an illicit job offer?”

“It could be. Do you do scenes?”

I had no idea what he meant. “Scenes? What kind of scenes?”

“Rape scenes,” he said. “Play-rape. A small group of us pitch in a good chunk of change and hire a girl to come out to the beach with us for a night and we rape her,” he said. “No safe words, but nothing too brutal. It’s just for play. And then we drive her back to the city before the sun comes up.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

He looked amused. “No, I’m not out of my mind. I take it you don’t need the extra cash?” I couldn’t tell now if he was serious or not. “We pay extra,” he added cagily, “if she’s agreeable about taking it up the ass.”

How disgusting. “It doesn’t seem like ‘being agreeable’ and ‘rape’ belong in the same sentence.”

He laughed. “Elisa, I am only teasing you. I swear.”

I wasn’t sure I believed him. Now he seemed almost dangerous.

“It makes meeting for a simple drink seem a lot less complicated, though, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know about that.”

Then without asking me if it would be okay, he kissed me. No tongues or anything, but it was right on the mouth. “Come on,” he urged me. “Let me have your phone number.”

I felt overwhelmed by Armand. I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to have my number or not. He pulled out a scrap of paper and he was searching his coat pockets for a pen. When he found one, I made my fateful decision. I gave him my number and we said goodnight.

I went up to my apartment alone. Of course I couldn’t stop thinking about Armand; he’d made a unique impression on me. I had the profound feeling that he’d been serious about the rape scene, that he’d only passed it off as a joke once he saw how I’d responded. I wondered who were these girls that were being paid to go out to the beach, to get so mercilessly used by men for an entire night. Were they procured as casually as Armand had tried to pick up me? And what had made Armand think that I would ever be amenable to a sick scene like that in the first place?

Later in my bed though, with the lights out, in the safety of the familiar darkness the idea re-surfaced in me vividly. I saw it all from a less selective point of view, from the perspective of my clit. I saw Armand and those faceless men and I wanted to be that girl. It suited my fantasies perfectly, didn’t it? To be defiled? For a few unbridled minutes in my head, I was that girl. I took the money, went out to the beach and let the men have me savagely for an entire night. When I had my orgasm, I came quickly to my senses. I shoved that dark idea as far away from me as I could, refusing to claim it. I turned over in my bed and wondered if Armand would really call. I realized then that I hoped he would.

He did call, a few days later. And when he did, I got wet just hearing his voice on the telephone. We agreed to meet, even though he was married. When we hung up, I felt vaguely ashamed of myself.

* * *

Armand had a pied à terre near Sutton Place and that was where we’d usually meet for our illicit trysts. It was where we were when he forced the confession out of me at last; he was the first man to succeed at it. Frankly, he was the first man to even try. At that time, we’d been meeting secretly for only a couple weeks.

We were sharing a bottle of red wine in the afternoon, expensive wine, the kind of wine I could never have afforded on my own. He said, “I want to try a little experiment.”

I wasn’t sure I trusted that unusual tone in his voice. “What kind of experiment?”

“I want to tell you a story,” he said. “A story about you. And I want you to sit quietly and listen. Will you do that?”

“All right.” I had to admit, I was self-involved enough to be very intrigued.

“And when I’m done telling you the story, I want you to take off your panties and give them to me. No questions asked.”

That seemed weird. “Okay,” I said.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” he said, pouring us each a little more wine. He handed me my glass. “Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a young woman named Elisa.”

I sat next to him on the divan, sipping my wine, sliding into the comfort of his hypnotic voice. The living area in the pied à terre had one wall made entirely of glass with sliding glass doors set into it. Outside those doors were a rock garden with a high privacy wall, and a shallow pool with a modest fountain. A stone walkway bridged the pool and led to a magnificent modern bedroom with a connecting bath. That area, too, had one wall of glass. The living area and the bedroom looked across the pool at each other; there were no drapes of any kind. Up above the stone wall, I could see the tops of trees, their autumn leaves amber and crimson, and above the trees, I could see the tops of skyscrapers looming in the waning afternoon light.

“Our young woman, Elisa, has a secret,” Armand went on. “It’s a magical secret, in that it acts as a key to an inner kingdom that nobody knows exists.”

I think I smiled pleasantly, I’m not sure. I only know I didn’t feel alarmed. It seemed like a harmless story, maybe even a pointless one.

“It seems like it must be a powerful secret, doesn’t it? Seeing that it’s capable of unlocking a door to an entire kingdom that nobody knows about?”

