Cheat

My wife, Diane, and I met our darker selves one evening, after she cheated at cards. A game of Bridge, of all things, nearly tore us apart.

We were guests of Cyril and Coral, a couple we had only recently met, initially through Diane's legal work. The following evening we coincidentally met them again at a London club. Over drinks they extended an invitation to join them at their weekend place near Kent, and Diane jumped to accept. I had my reservations.

We drove, and met them there in time for lunch, and throughout the rest of the day they were perfect hosts, although for my temperament they remained somewhat formal, a tad stiff. That night we sat down to Bridge and cocktails.

I know nothing about Bridge (its jargon trumps me, ha ha), whereas Diane is quick to declare her skill. After a few demonstration rounds I began to catch on to the basic principles, we partnered as couples, and I played competently enough that Diane began to allow her competitiveness to show. As the game progressed, she played beyond my ability to keep up, and, still winning, proposed a wager. Before I could take the idea seriously, she was negotiating bonus points and margins. At the close, Cyril suggested that the total loss to either team be capped at 300 euros.

"Let's make it 30," I said. "300 is steep, and I'm just a beginner."

A pause followed, as if the suggestion showed a lack of backbone or class, and Diane chimed in with, "300, it is. The losing team pays up promptly, and the game ends."

Not wanting to sound uncouth for the second time, I leaned to Diane's ear and discretely said, "Will they accept plastic?"

She ignored me. I deferred. We lost round after round to the sum of E 260.

"In for a penny . . ." Diane said.

The deal fell to Diane. At the end of play it seemed we had reduced our loss by roughly 90 euros, but there was now a silence from Coral and Cyril that was positively icy.

"What's the matter?" I said.

Coral addressed Diane. "How did you expect to get away with such a trick, so clumsily done?"

"The proposal to wager money first came from you, Diane," Cyril said, "not from us."

"And you overrode your husband's request for a lesser wager."

"And, in acting as you do, you betray our hospitality."

Diane looked uncomfortable, as though far too close to a fire.

"What are you talking about?" I said."Is this something that we should discuss privately?" Cyril asked her, ignoring me.

"What could she possibly have to say for herself?" Coral said.

"Tell me, please," I said, "what is going on?"

"Your wife, your barrister wife, has tried to cheat us," Coral said.

"Cheat you? How? You're killing us."

"Twice this past hand she dealt herself from the bottom of the deck."

"That's ridiculous," I said, "Diane wouldn't cheat. She doesn't do tricks."

"Jack, I have to speak to them alone, all right?"

"Speak about what?"

The three of them stood up.

"Please excuse us," Cyril said, and then he and Coral led my wife into an adjoining study, where they could negotiate behind a closed door.

I paced the room, growing angry and impatient. I looked for something to distract me, to keep me from barging into the study and ending the evening with our return to London.

On a low table by a sofa lay several art books, most of them new. The one on top had a vintage cover. In pen and ink it showed a gamine gagged and trussed to a pole. Gwendolyn. I opened and perused kitschy imagery of rope bondage with a post-Edwardian bent. Vilanova women in riding boots and jodhpurs, bearing whips. Kitschy, but well drawn. One could observe the artist's growing skill over time. Elegant bondage: minimal binds, minimal ties. Simple, neat and tight. Poor Gwendolyn was newly bound on every page.

Toward the back of the book the drawings become elevated in style and transcended kitsch. A watercolor of a fair-skinned brunette jumped off the page. She was tightly bound to a slender upright by her wrists, waist, and ankles, and was gagged by a length of cloth. Her white blouse had been pulled off of her shoulders and down to her elbows, leaving her stripped from the waist up. Behind her stood a flapper with tight red curls, leering and brandishing a carriage whip. The real genius of the drawing was in the eyes of the brunette. This wasn't a wink and a nod, this was a whipping.

It was a first edition copy, signed by the artist.

From within the study, Diane's voice rose and fell several times. That was all I heard. A period of silence followed, then the door opened and Diane came out after the others. She looked ghostly pale.

I put the book aside and stood up. Coral spoke.

"Mr. Tabor," she said, "we have reached a settlement." Before I could feel relief she added, "Your wife has taken responsibility for her attempt to cheat us, and has agreed to accept corporal punishment immediately."

"Corporal what?" I said.

"I know that you heard me clearly."

"No, no," I said. "This has gotten way out of hand."

"It is in writing."

