An Unusual Courtship, Chapter 6

Copyright Mael DelaVara


"Come over here, please." Audrey's voice broke into Michael's reverie.

He had found a measure of contentment in the corner. His anxiety over what Audrey intended for him was exorcised by the elaborate fantasy he had been weaving. He recoiled from real pain, but imagined pain and suffering was a reliable source of pleasurable calm.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a kingdom where women ruled and men obeyed. Michael knocked at the palace gate, but no one answered. It was a two hour trip back to the airport, and his cab had already left. He stepped back a few feet wondering if anyone in the upper floors of the palace tower would see him. But the sun glistened blindingly, and the air was cool for the time of year. The gate was large--two massive wooden doors surmounted by a lion's head. Ten minutes later, a hutch was drawn across, eyes he could not see assessed him, a door was opened just wide enough to admit him, and he found himself in a cobbled courtyard.

"Name?"

The curt question came from a stocky woman wearing knee-length black boots, a leather skirt, a white blouse, and some kind of armband on her left arm.

Michael gave his name.

"Follow me."

Michael did, to a small building on his right, and through a shop filled with more BDSM equipment than anyone could possibly use. He ended up in an office bare of anything except a table, a chair, a computer, and a filing cabinet.

"Passport."

Michael surrendered his passport. It was examined, and then returned to him.

"Payment."

Michael handed over the hundred dollars he had expected to pay. He had come for Spanking Day. The only reason he was there was that he was a member of the male race and, for that reason alone, deserved punishment.

"Follow me."

Michael was lead across the courtyard, through the main door of the palace, and down a long corridor, at the end of which, on the right, was the check-in room.

It was clearly not a reception room. The stocky woman demanded his passport, his money, any other form of identification, his watch and other valuables, placed them in a large brown envelope, which she then sealed.

"Sign"

The woman traced her finger over the seal. That's where Michael signed. The envelope was placed in a safe.

"Strip."

Michael had expected this, but he hesitated nevertheless. The woman came over and slapped his face. He had not expected that. He quickly got out of his clothes and they were unceremoniously thrown into a locker.

"Over there." The woman pointed to a scale that measured not just his weight but his height. She wrote down what she observed.

"Bend over." The women gestured toward a saw horse. Michael did as ordered, and before he had taken just one deep breath, he had received twenty-five strokes of the cane. His knuckles were white; his bottom was red.

"Follow me," the woman said.

They exited through the back of the palace, across a well-manicured courtyard, with a riding stable, pillory, and whipping post to the left, and toward a long building ahead of them. Up a few flights of stairs, they were in a hall in the attic.

There were already five men kneeling in the cavernous space, all with bottoms as well-striped as Michael's, and one of whom was getting the thrashing of his life from a vixen with long blonde hair. She was flailing away at her victim, shifting from left hand to right, alternating fore strokes and back strokes, hitting her target from above and below, any which-way she pleased in an abandon of fury. Michael was mesmerized.

"Who's next," the long-haired blonde said, now sweaty and disheveled. The men greeted her question with a nervous shuffling of knees. Michael found himself standing up and moving forward as if he were being filled with the spirit in some Pentecostal service.

"Spin the wheel," the blonde commanded with a smirk.

There it was. The wheel of bad luck. The wheel that would determine whether he got the minimum of 30 strokes or something approaching the maximum of 180.

Michael spun the wheel and heard a murmur--was it of relief or compassion--before he saw the number he had alighted upon. 60 strokes was his good--or was it bad--fortune.

"Now choose."

He was being directed to a table of implements. He had already received the cane, and he wanted something more sinuous--like a cane, but thinner, and cased in leather. He chose the dressage whip.

With each blow he stuck his bottom out further and higher, rising to meet the blows in a synchronized motion with the tossing blonde hair, and exulting when a right breast heedlessly freed itself from an overly constricting blouse.

And then he felt a drop trail down his inner thigh, and he hoped it was just a bead of sweat, but maybe it was . . . .

"Come over here now," Audrey said, with no trace of anger at having to repeat herself.

Michael looked down. His erection was gone.

He turned and immediately cupped his hands over his genitals.

His hands look just like a fig leaf, Audrey thought, and she suppressed a giggle only by recalling an episode from her junior year abroad. She had rounded out her musical education in London by taking a few art history classes. They were studying Michelangelo's famous statue of David, and the professor had taken them to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see a massive plaster copy of the original. There David stood in all his glory, leaving nothing to the imagination. The most interesting part of the lecture, however, had little to do with Michelangelo and everything to do with the copy. The professor reached into a box behind the statue and retrieved a large plaster cast of a fig leaf. Apparently the fig leaf was routinely placed over David's private parts to spare the delicate sensibilities of righteous women. It was removed only for the benefit of male visitors unencumbered by the company of the fairer sex.

Her own David, coyly covered with his own hand-made fig leaf, hobbled from the corner and stood by Audrey's right knee.

"Hands by your side," Audrey ordered, and Michael obeyed, blushing deeply as he saw that the part of him that had put him in this predicament was fully on display.

He is no longer aroused, Audrey noticed, and she wondered what he had been thinking during his time in the corner. She paused to give Michael the full benefit of his humiliation.

"Over my knee," she ordered, and only then did she remember she had left the Vermont bath brush in her bedroom.