It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t being rhetorical, that he was waiting on my answer. “Yes,” I said without thinking. “It must be very powerful.”

“Do you want to know what Elisa’s secret is?”

I sipped my wine. It tasted seductively complex on my tongue. “Yes,” I said, going for the bait. “I want to know what her secret is.”

“Can you be trusted to keep it a secret? It’s something Elisa is ashamed of–she wouldn’t want it bandied about in the wrong sort of crowd.”

I smiled. “I can keep a secret,” I assured him. Although he seemed to be asking me, in a convoluted way, to keep my own secret a secret…

“Okay then,” he began. “Here is her secret. Under cover of darkness, without anybody knowing, Elisa accepted the money and went down to the beach one night.”

That brought me up short. The wine glass was at my lips but I didn’t take a sip. My mind was riveted instead on Armand. He had my complete attention. His eyes seemed to be taking careful note of this new expression that I was certain was on my face.

“That isn’t even the worst part of her secret,” he continued. He took my wine glass away from me and set it on the coffee table. He scooted closer to me on the divan, his eyes never leaving my face. “The worst part is that she even took the extra money, ensuring that she would be very agreeable, even with her ass. That’s a pretty disgraceful secret Elisa has, isn’t it?”

Yes, I thought, although I couldn’t say it.

“Shall I go on? You want to hear the whole sordid truth about Elisa?”

This time I nodded my head, yes.

“I picked her up in my car and drove her out to the beach house where the other men were waiting. Now, Elisa is very shy. She’s the kind of woman who’s always vaguely ashamed of the thoughts that are in her head–have you ever known a woman like that?”

I didn’t reply.

“Well, Elisa is that way, so when we were finally at the beach house, she was too shy to speak to anybody. We were reduced to having to read her mind. We had to figure out–without any input from her, mind you–just how rough she wanted to play. After all, we didn’t want to send her out over the edge, did we? This was about satisfying a need. It was not about a trip to the psych ward at Bellevue. So we had our work cut out for us. For instance, we had to decide if Elisa was the type of player who preferred to take off her own clothes or have them stripped from her. I’m curious,” he said. “What do you think her response would have been in that situation?”

I looked at him uneasily, reluctant to take part in his story, to add my two cents. But he repeated the question. “What do you think her response would have been? I’m just curious. It’s just for the sake of argument.”

I entered the fray of my psychological turmoil haltingly. “I suppose,” I said. “Well, I think she would have…”

“Yes?”

“She would have chosen to be undressed by the men.”

“To keep it real?”

“I suppose so. Yes, to keep it real.”

“I see,” he said, barely even blinking. “We misjudged her on that count. We had her undress herself. But we watched. We watched every move she made. And how do you think we had our way with her? What would be your guess?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do.”

“No,” I insisted quietly. “I really don’t.”

“Well, for instance, once she was naked, did we toss her out in the middle of the floor?”

I could scarcely catch my breath now, he’d honed in on me with such precision. “I suppose so, yes.”

“Did we go at her like a pack of wild dogs? Or did we each take our time defiling her?”

I didn’t want to answer. He was asking too much of me. I wanted my wine glass safely back in my hand. I wanted something to distract me. I stole a quick glance out the giant glass window and noticed the sun had sunk down considerably in the late afternoon sky. And yet he waited. Was it for me to feel comfortable with my answer? I could feel his eyes studying my face. I finally found my nerve to reply. “They took their time with her,” I said.

He said, “You know? That’s what I guessed, too. That she would want her debasement to be methodical. That we needed to be thorough with a woman like Elisa. You know what else I decided? That it would be best if she were tied in some way. Now how do we tie a girl like you? What’s the best way?”

Suddenly everything had shifted, he had gotten personal. I couldn’t reply. Not only because my mouth was too dry but because I’d never been tied. I knew nothing about it.

“I’ll tell you,” he said, having mercy on me. “This is what I chose; this is what we did to Elisa. Tell me if you think the punishment fit the crime. When she was out there naked in the middle of the floor, we had her turn over. We tied her wrists, one to each of her ankles, and we propped her up on her knees, her head down and her lovely ass in the air. You get the picture, I’m sure. She was quite helpless in that position. Then we went at her, one at time, any hole we pleased since she’d agreed to it beforehand–she’d already taken the money. We went at her all night; we really had our way with her. What do you think she did?”

