Forfeits

She was silent for a moment or two but then I saw a smile form at the corners of her mouth.

“So I guess that Claire has discovered the pleasure to be had from keeping her man under control?…”

She said this in such a way that I immediately began to wonder if her husband David had been subjected to a similar form of torment. What unfolded thereafter was to leave me in no doubt.

“…Did you know that you can have an orgasm of sorts whilst you’re wearing the tube?”

“How do you mean?”

“Do you trust me Peter?”

“Of course I do, we’re friends.”

“Leave your clothes and come with me.”

“Di,…I can’t be unfaithful to Claire.”

“I’m not asking you to be, silly.”

She led the way down to the basement which had been converted into a gym. I had been in it before but there was one new piece of equipment dominating the room that I did not recognize. It looked like a metal bed frame with the springing removed and then set on its end. There were a number of pulleys and counterweights attached to it but their purpose was unclear. I stepped into the arch that it formed but I was still none the wiser.

“What is it?”

“It’s something I’m evaluating for the hospital. It’s for patients recovering from spinal injuries.”

My natural curiosity got the better of me.

“How does it work?”

“It’s essentially an exercise device except that it’s more finely calibrated. Amongst other things it allows for the fact that our arms are slightly different lengths and things like that are important when you are considering load bearings on damaged vertebrae. Put you feet here.”

She indicated two footplates which were fixed to a track which ran across the frame. More intrigued than ever I stepped on to them and Diane immediately knelt down and draped a webbing harness around each foot. They hung loosely over the top of my feet and at the back of my achilles until she flicked two catches whereupon they immediately tightened. It was not unlike a ski binding but an experimental tug showed that it was not a quick release mechanism. Diane stood up again.

“The patients’ feet have to be in the same position for every exercise session so that the leverage is always the same and we can take consistent measurements. Okay, raise your arms and take hold of the bar”

“Di, where is all this leading?”

“Just bear with me.”

I shrugged my shoulders and then reached up. In order to do so I had to lean forward slightly but I was able to rest my arms on two padded metal braces. Once I had hold of the bar she snapped down a lever at the side of the frame. The braces immediately closed around my arms holding them rigid.

“This ensures that the patient works with their back and not with their arms.”

This was all very fascinating, but I could still not see what it had to do with my particular problem, and I felt uncomfortable as Diane walked around the framework surveying me from various angles. Finally, I decided that I had had enough and I tried to withdraw my arms only to find that they were fixed fast.

“Di, undo these please.”

“All in good time. The mechanism allows weight to be added one gram at a time but I think for someone fit and healthy like you we should work in kilos”

As I watched she counted off some ten kilo weights which were suspended just in front of me and then she removed a cotter pin. The weights, regulated by a series of pulleys, slowly began to drop but as they did so the two braces which held my arms began to be pulled upwards and slightly away from me.

“Di! What’s going on!”

“Just relax.”

I tried to fight the inexorable pull but I had nowhere near enough strength and then I noticed, with horror, just how far the weights still had to drop.

“Di!”

The strain on my arms and lower back was increasing by the second and I made another superhuman, but unavailing, effort to resist. My shoulders were burning and something in my back gave an ominous crack.

“It sounds as though you could have made use of this sooner. You should get yourself a better office chair.”

“Di!”

She stepped forward and slipped the pin back in immediately stopping the weights.

“You’ll be amazed. You feel uncomfortable now but over the next couple of hours I’ll be able to add at least another couple of kilos.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Pain, Peter, pain. The pleasure centres in the brain stem are triggered by nerves coming up from the hypothalamus. These run in parallel to the nerves that trigger autonomic pain responses and some doctors have speculated that, at one time they were indiscernible. This would help to explain why so many people take pleasure from having pain inflicted upon them..”

“Okay Di, you’ve had your little joke, now release me.”

“Oh there’s no hurry. David’s away on business for a couple of days. We’ve got the house all to ourselves.”

“Di, come on now, I’ve got things to do.”

“I won’t be long.”

