I stayed with Abel in a London hotel yesterday, waiting for him to do his day’s work before we could do something cultural (or kinky, or both) in the evening. He departed at his usual (ungodly) hour, and I delayed going out to get breakfast until the rush hour crowd finished rushing.I went out at about 9.15, and the street lined with office buildings was pleasantly empty. As I cut across a courtyard towards a cafe, I saw the last of the office plankton running for the glass doors and faux-marble vestibules.

In the middle of the courtyard there in a nest of stone benches. They were empty but for one young woman in a smart grey suit. She sat with her legs crossed, dangling one of her sensible shoes off her toes and sucking on a cigarette. She had the glassy stare of somebody far, far away, and a frown of somebody who…

…was waiting for her punishment, actually. Well do I know that look.

It was all law firms and financial companies around there; the woman’s clothes looked expensive enough that she could have worked in any of those. Perhaps, she had screwed up on a big case, setting it back through an avoidable mistake. Maybe she’d miscalculated on accounts.

Whatever it was, her immediate superior - perhaps, the CEO himself - was summoning her to his office this morning. She had a 9.30 appointment, and was told to clear her diary for at least an hour.

She knows what this means. Their company is notorious for their cutting-edge management practices; she had signed a release when they took her on. She knows that all managers have a particular implement of discipline in their desk drawer. What it is, depends on personal preference and physique, but she knows that her own manager keeps an old razor strop with fraying edges.

When she goes in, she will have a stern lecture. She would have to take off her jacket, raise her skirt and bend over his desk. Her underwear would stay chastely on - nobody wanted to be sued for sexual harassment here! - but even the full cotton knickers she wore specifically for the event, would be no help when the strop cracks against her bottom.

She would get six strokes in the first instance. After that, she would be ordered into the corner, where she would have to gather her thoughts before sitting down at the desk and typing out what she thought she had done wrong, and how she would avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Finally, chastened, embarrassed and still in pain from her whipping, she would be back over the desk for the final dose of the strop: six more, to make sure the lesson has sunk home.

So you see, she knows exactly what’s going to happen as she sits there on the bench, alone. The company makes no secret of the discipline procedure, and she has studied it very carefully. There is no way out.

But in the meantime she sits in the courtyard, alone. She is counting minutes. In too short a time, she’ll be counting strokes.

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