“I don’t know,” I said almost inaudibly, swallowing hard, unnerved by his uncanny assessment of me and my secret fantasies. How could he know this? My wonder bordered on panic. I’d never breathed a word of it to anybody. How could he have unearthed a secret I’d kept buried so deep?

“Did she scream?” he asked. “Did she cry and try to take it all back, to get us to see reason? Did she beg us to untie her and let her go? Did she tell us we could have the money, anything, just as long we stopped violating her and gave her back her clothes? Or did she enjoy herself?”

“I don’t know,” I said again.

“Well, think, Elisa. Use your imagination, your best judgment. If you need to give it some serious consideration, that’s okay. I have all the time in the world.”

There was no beach house. There were no other men. There was only Armand and I, secluded in the pied à terre in the busy heart of Manhattan. Somehow I found my voice. “I suspect she did all those things. She cried, she screamed, she begged for mercy, to be untied…”

“And then what?”

In a near whisper, since I didn’t even want to hear myself saying it, I finally confessed. “I suspect she came.”

“Really?”

“Yes. When they ignored her pleas, when they kept going, I suspect she had an orgasm in spite of her misfortune.”

He seemed impressed with my answer. “I suspect so, too,” he said. “In fact, right there in front of all of us, she had an orgasm during her misfortune, as you put it. We knew, but we kept her little secret. End of story. Let me have your panties.”

It was plain why he wanted them–as proof that I knew he had me pegged. My panties were soaking. As far as proof went, soaking panties were as good as having had a detectable orgasm. I reached under my skirt and peeled them down. I handed them to him.

“Well, in light of our little story, are you still going to spend the night?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Interesting,” he said, tossing the panties on to the coffee table.

* * *

Welcome to Elisa’s secret inner kingdom, I thought. For once, I didn’t feel ashamed of myself. Instead I felt mesmerized by the thoughts that were in my head–or, more, by how my thoughts had sounded coming out of Armand’s mouth. I spent the night with Armand and, to my dismay it passed without incident. He didn’t make love to me, although every cell, every square inch of me, craved his contact. I never felt comfortable making the first move with Armand, so there I lay beside him the entire night, unable to sleep while he lay next to me, sleeping soundly. I felt as if each of the tiny nerve endings throughout my body were exposed electrified wires, culminating in my aching clit. Was that all there was to it, I wondered? He knew this secret about me and it wasn’t meant to be more than that? Why didn’t he want to make love to me? What was he waiting for? I was trapped in a cycle of unanswered questions, wrapped in an invisible blanket of arousal and wet between my legs all night.

A week later, when Armand was back in the city on business and staying at the pied à terre, he called me on the telephone, inviting me to come over, to stay the night. For me, it had been a tortuous week. Thoughts that I’d normally kept locked away until I was alone in bed at night were now hovering at the surface of my mind, screaming out for my attention even in broad daylight. I was driven to distraction by the unsavoriness of my constant desires.

I arrived at the pied à terre early, without realizing Armand might not be alone. “Come in,” he said. “I’m just finishing up some business.”

I followed him into the living area and encountered three men, all wearing suits and ties, the expensive kind. Clearly they were successful businessmen, just like Armand. He introduced me simply as ‘Elisa’ and then told me to have a seat and wait.

I did as I was told, not listening to their conversation, wondering instead if the beach house had ever really existed and if it had, then who were these men? How well did they know Armand? I asked myself secretly, what if it were these men? What if they offered me money to be very agreeable for an entire night? What if they even tied me, ensuring that I couldn’t change my mind?

Four–including Armand. I felt I could survive it. I wondered if I would ever be asked.

Within the hour, Armand and I were alone. “You look especially pretty today,” he said. “What’s on your little mind?”

My mind felt enormous, expansive, vibrant–anything but little. “Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing?” He seemed disbelieving.

“Nothing unusual,” I clarified; hoping that at the very least he would tell me another story about myself. A story my thoughts could feed on for another tortuous week in the event that, once again, we were not going to make love.

“So, Elisa,” he started in.

“Yes?” I said. He was going into the kitchen and I followed him.

He perused the contents of the small refrigerator, seeming disinterested in what he found there–perhaps even disappointed. “We have a maid, you know,” he informed me, closing the refrigerator door. “She gets the day off when you’re coming over. But I always leave her specific instructions on what I want in this refrigerator before she takes the day off. You’d think it wouldn’t be too much to ask of her to get it right, wouldn’t you? It’s not like we’re even here every day.”

