Fore!some

by Tina Clark

  To be precise, it wasn’t when the bottle came flying out of the alcove that he noticed, it was when it stopped flying...when it collided with the cooker hood just a millimeter or so from his head...that was when he noticed.

  Ed jumped so high at the bang that he was still in the air when the bottle crashed to the floor and smashed into a thousand pieces scattering razor sharp shards across the floor and under his bare feet so that when he landed, screamed and took off again, he left bloody footprints.

  “Did we run out of milk?” Gloria asked in a flat voice that wasn’t looking for an answer...to that question at least.

  “I, I,” Ed stuttered, lying curled up picking glass from his feet.

  “Don’t know what to say? You could start by telling me where you were last night?”

  “I, I was here. I just went out this afternoon!”

  Gloria walked out of the alcove, her shoes making crackling noises on the broken glass and stood beside Ed. “You’re not much of a man, are you Ed? I suppose I’ll just have to try and make you one. Get up!”

  She led him upstairs and into their bedroom where Ed could plainly see four red cords tied to each corner of their bed. He looked at her fearfully but said nothing, too afraid to incriminate himself by providing any more information.

  “Take your clothes off Ed and lie face down on the bed,” she said it very quietly and without any apparent anger and probably seeking time, Ed complied. Gloria went around the four cords and tied them tightly to his wrists and ankles pulling them taught and still Ed said nothing. She sat down beside him and ran her hand lightly across his back and brought it to rest on his buttocks. “Where were you last night Ed?” she asked him.

  “What makes you think I wasn’t here honey?” he said his voice weak and faltering. Gloria closed her fist and dug her nails into Ed’s buttock with every ounce of strength she could muster. “Eeowgh! Arhh! Stop!” he squealed.

  “Listen Ed, there are rules to this,” Gloria explained. “I ask you the questions and you answer them. I will punish you if I think you are lying or being evasive and I will punish you if you answer a question with one of your own. Of course you can carry on lying and getting away with it as you have been up to now...if I don’t realise it...as I haven’t...up to now, but that old strategy...now, carries risk, pain, humiliation and consequence...as you will see. Now, where were you last night Ed?”

  There was a long silence only broken by Ed’s sighs and muffled grunts and complaints about the ropes being too tight, but no answers so it was Gloria who spoke, “I’ll take that as a refusal to answer, and you took too long anyway. That’s another rule, you answer immediately or you get punished.” She stood up and walked around the bed and opened a cupboard door. Inside there was a large box which she removed and placed on the chair, Ed had previously been tied to.

  “This is my present to you Ed,” Gloria told him, “It’s your Box of Delights, and you are going to learn to love it.” She took the lid off and removed something which Ed could not see and placed it on his back. It felt soft and cold and had an aroma which Ed could not place. Then she walked back up to him and took the thing and sat on his shoulders and despite his frantic efforts stuffed it into his mouth. “It’s a rubber gag Ed. It stops you frightening the neighbours with your screams. There’s a blindfold too...”

  Now there was an eruption of mumbling and frantic head tossing and pulling on the ropes but it was no use and Gloria carried on talking after she had the hood securely in place. “Of course, the best things are still in the box Ed. I would tell you what they were but...well, that would spoil the surprise!” and she brought her hand down on Ed’s buttock with all her might making a tremendous crack and causing him to thrash about and huff noisily into the gag.

  “Oh Ed!” Gloria laughed, “I haven’t taken any of them out of the box yet, that was just my hand. Let me see, shall we try this one though?” Ed heard things being displaced in the cardboard box and something cold and heavy being laid on his bottom. “This is a beautiful object Ed, no wonder it was so expensive...as you’ll see from the amount I took from your account! Well you wouldn’t expect me to pay for your education...would you? I know you can’t see it yet, but it’s made of dark, highly polished wood and it’s shaped like one of those things they use to propel a canoe! Can you guess? Yes, that’s right Ed, it’s a paddle, well done! Needless to say, it will be your job to look after it, as it will be to care for all the things in your box. Let’s see how much you like it, mmm?”

