Turning me back around to face him he says, “You’re a bratty, disobedient little girl, and you’re going to be treated as such. Do you understand?”
“Bite me,” I snarl.
He gives a dark, humorless laugh. “Not going to be nearly enough.” And he hoists me up onto his shoulder. As we pass the dining room he grabs a chair with his other hand and carries it and me up the stairs. Didn’t this man have a broken back once? How is he so strong?
In my room, he places the chair in the center and heaves me off his shoulder. Before I can straighten up he’s bent me over the chair, unbelted my hands, pulled them through the slatted chair back and has fastened them together at the wrist once more. He’s tied me so that if I want to stand up, the heavy dining-room chair will come up with me. It’s not very comfortable to lean all my weight on the chair back, either.
Standing in front of me, he unbuttons his ruined shirt. “Well, well, Miss Westley. It seems like you’re in a great deal of trouble. Talking back. Swearing. Breaking rules. I’m very disappointed in you.”
I scowl up at him, which is difficult to do from the position I’m in. He’s not disappointed. He can barely contain his glee.
“I think you’re going to need quite a bit of correction, young lady.”
He tears a long strip from his shirt, and before I can respond he puts the fabric between my teeth like a horse’s bit and ties it around the back of my head. The rest of the shirt he blindfolds me with.
Then he’s gone. One moment I’m struggling against my bonds and chewing at the gag, and then I realize the room is eerily silent. Has he just left me here in this uncomfortable position to stew? Sliding my wrists against each other, I try and ease my way out of my leather bonds, but the belt is expertly fastened.
“Dieter?” I call. Except with the gag in my mouth it comes out as “Hrr-hrr?”
No response.
He’s screwing with me. This is all part of the power play. Trouble is, it’s working. What has he gone to fetch, and why is it taking so long? Or is this the punishment itself, being made to stand bent over a chair?
My mind is ticking over so rapidly wondering what’s about to happen that the day’s events slide into the background. All I can think about is Dieter and what he’s about to do to me and I can’t anticipate what’s happening next. Is this what it’s like in the SAS, where the unknown is what truly instills fear? And how am I supposed to safeword if he’s gagged me? I test out my word, saying, “oatmeal,” and it comes out surprisingly clearly. Crafty bastard. I bet he chose that word on purpose for just this contingency.
Finally he comes back. I strain my ears, listening for a clue to what he’s doing, but all I hear are footsteps muffled by carpet as he walks to and fro. Is he arranging things? I can’t see a thing through the blindfold.
Something hard and flat lands against my ass. The gag is pulled from between my teeth.
“Do you know what that was, babygirl?”
I lick my lips and moisten my dry tongue. It wasn’t his hand. It felt like some sort of flat, square object. “A paddle?”
“Very good,” he says, his voice warm with indulgence. It’s a very teacherly voice. This whole scenario suddenly seems like I’m in the headmaster’s office, sent there for punishment. This lengthy build-up has made my anger evaporate, and my desire for him to show me that he can handle me at my worst has gone with it. I get it. He can.
I say, tentatively, “Daddy?”
“Yes, babygirl?”
“I, um, I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll be good.”
He chuckles softly. “Now, princess. It will do you a world of good. You’ll see.” And he puts the gag back between my teeth. “Hold still. I’m going to cut these off you.”
There’s a snick of scissors and I realize he’s cutting the clothes off the lower half of my body. I give an indignant shriek in the back of my throat. I liked that skirt.
“Well, if you wanted to keep your clothes in one piece you should have taken yourself upstairs like a good little girl when I told you to, shouldn’t you?” He cuts up one side of the pleats and then straight through the waistband. It’s a very pretty, very expensive pale blue skirt and now it’s ruined. My teeth grind against the gag in my mouth.
“And now these.”
I feel the cold kiss of the blunt side of the scissors against each of my hips and hear him cut through my underwear. Then they’re whipped away and I’m bare from the waist down. I’m still wearing my favorite stomping shoes, though, and if only I could see where he was I would stomp down hard on his stupid toes.
I’m still thinking about my ruined skirt when he thwacks me on my bare ass with the paddle. I squeal. It doesn’t feel worse than his hand—yet—but it’s more humiliating somehow, knowing that he’s probably bought this specially for disciplining me and has been looking forward to using it.
“How was that, Adrienne?”
I don’t answer, and the paddle smacks against my ass again. I squeal and stomp my feet on the ground, trying to dispel the pain.
“I asked you a question.”