For the first time, I found myself resenting that he had a wife, that he considered himself part of a ‘we’ or that she in any way inhabited the little pied à terre. And now I hoped this maid I was hearing about was an overweight, middle-aged German woman of little humor and a thoroughly uninviting disposition. It was envy that I was feeling, and it was not just a trickle but more like a deluge.

“I guess we’re going to be ordering in,” he said. “Elisa, what should I do with a maid like her? Settle it the old-fashioned way and take her over my knee?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I replied, feeling a little surly. “I’ve never had a maid.”

He smiled at me. “You’ve never had a maid–have you ever been a maid?”

“No.”

“You’re a little testy today, aren’t you?”

“Not especially. I just don’t know anything about spanking a maid.”

“Do you think I do? Is that what’s bothering you?”

I didn’t answer. It was such a stupid question; I didn’t think I needed to. He stared at me and I stared right back at him. He didn’t speak. We stood in the small kitchen silently staring at each other, until I finally said, “You’re not really expecting an answer, are you?”

“Actually, I am.”

“Why would I care if you spank your maid?”

“Oh, I can think of at least one good reason why you’d care–the same reason why you’d care if you knew I spanked my wife.”

That I definitely did not want to hear about. I was fuming. It was too late to act uninvolved in what he was saying but it didn’t mean I had to keep speaking to him. I left the kitchen and went into the living area and plopped down on the divan.

He followed me into the room, and then stood in front of me, musing, for all I knew. His hands were casually in his pants pockets while he considered me. “I take it, you’re ready for the rules to change,” he said.

He seemed so calm compared to how I was feeling; my newly unleashed envy was galloping through me at a wicked speed. “And what does that mean?”

“How about another little experiment?”

I tried my best to act uninterested.

“I don’t spank my maid, Elisa. And I don’t spank my wife. You can calm down.”

I managed to look in his direction. “And that’s the experiment?” I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I felt relieved.

“No, that’s not the experiment.”

“Well, I’m all ears.”

He came closer. “You’re in such an unattractive little mood right now, Elisa. How would you feel about getting punished? It might help you get over yourself.”

My heart leaped at the sound of his words, but I couldn’t say what I was thinking, I couldn’t answer him.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.” He pulled me up from the divan. I followed him out through the sliding glass doors, across the little stone bridge over the shallow pool and into the bedroom. I felt extremely excited. No one had ever done this to me before. No one had so much as suggested it. I knew I had his undivided attention and I was quietly reveling in it, and in the thought of my impending punishment.

* * *

The days go on and she manages to subsist. It’s only a pale reflection of life that goes on around her. Her mind is disengaged. Nothing suits her. Dating is out of the question. The notion of dating is absurd and ridiculous. What is dating? Dinner and a movie. When all she wants is Armand commanding her, defiling her, exposing her from the waist down and then ignoring her.

That was my first taste of his kind of punishment. I wanted the old-fashioned kind; I wanted to be spanked like the maid. Instead, I was told to remove my shoes, my stockings. I was told to lift my skirt and lower my panties. I did as he asked and it was exhilarating. He told me to kneel down in front of the bench at the foot of the bed, to bend over the bench and I did. He made sure my skirt was raised up high; he spread it out just so. His foot nudged my knees further apart. He adjusted my panties, lowering them a mere fraction of an inch more down my thighs. The touch of his hand going briefly between my legs was thrilling. In that exquisite position, I awaited my punishment–my idea of punishment. What I got instead was his.

He stops speaking to her. He changes out of his business suit into more casual clothes. His cell phone rings. “Hello?” he says. “Sure, sure. Not a problem. Come get it. I’m here.”

She is speechless, appalled. Who is coming over? Whoever it is will surely see her through the giant windows, through all that glass.

On his way out of the bedroom, he makes eye contact with her. “You’re not to move,” he instructs her. “I mean it.”

Now she is delirious with her desire to please him. She rests her head on the bench and takes comfort in her ridiculous pose. She gets wet, thinking of how exposed she is. She hopes that whoever it is who comes over, sees her without any difficulty, that he gets a good look and secretly sodomizes her in his imagination.

Who was it, she wonders now. Who saw me like that? She had her suspicions but she never learned for sure.

