Although the sessions at Mr. McCluskey’s were usually severely formal, sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes things could be learned in a relaxed setting rather than in severe formality, and tonight it was fairly casual. The first fire of the season had been laid in the fireplace in the living room, the wineglasses had been broken out, and things were close to what most people would consider normal. Close, but that was all.

The three were arranged in a semicircle around the warmth of the fire on this cool October evening. At one end of the semicircle, Mr. McCluskey sat in lotus, feet resting on his thighs, but otherwise relaxed and affable.

At the other end, Helena knelt in a relatively comfortable and casual low kneel, her bottom resting on her ankles, which had been lashed together. She was wearing her dress, and her collar, of course. Her arms were lashed together behind her, up high, wrists on elbows. Ropes had been wrapped around her arms and upper body, above and below her breasts, and gathered together by ropes in her armpits in the takatekote manner – the shibari form that Helena had seen on Acacia’s upper body when hanging from the frame in the katori, months before, and several times since in more exotic positions. Helena had not yet done a suspension position like the katori, and was really hoping that it would be possible to try it sometime before intensely cold weather set in.

It was not a very comfortable position – much worse than the karada that she’d been wrapped in months before, but by now it was fairly routine, for shibari was often part of the sessions. The position was uncomfortable enough that it would have been fairly easy for her to slip into subspace, if she was to allow herself to do it – but, as she’d been told beforehand, that was the point of tonight’s exercise, to be placed in a relatively uncomfortable position and hold off fading from the group, since by now she’d learned to let it come to her easily.

Between the two, Acacia knelt, also in low kneel, wearing her normal office dress, with only hand and ankle cuffs to restrain her, along with a chain connecting the two. It was her main responsibility to keep Mr. McCluskey’s glass full, and to give Helena an occasional sip of wine, too. It was a casual, relaxed time, a night to talk; they hadn’t had one like that in a while. “Certainly, My Lord,” she smirked. “You had to know that already.”

“I knew that,” he snorted. “But what are the people in your company going to think if I were to show up with both of you in evening gowns, collars, leashes, and handcuffs?”

“They’ll think it’s an interesting and memorable Halloween costume, My Lord,” Acacia smirked. “I was going to suggest we do it last year, but we went to Key West instead. I had thought of it the year before, but we did not know what the party was like, so we went less spectacularly dressed, if you recall, and were lost in the crowd. I admit, it’s something we can only do once. But, if we can only do it once, why should we not let Miss Curtis in on the fun?”

“It would definitely be an eye-opener,” Helena smirked. “If the intent is to get noticed, it will definitely accomplish the mission.”

“And what is that mission?” he said. “To be known as the two kinkiest adjusters in the company?”

“Come on, My Lord,” Acacia smirked. “I guarantee there will be at least one person there in prison garb and a ball and chain, and they will consider that noticeable. If we were to go as Miss Curtis and I suggest, we’ll knock their eyes out. I visualize us as beautiful, elegant women in stunning evening gowns, with our other regalia, and minimal masks, accompanied by a truly elegant man, wearing a top hat and tails, and perhaps one of those half-face Phantom of the Opera masks.”

“My Lady, I still don’t see how you intend to get away with it.”

“That’s the fun part, My Lord. We will, of course, be our normal demure, cooperative and submissive selves. You, sir, will be at your most stuffy and pompous. You have taught us to tell the truth selectively. That’s exactly what you would do – tell the truth, in such outrageous manner that everyone would think it a lie.”

“My Lady,” he sniffed, rather pompously. “I am not stuffy and pompous.”

“Teacher, may I speak?” Helena snickered.

“Certainly, Miss Curtis,” he said.

“Sir, you are not stuffy and pompous tonight.”

“Insolence, Miss Curtis, insolence, I say,” he laughed at her gibe, and threw one back. “You deserve to be whipped for that accusation.”

“Yes sir,” Helena smiled. “Perhaps I should be whipped.”

“As always, your courage precedes you, Miss Curtis,” he laughed. “All right. If you two are really serious about ruining your reputations and your careers, you leave me no course but to assist you.”

