Stocking

It takes ten minutes to make him coffee when I'm wearing the bar. At least, if I don't want to demolish the kitchen. But it has to be right, or else he'll take the pad off me. The pad sits across the back of my neck and stops the bar wearing against my skin. Too much sugar, not strong enough, and I'll end up sweating and chafing against the steel.

I should maybe explain. Not a lot of people ever get to wear a discipline bar. It's a one-and-a-half metre steel with a cuff at either end for my hands and a half-hoop in the middle to hold it over the back of my neck. If you ever see pictures of those old-fashioned milkmaids with the yokes? Yeah, like that.

Why? Because he told me to.

I turn one-eighty and bend at the waist to pick up the mug from the worktop.

Just at that moment, the printer starts to whir and roll down the hall. And, from another room, "Bitch?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Pick up that manifest on your way."

"Yes, sir."

The corridor has to be negotiated at an angle, being just slightly less than a metre-and-a-half-plus-a-mug wide. The door handle necessitates bending deep at the knees and turning my hand against the shackle, rather than turning my arm. Turn one arm, turn the bar, turn the mug, turn the coffee out over the floor. And he wouldn't like that.

It's only when I get into the living room that I realize he's put the printer on the floor. I have to kneel, set the coffee down on the floor and pivot sideways to retrieve the pages. Get the coffee back, shift my weight backward onto my heels and get back up. And I'm feeling happy, feeling proud of myself for managing, for being so good, and I'm about to leave, when I see the gleaming ring on the wood floor. The mug. Now, I could leave it and it might dry out and be no problem, but what if it goes sticky? What if it bleaches, or leaves the sugar as it evaporates? He won't like that. I weigh up the risk and it's just not worth it. I move to stand directly over it, test my balance on one foot before slipping the other out of its shoe.

He left me out black shoes this morning. Flat black pumps. Thank God.

With the toe of my stocking I polish up the ring, slide my shoe back on, and breathe out slow relief.

"Bitch?" His voice takes a handful of my insides and twists. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

A little faster than I normally would with the bar, I make my way down the hall to his office. He doesn't like me to hurry. I shouldn't have to. I should do everything with grace, with poise. I should be a duchess, be a doll. Duchesses don't breathe heavy. Dolls don't get flushed.

The office door is shut. I change my grip on the printed sheet, holding it between finger and thumb, so that I can knock with my last three fingers. I stand back and wait. It's the count of fifteen, and then, "Enter." I do it again, that deep knee squat, to manage the door handle. It's an honour to be allowed inside and I try to do it quietly, respectfully. I cross between the bookshelves and stand at the side of his desk, keeping my eyes on the papers in front of him, until he reminds me to lift my chin.

"Sorry, sir."

Directly ahead of me, in my new line of sight, the small marble Persephone on the shelf lounges, one delicately carved fingertip touching the cut edge of a half-pomegranate.

"You can set the coffee down now."

I do so with best grace, on the ball of my foot, knees together. The balance is precarious, but it's worth it to feel him watch me. Even if I can't see his eyes I know they're there. His breath moves across my eyelashes, my lips as I straighten again and the gaze ruffles all through me, like feathers, like torture. It's as I rise that he takes the sheet from my other hand and holds it out to the light to study it. Scrupulously, he eyes every inch, but in the process he murmurs distractedly, "And how are you today, Bitch?"

"Fine, sir. Thank you, sir."

"And how is your bar?"

"Fine, sir. Thank you, sir."

Without the slightest change in the tone of his voice, "And what is this?" It is a small, crescent-shaped scar on the paper he asked me to bring. It is the imprint of the fingernail of the pointer finger of my left hand, because I pinched it too hard when I knocked the office door. I shouldn't have done that, and my throat seizes so I can't even tell him this. "What is this?" he asks again.

I manage, "Bad."

"That's right, Bitch. Now go to your room and wait for me."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

I won't cry. I just won't. That'll only make it worse. I leave the office feeling like I never should have been allowed into it and go slowly, carefully, down the hall. Watch my feet and count my steps and keep blinking, keep holding it back.

The door of my room was removed from the frame a week ago as punishment. He found me rubbing myself against the bedpost. He comes in more now, trying to catch me again, but I'm good. Most of the time I'm good. It's only very rarely that it all just piles up, just builds in me and it's not that I mean to be bad. I don't always realize I'm doing it. But he didn't like catching me. Especially not when he gave me the largest room, and the four-poster. Especially not with the curtains wide-open. I wasn't properly ashamed and so he reminded me.

I still remember. I'm ashamed today.

I wait where I know he'll want me, standing on the dressing stool. Chin up. Not crying. He makes me wait. I'm not allowed a clock, so I don't know quite how long, but the bar weighs heavy across my neck and my arms drag down on my wrists in the shackles and my fingertips go numb. On the wall behind me are instruments, the strap and the paddle and the crop and others and I can feel each of them there as if it's burning. Wondering which he'll pick. Thinking of each especial sort of pain on each part of my body. The paddle is a cold, hard slap that wants to knock me over. The cane is a vicious, electric crack that wants to slice through me. I think of other, stranger tortures, and then I see his shadow from the hall.