There was a brownstone on the Upper East Side, just off Central Park. She remembers the entryway, the foyer, the grand staircase that led them up to an imposing library on the third floor. After that, she saw nothing. Armand had blindfolded her, tying the blindfold tight, then he helped her down to her knees, helped her bend over the leather chesterfield. He sat next to her the entire time, speaking very quietly to the man who had joined them in the library. It was this man–the man whose hands went up under her skirt and tugged down her panties, the man who mounted her, whose thick cock filled her vagina then forced its way up her ass, causing her to cry out until Armand had to cover her mouth with his hand–it was this man who she suspected had seen her on display that afternoon in the pied à terre.

Armand and the other men–all of it is over, she knows this and she knows she has to accept it. She understands that Armand chose his wealthy wife over his common whore. But she also knows there will be no replacing him. Understanding the void is one thing. Filling it with anything else–it’s an impossibility.

The secret is staying out of his way forever. Merely seeing his face again, let alone having a quick fuck…This business of running into him on the street–I won’t survive it.

She turns over in her bed and faces the wall. Empty. Thoroughly empty, and ashamed of herself now for so many complex reasons. She no longer bothers to answer the telephone. When she hears it ring, she doesn’t stir.

* * *

That day when the rules changed, that was when my life changed. That was when I realized I’d never known what feeling fulfilled meant, or what it meant to feel happy. My mistake was believing that Armand was in love with me, but beyond that, I started my existence over that day, I began living in a newfound bliss. A new life that demanded strict obedience to boundaries. It required deprivation and surrendering at last to my punishment. Above all, it necessitated opening my body without fear, turning it over to Armand as an empty receptacle for him to fill with his fertile imagination. In my new life, with the new rules in place, I was happier than I’d ever been. I still believe that Armand was happy, too–uniquely content. And I want to believe he loved me, even if he didn’t choose me in the end.

By the time he told me that the beach house was real, I already considered myself his canvas. My holes belonged to him, my mind was his domain. I trusted him to know what would make a woman like me feel fulfilled.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t freely want to consent to,” he explained to me one afternoon over lunch. “I’m not suggesting you go. I’m just letting you know you have the option. I know you. I know it’s something you still think about.”

He was right, as always. At first, I was only curious to know who the men would be.

“The only way you’d learn that would be to accept the money. If you’re the kind of girl who wouldn’t want to be paid, you won’t ever know who they are. You’ll be blindfolded. It’s different when the girls aren’t paid. It’s a different arrangement, a different type of power exchange.”

I wondered how many girls had there been to necessitate different arrangements? Still I kept the question to myself.

“And it’s reasonably safe,” he assured me, as if it were a mere afterthought. “Not that there are safe words, I just meant that everybody wears condoms.”

It was at least another month before I got up my nerve to ask to be taken to the beach house, to rise to the surface of my fantasies rather than be submerged in their inscrutable allure for the rest of my life. I told Armand that I didn’t want to be paid, but I made him swear not to leave me in the house alone with the other men, and I made him promise to be one of my ravishers.

It was not so harrowing an experience as I’d feared it might be. There were only two distinct points where I felt I might panic: when I was first blindfolded and someone was stripping me out of my clothes, removing my last vestige of false security, and then again late in the night, when a man untied me and moved me to a different room. I became disoriented then and it became immediately clear that several men would be enjoying me at once, overwhelming me with too much stimuli. The rest of it was an experience that suited me. It suited my temperament, my bottomless pit of sexual need and my unfathomable desire to be used as an instrument for sexual pleasure.

In the beginning, I was tied in the way Armand had suggested. By now, I was familiar with being tied in this position. Armand had already introduced me to it at the pied à terre. It was a position that profoundly excited me–my wrists tied to my ankles, my ass in the air–because it kept me at the mercy of my tormentor. It kept me from being able to change my mind. It presented me as strictly an object to be taken. The simple thought of how wide open my most vulnerable parts were–that alone kept me wet, kept me aroused, so much so that I enjoyed every man who took me in this position regardless of how they made use of the holes that were being offered; the men who were rough, as well as the men who took their thorough gratification in my ass. I enjoyed each gradation of my predicament. I enjoyed the sensation of being bound in utter darkness while being probed, penetrated, stretched open and filled, then mercilessly pounded while conversation went on all around me. I lost track of how many times the men took me. There were chunks of time where nobody used me at all and I drifted into a sort of sleep, my knees, my face, my shoulders impressed in the rough carpeting. Each time Armand went at me, I knew without doubt it was him. He had a habit of opening me first with his fingers, whichever hole he was selecting, feeling me up avidly before sliding his cock in and taking his fill.