“Di! Come back here!”

She ignored me completely and went back up the stairs. I continued to shout after her but there was no reply and I tried instead to extricate myself from the apparatus. The only result was to markedly increase the pain in my back and arms and my thighs, too, began to make their protest. I gave up the struggle and began to consider the absurdity of my situation. Here I was, naked but for a medieval anachronism, effectively shackled in the basement of one of my oldest friends.

It was more than half an hour before Diane returned by which time my patience had worn thin but, on the assumption that she had now had her fun and would release me, I held my tongue. It was obvious that she had taken a shower. Her, still damp, hair was pulled back severely from her face and secured with a large hair clip and she was now dressed in a black crop top and matching short skirt. It almost seemed that she had dressed for the gym again except that she was now wearing an expensive pair of black ankle boots with a short spiked heel. She had used a light, fresh, floral scent which now pervaded the room.

“Hi, missed me?”

“Very funny Di. Just undo me.”

“Sorry Peter, no can do. I promised you an orgasm or, at least, the semblance of one, and that’s what you’re going to get. Let me tell you what’s going to happen. To start with I’m going to tan your arse. Whilst I do that you’ll be gagged, not because it’s going to hurt, well not much anyway, but because you will, no doubt, be very indignant but you won’t be saying anything that I want to hear…”

I looked at her literally open mouthed and I was on the point of bursting into laughter as she continued unabashed.

“…After that we’ll move on to something a little more demanding at which point I’ll remove the gag because, quite frankly, screaming does it for me.”

I could no longer restrain myself. I began to laugh. The dominatrix thing held no appeal for me but it had to be said that Di was hamming it up well. I just assumed that she would laugh along but her face remained deadpan as she turned away from me.

In one corner of the room was the steel gray locker that David had bought because it reminded him of boarding school and Di now opened it. When I saw the contents it changed my perceptions of two of my best friends for ever. The locker was full of S & M paraphernalia. There were restraints of different kinds and a variety of paddles, canes and even whips. Neither of them had ever even hinted at an interest in this erotic nether world and even now I could not imagine either of them as participants.

“Di, what the hell is all this?”

“It’s as I said. There is pleasure to be had in pain and, over the years, David and I have experimented with it.”

As she spoke she ran her hand over a line of gags which were hanging on the inside of the locker door. She chose one that looked like a giant bulldog clip attached to a leather harness and, even as she approached me with it, I could still not quite believe it. What I really wanted to do, like a schoolboy in possession of a salacious secret, was to rush home and tell Claire what I now knew.

“Di, I’m seeing a whole new side to you.”

My attempt at levity was clearly lost on her.

“Don’t worry Peter, before this afternoon is out, you’ll see a whole lot more.”

Before I could react she reached forward and pinched my nose viciously between her thumb and finger.

“Di, that hur…mmmmfffff!”

She deftly slipped the gag into my mouth and I resisted as the rigid plastic plates pressed down on my tongue but as soon as she released her grip on the two wings protruding at the front the plates sprung apart forcing my mouth open in the process. By using all the strength in my jaw I managed to close them by a couple of millimetres but I was forced to give up after just a few seconds and the plates immediately recovered the lost ground.

I tried to swear but I could manage nothing more than a few incoherent nonsenses which only a dentist would be able to interpret. Di came around behind me and I shook my head furiously but she used the leather harness like a pair of reins and tugged none too gently. With my head back it was easy for her to thread the buckle of the harness and fix it tightly in place.

My fury must have been obvious from the colour of my face but she ignored me and carried on as though it was perfectly natural behaviour. Returning to the locker she perused the contents for a moment or two before taking out something that resembled a cricket bat in miniature. Holding it in one hand she slapped it experimentally into the palm of the other and then moved around behind me.

“This will tenderize your flesh a little and the heat will act on your groin. After that we’ll drive the pain deeper and you’ll find that, as you clench your glutaeus, as you inevitably will, it will start to affect your prostate. At that point it will be up to you. With a little more pain you should be able to achieve a dry orgasm, not as satisfying obviously, but then I’m guessing that you’ll take anything you can get.”

