The Journal (Her Master's Voice) (4 page)

“Then why did you do it? If you didn’t want to displease me, why the fuck did you do it?” he asked, incredulously.

“I’m so sor…”

“Just shut the fuck up. Do you really think you’re the best person to be speaking right now? As you did it, did you not even think to yourself how galactically senseless and thoughtless, and pathetic you were being?”

At that, the tears that I had been trying to fight spilled down my cheeks and I began to sob.

I was crying so hard that I did not hear his footsteps until he was right next to me. He reached down and lifted my face until I was looking into his eyes.

“So you did look in my journal. You did do it, knowing it would not please me. Knowing that it was just plain wrong. How dare you?”

I flinched at his words, wanting desperately to look away from the disappointment in his eyes. I should have known he would not let me escape his gaze. I tried to speak, though I had no idea what I could possibly say, but my throat was so tight from the tears that the words would not come.

“You... you are going to regret that you did that. Do you understand me?”

I swallowed hard, still looking into his eyes, and managed a quiet, despairing, “Yes, Sir.”

N
ot only did you disobey a specific instruction, you also dishonoured me.”

His voice was now quiet; still commanding and authoritative, but there was a sadness in his tone, a heavy note of disappointment.

He began pacing around her very slowly. He knew exactly what he was going to do but she must suffer ‘the silence’ first. He would say nothing. He would make her wait. Her anticipation and fear would grow during this quiet time. He must assert his dominance but now he would be distant and withdrawn. He knew he must exact his punishment when the anger had dissipated and he could think calmly and thoughtfully.

Questions were forming in his head too... had he been unspecific or ambiguous? Was it so big a sin anyway? All she had done was to seek confirmation. But that thought was quickly grappled to the ground; she had disobeyed him. A direct order. There would be no lightness of touch in the punishment that was to follow.

His voice began loudly enough and she trembled, but by the end he was speaking with the fury of God’s own thunder.

“I shall now keep that journal under lock and key. And you know why, don’t you? Because I cannot trust you to be in the same room with it. I cannot trust you at all, do you understand me? We are starting all over again. It is as if all that has gone between us has gone. You are just a worthless little cunt.”

On that word, which he rarely used, there was a flash of venom. What followed was heartbreaking.

“Now I must teach you all the basic fucking skills of submission all over again. Like how to follow a simple and fundamental instruction. You are worth NOTHING and I shall have no faith in you until you restore it to me, which may be a little too much for your microscopic brain to cope with. We shall begin again - you must learn how to follow a straightforward instruction.”

And then, in a voice so loud the walls were shaking...

“Do you understand me...?”

He waited for her to say something but it was plain that she could not. She nodded almost imperceptibly, eyes cast down.

“Stand the fuck up,” he said.

With her hands still tied, she tried to use all the power in her legs to obey him. She managed it, but only just. Then, immediately...

“Lie the fuck down.”

This was easier but there was no room to take a single, solitary breath.

“Stand up.”

And so it went on. “Sit down, stand up.” As soon she thought she was in some sort of rhythm and she could anticipate his next words he stopped giving them.

“Who in the fuck told you to move?”

For an age this went on, until she was almost exhausted. He could see this and always took his position so that she could not see his face. He was treating her like the dog she was - or the bitch she had become to him.

“Come here. Don’t look at me.”

She moved closer to him and SLAP - his hand hit her cheek. She recoiled but went back for more. There was no more.

“Bend over my desk, you slut; you fucking piece of worthless meat.”

She did so. He reached for his cane. He swished it into thin air to increase the anticipation and then laid the first stroke hard across her ass.

There was no gradual build up, no moment in between when, in a former time he might have tenderly caressed her butt between strokes.

Nine more thwacks of the cane followed. She was screaming by now... the pain utterly unbearable as the cane tore into her flesh...

N
ot only did you disobey a specific instruction, you also dishonoured me.”

Thankfully he didn’t expect me to look into his eyes while he said that. I don’t know if I could have done it. He stood and walked around me very slowly, deliberately; the sound of his beautifully polished leather shoes echoing on the floor. Every step sounded like an accusation: you disobeyed me, step, you dishonoured me, step, you displeased me, step, you disappointed me, step. On and on.