In my ecstasy, I did not know which pleased me more, being taken by Armand in full view of strangers, or having strangers take their pleasure in me while being observed by Armand.

I preferred that part of the night to those final hours that came after I was untied and moved to another room. What I learned about myself was that as long as I was tied, I was in a type of erotic trance and all of the fucking appealed to me. When I was untied, I felt at odds with myself and at odds with what the men wanted from me, even Armand. When several of them held me flat on my back and spread me, pinning my arms and forcing my legs apart, displaying me obscenely while another one took full advantage and fucked me–even when I suspected the man fucking me was Armand, I had to fight against my urge to struggle, to get free of the assault. I wasn’t entirely successful, either, as the intensity of what they took from me had heightened, a sort of ‘final frenzy’ that seemed to signify the end of the evening. It bordered on being brutal, although it was never pain I was feeling but extreme vulnerability and utter immodesty, complete emotional exposure.

When the dawn finally came, the men left and Armand removed my blindfold. I was allowed to shower and then he drove me back to my own apartment. He came upstairs and stayed for an hour with me, lying next to me on my bed.

“Tell me what it was like,” he said. “Tell me every detail.”

As I told him every detail of my exquisite captivity and debasement, he gradually undressed me, he removed my clothes. When I spoke of how it had felt to be tied as opposed to untied, how it had felt to be randomly penetrated and probed for hours, to be blind while filled by so many strange cocks, his mouth was between my legs and I held my thighs open for him. His tongue licked my clitoris with such deliberate attention, I could hardly keep track of what I was saying. When his fingers went in me, investigating the swollen depths of my still eager vagina, I bore down hard on them. I came with his mouth ardently sucking me and his fingers deep in my hole. Then I fell sound asleep. I didn’t even remember Armand’s leaving. I hadn’t had time to thank him for his incredible gift, for showing me to myself, for leading me to the tempestuous waters of my imagination and then encouraging me to drink.

The very next evening he invited me to the pied à terre. Explaining, “Now that we’ve explored your capacity for boundless pleasure, we’ll explore your capacity for deprivation.”

To my surprise, the idea was equally arousing to me. I reveled in the severity of the deprivation he administered. It seemed to be in perfect balance to what I had yielded to the night before.

Armand took me into the small study–a room I hadn’t stepped foot in until now. He told me to undress. As I did, he took each article of my clothing, folded it neatly and put it into a drawer. Even my shoes went into this drawer.

He opened the door to a small closet and told me to sit down with my back against the wall, my knees up and my thighs open. I did as I was told. He left the room briefly and I waited, without moving, for him to return.

When he came back, he tied my wrists to my ankles once again, only now I was in a sitting position and now a thigh spreader was fastened between my thighs, keeping my legs forcibly spread. For the first time ever, he gagged my mouth. Then slid two tiny earphones into my ears. They were plugged into a micro cassette recorder that seemed to be playing the audio track of a porn loop. It was the sound of a man and woman having unbridled sexual intercourse. Soon enough, I determined that it was a tape recording of Armand fucking somebody, somebody that I suspected was his wife. He didn’t blindfold me. However, before leaving me alone in the dark closet, he attached a small, weighted clamp to my clitoris. The clamp had teeth that held snugly to my clit, keeping it securely in place without causing me too much outright pain. The tiny lead weight was there solely to torment my clit, to pull on it and create constant movement. The clamp ensured that I would only be incessantly teased and not reach an actual climax until the clamp was removed and the natural blood flow to my clit could resume.

Once I was trussed in that manner, Armand closed the closet door and left me there in the dark.

At first, the inescapable sound of Armand fucking his wife perturbed me. There were snippets of sex talk peppered throughout the recording that made them sound like comfortable lovers, at ease with their bodies and their sexual needs. There were moments when Armand called his wife dirty names–a cunt, a whore–which only increased the pleasure she was so obviously receiving. There were times when he instructed her to turn over, or to assume different positions that I could only guess at without the necessary visuals to accompany it. There were moments when his wife begged to be fucked harder but most of the time, she simply exuded lusty and–ultimately–very arousing sounds.

I was in a state of agonized desire. Even the smallest movement of my body sent the tiny lead weight shivering, pulling on my swollen clit. I was aching to masturbate but could do nothing, really, except listen to the two exuberant lovers. I couldn’t help but try to picture how they were pleasuring each other, the positions they were in as they fucked, how their naked bodies related to each other, what their mouths were doing. I was even forced to listen to their orgasms before the tape would loop over and start again, all the while I was unable to escape the idea that this was the man I loved making love to his own wife. And it surprised me–just how badly my eyes wanted to see it, to see Armand fucking his wife.