"Like, what, she's agreed to let you spank her?"

"Spanking would be only a warm up. She has signed a statement, admitting her guilt and requesting that we corporally punish her ourselves, in order to spare her legal and professional humiliation."

"Spare both of you the complications, we might add," Cyril said.

"Her signature places the entire procedure in our hands."

I looked at my wife. "Did you do that, Diane?"

She nodded without looking up.

"Her punishment will take place in an office we keep in the stable. You may accompany us -"

"No! No, he can't!"

It was Diane, horrified.

Coral turned to her coldly. "Do not interrupt me."

"I signed to a private settlement."

"You wrote no clause to exclude him. How could you, an attorney of all things, forget such a clause? And who could be more privy to your just desserts than your husband?"

Cyril rocked on his heels and said, "Have you considered that your behavior continues to weigh on the degree of punishment we mete to you, Diane?"

"Please," she said. "Be fair."

"Ho, be fair. From a cheat."

Coral turned to me, and said, "Mr. Tabor, Cyril and I have agreed that you may accompany us, but only under the condition that you do not attempt to interfere in any way."

Diane covered her face, pleading as if in prayer. "Jack," she said, "please, please don't watch me have to do this."

"When is this supposed to happen?" I said.

"Presently," Coral said.

Cyril said with a wave of his hand, "Shall we?"

The path from the manor to the stables took us through a formal garden, under a moonless sky and a spray of cold stars. The brick path undulated, worn with age. There were topiary, balls and cones on column-shaped hedges, silhouetted in the half dark. The four of us walked in single file, without talking, Cyril in the lead, Diane next, then Coral to sandwich Diane between them. Diane was shivering and rubbing her bare arms for warmth. She had asked to use the lavatory just after we stepped out of the house, but her request had been denied.

"You may use the stable facilities," Coral said, "or hold yourself until we are finished."

The office in the stable had a low open beam ceiling and walls of whitewashed planks, rough milled wood. Framed certificates and photographs of people and horses lined the room. The furniture consisted only of a winged chair, a cater-corned desk crowded with papers, and a bench against one wall. There was a bucket that I thought was an empty waste basket, and very little else, leaving plenty of open floor space. I don't even remember a window.

Coral pointed to the winged chair and said to me, "You may have a seat." It was as much an order as an invitation and I sat. She then turned to Diane.

"This is where we discipline."

"Wait," I said.

"You agreed not to interfere, Mr. Tabor."

"You've done this before? Do you discipline regularly?"

Coral spoke icily to me. "Do you wish to stay and witness your wife's punishment, Mr. Tabor?"

"I want to make sure she isn't injured or abused," I said.

"The facilities?" Diane said. "I would like to use the facilities."

"No need to be nervous," Cyril said. "Your wife will not be injured in the least, only chastised to the point that she will not want to cheat again." His tone was saccharine, Coral's had a honed edge.

"If you attempt to intercede, Mr. Tabor, we shall void the agreement. Do so in the course of actual discipline, and your wife will have suffered to no avail. We shall have her escorted from the property and this very night I shall have a word with a senior partner of her firm."

"The facilities, please!" Diane said.

"I'll get the post," Cyril said, then left the room, closing the door behind him.

Coral turned to Diane. "Take your clothing off," she said. "Start with your blouse and work down."

"My blouse and slacks?" Diane asked.

"Everything," Coral said. "You are to be nude."

"Nude? You can't make me do that," Diane said.

"We can. You will do it. You signed your consent."

"Not to be stripped."

"To be corporally punished in the manner of our choosing, as we see fit. This hesitation does you no good. You will be stripped and restrained. That's all there is to it."

"Restrained?" Diane asked. Her voice had gone dry.

"Nothing of your behavior thus far suggests to me that you are capable of holding still voluntarily. Strip now. Start with your blouse. I want your torso bare first."

"You're going to tie me up naked?"

"Have you grown dense?" Coral said. "I just told you so."

"Where is the lavatory?"

"Strip first, here."

The door opened, and Cyril carried in what looked like an outsized walking stick with an iron ring at its top. Coral bent to a spot on the floor and flipped open a little trap in the boards. The post slid in neatly and the hinged metal then served to pin it securely upright.

It stood about waist high. Diane instinctively recoiled. It was a stationing post, an upgrade from the one in Gwendolyn. This was polished and sculpted, with a curved and burnished protrusion just about where female genitalia might make contact.