“My Lord, should we lose our jobs, and be cast homeless out upon the streets, would you not take us in?” Acacia grinned. “I suspect you would have two women eager to bring your slippers and pipe, eager to be whipped and chained for you. Would that not make you happy, sir?”

“My Lady, don’t push your luck,” he grinned. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do this right. Can either of you do a curtsy?”

“My Lord, I can do a mockery of one,” Acacia grinned.

“Sir,” Helena added. “I do not even know what one is.”

“Miss Curtis,” he said. “I am sure your ballet teacher would know what one is. See if you can get her to work with you and My Lady to develop a most respectful curtsy. Upon first greeting anyone, you will remain silent except for a “Good evening, sir, or ma’am” as the case may be, and curtsy. Thereafter, any questions asked of you shall be referred to me. I may give you permission to speak, and I may not. As far as pomposity goes, I think that I shall be able to arrange an adequate representation. Sometime, not tonight, we must get out leashes and practice. I can’t adequately visualize how I am to manage the both of you.”

“Yes, My Lord,” Acacia agreed. “Would you like me to make a note?”

“Not at this instant, My Lady,” he said, “but at the first opportunity, if you would be so kind. And, while the subject is open, I would be interested in both your suggestions for direction future sessions should take.”

It was not an abnormal request. Helena had been clear from the beginning that there were no formal lesson plans, and not a lot of guidance in what to teach – only those ultimate goals, and at least twice a month, they had an informal discussion about how well they were reaching them, and directions for future topics. A chance remark, in passing, had more than once set the direction for a couple of weeks of interesting sessions, and even Mr. McCluskey and Acacia admitted that they’d learned things they hadn’t realized before. But, in a sense, Helena was driving the progress of the program, whatever it was; she was the one exploring new ground, pushing her limits, and seeing what lay in the experience. “Yes, sir,” Helena said. “I have a suggestion.”

“What is it, Miss Curtis?”

“Sir, I think I should be whipped.”

Mr. McCluskey cocked his head at her for a moment, frowned, then asked softly, “Miss Curtis, I thought you were joking when you said that before, but you really mean that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

Mr. McCluskey broke out of his lotus position and slid over in front of her. “Miss Curtis,” he said. “Would you care to be candid with me about how you reached this conclusion?”

“It’s … it’s not easy to say, sir,” she began. “Let me begin by saying that I have thoroughly enjoyed the experiences of the past three months, and I’ve learned much. For example, four months ago I had no comprehension of how a woman could possible enjoy being trussed up, such as I am now, or in a katori, or things even worse. I find myself pleasantly surprised that I do enjoy it, and look forward eagerly to more advanced techniques.”

“You have taken to it quite well, Miss Curtis,” he said, “much better than I expected. Please continue.”

“Sir, again, four months ago, I had no comprehension of how a woman could enjoy submitting to a man such as Miss Rose was doing. When I saw the two of you in the Mykonos that night, I thought it was utterly degrading for a woman to subject herself to such treatment. Now, I find myself eager to appear before my co-workers in such a condition. Though we will present it as an act, it will give me considerable happiness to know deep inside that it is nothing of the kind. Sir, I am suspecting that I shall eagerly look forward to submitting to a real master, not just a training one, such as you. I suspect I shall enjoy it even more since my master and I will not be subject to the limits we agreed to impose.”

“Yes, Miss Curtis. It is becoming more and more obvious each time I see you. But I still do not understand your point.”

“Sir, I must admit that I have had a mental block about allowing a master to whip me. We have done little in the area of sharp pains such as that, and I have come to the conclusion that the only way to discover what it is like is to do it. Although I cannot understand how it could be enjoyable, I feel it is ground I should explore. Should I find it intolerable, then perhaps I must rethink the entire thing.” She let out a sigh. “I think I could manage, even then, to allow a husband or lover of mine to play tie-up games with me, and enjoy it. But if I cannot manage a whipping, I doubt if I could allow myself to take a master, in the sense that we have come to use the word. I see no other solution than to experience it.”