  Ed said, “MMM!” as well, but his ‘mmm’ meant something entirely different from Gloria’s but unfortunately for him, either she didn’t understand the difference or she didn’t care for she continued in much the same schoolmarmly manner that was beginning to frighten him. “Now, I know it doesn’t matter much to you, since you can’t see, but I find I am much better at this if I take my top and bra off, so if you just give me a moment...” and Ed heard the rustling of her blouse and the unclipping of her bra then the sound of them being thrown onto a chair. “There, that’s better!” she said and there was silence and the weight lifted from his back...but not for long.

  He heard a heavy swish, not a sharp swish as a cane or whip might make, but a heavy swuu-ssh like a large volume of air being displaced as Gloria swung the paddle about in the air to get a feel for its weight and balance and to let Ed listen to its frightful song then without any warning she brought it down on him with what was by now, practiced timing...

  “Whack!”

  The effect on Ed was quite spectacular. Despite the restraints, he managed to make clear space between him and the bed as he rebounded from the blow. “Yes!” Gloria shouted, “Good Ed, c’mon, show me more of that!” and she cracked another one out and then another and another after that and each time Ed leapt like a salmon from a pool and screamed pointlessly into the gag.

  “What a wonderful beast!” Gloria shouted enthusiastically, “Not you, the paddle! Doesn’t it make a fantastic noise...I mean aren’t you excited by it? Huh? Huh?”

  But when Ed only did more of his “MMM!”s with a few “AAAgghh!”s thrown in Gloria sounded peeved.

  “Oh all right, don’t answer then...be a stick-in-the-mud!” she said but suspiciously quickly regained her good mood. “That was so much fun, we’ll have to have some more of it!” she shrieked and returned to the slaughter, covering both of Ed’s buttocks in tremendous blows until her arm hurt and she had to sit down on the bed beside her groaning husband for a rest. “I like that one, but that’s enough of it for today, it’s so heavy and you don’t want me developing muscles do you Ed? No, I bet you don’t, but we can try something else...” and Ed heard more scrabbling and dread scraping from the box, “Like this of course!” she shouted. “Someone else, who shall be nameless showed me hers, and taught me how to use it...by bending over in front of it. It’s a long, thin, braided, springy whip and it leaves the most delicious marks...Oh, that’s why it’s called The Box of Delights! Isn’t that clever? Now, is that a good enough description for you Ed, or do you just want me to get on with it and see how much you like it? Oh, I nearly forgot! I’ve to give you another chance to answer!”

  She climbed on top of the bed and crawled over her bound and straining husband stopping to put her hand between his legs and lift up his balls. “You can’t be getting enough zinc Ed,” she told him. “These balls feel very light...as though they were empty. I bet if I banged them together, they’d even sound hollow!” Ed put a lot of M’s, A’s, Rgh’s and a few other vowels and consonants together in all kinds of configurations a bit like in the Countdown game as Gloria flicked at his balls with her fingers and knocked at them with her knuckles, much as she’d promised, until she moved up to release the gag from his mouth leaving his testicles sore and trying to rearrange themselves back into the positions they were supposed to be in rather than the twisted, back to front pattern that Gloria had left them.<
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  “I have a confession to make!” Gloria said. “The last time I told you I was going to spend the night with my mother, I didn’t, I lied. I came back about nine and found you gone. The following day, I waited for you all afternoon before I went out. Of course you remember when I returned that night; you had made a meal and were playing the same low game you tried again today. That’s how I know you weren’t here Ed...I was!”

  She pulled the hood off and unfastened the gag, allowing Ed to cough and splutter, groan and start to say, “Gloria! Gloria! Stop this!” which she ignored and brought the whip down in a cruel slash over his already beaten rear making him screech in pain the three times she did it.

  “Where were you last night Ed?” she asked him.

  “Aw no!” he whimpered. “I was...” and left a gap too long for Gloria who stuffed the gag back in his mouth and laid into his backside with the whip until both arms were too sore for her to carry on.

  She collapsed panting onto the bed staring at Ed’s tortured body, still angry but slightly placated by the sight of him trussed and marked so vividly. Yeah, I like it! she thought and turning admired the scene in the mirrored wardrobe. God, that is sexy! she realised and felt the hit in her vagina. She stripped off the rest of her clothes intending to masturbate quickly before spreading the colour up Ed’s back a little when she had a thought...it was what she had said to Natalie...“Next time, I’ll take pictures!” The idea really turned her on and she raced for her camera and tripod and spent the next fifteen minutes figuring out where to place it and how best to get the shots and when she’d decided that she turned Ed’s head around so that his staring tear stained, blood shot eyes and the saliva and mucus drenched gag would be as prominently and excitingly presented as his raw red lined arse.