He enters with the top button of his shirt undone, but otherwise immaculate. He has in his hand a small white envelope, unsealed, and this he places on the shelf before he comes to me. When he is turned sideways, I see the desk scissors in his back trouser pocket. Stands square in front of me, shakes his handkerchief from his pocket. He uses it to cover his left hand. He doesn't like to touch me directly, certainly not my skin. Skin is disgusting, and mine is especially so.

First, he opens the shackles and removes the bar. My arms drop useless. I don't mean to gasp, but I do.

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't speak."

"Sorry, s-" I begin, but he slaps my face. Once, hard, sharp, the sound but not the sting lost in the handkerchief.

"Stupid Bitch."

He lowers himself onto one knee. With his covered hand, he holds my ankle, and with the other removes my shoe, casts it quickly down from him. The same with the other shoe. Then stands and undoes the buttons of my dress, drags it sharply down off my shoulders and lets it fall. I step obediently out of it and he bats it flying away across the carpet. I will not cry. My breath catches as if I might and for a moment there is perfect silence, perfect stillness except that his head flicks up and his eyes search mine for any trace of a tear. After a moment, he goes back to work.

It's difficult for him to undo my bra with the covered hand. I arch my back, tuck in my shoulder blades trying to help, but he orders me to maintain my posture. When it eventually snaps away I fight the urge to pull my arms in, trying to hold it on. It's just that as soon as my breasts are exposed I feel cold, feel open and ashamed. I feel his breath against them as he stands just a second longer than usual in front of me, just a half-step closer, as his covered hand hovers just centimetres from one.

I pray, hope, fight with myself, please God, don't let me get wet. But he draws away and doesn't touch me and I can't help it. Choke another sob, feeling my pussy open, my panties start to cling and there's nowhere to hide. I have to look away from him, just for a second, and he knows, knows everything, knows what I've done and what I am. He begins, very slowly, to kneel and says, "Are you bad, Bitch?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me so."

"I'm bad, sir. I'm a horrible Bitch."

He stops at a crouch, his nose just inches from my damp crotch. My body can't take it and betrays me again. My underwear floods. He's too close not to notice and grabs out, snatching my panties down against the tops of my stockings, shouting, "And do you think this is acceptable behaviour, Bitch?"

"No, sir."

"Who told you your cunt was in charge?!"

"Nobody, sir. It's not, sir. You are, sir."

"Say that again."

"You are, sir. You're in charge." He pushes off the dressing stool and stands back from me. He looks me over like road kill and he's right. I'm a vile, fetid thing and all I ever do is give him reasons to hate me. I feel disgusting and every tight, sore pulse of my aching hole makes me wetter and makes me feel worse. It seizes over and over, sucking as though it can imagine a cock all by itself. I can feel it pulling, know he must see me twitching and I say, "I'm sorry, sir. You're in charge. I'm just bad sometimes, sir, I'm just weak. You're in charge."

Glaring at my throbbing pussy, he shakes his head. "See, you say that, but I don't think you mean it. I think I need to teach you again a little lesson about respect. Let's go over it, shall we?" And now he takes the glittering scissors from his back pocket. With one finger wrapped in his handkerchief, he hooks up strap of my suspenders on the right. The blades part easily, silently, and I feel only the fine back edge as he slips the vicious edges over the silk. "Who are you?"

"Bitch, sir."

The scissors close. The strap snaps back on itself. With the tip of the scissors he rolls the stocking down to my toe and tosses it away. In the same way, he hooks up the left strap and says, "And what are you?"

"Nothing, sir. I'm rank and worthless, sir."

"You're worse than an animal."

"I'm worse than an animal, sir."

The blades close again and he bares my other leg. But he doesn't throw the stocking away. He lays it carefully over the edge of the dressing stool. Now he slides his blades beneath the belt, "Who am I, Bitch?"

"You're my only benefactor, sir. You want to help me be a better person. You help me every day, sir, and you correct me when I'm bad."

"I punish you so that you can learn."

"Yes, sir."

He stands closer to me again. My cunt starts pounding again, working so hard that his breath feels cold in all the juice. I try to look away again, but he brings my face back around with the handle of the scissors. I'm supposed to watch as he parts the blades one more time. Slides the right leg of my panties right up into the crux. He has to tug and pull to keep the material taught, slowly hacking and sawing and saying to me, "And how do you think I feel, to go to all this trouble for you with no reward, when you don't even learn anything? Last week's lapse and now this?" The right leg snaps away and he takes up the left. "I might almost thing you were irredeemable, Bitch. I might start to think you were just a born whore. Do you want somebody inside you, right now?" My throat closes but my cunt opens. I can't answer him but my body tells him all he needs to know. "Say it. Do you want somebody to take you, right now, to throw you down on the floor and fuck you rigid? Do you want somebody licking your nipples and fingering your pretty clit? Do you want his tongue up your tight little ass? Do you want his dick halfway down your throat?"

