“Here, this is the one.”
She thrust the picture at him, like a child offering a broken pot for inspection, and looked back to her teacup.
He gazed at her choice, a haughty bottle blonde, a posed young woman eyeing the camera with disdain. Her knickers were clearly not her own, adopted for the shoot, and linked to stockings more suited to a secretary than a grown up schoolgirl.
“And why do you find this so enticing?” he asked, leaning back in his chair, a clear indication that she was to take her time.
He listened with care as she stuttered her answer. She spoke of so many things, and in such a soft sweet voice, that what happened later seemed almost a shame, or an exquisite delight, or perhaps both.
He made sure to dress her properly. The trick was to allow just enough clothes to make her absurdly aware of where she was naked. She would have no trappings of adulthood, no stockings or high heels for her.
He bent her over so that her stomach pressed hard against the horse, a feeling reminiscent of butterflies in itself, but coupled with the awkward nature of the stance he could feel her at odds with everything.
“But please,” she said to the ground and a little to the base of the wall to her right, “The picture doesn’t look like this. She wasn’t so …” and then she stopped.
Suddenly she felt so silly she could cry. Her bum was burning and swollen like a big beacon. He was being mean and wouldn’t even let her put heels on, which would make her legs look better and mean that she would not have to stand on tip toes to keep the position he wanted. She kept waggling one foot and then the other, side to side because it hurt so much and it was so loud.
Every slap of his palm against her bottom made such a loud “crack” that she felt embarrassed, as though the whole world could hear her punishment. She wanted to say all of this to him, but he would not listen.
She heard him walk away to the side of the room and smiled to herself. It was over. She had not liked it and he clearly knew that so he was backing down, stopping, whatever the word, and he would let her up. They would kiss, and she would make him smile. He would make her smile. Soon, everything would be different.
But he came back, with a clip in his step that said he had a purpose. His hand on her back returned her to position, but he said not a word.
This was totally unfair, not to mention a little terrifying. The sound of the cane, the agony of the lines across her, the ignoble position, the nakedness – all of it created a tableau in her head.
And she was someone else now. He had plucked this picture from her mind and created her anew, someone different yet vaguely familiar. She could not work out what or who she was because she could not think that far away from herself.
But she would ask him later, and he would know.