I ached for him to say something to break the silence, anything to stop me being alone with my thoughts of what I had done. I knew he would punish me. He would make me suffer, I had no doubt of that, but what he would do… I couldn’t imagine.

The tension rose in the room as he paced until I began to think even the walls would bend under its weight. Please say something, Sir. Please.

Seconds ticked away, surely lengthening beyond all regard for the laws of physics. Then he spoke and his words made me wish I was back in the chasm of silence.

“I shall now keep that journal under lock and key. And you know why, don’t you? Because I can’t trust you to be in the same room with it. I can’t trust you at all, do you understand me?”

I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I already did, but it was. I wanted to protest, to beg; to say ‘You can trust me, Sir, please. Please don’t say that,’ but he did not give me any chance to speak.

“We are starting all over again. It is as if all that has gone between us has gone. You are just a worthless little cunt. Now I must teach you all the basic fucking skills of submission over again...”

I flinched at his anger. ‘Worthless cunt, worthless cunt, worthless cunt’ rang round and round my head like a cascade of discordant bells, and a sob that I didn’t think I had left in me escaped my lips.

He continued. “...Like how to follow a simple and fundamental instruction. You are worth NOTHING and I shall have no faith in you until you restore it to me, which may be a little too much for your microscopic brain to cope with. We shall begin again - you must learn how to follow a straightforward instruction.”

I did not think it was possible to feel so small that I could wish the floor would open and take me deep enough into the earth that I could no longer hear the anger and disappointment in his voice.

And then, in a voice so deafening that surely even the dead must have heard him...

“Do you understand me...?”

I tried to speak. I really did, but I was beyond words and I could only nod, defeated.

“Stand the fuck up.”

Unable to use my hands, it took all my strength to stand up. Usually he would help me, lift me, but then he stood and watched me struggle.

As soon as I managed to get unsteadily to my feet, he spoke again.

“Lie the fuck down.”

I hesitated for a fraction of a second, hardly able to believe he would have me do this, then I sank to my knees and squirmed back into a prone position. I was out of breath already; from crying, from all the emotion and from what he was making me do.

“Stand up.”

My legs trembled but somehow I made it to my feet again. Then “Sit down, Stand up,” endlessly.

I began to think I could guess what he was going to say next and I moved to sit down before he spoke, my thighs burning to rest.

“Who in the fuck told you to move?”

I locked my knees, trying to stay upright on aching legs. Again and again he had me stand and sit for his pleasure, for my punishment; until I swayed with exhaustion, my legs trembling and muscles screaming.

“Come here,” he ordered. “Don’t look at me.”

I stumbled wearily over to him and, as soon as I reached him, he slapped me across the face. I shrank back but didn’t dare displease him again and hurried to lift my face up for more. He was done with that for the moment and snapped “Bend over my desk, you slut; you fucking piece of worthless meat.”

His words sliced deep, cutting through me with laser-like precision. He knew just what to say; exactly what would hurt me the most.

I bent over the desk and he lifted my dress, revealing my bare bottom. My face pressed against the smooth wood of the desk, the coolness soothing my burning cheek.

Behind me I heard the sound that I dreaded more than anything. My spine arched and I went cold in terror at the sound of his cane whipping through the air.

Without warning, without any warm up, the first hard stroke landed, then another and another. No pause, no break in between each stroke for me to recover. I sobbed, I writhed and I began to scream as the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth strokes bit into my soft flesh.

H
e left the room without a word, leaving her prone over the desk, sobbing; more from the guilt and shame she felt than the caning she’d had to endure from his expert hands.

Minutes later he returned and she heard the words, “Look at me,” spoken softly.

She knew she had to obey him but she hesitated. Slowly she hoisted herself up and began to turn to him but her eyes were lowered.

“Look at me,” he repeated with no change in tone or volume.

She eventually caught his gaze and immediately her eyes filled with tears as she tried to form the words, ‘I’m sorry.’ The look in his eyes was not one of anger but of disappointment. She could bear his anger but he knew his disappointment made her feel unendurable pain. She started to look down.

“Look at me. Don’t take your eyes off me. I don’t care how much you are hurting, you must look at me.”

She brought her eyes back to his with a huge effort. He could see how much it cost her but he needed to make sure she understood.