“Is that your courage talking, Miss Curtis, or your fear?”

“My courage, obviously, sir,” she said. “I fear being whipped, or I would not have made the request. I know that the only way I can overcome that fear is through experience.”

“I don’t know,” he said, after thinking about it for a moment. “Miss Curtis, you are aware that on the occasions that I whip My Lady, it is at her request. I fear seriously hurting her, and get no delight from it, which is why only accede to her wishes rarely.”

“I am aware of that, sir,” she said. “That is why I am willing to risk the exercise with you.”

“My Lady, what do you think?” he frowned.

“My Lord, I would much rather the first time she is whipped that it be by someone like you who respects her fears, rather than the manner in which I received my first whipping, before I met you.”

He was silent for a moment. “Very well, Miss Curtis. I will consider your request. We will not do it tonight, as it is late, and you do have to work tomorrow. Between now and Saturday, we will both consider your request, and it is your right to withdraw it, and I will not assent to it before then. At the same time, I shall request My Lady to work out how we may do this and maintain your modesty as best we can under the circumstances, as well as any other preparations from her experience that she may deem necessary. Miss Curtis, I think you are making a mistake, but you know your mind better than I.”

In spite of everything, in spite of what Helena had learned about herself in the last three months and how far she’d come, the next couple days seemed surrealistic to Helena. It was one thing to wonder about being whipped, to think about it – but facing up to actually doing it was another reality indeed. Somehow, it seemed like a major test to her – a test of whether she was really the person she was beginning to think that she was, after the last few months, or was only playing with it, enjoyable though the play might have been.

It was the prospect of confronting that decision, not confronting the pain that she knew would be involved, that had her on edge all the way up to Wade’s house the following Saturday.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” Acacia asked from behind the steering wheel.

“I think I have to,” she replied. “Acacia, we’ve been over it time and time again. It’s not the wanting to do it, it’s the wanting to know.”

“At least you get the choice,” Acacia nodded. “I never did. It just happened, whether I wanted it to or not. As luck turned out, it worked out, but I was one scared shitless little newbie.”

“You understand, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I understand,” her roommate nodded. “That’s why I haven’t tried to talk you out of this.”

Early October days can be sunny and warm, but they can also be cold, blustery, and rainy, which was the case today. It seemed like it took forever to drive the familiar miles to Wade’s house. As always, he met them at the door, and, as almost always, there were a few friendly, casual minutes before they got down to business. This morning, there was a new twist: as soon as they got their jackets off and hung in the closet, they together demonstrated the curtsy that they had learned the evening before from Helena’s ballet teacher. “Showoffs,” Mr. McCluskey snorted, but with a grin. “Keep working on it. It still looks a little rough.”

Quite soon, it was time to get down to business. As they had done so many times in the past few months, Acacia and Helena headed over to the fireplace, removed the collars from the peg they hung on, and knelt in front of Mr. McCluskey so he could fasten them on – Miss Rose always being the first, of course; that was to be expected.

This time, he left them in high kneel as he stood before them. “Miss Curtis,” he said. “Have you reconsidered your request from the other night?”

“No, sir,” she said solemnly, “My request is unchanged. I wish to be whipped, sir.”

“Miss Curtis,” he said. “I am still very reluctant to whip you, for the reasons we discussed the other night. I will, however, offer you a compromise. I propose that I demonstrate several different instruments on you, increasing in severity until we reach the whip, if we should do so. You would be free to call a halt at any time, and I also reserve that right. We may well discover that we need not go as far as the whip. Would that be acceptable to you?”

“As you wish, sir,” she said in a remarkably relaxed voice, eyes downward in the acceptable high kneel position.

“Miss Curtis, would you rather put this off a while, or do you wish to get it over with?”

“The sooner, the better, sir,” she replied.

“Very well, it shall be as you wish. My Lady, I request your presence in this demonstration. I shall ask you to assist Miss Curtis in preparations that need to be made.”