  “Aw honey!” she mimicked Ed, looking at her reflection. “Show me your pussy baby!” and Gloria did, lying back on the bed, spreading her legs and playing her fingers in her slit...Wait! Aw yes! she jumped up and retrieved the paddle from the box. It had a smooth thick handle and it made a perfect dildo she discovered, pulling it into her vagina and bumping her hips on it, trying to time the best poses to coincide with the flashes her little camera was emitting every few seconds.

  She came lots of times, once lying over Ed’s head and once using Ed’s gag as a clitoral stimulator, something which made him whine and grunt almost as much as the lashing and pleased Gloria almost as much too, and she came standing in front of the mirror so that there was a front and back view of her masturbating vigorously, with Ed’s body stretched horizontally in the foreground.

  She stopped when her clitoris did. If it could speak, and Gloria reckoned it nearly could and could probably be taught, it would have said, “Twenty seven years and next to nothing, suddenly I get no peace, it’s all - come here, go there, harder ,faster! My mama never told me it would a-be like this! Next time, I wanna be an appendix...waddae they do?” She picked up the whip thinking to return to the fray but found that the relationship between eroticism and chastisement is a close one and having satisfied one for the moment, she had less appetite for the other. “I’ll just give you some nice stripes on your back Ed,” she said resetting her camera and flogged her threshing husband, admittedly more than she’d promised before taking the camera away to load the pictures onto the computer.

  They were a revelation. She looked fabulous and so did he. Flicking through them turned her on so much she had to masturbate again, which she did to her complaining clitoris one handed, taking more pictures with the other. Almost collapsing over the computer with exhaustion, Gloria emailed a different set each to Leonard and Gerry, telling the latter to make sure Natalie saw them and the former, that this was kinda what she had in mind for that night she’d warned him about and what did he think and if he hadn’t done anything about Lisa yet, he could always show her these, then she got up and walked down to the spare room and went to bed and didn’t stir for eight solid hours.

  Chapter Ten

  Adaption and evolution

  Gloria wakened feeling better than she had done in years. At first she didn’t know why, she was just...happy. Maybe it was the sun shining in the window or maybe it was how relaxed and fit she felt...because of all the sex she was getting, or maybe...oh yes, she remembered - It was the thrashing she’d given Ed. That was brilliant!

  She thought about him lying up there...tied and waiting for her, but maybe not...maybe he’d worked himself free and had run off somewhere...to Natalie or Lisa. It didn’t matter; she’d get him back and give him some more. He had to learn...things had changed...she had. He’d brought it about, and there was no turning back!

  Gloria got up and had a bath. She was in no hurry to find out how Ed was, he was how he was. She dressed, quite conservatively for her nowadays and went out and sat in the garden enjoying the sunshine with a cup of coffee. I will have to buy more suitable clothes. It’s probably not a good idea to chastise someone bare-chested...all that flopping about, good though it feels, is bound to make your breasts sag if you keep doing it...and I definitely intend to do that! I wonder if they wear a sports bra...no surely not, they’re hideous...maybe I’ll phone one of them and ask...they’re bound to be in the Yellow Pages. She got up and went inside thinking vaguely about where the telephone directory was and if it was Dominatrixes she would search for, There’s always the internet...What I’ve learned from that!

  Upstairs Ed was still, bound, gagged and unconscious. Gloria thought he looked tired and probably hadn’t got to sleep until very late, but she thought his skin looked just wonderful with all its marks like some Maori warrior’s tattoos. I’ll have to do the front, she thought, And the sides! And I’ll take lots and lots of pictures of him naked throwing a spear with an erection and post them on the internet...well not throwing a spear with the erection...as well as having an erection...unless of course, he could...hmmm.

