This case was much different, however. Here was Damaris practically begging to be exonerated from the guilt that had tormented her for years, and legitimately so. What she’d done was deeply reprehensible and she hadn’t been made to answer for her misdeed in any way. William studied her pure, open face and wondered if there would be any harm in complying with her request.
“It’s true that your betrayal was a grave disappointment to me,” he declared coolly, deciding at that moment to be the martinet she needed him to be. She lifted her head at the sternness in his tone. “I also agree that you deserve to be punished by my hand. Therefore on Monday evening, after work, we’ll settle this once and for all.”
Damaris spent the entire weekend and all of Monday in a pleasurable state of anxiety. She had dressed for work that day in a little grey v-neck wool jumper over a pristine white blouse and black stockings with black pumps. Sensible of his role as disciplinarian, William wore a faultlessly tailored charcoal wool suit with a white shirt and silk foulard tie.
At six o’clock Damaris timidly entered William’s office.
“Have you locked the door?” he asked, getting up from his desk and drawing the wooden blinds shut against the deepening November evening.
“Yes, sir.”
William sat on the edge of his desk and appraised her, standing before him in the manner and virtual uniform of a schoolgirl.
“You know why you’re here,” he began.
Damaris nodded.
“When you came to me three years ago, Damaris, I gave you your first decent job. I was good to you. I trusted you. I even loved you. And how did you repay me?”
It was all so true that Damaris felt a lump rise in her throat.
“I betrayed you,” she whispered.
“That’s exactly right. You stole contract bids, from this very office where we’re standing, and sold them to an unscrupulous competitor of mine for payoffs in cocaine. Didn’t you, Damaris?”
“Yes, sir,” Damaris hung her head.
“Why did you do that, Damaris?”
“I was a speed freak. I thought I needed it. Randy Price tempted me. There’s no excuse for what I did.”
“No, there surely isn’t. Especially in view of the fact that you were also my lover at the time!” William snapped. Damaris paled at the sudden sternness in his tone and demeanor.
“I’d give anything to undo what I did,” she declared passionately.
“Wasn’t it lucky for you, Damaris, that Lt. Flagg was so completely spellbound by the curve of your behind that he neglected to arrest you for possession of cocaine?”
“Oh, yes!” she fervently agreed, as the thought of herself in jail filled her with untold horror.
“You know, it was Michael who beseeched me not to press charges,” he informed her.
“He did?”
“Feel loved, Damaris. After he described the arrest procedure to me, I decided that even as bad as you were, I couldn’t put you through that.”
“Thank you!” she exclaimed, with glittering eyes.
“Now, three years ago, when all of this occurred, I was much too furious with you to deal with you on any level. However, when you were compelled to remind me of the incident the other day, I realized that I now am capable of punishing you, in a controlled manner, for your grave misdeed.”
William went around his desk, opened the top drawer, and withdrew from it a thin, tooled, chestnut brown leather strap, 2” wide, and 12” long, fitted to a polished wooden handle. He went back around the desk to stand in front of her again.
“Extend your right hand, Damaris,” he told her. “Palm up and hold it still.”
Trembling, she put out her hand. Grasping her by the wrist of that hand, he drew back the strap and laid it across the palm of her hand hard. Tears sprang to her eyes immediately as she jerked her hand away in pain and fear.
“No, young lady, put your hand back out. I’m going to make sure that you never steal from me or anyone else again. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
“You’re getting 6 on each hand.”
Damaris extended her hurt hand once more and turned her head away. Again the strap came down and the sensation was more painful that anything she could have imagined, though the scene from The Seventh Veil did not fail to flit through her mind.
“Look at me, Damaris. You’re being punished,” he forced her to meet his eyes before he brought the strap down a third time on her tiny hand. The next three strokes came rapidly and seemed so shockingly painful to Damaris that she felt her knees buckling under her and for a long moment she seemed to be falling very slowly and softly backwards. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the floor and William was pulling her back up to her feet. She hadn’t actually passed out, but a momentary wave of dizziness had caused her to reel away from the punishment.
“Stop that,” he scolded her. “You can take this. Now give me the other hand.”
Sobbing almost uncontrollably now, she offered her left hand for discipline. Again she turned her face away and hid it against her sleeve. Grasping her firmly by the wrist, William began the whole procedure again, administering the strapping as though he were a disinterested 19th century schoolmaster and she a recalcitrant ward of the state.
“You know you have this coming, Damaris,” he told her, and continued to mete out the full count.
The strapping on her hands was the most painful corporal punishment Damaris had ever experienced, but although she wept, she also felt almost giddy with relief that her sin was finally being expiated. After this he would fully forgive her and she would finally forgive herself. That was the value of punishment. Through her entire marriage to Michael Flagg, she had never felt entirely happy or at peace. Though she worked very hard at her jobs and as a homemaker, she always felt as though she was on probation, because he had met her in the commission of a crime for which they both knew she had never been punished. She felt he could never respect her, having taken her up under such circumstances.
After completing the strapping on her hands, William allowed her to immediately escape to the bathroom to run them under cold water. Alone in there she stared at her flushed, tear streaked face in the mirror and at her pink hands. She looked disheveled but still pretty and very young for her 29 years. She knew she’d gotten through the worst of it. He had been very severe with her. A spasm of pleasure rippled through her tummy at this thought. She remained in this position for five minutes, and when she pulled her hands out and patted them dry, the pain was gone.
She dried her face and brushed her hair before returning to him, shy to the point of mortification. He made her show him her hands and seemed pleased that the discipline had caused no apparent damage.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to spank you as well,” he told her gravely, taking her over his knee as he sat on a broad, heavy, armless wooden chair, which he had brought forward.
William took the time to adjust her slender torso perfectly across his lap, smooth her skirt down over her small but shapely buttocks and gently rearrange her long, glossy black waves. It had been three years since he had had the divine pleasure of correcting this beautiful, small woman and he could not help but relish in her endearing submission. She lay across his lap in the posture of a passive little girl, which caused his penis to throb violently.