A few minutes later, Helena was wearing her collar, a thong bikini and nothing else, as she followed Mr. McCluskey down to the basement, with Acacia following behind, carrying a gym bag. She had always known the house had a basement, but she had never been down there before.

At the bottom of the stairs, it seemed unremarkable. There was a smallish room, clearly less than half the size of the house, which contained the normal things you’d expect to see in a basement – a furnace, water heater, piles of boxes, a ping-pong table stacked with stuff. Mr. McCluskey ignored it all, walking over to what seemed to be a blank board wall. He grabbed at a rope overhead, and suddenly there was a crack between two of the boards, which proved to be a door in disguise. He reached inside, threw a light switch, then opened the door and held it for Helena to enter.

She stepped through the door, pretty well expecting to see what she saw, but the reality of it was still pretty heavy. It was quite clearly a dungeon, with several devices set around the room. Some of them she could identify – a pillory, a rack, a St. George’s cross, and other things that were harder to figure out. One thing was clear, though – Acacia had used all of them, probably many times. “Neat rec room you have, sir,” she grinned.

“Yes, My Lady and I have had some interesting recreation here from time to time,” he grinned. “To be honest, since developing our interest in shibari, it does not get the use that it once did, but winter is coming, and I do have an idea or two. My Lady, would you please be so kind as to assist Miss Curtis to the horse?”

“The horse” proved to be something that resembled a sawhorse, with a padded bar. Acacia had Helena stand between the legs of the horse, then fastened each of her legs to one of the horse’s legs with leather straps, then had her bend over, fastening her wrists to the legs on the far side. She was bent far over in the process, her fanny the highest point of her. As she stood bent over in anticipation of what was to come, Acacia stepped back to watch.

“Miss Curtis,” Mr. McCluskey said. “We will take our time at this. There is no reason to rush. I shall begin with a fairly easy tool, a ping-pong paddle. Are you ready, Miss Curtis?”

“Ready when you are, sir,” Helena replied. The position was uncomfortable, and she could look back between her wide-spread arms and legs and see his legs standing off to one side. Suddenly, there was a whack! that stung her bottom. It hurt, but … it was tolerable. Interesting, in that it didn’t hurt as much as she would have expected, given what she had steeled herself for before the blow landed. It wasn’t that bad … whack! This time it came as a surprise, and she hadn’t braced herself for it, and again it hurt, but she was surprised to feel a warmth of pleasure rising in her … interesting.

“Tolerable, Miss Curtis?” Mr. McCluskey asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Thank you, sir.”

“I thought you might say that,” he said. “Very well, let us proceed.”

Helena saw him move a little, presumably to get another tool. There was no point in bracing herself, she thought, just let it happen … WHACK! The room echoed with the noise, sharp and shattering, much more powerful than before. It hurt, yes it hurt … but as the initial sting died down she realized that it was only a little more than the ping-pong paddle. The WHACK! sounded again, the sting rushing through her body as the sound reached her ears.

“That was an interesting little toy,” he heard Mr. McCluskey say, in his lecturing mode. “It’s called a slapper, and it’s intended to be more sound than fury. I trust you also found that tolerable, Miss Curtis?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Thank you, sir.”

Over the next several minutes, she had her fanny whacked a number of times, with a number of different tools, including a belt, a crop, and what he called a flogger. That last was starting to get considerably more painful than the earlier attempts had been, a hearty thud that made her flinch; by now, the stinging in her butt was getting serious, and staying with her. The sensations were incredible – the pain … and, most amazingly, the pleasure. She couldn’t quite understand why it should be pleasurable – even to the point of making her seriously horny … but she was. Oh, my God, this was bringing on a rush of sensations …

“Let us proceed,” Mr. McCluskey said. “In my mind, the most effective of these instruments is not the whip, but the cane. This one happens to be made of acrylic plastic, although the real connoisseurs seem to prefer bamboo. It is much easier to use than the whip, and is much easier to control the impact, which can be light …” a mild sting crossed her buttocks, nowhere near as bad as even the ping-pong paddle was “… or instead quite intense.”