I lost track of how many times the tape looped before Armand came back and opened the closet. When he did, my gag was soaking with my own spit and my vagina was so aroused that the slippery wetness had gradually oozed from me and collected in a tiny puddle on the floor

The first thing Armand did was remove the earphones from my ears, then he took the clamp from my clit. The rush of blood to the tip of it was both delicious and painful. His fingertips rubbed my clit vigorously and I felt like coming on the spot, but before I could, his fingers were up inside me instead.

“God, you’re wet,” he said quietly. He had knelt beside me in the dark closet. As usual, he was still fully clothed next to my utter nakedness. “I feel like I could slide my whole hand up you without any effort at all.”

I moaned deliriously into my gag, loving the exquisite sensation of his fingers moving inside me, my clit freed at last. I felt like I could take his whole hand at this very moment, but all he gave me were two fingers. I pushed down on his fingers. My hole opened wide to accept them.

“You must have loved that, huh? Eavesdropping on me during something so private?”

His fingers pushed relentlessly against my swollen G-spot.

“Listening to me fuck my wife, you loved that, didn’t you? You’ve completely wet yourself.”

I groaned some more. I was helpless, the fluids began to gush out of me, his fingers would not let up on my G-spot. I squirted all over his hand several times. The release was exhilarating. Still it embarrassed me; I made such a soaking mess on his closet floor. I wondered what he would tell the maid.

* * *

The specific punishment she so craved did not take place in the pied à terre. Instead, it took place in the familiar surroundings of her own apartment. They’d had a light supper out together. The summer evening was stifling. Her apartment was not air-conditioned and all her windows were open wide.

Without her knowing it, he watched her ass intently as she climbed the stairs to her apartment–remaining a few steps behind her. She had a full, round ass that always delighted his eyes, regardless of the position he would see it in.

“I love your ass,” he told her as she was putting her key in the front door. “I really want to spank you, right now.”

She was afraid to get too excited. So far, his spankings had been administered with a ruler, a hairbrush, the bottom of his Brooks Brothers bedroom slipper–never his hand. And she was never over his knee, either. She always bent over something else instead; a dresser, the table, the arm of a chair.

She didn’t reply at all to his remark. She opened the door to her stifling apartment, they went in and she waited for his instructions.

He said nothing, though. He took her by the hand and led her to the one bedroom at the back of the flat. It had two large windows overlooking a small courtyard and another apartment building. Everywhere along the courtyard, windows were open wide onto the thick, unmoving humidity of the summer evening.

He sat down on the edge of her unmade bed. “Come here,” he said. And suddenly she grew very excited. Finally. He indicated that he wanted her over his knee.

I am always craving to be over his knee. I feel like I have craved this my whole life.

And in fact, she has. She has craved this very spanking for her entire life. It is her first erotic spanking and she suddenly feels alien to herself–she’s trembling, she’s too excited.

When she’s over his knee, he lifts her summer dress. The thin material of her pale, silky panties is clinging to her cheeks, making her ass look even fuller, more round. At first, he keeps the panties right where they are and he spanks her bottom with his open hand–no warm-up spanks, either. He just starts spanking her.

She is certain the sounds of the smacks are resounding in the quiet courtyard. Even though the spanking immediately stings, she is reluctant to cry out for fear of piquing any prurient interests of nosy neighbors. What she doesn’t understand, though, is that he wants her cries to be heard by nosy neighbors. He wants her to be spanked in public, and for now, this is the next best thing. They are at cross-purposes: she is trying not to cry out, and he is trying harder to elicit her cries.

Quickly, the spanking becomes more brutal as they lock wills. He doesn’t tell her, “I want you to cry,” because then she would obey him and the thrill of the hunt would be snuffed out. Instead, he simply spanks her more severely. He tugs her panties down her thighs now, which arouses her secret inner world acutely. Each of her senses is heightened by this simple gesture of having her panties tugged down. She is soaking herself with arousal but her face is beginning to sweat from the agony of the pain.

It is now the flat of his hand against her bared ass. Rapidly, she succumbs to the irrational power of all-out lust. He is striking her very hard and she cries out now in a thick mixture of pain and desire–an unmistakable sound, she fears, but it’s too late. The sound is out of her, drifting out the open windows and suffusing the still evening air out in the courtyard.

