The Dominant Male

girl’s ankles, forcing her legs wide apart, and then to do the same at the front with her wrists. Finally a long strap attached to the ends of the leather-covered pommel, was pulled tight enough to make Hope squeak, and buckled up, pressing her corseted waist into the leather.
    Then Comfort was ordered to stand back in the posture Hope had earlier adopted, hands behind her back and feet apart. She was told to watch with care but this order was entirely unnecessary. The picture before her was utterly compelling. Hope’s split peach of a bottom was raised and canted upwards by the pommel horse and her bonds, her legs so far apart that Comfort found herself staring at the other maid’s glistening quim, and wondering about the amount of moisture that seemed to be trickling down the insides of those silky looking thighs.
    Young Mr Metcalf finished his cigar then chose a cane. He flexed it between his hands thoughtfully for a minute and then swished it experimentally through the air.
    ‘You!’ he said, turning his attention to Comfort, ‘take my jacket. I need to be able to swing.’
    Comfort hurried to his side and helped him out of his jacket. He was a slim young man but there was something lithe and strong looking about his body under the thin cotton shirt. Next she had to undo his cuffs and roll the sleeves up his arms for him. His forearms were surprisingly wiry and covered in a down of fine brown hair. He was quite handsome too, she realised, glancing up, for his attention was fixed on the waiting target of his cane. She liked his mutton-chop whiskers, even if he looked barely old enough to have grown them. He turned his head and she looked quickly down, trying not to blush.
    ‘All right, you,’ said Mister Ellington, ‘resume your position. Algy, do your best. Girls, if you squeal you will get the whole dose doubled, so do try to mind your manners. Algernon, see if you can make this little chitlet squeak.’
    Time seemed to have slowed down to a crawl. Algernon Metcalf walked slowly up to Hope, his shoes clicking on the tiled orangery floor. He swished the cane again, producing a low, whooshing noise that made the blonde maid’s naked bottom twitch visibly in anticipation. Comfort had only half an eye for her colleague’s vulnerable behind though. There was a feline grace to Mr Metcalf’s movements. The way his body moved beneath his shirt stirred something in her loins. Or perhaps it was the yellow blur and horrible, low whooping of the cane as he got the feel of it that made her feel so strange.
    At last, he put the cane across Hope’s bottom, pressing it against the pale pink flesh and causing the girl to let out a little gasp. He lifted it, up, up way above his head and paused. Hope’s bottom was twitching in anticipation, but still he did not strike. The room was absolutely silent and Comfort did not dare to even breathe.
    And then it fell, the cane no more than a yellowish blur. A whoosh, a crack, a gasp of girlish pain. Hope’s chubby buttocks juddered from the impact.
    ‘Good stroke,’ Ellington murmured.
    ‘No more than a taster,’ replied his friend.
    The cane was raised again. Again it paused and then whistled through the air towards the target. This time the crack was harder. A pistol-shot retort. The chubby naked bottom wobbled from the blistering force of the cane stroke. Hope let out a noise, something between a long grunt and a moan, that Comfort guessed was being forced out from between tightly gritted teeth.
    Two crimson lines now bisected the cleft of the blonde girl’s buttocks, so vivid against the cream flesh that they almost glowed. Comfort felt her mouth go dry to look at them, though the sight seemed to be having the opposite effect on her loins.
    Another low whistle, another firecracker of a stroke.
    ‘Haaouwwwwww—’
    ‘Be silent, girl, unless you wish for double,’ Ellington said sharply. It had the desired effect for, somehow, Hope managed to suppress the moan.
    It was a truly magisterial caning. Comfort had seen a few but none so thorough, so implacable or so skillfully applied. Every welt was exactly parallel to the ones above it or below it. Metcalf did not neglect the tender upper thighs or fail to make the cane hiss into Hope’s very sulcel groove. At eight, Hope was gasping, despite injunctions to stay silent. The ninth stroke made her howl. This time Mister Metcalf did not pause but struck, for the first time at a diagonal angle, whipping the cane across