in English
Indulgence
Behind her came a soft metallic jingle. Then the whisper of leather.
A belt.
The day was no longer languid.
She had felt it before—once or twice, half jokingly. This did not sound like a joke. His voice had changed. Firm. Almost hard.
Her heart began to pound like a frightened owl’s wings.
“Don’t use the belt. You know I hate it.”
The lock clicked. The belt snapped in half with a sharp crack like a gunshot.
Her stomach dropped.
This was real.
“Wait—I need the bathroom!” she blurted, trying to stall, to dissipate the tightening air.
“Too late. You should’ve thought of that earlier. Don’t worry—I’ll clean up if necessary. Lie down.”
“Please… not the belt.”
And then, from the thick fog of her thoughts, a familiar face surfaced. Sveta. That bitch. She hadn’t said anything directly—just casually mentioned… what was his name… Diego? Damn her. Little informant.
“Lie down! Your ass has been begging for zebra stripes.”
She pushed herself away from the wall and walked to the sofa, now with real dread. Bending over the armrest and bracing her elbows on the seat, she realized she barely touched the floor with her toes.
So I’ll be kicking my heels in the air for a while.
“Take the pillow. You’ll need it.”
With the pillow under her elbows it was easier, but still too high to bend her knees properly.
He stepped behind her and yanked her panties down to her knees.
“Spread your legs. So they don’t fall.”
Again she obeyed.
A small mirror stood against the opposite wall. It reflected everything: her draped over the armrest, nightgown hitched up, panties around her knees, legs parted, cheeks flushed, bare ass presented for discipline. And him—separate somehow—methodical, sleeves rolled up, belt in hand.
Fear. Shame. And yet a hot, pulling knot sliding downward through her body toward her lower belly. Something wrong. Something treacherous. Goosebumps ran along her thighs. The rough sofa fabric tickled through the sheet against her trimmed mound. Time measured itself in dull heartbeats.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s begin.”
The first five strikes she yelped through almost mechanically, still imagining her revenge on Sveta. They weren’t harder than a firm hand.
On the sixth came clarity.
Oh, how considerate. Warming up the blood so the belt doesn’t leave ugly bruises.
Exactly so. The eleventh landed square across both cheeks. She shrieked for real.
In the mirror she saw it: on evenly pink skin a darker stripe rising, deepening to crimson.
Now it begins.
“Aah!”
“That hurts!”
He was unhurried. Each strike placed like lines in copybook script. Time to gasp. Time to feel the spreading heat.
“Please—no!”
“Why—what for—?”
By the fifteenth, her whining bored him. The next five landed fast, overlapping, with snap and follow-through. He knew what he was doing. Sharp pain, not destructive. The marks would fade in days.
She would not agree at the moment.
Another crack. The silk scrap in the corner no longer resembled elegant underwear.
At twenty she was sobbing outright.
“It hurts!”
“This won’t do.”
A strap—where had it come from?—looped around each ankle and fastened to the sofa legs.
She seized the pause to attack:
“Stop! What are you doing? What do you want? For me to leave you?”
“The truth. Even if you’re not capable of accepting it.”