The Collectors by Lesley Gowan Page A

would arrive at eight and be greeted by Mrs. Kirchberger, who would escort me to the lower level. I never saw Adele. I’d do my best imitation of the ablutions shown me by Veronica. Then Mrs. K. would take me upstairs and leave me with Jeanne in the study. At midnight, I would leave Jeanne, at her command, and find a car waiting outside to take me home. In the four hours in between, I was tested in matters of agility, flexibility, endurance, and pain tolerance. There were no grades, no right or wrong. Jeanne and I were finding out what I was capable of, and it turned out to be quite a lot.
    On the first evening of this apprenticeship, we sat in the study and ate pizza and watched a couple episodes of a TV show she liked. She wore jeans and a faded blue button-down shirt. I thought she looked incredibly hot. When the show was over and she clicked off the TV, she had me stand in front of her and take my dress off. I kept my bra and underwear on. Then she pulled some handcuffs from her back jeans pocket and cuffed my wrists in front of me. She pulled me down and across her lap, butt raised, arms stretched out in front of me, panties lowered, and gave me a very long and loud spanking. The sound of her hand smacking my ass was like a thunderclap, but more surprising to me was how incredibly much it hurt. At first I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it. After each smack she’d rub her hand over the warm flesh, sometimes snaking her fingers between my legs. I realized with some shame how wet I was. The more she hit me, the wetter I got. When she rubbed my ass for so long I thought the spanking was done, I actually felt sad. Let down. It was too early to stop, I thought. I hadn’t come yet. Or if not come, I hadn’t hit some mark yet that would tell me I’d had enough. I didn’t know yet what that mark was.
    Nor did I know yet that from then on, Jeanne wouldn’t end a session until she knew I had enough. She rose from the sofa with me still on her lap, sending me tumbling onto the floor.
    “Get on your knees,” she said.
    When I did, she reached into another pocket and brought out a slender collar. She quickly put it on me and then pulled me to my feet, leading me into the play room. From the array of crosses, benches, chains, frames, and stocks, I couldn’t guess which area she’d lead me to, but I should have guessed it was Ass night. She brought me to a small bench and had me lean over it, my knees on a shelf and my torso bent forward and pointed down.  I was an inverted V. I felt ankle restraints go on, as well as straps around my thighs. The handcuffs were removed and replaced with wrist cuffs securing me at the other end. I couldn’t move my body. I could raise my head, which I did when Jeanne stood in front of me with several whips and canes in her hands.
    “As you may have guessed, I’ve taken a lot of care in putting this room together, including having it thoroughly soundproofed. You see, I didn’t want to have to curtail my own actions out of worry about how loud my slave is screaming.”
    She sounded much harsher than she had the night before. Probably this was part of her overall strategy of seduction and dominance, and of course it was working on me. The idea that I wouldn’t be able to change her mind about punishing me or influence the severity of the punishment was what kept pulling me in. Do with me what you will, I thought. And she did.
    She used a leather flogger with knots at the end of each strand. She used a leather clad cane and then a bamboo cane. At the end, and for just a stroke or two, she used a single tail whip. And I did scream. It was hard to know while it was going on whether I was turned on or not. I was so present, so exactly in that moment of anticipating and then feeling the pain, I couldn’t consciously process anything else. When it was over, when I was panting and I could hear Jeanne breathing heavily, when my ass was so hot I’m sure you could have fried eggs on it, when