A Victorian Affair

In answer, he withdrew his hand. "No. I don't want you to finish just yet."

The pleasure vanished abruptly, and the energy that had been coursing through her body dissipated. Sara longed for it back again. She whined for Hermann to let her orgasm, but instead he grinned and closed her legs.

"Don't be greedy now, Sara!"

Sara did feel greedy. She wanted to reach between her legs again and give herself the orgasm he had denied her. But equally she wanted to do with her body what he wanted her to do. And so she nodded in submission and waited for his next instruction.

"I'll let you come later if you are very very good for me. You can be patient, can't you?"

"Uh huh"

"Good. I'm going to give you some pain now, and I want you to take it for me."

He stood up and looked around the room. It was a perfectly respectable drawing room, with a couch, chairs, and a writing desk. Hermann went over to the desk and rummaged through the drawers. Her came back and sat down again in front of Sara holding a wooden ruler. With her legs together in front of her, he straddled her knees so that her thighs lay exposed before him. He removed the cloth from her mouth and set it aside.

"Has anyone ever struck you with a ruler before?"

"Not since primary school!"

"Are you frightened?"

"Yes, a little."

"I won't give you any more pain than you can handle. I'm going to strike your left thigh ten times. I want you to count each time I hit you, up to ten."

"I can do that."

"Good girl. Keep your hands behind your back and sit up straight."

He traced an invisible pattern on her thighs with the ruler, taking his time. He jerked the ruler back and made as if to strike her with it. She flinched, but the pain did not come. She realized he was toying with her, feigning a slap to make her squirm.

The first slap gave a sharp, pleasurable pain, like scratching an itch.

"One"

The second came again on the same spot, stinging the sensitive flesh, painful but cathartic.

"Two"

By the third slap, the pain was no longer pleasurable. "Three! Four! Five!" Sara cried out involuntarily. Hermann was hitting her harder as the numbers became higher.

"Very good, you're halfway there," he whispered. The ruler came down again and Sara made as if to jerk her legs away, but they were pinned underneath Hermann.

"Six," she whined. He struck her with the ruler again. "Seven!" Her leg was in agony. "Eight! Nine!" The ninth slap made her reel backward in pain. Her skin was raw and red where he had struck her. "I don't know if I can take more," she told him.

Hermann took hold of her hair and forced her head to look up into his eyes. "One more, Sara. Take it for me."

"Okay. For you, Hermann."

He brought the ruler down hard on the red part of her knee.

"Ten!"

The pain tore through Sara, reaching deep inside her and wrenching a guttural cry out of her.

And then all of a sudden it was over, and Herman was touching and kissing the spot where he had struck her and speaking to her softly. "So good," he murmured, "you took that so well for me."

"Thank you," she said, blushing.

He pushed her chest so that she sprawled on the ground, then he spread her legs wide with his hands. His fingers entered her vagina with the same calm, deliberate insistence with which they had entered her mouth. He moved them in and out and rubbed her clitoris with the other hand. "Oh! Oh!" Sara exclaimed, feeling an orgasm build up inside her, a tingling energy that gathered in her core and reverberated through her limbs. She tensed and released her muscles, moving her hips up and down to the rhythm of his fingers.

"Yes..." Hermann whispered. "Do you want to come?"

"Yes!" Sara's limbs were shaking now as the orgasm teetered on the verge of seizing control of her body

"Say please."

"Please! Oh please! May I come please?"

"Come for me."

"Thank you!" Sara gave herself to the ecstasy of it, feeling the orgasm ripple through her body, her muscles tensing and relaxing, her breath building up and then releasing from her lungs in a loud moan. Her whole body was alive with pleasure, overcome by the orgasm Hermann was extracting from her with his steady, precise fingers.

"Do you want another one?" Hermann asked her.

"Yes please," she pleaded.

In answer, Hermann once again closed her legs and stood up. "Don't be greedy now. I don't think I feel like giving you another orgasm."

"Oh please, Hermann, you make me feel so good!" Sara got to her knees and hugged Hermann's legs. "I'll do anything you want," she entreated.

Hermann took hold of her hair and tilted her head so that she was looking up into his eyes. "No. What I want, Sara, is for you not to have another orgasm. You want to do what I want, don't you?"

She whimpered but assented.

"I decide when you feel pain. I decide when you feel pleasure," he continued. "Remember that. When you're thinking about what I did to you today, I want you to think about all the pleasure I gave you, and all the pleasure I withheld from you."

Sara hugged Hermann's legs again. "I will."

"Good girl." Hermann pulled Sara up by her hair so that she was standing in front of him, and then he leaned down and kissed her. "We're done," he told her. "I've had my fill of you. You did marvelously."

"Thank you," Sara bushed.

"Do you want me to leave or do you want me to stay?"

"Stay with me, please."

And so Hermann sat with Sara on the couch, his arms around her. He was still clothed, she was still naked, and the vulnerability of Sara's position made her feel close to Hermann, so close that she thought she might melt into him They sat in silence for a few minutes as Sara collected her thoughts.

"So what do you think of Freud?" she asked finally.

"I think the invention of psychoanalysis is a watershed moment for culture. It will forever change the way that artists depict human subjects."

"I agree. We are witnessing an unprecedented turn toward the interior in modern art and literature..."

Sara and Hermann fell back easily into the rhythm of their everyday conversations, comparing opinions about the world. The conversation had transformed almost imperceptibly, however. Their intellectual banter was no longer a facade between two people who could not utter how they really felt about each other. It was not choreographed or censored but organic. The two lovers talked into the night, the conversation flitting about from psychology and philosophy to personal experience and emotional revelations. When Hermann finally left in the early hours of the morning, he planted a lingering kiss on Sara's lips and a rousing slap on her thigh that left her smarting and tingling for him.

"Until next time, Sara," he told her.

"Until next time."