I know it's going to hurt. I can tell before he touches me. There's a coldness to the curl of his lips. There's a taunting tone to his voice when he orders me to my knees.
And then he removes his belt.
He folds it over itself, creating a thick strap of leather, and holds it out to me. I feel it pressed firmly into my cheek when I hesitate, a slight pressure against my jaw. Then I take it.
I try to hold it lightly, try not to squeeze it to still the slight tremor in my limbs. The darkness of the leather gleams obscenely against my pale hands as I wait, eyes downcast, for his instruction. The waiting feels strange; an unaccustomed ritual from a man whose hands and words can have me doing and giving whatever he wants in moments. But this is different. This is punishment. And he knows the cold tension that sits in my stomach. He knows the thousands of scenarios that are racing through my mind. He knows the anticipation that rushes through my blood. He knows the pounding of my heart. He knows that this is more punishment than any pain he could inflict, that - if he just waits patiently - I will punish myself for him. That whatever he subjects me to physically will almost be a relief from this psychological torture. He knows that even my pain will be a reprieve.
The backs of his fingers gently brush my cheek, and my eyes dart up to meet his. There is a softness there. A reassurance that I am doing well. A reassurance that I am safe within his control. I am inside a nebulous aura of something I cannot name. Something that simultaneously cocoons me softly and holds me tight. There is nothing else. All my focus is him.
I take a breath. Then another. I lower my eyes. I lower my eyes to the belt that I have been unconsciously twisting between my fingers.
I have touched this belt before. I have unbuckled it when he returns home and allows me to undress him. I have unbuckled it when he lifts me to the kitchen bench and kisses me until I'm dizzy and desperate for his cock. It has been a mute witness to our intimacy. It has been an accomplice to my pleasure. It has been around my wrists, my ankles. It has been around my throat.
There is a vulgarity to my nakedness. I kneel gracefully. My soft body waits with a pretty, feminine tension. But before his clothed body, his height, the eloquence of his power, I seem to pale. If anyone were to glimpse us, their eyes would fix on me out of sheer voyeuristic novelty. But - if they allowed themselves to take more than a furtive glance at a naked stranger - their gaze would move. He would no longer be a figure above a naked woman, a symbolic masculinity, a signifier to whatever sordid fantasies the viewer might dream. He would become the focus. He would be the subject of this tableau as he is the author of it. His is the energy that pulses greater than my fear. His is the power that draws me in. His the gravity that holds me in his orbit. I am an accessory to his will. A bud that blossoms when he fixes that will upon me. I am more beautiful under his care.
"Elbows and knees," he says. And there is no hesitation. Those self-conscious, cruelly analytical fears about my body have long since fled in his presence.
I follow his direction as gracefully as I can with his belt still clasped in both my hands. My obedience is more important than my elegance. My acquiescence to his will of more value than my poise.
I can feel his warmth behind me. His eyes on the most intimate parts of me as I present myself to him. My knees are firmly grounded against the cool floor. My elbows are not so sure. There is a barely perceptible tremor through the nerves where the sharpness of the joint meets the hardness of the wooden boards beneath me. I know he can see it. I know he takes the functional, the purely physiological interaction of my body with the world into account. But my hands are held out before me, open. His belt lays across them. I am an acolyte presenting the implement of my worship.
His footfalls are firm as he moves around me.
He takes the belt from the altar of my hands. He presses it to my lips. It passively receives my kiss.
His footfalls are firm as he moves around me.
"Palms flat," he tells me. And I do. I press my forearms to the floor. The heat in my palms cools. There is a snapping sound behind me. I feel my body flinch involuntarily forward.
The belt is no longer mute.
The sound it makes as it strikes my skin registers before the pain. A sharp crack that seems to ring in my ears for minutes, as though I am at the epicentre of the sound. As though I have moved beyond the realm of light and have been swept into a sonic realm where the senses cannot be preoccupied by the overwhelming distraction of seeing. Where all else melts away but the belt and how he wields it while granting me his punishment.
Then there is a sting, a heat, a soft cry. Then there is a hand, broad and warm, soothing against my flesh. My eyes close for a moment as I soak it in. As I learn this new sensation; this new, lashing pain. Then the hand is gone. I swallow.
The quick, repetitive fall of his strikes shocks me. My body is on fire. My joints press so firmly into the floor I feel that my bones might crack. The nerves in my muscles twitch and quiver. My mind tells me to scream but I feel my breath at the bottom of my lungs, too heavy to expel. The pain seems inescapable. I feel the welts swell on my skin. I feel my flesh tear and my blood spill down my trembling thighs. I feel my spine tighten and my lip tremble.
There is no blood. No welts. When his big hands smooth over my flesh I feel the truth through his touch. There is a strange lightness to my limbs. A wild giggle escapes my lips. I hear rather than see his smirk. Hear his soft indulgence. Then my body melts beneath his voice.
My smile is all my face. Even with the continual pulses of pain running recklessly through my body, even with the seeming indignity of my pose, I have never felt softer.
Then I hear the belt again.
He chuckles when my body flinches from the sound. Teases his nails over the redness of my arse. Makes me shiver.
Then again, and again. Taunting me, teasing me with his complete control over my sense. Every so often he strikes me so hard that I scream, just to remind me that this is his game, my punishment. I never know which sound will mean my pain or my wild, nervous relief. When his fingers move towards my drooling wetness, I can feel the flush on my cheeks. Then the gravel of his voice in the tingling of my tummy.
"That's my good little slut."
When his hands move to my shoulders and push me flat, I feel the reprieve in my aching body. When his weight presses me down it is stepping into the ocean. When he presses his cock deep inside me it is the wash of that salt water over my head. My mind floats so tenderly that I am mute, only the vaguest vibrations of sound are pushed from me as he thrusts firmly and deeply. Possessively.
I have a vague, fleeting anticipation of tomorrow's aching pussy, of tomorrow's tender arse. Then his lips brush the back of my neck, and my thoughts are lost. Then his big hand is in my hair, lifting my head from the floor, turning it the side.