At that moment I was beginning to seriously doubt her sanity and I tried shouting again but all I could produce was meaningless noise.

“Make as much noise as you like. The basement is soundproofed and, nowadays, I can really make David scream.”

This brought me up short. Even now, in spite of everything, I still had a vision of David as the dominant partner. This suggestion that he was in fact the submissive turned all of my thinking on its head. Without another word she raised the paddle and slapped it across my buttocks. It was not a hard stroke, in fact it probably travelled less than twelve inches, but the crisp splat echoed from the walls. I jerked indignantly but she was already in the process of striking for a second time.

“I’m glad to see you stay well toned.”

The pain was not great but the paddle did sting and I was furious but, no matter how I tried to convey it, she carried on striking me with measured, leisurely blows. Over the next few minutes she must have struck me more than twenty times and I could feel my flesh glowing.

“You really colour up nicely. I wonder what Claire would say if she could see you now?”

That thought only served to compound the embarrassment that I was feeling. In my minds eye I saw us around the dinner table with Di regaling our circle of friends with the story of how she had tanned my arse.

“Now, let’s do that again with a little more feeling.”

I struggled inside the framework and tried to yell in protest but she simply laughed at me.

“Try not to get too excited.”

She took up her stance once more but this time she held the paddle well back. I drew a breath waiting for the next slap but hoping that the joke was now over. When she did strike me I nearly broke my spine. It was a full bloodied stroke, delivered at speed, with the weight of her body behind it. As I screamed I was driven forward in my restraints and lost my balance. The pain was awful and the sickening splat was something that should not have been heard outside of a butchers shop. It must have been obvious that it was not humanly possible to take another stroke like that and so I waited for my imminent release and the opportunity to rip into her.

How naïve I was. The second stroke, when it came, seemed, if anything, even more powerful than the first. Through the blinding veil of pain I was dimly aware that she had aimed lower this time but I had little time to dwell on it before she struck me twice more with equal ferocity. There was no doubt that she was working to a pattern and the sudden realization that she was not just hitting out with all the strength at her command but was, in fact, fully in control struck cold fear into my heart.

The knowledge that she was my friend was forgotten as I simply concentrated on survival. There were tears in my eyes and, as she continued to strike, I cried out continually but the gag was all too effective. She stopped after twelve strokes but it was a while before I appreciated that my ordeal was over. The pain was spreading out from my buttocks to the base of my spine and the back of my thighs and I feared that some permanent damage had been done. I could not believe it when Di reappeared in front of me with a broad smile on her face.

“See, it’s amazing how much pain you can take…when you’re forced to. I need to get myself a drink then I’ll come back down and we can get started on part three.”

I hoped my face expressed my complete disbelief in what she had just said and I tried, in vain, to yell at her but she had already turned on her heel and started to make her way to the stairs. At a guess she was probably gone for a good quarter of an hour during which time an odd thing happened. The pain grew greater, and I could not keep the tears from my eyes, but now it seemed to be creeping around to the front of my body. I took deep breaths and tried to ignore the burning sensation but then I noticed a tingling in my balls. It quickly developed into a maddening itch that I was desperate to scratch but I had no choice but to put up with it. As the minutes passed I thought I would go insane and I found myself jerking involuntarily but then, to my own surprise, I felt the onset of an erection. It was as though I was being betrayed by my own body. I could not believe that, in the midst of all my anguish, I could react in that way but the vicious cramps that quickly added to my other woes were proof in themselves.

Diane chose that moment to return and the smile on her face suggested a frightening understanding of everything I was going through.

“Do your balls need scratching?”

Diane was usually very cultured and to hear her speak in this way was odd it itself but by then everything was a living nightmare. I braced myself as she came closer but she moved around behind me and I felt her fingers working at the buckle of the gag. Even with the harness unfastened I did not have the strength in my jaw to close the two plates of the gag and I had to wait until she came back in front of me and squeezed it sufficiently for me to expel it. For a second or two I used my tongue to explore for damage. All my teeth seemed intact but there was a slight tang of blood where the upper plate had pressed against the roof of my mouth. I wanted to swear at her but my throat was raw and I was all too aware that I was still totally helpless.