Now he wants to hear more of her cries, he wants the sound of her distress saturating his ears and not just filling the world of her room, or the world outside her room. Her hands inevitably have come behind her to shield her bottom from the severity of the spanking. He clamps his arm tight around her waist, trapping her hands, and delivers more of the smarting blows to her already bright red cheeks. The sight of her reddened flesh, bouncing under each blow he delivers, stimulates his eyes and the sight shoots straight to his cock. His erection is rock hard underneath her. He knows she is a helpless prisoner to her lust now. He can tell by how she is squirming. He can tell by the pitch and fullness of her cries. He is making her suffer, he is the cause of her tears, of her pleas that are wrenching out of her so unattractively and yet so enticingly, and he is certain that if he were to feel between her legs this minute, if he were to shove his fingers up her hole, she would be hot and swollen and wet there, she would be writhing against the intrusive fingers in a heartbeat.

She is in her bed alone now. Armand and all of it is over. It is months and months later now. It is many spankings gone now, it is a lifetime ago. She faces the wall and she remembers. The first spanking. It was right here in this very room, on the edge of this bed. She looks now at the very spot where it occurred. She remembers her delirium. She remembers her embarrassment when, without warning, he tugged her panties all the way down and roughly shoved his fingers up her hole, discovering how wet she was. She remembers how her legs parted quickly for him. How badly she wanted just those fingers, she didn’t even need to be fucked, didn’t need his cock although he gave it to her moments later. It was those fingers her legs parted for, her smarting ass arching up, betraying the utter depths of her lust. And the sounds she made–those sounds that filled her room and rushed out into the night. She was certain that no neighbor could have missed them. That every window along the courtyard held a rapt listener as she half-cried, half-growled on his rough, intrusive fingers.

Then I was right there, bending over the bed and getting his cock. Grunting like crazy on that thorough cock, my ass stinging, my heart on fire…I’d been spanked. Finally.

She is going to masturbate again. She hates this about her life, how she masturbates instead of having fresh experiences.

And always the phone rings.

She finally answers it. “Hello?” she says.

“Please,” he says. “Just come downstairs. We’ll find some neutral territory. We have to talk.”

“About what?” she practically spits. “Having a glass of wine? Fucking my ass and then taking off again?”

It’s unthinkable and yet she’s done it. She’s slammed down the receiver on the man she wanted to hear from most.

* * *

My problem is that I don’t want to go back to being the woman I was before Armand. It isn’t just the punishment I still crave, it’s the boundaries; the psychological, emotional, and physical boundaries that I enjoyed. I want those back. I thrived on being held accountable for my choices, for my actions, for my tiniest infractions of the agreed-upon rules. It meant I existed in the world, that I made an impression on it, that there was someone reacting to my behavior at all times, reflecting it back at me. With Armand there was incredible sex but there was so much more. There was an ecstasy that felt ethereal when I knew I had obeyed him to the letter, or equally, when I was subjugated to my humiliation because I knew I deserved it. My punishment was necessary to my good, but I also understood my good for the first time in my pathetic life.

No other man but Armand has understood me in this way. He understood me long before I understood myself. He pointed me in the direction of home and then he made the journey with me. He led me there by exploring me and challenging me to explore myself, regardless of the unexpected worlds my exploration would then uncover.

* * *

Obviously he knows now that she is home. He rings her number again and again.

She masturbates even while the phone rings because she knows for certain it is him. It’s a delirious feeling, knowing that she’s once again connected to him if only through these ringing bells. She pictures his fingers going in her. She remembers herself tied, exposed for him, and his fingers going in her. Up her ass. Until it is his cock she remembers going up her ass while she’s tied, blindfolded, lost in the same pleasure she feels him succumbing to in her. She doesn’t stop masturbating until she has brought on the orgasm she craves.

The phone has not stopped ringing. The ringing drowns out even her bitterness. At last, she answers the phone again.

“Don’t hang up,” he shouts. “Listen to me, Elisa. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I know it sounds like too little, too late but I want you with me. I mean it. I want you with me.”

He begs for at least a chance to plead his case in person, to explain that he’s left his wife. That his settlement will include the beach house and the pied à terre.

Their memories will be part of his settlement, part of his permanent departure from his wife. He surrendered a lot to secure those two things before leaving.

She’s almost afraid to believe it but there is nothing she would rather believe instead. “Come up,” she says. She is ready to be amenable.

After all, she decides, there is only life to be lived and so little time even for that.