I moan. It's out before I can stop it and I can't help it. When he looks up at my I'm biting my lip and my chest is heaving? I want all of that. I want hands all over my body. I want the weight of somebody lying on top of me and the heat of them pushing into me over and over. I want to scream.

All I do is moan and immediately cover my mouth.

"I thought so, Bitch."

"I'm sorry, sir."

He shakes his head. Disappointed with me, disgusted. I haven't changed a bit, he's thinking, and the instruments on the wall behind me start to burn again. The rope will grind, won't do much more than burn at the time, but the pain of it lasts for days afterward. The blindfold will keep out the world, and when you don't know what's coming, you can't prepare for it.

Then the strangest thing happens. He goes to my bed, lays out his handkerchief square and begins to fold it back up. Tucks it away again into his pocket. Next, he gets the unsealed envelope from the shelf and brings it over to me, holding it up with the flap lifted. "Lick," he orders. "And don't get any ideas." I stick out my tongue and do as he asks. His fingertips are right there, almost too close to miss, but I can't. It could be an accident, but he won't allow that, and I'm in enough trouble already. But my lips are wet and his fingertips are right there. My pussy gives one massive, desperate drag, begging me to give up this much at least, just the tiniest, slightest taste of his skin, but it's too late. The envelope has been taken away, and he is smoothing down the flap. Long, elegant motions. He has such beautiful hands, and I would wash them clean with my tears if only he would just once defile them with me.

He put his handkerchief away, though. He's unprotected. And while I know all that means is that he'll go and get some gloves, or simply that he intends to hold nothing more than the grip of a riding crop in that hand, my mind races, daring to wander even now that he's taking such pains to teach me a lesson.

He comes back. Takes up the scissors again. Uses them to lift the stocking he laid out so carefully before, and lifts it up to me.

"What is this?"

"It's my stocking, sir. You gave it to me and I'm very grateful."

"No, Bitch, no you're not."

"I am, sir, I'm grateful for everything that you-"

"No, you're not, Bitch. I give you beautiful things and you just go and soil them." It's then I see what he means. The toe is dark, spotted with miniscule coffee stains from the living room, from before. "You don't take care of your things." He balls it up then, and tries to mop up the dripping mess between my legs. All it does is make the problem worse and the stocking sticky, makes my body shudder and my eyes flutter shut. I've lingered so long and my cunt has done so much of the hard work for itself that this is nearly enough. Not quite though. He sees it coming and gives up. Presents to me the sullied, gleaming rag.

I won't cry. I only meant to do my best for him, I didn't think of my stockings. And I know it's important to him to have me perfect at all times so I should have thought of my stockings, but I only meant to do my best, and I won't cry. I just won't.

He says, simply, unequivocally, "Open your mouth."

And what choice have I but to do it? I lower my jaw as far as I can, tuck back my tongue so it won't have the chance to be bad. Carefully, too close to me and my wet insides for his own comfort, he begins to fill my mouth with still warm seamed silk. I won't close my mouth on those two fingers. My body might want that more than anything, but we have established that my body is bad. I won't close my mouth and grab his hand at the wrist and hold onto him when he protests, when he slaps me, when he reaches over my head and grabs the cane to beat me way. Not until he relents. Not until he gives me something better than two fingers.

Just at the very end, he leans that millimetre too close. It's not even a second's contact, but my nipple, stiff to the point of pain from languishing so long untouched, catches against his shirt, and he pulls sharply away.

After that he doesn't say anything. He goes to the dressing room and fetches out bad things. The short belted coat. The high black boots.

He dresses me in these and only these. Then goes to my dresser and fetches the eyeliner pencil. Uncaps it. Orders me to tilt my face to the light. He works it, not around my eyes, but across my forehead. Every nerve in my body is by now so desperate for stimulus that the letters are as clear to me as if I could see them written down. The delicate, sensual curve of an S, the sharp right angle of an L, a wide, looping A and the tail of a G hanging limply by my eye.

SLAG.

Then he puts the sealed envelope into my hand. I see now it's ready, already stamped and addressed.

"Now, Bitch," he says, escorting me to the apartment door, "go downstairs, and across the lobby. Go out in the street, and up to the box at the corner and post it. When you come back I'll be in the office. Don't disturb me. Go immediately to bed, no supper. Sleep on your stomach. Keep your hands where I can see them."

I can only nod.

"Answer me, Bitch."

My stocking tastes like my cunt and his fingers. Cool beneath the coat, visible to anyone two stairs below me, my pussy rages worse than ever. And the doorman downstairs and the people in the street will look at me, bearing his verdict on my forehead. They'll know he's right. They'll smell me, stare at me. As I walk down the street, in their minds, they'll have me on a dozen different beds, in the back seats of cars, right there on the pavement. One will pound me up against the post-box. And I will say nothing. I won't moan. My mouth is full. My mouth tastes like heaven, and until my whole world tastes just the same, I won't say a word.