The balcony

My current hotel suite (how posh am I?!) has a huge balcony. I’m tucked at one end of the building, so it’s really scarcely overlooked from the rest of the rooms or the grounds down below – but one can certainly catch sight of the swimming pool from the railings. My mind wanders…

A young woman sits on the sofa in the living room, looking nervous – as well she might, for her behaviour down by the pool has been such that her partner has sent her to wait for him upstairs. She knows from the look he gave her and his tone of voice that a punishment is inevitable.

What she doesn’t suspect, when he finally arrives – having left her for just long enough to contemplate, for anger to give way to regret – is that he’ll take her out onto the balcony to deal with her, having first taken the punishment strap from the bedside table.

“You can’t… Please…”

“Outside. Now.”

She’s still wearing her swimming costume, underneath the long T-shirt they’d bought as a holiday souvenir the day before. The warm air of the Middle Eastern afternoon hits her as she steps outdoors. She dreads his next instruction, knowing what it will be: “Strip.”

“But people might see. They might hear…”

“Now.” His tone broached no possibility that he might relent. Foreseeing the consequences of arguing further, she followed his instructions – surprisingly shy before him now, never mind conscious of the fellow guests downstairs.

He moves a chair to one side: “Then bend over the table, and reach out to hold the sides.” It’s at just the right height, if she stands on tiptoe: it occurs to her to realise that he would have noticed that, sized it up, as soon as they’d arrived the previous day

He brings the first six strokes down quickly, hard – no warm-up here for her punishment, no words of consolation. And then he starts to talk, softly, calmly, caringly, as he slowly continues to whip her. Tells her that he loves her; that he was ashamed of her conduct; that girls who behave like that need to learn a lesson for their own good; that he knows the marks will be visible beneath her swimsuit the following day, and that she is the only person to blame for that; that if people see or hear her being dealt with, they’ll realise how much he cares for her; that he’s lucky to have her.

And when he’s finished – when she’s marked to his satisfaction, when her writhing has given in to tearful compliance, when her bottom is so sore that she winces at even the lightest contact – his hand parts her thighs and reaches between her legs. She shudders, wet to his forceful touch: ready and willing for what will inevitably come next…