There was a swish, and all of a sudden a stripe of pure pain exploded across her backside, the worst she’d experienced yet, causing her for the first time to cry out in shock and pain. “Owww … My God!” she cried, tears nearing her eyes for the first time. She panted a couple times, caught her breath and, as the snap of the pain was followed by the rush of enjoyment, said, “Thank you, sir.” Again there was the swish of the cane through the air, and again there was an agonizing stripe of pain across her bottom, pleasurable in a way that she was sure that she could never have imagined. It took a moment to get herself under control.

“Miss Curtis,” he said, still in that irritatingly gentle, quiet voice that did nothing to quiet the churning urges and emotions growing intensely inside of her. “Do you still wish to be whipped?”

My God, she thought, could anything be better than that? “Yes, sir,” she said, not very calmly, now, with the tears running down her face, and only the straps on her wrists and ankles keeping her from writhing in … agony … joy?

“Very well,” he said. “Miss Curtis, I have heard it said that the crack of a whip is the epitome of this pursuit. It explodes like lightning from the hand of a god, it snakes through the air like a dragon’s claw. It is evil, languid, precise, supremely savage, and sensuous. In short, it is as sexy as it is dangerous. It can create a range of sensations from delicate to cruel. It can be as subtle as a lover’s tongue or as frightening as a chain saw. Such is the fantasy; such is the reality. This is technically a horse whip, though on the small side for one. It is not a huge bull whip such as you might think of Indiana Jones using; they are much too long and unwieldy for use in here and are difficult to control on someone’s backside in any case. This whip happens to be the one My Lady presented as a gift to me, and I request her permission to use it on you.”

“Freely granted, My Lord,” Acacia said. “Use it well.”

“I shall, My Lady. Miss Curtis, one last chance. Do you still wish to be whipped?”

“Please, sir …” Helena pleaded, almost exploding with desire to feel the lash upon her body, yearning helplessly for more of the feelings the lesser instruments had built up in her. “Please whip me.”

“Very well,” he said. There was a swish and an almost instantaneous CRACK! that exploded with something of the force of a stick of dynamite across her backside. Involuntarily, she let out a scream. The pain was incredible, echoing throughout her whole body, building up churning, molten fountains of pain and pleasure mixed indescribably together, and there was no holding back the moan that welled up in her throat … “Again. Please!”

Again there was the crack of the whip on her helpless bottom, leaving her a bubbling mass of ecstasy and moans, and again and again, five strokes in all, before she lay half-wrecked across the horse, writhing against the straps, her eyes full of tears, her voice full of unintelligible babblings, her body wracked with pain, especially her backside, strange pleasure and yearnings filling her soul, led most of all by one special yearning, for release, not from the straps, but from the incredible lava of desire built up within her.

Somehow, she was aware through all the mental confusion that was going through her, all the pain, that she was being released from the straps that held her, and helped onto the floor. The bare skin of her butt stung against the cool of the concrete, and she didn’t pay attention at the time, but only later recalled Acacia saying to Mr. McCluskey, “My Lord, you know what she wants. Perhaps you had better step outside while I help her.”

She felt her legs being spread wide, and felt something being pressed into her hand. “Miss Curtis, this is the Corvette,” she heard, and felt the plastic in her hand. Fumbling, she pulled the narrow thong of her panties to one side, groped for the hole that ached for relief more than anything other, and clumsily pushed the vibrator deep inside her, roaring away, easily the best thing she’d ever felt. Then her thoughts made little sense at all, just the wonderful feeling of its pulsations, and then the world went black and white and all of the colors of the rainbow burst upon her at once, and she let out a shrieking moan as the release she sought hit her, and kept coming and coming and coming …

Acacia stepped outside of the dungeon, leaving the door open to monitor what was going on, which did not mute the orgasmic moans that continued to echo from inside. “My Lady,” her companion said sadly, listening to the commotion. “I fear we have created a monster.”

“Not created, My Lord,” she said. “It already existed. We have uncaged it, and I fear that may be worse.”

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