"Having trouble?" Cyril asked his wife.

"She's become reluctant," Coral replied."Where is the toilet, for god sake?" Diane said.

Coral gazed at her with distain before saying, "You may use that bucket."

Diane was close to tears. "You're joking. You're fucking kidding me," she said.

"End it," Cyril cut in. "If she won't comply, send her packing."

Addressing me, Coral said simply, "You may both leave the premises."

"All right," Diane said, "all right, I'll comply. See?" She kicked off her shoes, and started undoing buttons.

She stripped hastily. Nothing sexy about it. She peeled her slacks and panties down together, stumbling as she stepped out of them. Only then did I begin to feel cruel, watching her - beautiful, tall, bad, despised and trembling, naked and unpitied. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other, arms crossed, head down, hunching her shoulders. Never before had I seen her in shame. The sight went down like an oyster.

"Do you wish to relieve yourself?"

"No," Diane said, "I'll hold it."

Cyril selected two long leather straps from a wall hook.

"Put out your wrists," he told Diane.

She did, offering both simultaneously, still hanging her head. Cyril bound them independently, leaving twin lengths dangling like jesses. He took hold of these and led Diane directly to the post, then tied her wrists to the ring.

"She wants to know what we intend to do," Coral said. "She wants specifics."

Cyril selected several more straps from the wall. These had buckles. He looked at me.

"Let her anticipate," he said. "You're with the program, aren't you, Yank?"

The gloating prick. He returned to Diane, and squatted in front of her. He passed a thin strap under her buttocks and pulled her snugly to the post. The next strap encircled her waist, ensuring that her hips were immobile. The instant I saw those two taut leather bands, one above, one below my wife's behind, isolating it for the strokes to come, my loins began to stir. A third strap secured Diane above the knees, a fourth above her ankles. It took only that: waist, wrists, pelvis, ankles, knees. She was bound as elegantly and efficiently as Gwendolyn. All I had to see now was the carriage whip.

Coral dragged a long leather case from under the bench by the wall. Diane was free to twist and bend from the waist up. She looked around anxiously as Coral snapped the latches open and lifted the lid. She selected several long, slender rods from the array of implements within. Diane twisted further in her fixed position in order to be able to see me. Her expression, bordering on panic, threw me into a spin of arousal.

"They're going to whip me, Jack!"

It's what you bargained for, I thought.

"Technically, not," Coral said. She stood with one of the rods and swept it horizontally in front of her to make a low swoosh. "Whipping involves implements other than these."

"Whips, for instance." That was Cyril being wry.

"Whips affect the body quite differently," Coral said. "Having snap without rigidity, they produce an entirely different set of sensations."

Cyril's fingertips slid down Diane's neck as Coral spoke, tracing along her bare shoulders, then down her arms with the same velvety touch. All the while he was looking directly into her eyes, and talking in tones too low for me to hear. It made her shiver.

Coral blocked my view as she displayed the implement she had chosen.

"This wispy rod is properly called a switch." With a flick of her wrist, she made the switch cut the air. Not the low swoosh as before, but an incisive, cruel swhhht! Diane barked.

I craned the see beyond Coral. Apparently, Cyril's hand had drifted toward Diane's breasts. Whether her bark came from the menacing sound of the switch or something he did, I couldn't tell.

Coral drew my attention again, saying, "One may do a great many sensual things with whips, Mr. Tabor. One may caress the skin. One may stimulate without pain. The switch" - she wagged it silently - "is for punishing."

She stepped aside to unblock my view of my tall Diane strapped to the post. "I shall enjoy punishing your wife."

Cyril touched the tip of Diane's nose, and stepped away as Coral turned to address her.

"You will receive eighteen strokes. Keep your noise down or the number will be increased and we shall resort to gagging you. Understood?"

She paused for Diane's response. When no timely response came, Coral swung at her, and laid the switch sharply across her white behind. Not just a flick of her wrist, the woman put her momentum into it, and thwack! The effect was electric.

Diane went rigid, sucking air. A nanosecond of delay, then her body jumped in place, the shock wave visible up and down her skin. She arched involuntarily. The cry she tried to stifle growled its way out of her. "Oh, shhhh-it! Shit. Shit!"

The blow raised a pair of livid double welts across her round buttocks. Despite her immobility, she couldn't help but try to shake out the pain.

