Primula Bond - The Unbreakable Trilogy

‘You can’t kill her off completely. She’s here, with me.’ His fingers comb through my hair, undo another pin.

His words are so strong, so comforting. I twist round to look at him. He’s let go of my legs, and is sitting with his hands dangling between his knees, his handsome profile highlighted by the fire. I want him to put his hands on me again.

He taps his hands together. ‘Time to put you in front of the camera instead of hiding behind it.’

‘You’re going to film me? What if I say no?’

He laughs, and starts to push my skirt up. ‘Says the uppity little voyeur herself! You really are my girl. The gift that keeps on giving.’ He leans over me and blows his laughter into my hair. ‘You won’t even know it’s rolling. Are you ready?’

A drape of white cloth falls over my face and he ties it over my eyes. Then I hear the little pop of what must be stoppers coming out of little ointment bottles. Here come his hands again, pushing my dress up and massaging sweet smelling oils into my legs. He’s being gentle, but the lotion is setting my skin on fire. I can almost hear it crackle like burning paper, and when he comes up to the space between my legs I screech out loud.

‘What the hell? Is there chilli in there or something?’

‘No more talking for now.’

He pushes my legs open and goes on massaging the cream right in, up and in. Every sense is magnified. There’s the warmth from the fire down one side of me, the coolness of the room on the other, the heat and scent of these creams soaking into me and wafting perfume through the air.

I can see nothing but silky darkness. My heart beats faster. I’m not afraid. I’m powerless, and free at the same time. There’s no more to be done, and it’s wonderful. I am blindfolded and tied. I can do nothing to change what’s happening.

I know he’d let me go if I screamed loudly enough. Or at least, I think he would. But I’m still totally at his mercy. And with the blindfold, everything else that has troubled me, my trip to Devon yesterday, reading my old diary, all the misery flooding back, the agitation I felt looking at those photographs, that film of Crystal, the euphoria when I realised that’s what I needed, the secrets he has yet to tell me, it’s all blotted out as well.

If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.

Hiding in the attic, under the stairs, the places they thought they’d looked, the stamping feet, the shouting voices, the broken toys. I was very good at hiding.

Gustav is silent. His long fingers swipe and wipe, the cream covering every fold and crevice until the whole area is alive and throbbing, burning bizarrely. I feel stoned. My head feels as if it’s floating away like a balloon. Far removed from the rest of me, that’s for sure, because all other senses are zoning in on that one secret part of me, sizzling like bacon, that bright beacon flashing a message. I’m here. I’ll open up for you, Gustav, when you’re ready. When you want me so much you won’t be able to hold back.

He’s stroking my bottom now. Slowly, resting his hand there, as if measuring his own hand print. And then with no other prelude, no warning, he slaps me there.

I can’t see anything but before I’ve had time to compute what’s happening I hear the rush of air as his arm goes up. I stutter with confusion but he slaps me hard on the butt, thrusting me forwards with the force of it, making me yelp. The yelp obviously fires him up, because he slaps again, on the same spot, and this time I can hear the sound of his palm landing on my flesh, the sizzling slap, and with it the stinging heat from the blow, and it sends a shaft of twisted pleasure through me.

That sharp whisk of air, then a handprint of fire on my buttock as it lands. The stinging goes deeper this time, radiates away from the original soreness, burns inside me, makes me twitch, I can even feel myself closing up tightly. The tentacles of pain touch me everywhere. I twitch and groan, unable to control my own reflexes now.

This is like someone else being punished in a muffled dream. So different from whipping myself feebly in that cheap hotel bedroom behind the Piazza San Marco.

‘I’ve got your whip right here, Serena. Ready?’

‘Yes! Give it to me!’ I struggle at the chain round my wrists, but that just makes it tighter, the silver chain biting into my wrists.

I hear him testing the whip on the palm of his hand for a moment. Then it comes down on my other buttock and the pain daggers straight up me.

This could be on camera. Who knows, who cares? Everyone can see me lifting myself off the cushions and flopping down again. He laughs softly, whips me again, that quick, vicious whip lashing down again and again. I’m floating somewhere near the ceiling observing what is happening below. I can see myself stretched out like a sacrifice at the mercy of this tall, strong man who could easily finish me off if he wanted to.

But he’s not killing me. He’s curing me.

I’ve heard of people who like to be whipped. Men, mostly. Judges, politicians. Rumour had it that my tutor liked it. Until I saw those nuns doing it, before I tried it on myself, I had no idea what pleasure could there be in submitting to horrible pain. Why would you beg to be punished for some made-up crime, just to feed a fantasy? What pleasure could there possibly be in wanting to be hurt so much it would make you come? What was so sexy about smacking and being subjected to that kind of humiliation?

Well, trying it myself was nothing on this. The answer is blowing in the wind. Being handed to me by Gustav Levi. I am smarting with the lashes, my skin no doubt striped with thin red welts. I strain at the silver chain binding my wrists, trying to understand this degrading, nasty thrill releasing me from all that stress, the dark memories, trying to understand why the helplessness is turning me on so much, poking little fiery sparks of pleasure right up there between my legs.

Wishing it had always been this simple.

Another slap, stinging and hot on my rump, a bite sizzling through me. And the strange thing is that I was waiting for it, and I welcome it. I want him to do it again, I want the shock of the slap itself, and the lovely after-glow. The turn on isn’t just the heat and the pain, it’s the anticipation, how it’s going to feel, not quite knowing, here it is, the cold on my skin, the brand of five fingers, of the whip, then the hot smack, the blood and heat zoning in on one place to try to cure it.

And every time the blow falls, another piece of the ugly jigsaw smashes.

He is silent behind me, above me. He smacks the other cheek hard and this time the heat is prodding and probing everywhere, fingers of fire and pleasure feeling me all over, inside and out.

Once this is over I want him. Around me. Inside me. It’s not the spanking I’m addicted to. It’s him.

The rain is battering at the windows again. I want thunder and lightning. The elemental terror to add to the thrill of what he’s doing to me, marking my white skin with his red marks of pain. His creature, branded.

There’s something else above me now, not a hand, something flat and round comes slapping down on my bottom. I let out a kind of gabble of laughter. My confused mind tries to identify the instrument. A wooden spoon. Surely he’s not hitting me with something he was using to stir the peppercorn sauce earlier?

I lift my bottom up in the air like Crystal did in the film. The wooden spoon swipes down again, landing accurately, on a different, pain-free spot each time.

Now I hear it clattering to the floor. Something flicks in the air with a whispering crack, like he’s a circus master. A tie, or a rope. I cower, trembling with cold and anticipation. Every inch of my bottom is sore and tender. He brushes whatever it is, a ribbon, over the backs of my knees and down to the soles of my feet while I wait for the first hit. It flicks across my buttocks, comes down once, twice. It doesn’t hurt any more. It sets me alight. There are spasms inside me now, deep between my legs, hungry spasms of pleasure and wanting.