Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats, Aedh Wishes For The Cloths Of Heave

Sweat, filth, burning strips of red where the crop had alit. I’m a pig she thought, a whore; make me crawl, tremulous. Her gaze was fixed on a far corner of the room where a soft glow throbbed against the darkness, daring not to look into his eyes or even anywhere near him lest he let loose with another lash, now is not the time, flesh too tender yet for another. Yet another came, blinding, quick and searing, like the brush of a branding iron across her back, pain rising and igniting into a blaze of ecstasy radiating throughout her. Exquisite, a rippled shiver that raced to her edges and then back, inwards, within, to the resonating and trembling core. Everything but those ripples had been ripped from her so that what was left was that singular, comprehensive sensation winnowing away in time.

As the ripples diminished, sound and smell and taste and vision all bled back to her from the sleeve where they’d hid, silent and still. Music returned disjointed and dissonant as it washed back over her (The Dwarves, an odd choice, she’d thought) but then settled, in time, rhythmic and expansive, dulcet and clear. The air seemed cooler, sweeter, shimmering, more fragrant. Everything illuminated by the glow in the corner, clearer. Still, she held her gaze on the glow, not looking into his eyes.

A pie tin he’d poured a beer into, dinged up and dirty. Lick it like a dog, he said, snarled, lap it up, you love it. Obediently she drank, dark, foamy beer, hair on her lips, his and hers. He moved his foot into the tin, toes submerged, stepping on her tongue. Drink it all, he said, every last drop.

With almost everything gone in the pan but the tip of his foot, she began licking between his toes, around his instep and heel, her tongue firm and flat against his skin, lips just brushing the top of his foot. Not pausing, her mouth continued rising on him, to his ankle, shin, each kiss on him, taste of his skin, timorous, tentative, intuitive. Continue, he whispered, his breathing more forceful, deeper, his muscles taut, head tilted back with his eyes almost shut.

She wrapped her wrists around the ropes, arms outstretched, writhing, twisting her frustrations out on bonds coiled around the bedpost. Inside her, the heel of the riding crop rubbed hard against her forward wall, the weave of the leather hilt thrust rough, its texture and shape grinding against the folds and bumps just inside her opening.

Suddenly he pulled it out of her, drops of her arousal splashing on the inside of her thighs, soft and warm like remnants of a Jamaican wave. Legs spread and shuddering, expecting the inevitable, more strikes of the crop – the back of her thighs, her ass, her shoulders – and then his cock slammed into her. You’ll fuck anything, he says, you dirty slut, you worthless cunt, take this, take this….

The riding crop stings but at least the pain is real; “slut” and “whore” and “filthy cunt” roll off the back with immeasurable affect – just functions of the psycho drama. The grip of hair as the last thrust is made and semen pulses into her throat, pump after pump, throbbing hard and insistent - that's real, as well. As real as the glow in the corner.