Coral paused until Diane settled down. Pacing, she said, "Did you leak?" Inspecting the inside of Diane's thighs, she said, "It seems that you have. You are dreadfully wet. You now will receive an additional six strokes for your outburst, a tally of two dozen."

"No, please!"

I had never heard Diane in panic before.

"You were warned."

"Please, oh god, I don't think I can take twenty-four of those." She twisted toward me and said, "Help me, Jack!" To Coral and Cyril in turn, she said, "Please ... can we do something else? Anything?"

Coral said, "Whatever do you mean?"

Cyril said, "You silly girl, do you imply that you are willing to debase yourself in some further way? Are you offering yourself to us in slavery?"

Diane's head fell forward, shaking back and forth while she moaned to herself in misery, "No, no, no, no, no ..."

"That would hardly assuage your present predicament."

Cyril stepped close, and was holding Diane's face, while Coral feathered the switch along her shoulders, stroking her abject form.

"She's aroused by punishment," he said. "I knew it in London. So did you."

"Were you aware of that, Yank?" I only glared at him and said nothing.

"What kind of sexual favors do you think she can offer?" Coral said. "I mean, in so far as it would merit a waiver?"

"She could service the staff," Cyril said.

"All three? Women and man? Lucky for her the stablehands have left for the day."

Coral tapped the switch on the welt across Diane's bottom. "Shoulders up," she said.

Diane stiffened, adjusted her posture.

Coral strolled in a circle. "What say you, Diane? Shall we untie you, and turn you over to our household staff? They will only punish you in our stead."

"And much more harshly, I assure you," Cyril said.

"They will use your face to pleasure themselves."

"They will use any of your body parts they please."

"Your pointy tits."

"Your puss."

"Your rather long feet, your arse."

"You'll be sticking your tongue up dirty bungs, my dear."

"Jack!" Diane screamed.

"Are you familiar with the term "bukakke," Mr. Tabor?"

"Yes, Coral, I am."

"Jack, aren't you going to do something? Aren't you going to help me?"

"Have you observed a bukakke, Mr. Tabor, either on DVD or, perhaps, who knows, live?"

"No, Coral, I have never observed one, recorded or live. Nor do I wish to."

"Right, then," she said. "We had better carry on with the switch." She tapped out a target spot on Diane's bottom.

Cyril stepped away from Diane. "By the way," he said to me, "your wife has just offered to suck my cock."

"Wanting what in exchange?" Coral asked.

"Leniency," Cyril said.

"The slut's insufferable. I think we'll add another half a dozen."

"Oh, fuck no!" Diane screamed. "Fuck no!"

"You haven't so much as received the first yet. You've only received a wake up."

"It's time to gag her," I finally said, "and get on with it, don't you think?"

"That's the spirit," Cyril said, "and we have just the thing."

Diane protested as the little ball was secured between her teeth. Her pleas degenerated into sobs and her formal punishment began. Every snap of the switch brought a smothered scream. My erection became painful as I watched Diane's buttocks quiver, their ivory complexion turning purple, crossed with red stripes. The nub on the post must have been pressing her bladder or her vulva all the while, compounding her distress.

Coral laid on twelve. She changed switches once. At some point, Diane either stopped crying or I had ceased to hear her. I touched my erection discretely with my hand in my pocket, though it would have seemed natural to openly masturbate.

They left Diane in place while they closed the box, and slid it back under the bench.

Cyril undid the gag, and Diane said in desperation, "I can't hold it anymore."

They undid the straps and the wrist binds. Diane all but danced as they released her. With her thighs pressed together, she raced awkwardly to the bucket, then squatted and pissed violently. They gave her nothing to wipe with. I offered her a tissue.

After Diane wiped herself, Coral said, "Stand here," and pointed toward the middle of the floor. As Diane took her place, Coral said, "Kneel and sit back."

Cyril stepped in front of Diane and unzipped himself as she knelt. She watched passively as he worked his growing cock and his balls outside his trousers. Coral opened her blouse and unclasped her brassiere, showing her fat tits.

"Care to have a go?" she asked me. I silently answered no and she shrugged. "Suit yourself. That stiffy of yours says otherwise."

Cyril hardened his cock by tapping it across Diane's face. She opened her mouth. He kept his strokes shallow at first, but gradually insisted that she take his erection deeper and deeper. I think it was the first time that anyone had fucked her throat. His face soon became flush, his forehead lined with veins. He pulled back.