  He moved, as much as he could, and groaned behind the gag. Gloria released it and untied his restraints. “Well you can’t lie there all day,” she said. “We’ve got things to do!” But he couldn’t get up and she had to help, rubbing his limbs to get the blood flowing and bending his joints to take the ache out of them. “You’ve made a terrible mess of the bedspread,” she told him,” Only to be expected I suppose. I’ll have to think about what I’m going to do about that in future.” She ran a bath and put him in it and left him to soak, not having said anything yet, and went downstairs to make breakfast.

  She made scrambled eggs on toast with mushrooms and tomatoes fried in good olive oil, no butter - it’s bad for your heart, and laid it out on two dinner plates on the dining room table with two glasses of orange juice and a pot of Darjeeling tea, then she went back upstairs to get him. “What are you doing?” she scolded him, finding him in the bedroom, slowly and painfully fitting his arms into a shirt. “Naked! You’ll be naked in this house until I say so! Now take that back off and get downstairs immediately! I’ve made breakfast for us to discuss things over. I won’t be doing it a lot! That’s your job from now on...along with most of the household chores. I’ve been reading about it on the internet...Oh, it’s wonderful! Some of them go too far of course, dressing their men up in baby clothes or like Miss Moffat! I won’t be doing that, you’ll be glad to hear...perhaps I shouldn’t make up my mind about that...too soon, a thought occurs which rather pleases me...”

  Ed sat and ate and drank his juice, thankful it wasn’t from a Tommee Tipee but not registering any other coherent thoughts. Perhaps his mind hadn’t recovered from the shock of the beating, or perhaps he was just glad she wasn’t still demanding answers, but perhaps more worryingly it was the memory of her naked...thrashing him, exulting in it, mercilessly and how agonizing it was, and how helpless he was...and how much he loved it. He did love the old Gloria, the kind one, the gentle one, the one he could fool so easily...but she didn’t excite him. Winning the Saturday four ball was better...but this on
e, this Gloria!

  He was listening to her...distantly, but his mind kept flipping back to the beating. She was saying there would be more of it...lots more of it...“I was going to make you sleep downstairs and I will, but not until you’ve mirrored one of the walls...and the ceiling too. I want you to get a cock ring. Now, that’s not one that goes around your penis, it goes through the head. I know it’ll be sore but they freeze it first. I need it so that I can attach a chain to it...to lead you about at the parties we’ll be having...and attach other things to it too. Anyway, you don’t have to do anything, I’ll arrange it. Do you have any questions? No, good! Now go upstairs and clean everything up. Pay particular attention to your Box of Delights, if I find anything less than gleaming implements, you’ll pay dearly for it!”

  Ed put all the bedclothes in the washing machine, he’d peed it during the beating and again during the night he thought. He’d need to do something with the mattress but perhaps if he was making the bed now, she wouldn’t notice...until he’d steam cleaned it, or more likely, bought a new one. His Box of Delights was a pleasure. He used their best beeswax polish on the paddle and on the whip too and even the box itself. Afterwards, he lifted it in the dusters so as not to leave any finger marks on its sleek surface and he laid it on her dressing table putting their wedding photo on top of it. Gloria had gone out somewhere - shopping she’d said but it gave him a chance to inform the others of developments.

  Natalie, his fellow sufferer. She’d been keeping him informed of everything that had occurred since that day in her house when Gerry had punched Ed in the eye. Partly, it was her accounts of the beatings she’d sustained at Gerry and Gloria’s hands that had so confused Ed about what he should do and shaken his determination to escape discovery even making him doubt that what he had been engaged in was what he really wanted and the best he could get.

  Ed had a nagging suspicion that his own boredom with conventional sex and his half hearted pursuit of something more (for it had been that despite its apparent wholeheartedness. Ed had enjoyed it, been committed to it, but it was the thrill of the deceit rather than the difference and multiplicity of partners that had excited him. It came to him that often in the midst of quite frenzied coupling with Natalie and Lisa, his mind had wanted for Gloria to be there too) had inadvertently triggered in Gloria precisely what he had unknowingly been craving and searching for. Certainly Natalie’s feverish messages concerning his wife’s sexual appetite for her, and her reciprocation, had altered Ed’s perception that great sex is always to do with doing and taking...for oneself, and not sometimes more to do with watching, and taking part and together with all the rest, brought about the revelation that he had been missing something, something important.