This is the story of my last caning at Shadow Lane by the capable (and a bit gleeful) Mr. Allen:
So far I had laughed, joked, and teased. I’d played the troublemaker and the penitent. Now I want something harder. Want to chase the edge of pain and slip over the the line to where it’s all just a little bit too much.
“Now do you want to see Emma get beaten? Yes, I thought you did.”
Not quite so brave now. He’s talking to That Girl Marie, whose own caning just a minute prior would make anyone reluctant to take her place. Kneeling up on the chair and over the table, I let the silence fill me. It has been waiting for its chance amid the noise and chaos.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
It was the strap first, just enough to warm, to waken.
“What do you have to say?”
Somewhere, just out of reach, are the right words. But the silence is still struggling to reclaim lost ground and it’s the other me that answers,
“Ow?”
I can’t help but smile, hearing him throw the word back at me, then pointing to the canes and bidding me to choose. A moment’s blank look, glancing from one to the next, all deceptively similar in appearance, and he makes the choice for me. Lighter, more sting than thud.
Six. I close my eyes, slip a little deeper into silence. I hear my name in the whispers behind us but can’t focus on the words, can’t focus on anything but the bright lines being left across my skin. Somewhere in the next six my breath catches, shoulders shake. I feel the weight of his hand on my back.
“Are you ok?”
A nod. “Yes.”
“Six more.”
This time I look up. “More than six?”
“We’ll see.”
I lay my head back on the table and watch as he selects another cane, taps it lightly, so I can feel its weight. The first stroke lands, so different from the ones that came before. Deep breath. Relax. Next. Repeat. After one stroke my leg comes up off the chair and he doesn’t say anything, but touches the cane to my calf, waiting. I put it down and he resumes. Somewhere along the way I lose the rhythm and by the sixth stroke my breath quickens, becomes shallow with the pain.
He tells me to slow my breathing, and once I have, to stand. The chair scrapes back across the carpet, away from the table, and he has me kneel once more, hands on the carpet this time in a position that leaves me feeling especially vulnerable and not a little unstable. I’m ready for the first stroke to land, each one will bring this set closer to the end. When it comes, it’s hard. These feel like the hardest so far, but I’m trapped by the position, there’s nowhere to go even if I wanted to. I don’t, of course.
When they’re done I struggle to stand only to be sent back over the chair, laying across its seat for the final six. Thirty-one* in all, but I’m not feeling them now as I stand and get wrapped up in a quick hug. As he releases me he asks
“But we’re not done yet, are we?”
I can feel the heat and the lines left by the cane, but I shake my head and answer honestly,
“No.”
I know what’s coming next, that I’d asked two days ago, on a wave of curiosity, courage, and sleep deprivation, if I could feel his tawse, but I’m not really ready for this. He has to tell me twice that I can pull up my panties before my brain clicks out of the fog it’s in and puts meaning to the words. He has to ask twice again for me to put my hands out, but this time only nerves are to blame for my slow response. For a brief second I consider backing out, I’d told him, after all, that I would. I’d regret it if I did, though. This is what I need.
I hesitate as I put my hands forward. I have a general idea of the position, but I’m not entirely sure and he fusses with them a moment before standing back. I watch as he holds the tawse out along my fingers, as he judges the distance and then warns me not to move.
This is an entirely different thing than being spanked, and it feels far more vulnerable to be standing in front of someone, your face and all your emotions on display. I close my eyes tightly, as though I can hide, and the first stroke lands, stinging across my palm. The next two come mercifully quickly, but the burning builds with each one. I switch hands, and he tells me to watch these. I remember opening my eyes, watching as he again measures the distance with the tawse. These three fall quickly as well and leave me gasping; this new pain temporarily obscuring the soreness elsewhere.
It takes a few minutes, after, for my brain to catch up to my body. Minutes where I feel oddly energized, like I can take on the world. It’s a little bit later, sitting among our friends, listening to them talk and laugh, that the energy drains away and the quiet washes over me again. This is the moment I was waiting for, and before I give in to the silence I smile up and say the only thing left,
“Thanks.”
* There was an extra somewhere, I think just before he switched canes but I’m not really sure.