She left me for a moment and returned with a bottle of cold water. She opened it and held it to my mouth and I sipped gratefully.

“Come on Di, you’ve had your fun. Right now I want to kill you but we can both walk away from this and pretend it never happened..”

She appeared to ponder this for a moment or two but then she smiled.

“Peter, you’ve come this far, it would be a great pity to miss the best part.”

“Di, I’m telling you, this stops right now or there will be serious trouble!”

I do not know why but, at that moment, I let my eyes drop. Her quicker breathing was evidenced by the rise and fall of her breasts within the tight confines of her crop top but, more tellingly, her nipples were so fiercely erect that I could even make out the dimpled areolae. Any lingering doubts that I might have been harbouring about the seriousness of her intent were immediately dispelled. She was doing this for herself and herself alone.

She turned her back on me, ignoring my final protestation, and walked slowly over to the locker. After a couple of moments thought, she reached in and then, having hesitated for an instant, she took out a vicious looking whip. This time it had to be a joke. The thing was formed from a single plait of shiny black leather which, at one end, had been braided to form a handle and then tailed away for another eighteen inches to create a single lash. It looked unused and the way in which she was hefting it in her hand to get a feel for it seemed to bear this out.

“I was going to go easy on you Peter but, frankly, your attitude is starting to piss me off.”

“My attitude! Di, you’re the fucking freak!”

The last vestiges of her smile disappeared in an instant to be replaced by a mask of heartfelt anger and I knew that I had made a serious mistake.

“Di, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s too late for “sorry””.

She moved behind me and her well toned body, formerly an object of beauty, suddenly took on an aura of menace.

“Di!, for heavens sake think about this!”

“Oh, believe me Peter, I am thinking about it.”

The next thing I knew I was screaming. I heard her grunt a split second before the leather cut into the flesh of my buttocks like a hot wire. The pain was instantly doubled as my body instinctively tried to fold itself and I found myself jerking against my restraints.

I had still not quite regained a grasp on reality before she struck for a second time. If anything, the second strike was harder still and the pain traveled the roads to my extremities in the blink of an eye. It was as if my brain had decided that the pain was too much for my buttocks alone and that my whole body should share the burden.

I wanted to reason with her but my barely formed words turned into another scream as she struck for a third time. I could not take much more; there were spots in front of my eyes and my heart was racing. I tried to brace myself for the next stroke but now, for reasons best known to herself, she paused. The following few seconds seemed to last forever. My ears were ringing but I could hear her breathing heavily and I dared to believe that my ordeal was over. I was badly wrong. The fourth stroke fell preceded by a sickening, drawn out, whoop which told me that she was using the full sweep of her arm.

I just had time to brace myself before the leather exploded onto my buttocks and I had a vision of my flesh splitting. The pain was unbearable and I wondered why my body did not shut itself down. Why was my nervous system still functioning? I wanted to pass out, to no longer be a part of this nightmare, but relief would not come. I made a titantic effort and found my voice.

“Di, for pities sake!”

Suddenly, I felt her leaning across me. She put her mouth to my ear but what stuck in my mind was the feeling of her intensely erect nipples as they literally poked into my back. She was almost obscenely aroused. For a second or two she said nothing but then I felt her fingertips moving across my buttocks surveying the lattice of ridges that she had created.

“I’m disappointed in you Peter. I had you down as a tougher man than David.”

It was then that I discovered that male weakness and male vanity are different sides of the same coin. She moved away from me and I knew, with hideous certainty, that she was going to whip me again but an irrational, stubborn, pride compelled me to try not to cry out, to try and prove myself better than her husband. Looking back I realized that this was just as she planned it and, if I could have seen her face, I am sure I would have found her smiling.