Michael sighed.  He’d been a fool to think Tessa was going to be anything short of a bitch about this.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I guess she wants to get as much done as possible.”

“Is there a reason why she has to do it on Sunday?”

“She works.”

“And I don’t?”

He tried to figure out what one comment had to do with the other.  “She’s here because it’s her day off.”

“Well, it’s my day off too.”  Tessa stretched to push a pot up onto the very top shelf.  “I do all my work during the week so I can spend time with you on Sunday.  It’s the only day you’re ever around.”

“I was here yesterday.”

She started to empty the dishwasher.  “You were with her yesterday.”

“I was mostly with you.”

“For now.”

“What does that mean?”

She clanked a dish.  “Never mind.” 

He put on his glasses and opened his paper.  He was more than happy to let things go just as they were.  He tried to read the business section but the clanking continued, disruptively.

Then there was a particularly loud clank.  Michael looked up from his paper.  “Stop,” he said, “before you break something.”

“It’s not fair,” Tessa said.  “It’s not fair that I spend all my time cooking and cleaning, just to be left here alone while you go out on dates.”

She was obviously insane.  He took her out at least once a week, and he had a woman in to clean and do laundry every Monday and Thursday.  “That’s not the way it is, Tessa.”

She slammed the door of the dishwasher.  “Yes, it is Michael.  All you do is take advantage of me.”

She was forgetting everything.  She had known what kind of relationship she was getting into from the very beginning.  She had known that being used was part of the dynamic, and she had wanted it as much as he had.  He put down the paper and took off his glasses.  “Do you want out?”

She stared at him, looking surprised and frightened at the same time.

He laughed.  “I guess that’s a no.”

She didn’t answer.  She just stood there looking at him.  It was one of those moments where things could go in one direction or another, and Michael was absolutely clear on the direction he wanted.

He stood up and unbuckled his belt.  “You’re being pretty fucking disrespectful.”

Tessa’s eyes widened.  “I’ll stop.  I won’t say anything else.”  She took a step back towards the counter.  “I’ll be nice.”

“It’s too late to be nice,” he said.  “Now come over here and pull up your dress.”

***

Tessa held up her dress, while Michael unlocked the chastity belt.  She was already starting to tear up.  She liked to be beaten usually, but she hated it when Michael was mad at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I was upset.”

The belt was unlocked.  He pulled it off and put it down on the table.  “Upset is one thing.  Being a little fucking bitch is another.”

“I’ll stop,” she said again.  “You don’t have to do this.”

He grabbed the back of her hair and pushed her head down on the table next to the chastity belt. 

She waited, bent over the table, ass bared.  She wondered if the girl out in the yard could see her, if she would see what was about to happen.  It was entirely possible.  Tessa had been disciplined in front of other people before, but the idea of this girl seeing her was unbearable.

She heard Michael pull his belt out of the belt loops of his jeans.  “Don’t do it here,” she said.  “Please.”

“Why not?” he asked.  “Are you afraid that she’ll see?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe she will see,” he said.  “Maybe it will turn her on.”

The first blow caught Tessa completely off guard even though she was waiting for it.  It whipped hard across her bottom and seared her skin painfully.  She cried out, but there was no time to recover.  This was a punishment beating.  He never gave her time to recover when it was punishment. 

The second blow was as hard as the first, and the third and the fourth were even worse.  He was really hurting her.  He was hurting her because he was mad at her, because she was a bitch and Michael was mad at her.  She burst into tears.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I’ll be good, Michael.  I promise.”

But he didn’t stop.  There were more blows.  One on top of the other.  Each in exactly the same spot, burning across the place where her thighs met her ass.  She tried to move, tried to offer him another spot, but it didn’t matter.  The belt found its mark over and over again.

By the time he had finished, she was crying just about as hard as she could.  Her face was slick with tears, her nose was running, and she hurt.  She really hurt.

“Are you going to behave yourself?” Michael asked.

The crying gave way to sniffling.  “Yes, Sir,” she said in a tiny wavering voice.

“Okay,” he said.  “Go stand in the corner and think about what just went on here.”

She stood up and looked around.  She wasn’t sure which corner Michael meant, and she didn’t want to get anything wrong.  “By the stove?”

“That’s fine.”

She stood in the corner next to the stove and rested her head against the wall.  Her hair was falling down all around her face.  It stuck to skin, anchored by sweat, tears and snot.  She wanted to brush it away, but she wasn’t sure if it was okay to do that.  Usually standing in the corner meant absolutely no fidgeting.

“Michael?”

There was no answer.

“My hair’s in my face.”

“And?”

“It’s uncomfortable.”

“Do you think I want you to be comfortable?”

She felt small and unhappy.  “Probably not.”

“Then don’t bother me.”

She heard the chair scrape across the floor and then, after awhile, the sound of pages turning.  She pictured Michael sitting there reading the paper.  It made her feel a little bit better to know he was there.

He made her stand in the corner until she was no longer crying at all, and the stuff on her face began to dry up.  After a while, she started to wonder what the girl was doing out in the yard.  The idea of Kathleen seeing her punished disturbed her.  A few moments later, she screwed up her courage and bothered Michael again.  “Did she see?”

He laughed.  “You think I’d let her see something like that?”

Tessa felt cold.  “I guess not.  I guess her opinion’s very important.”

“Not her opinion,” he said turning a page.  “But I wouldn’t bring her here just to scare her away.”

Tessa sniffed.  In a minute, she would be crying again.  “I guess my feelings don’t count at all.”

“I don’t know what that means, Tessa.”

“You don’t care how I might feel about being punished in front of somebody.”

“You’ve been disciplined in front of people before.”

“Not in front of your girlfriends.”

“Yes, you have.”

She didn’t believe it. She forgot all about Kathleen.  She forgot all about being punished.  She almost turned around but stopped herself.  “When?”

“The last time we went to Paddles.”

“Who?”

He laughed.  “No one you know, obviously.”

She thought about it.  “Why would you do that?”

“She wanted to see,” he said.  “So I showed her.”

Tessa wondered how that girlfriend had reacted.  Had she been turned on?  Repulsed?  Amused?  Amused would be worst.  Amused would be almost too much to take.  “What did she think?”

“She thought it wasn’t for her.”

“And if she had thought it was for her?”

He didn’t say anything.

“What if she had thought it was for her?” Tessa asked again, unable to stop herself.

“What if she had?”

“Would you have made her your sub?”

“I would have played with her.”

Tessa knew that much, but she wanted to know more.  “But what would she have been to you?”

“She would have been a girl that I played with.  You know I play with other girls from time to time.”

Tessa shut her eyes.  She knew but knowing wasn’t the same as hearing it.  Whenever she asked Michael this sort of question, she regretted it.  Knowing he played with other women upset her.  The vanilla dating was bad enough, but at least Tessa understood it.  Tessa had seen some of the girls that Michael went out with.  They were beautiful, just like models. Beautiful, just like Kathleen.

She understood the attraction; those girls were prettier, smarter, maybe even sexier than she was.  But they weren’t into submission.  They couldn’t give Michael what he really needed.  Knowing that made Tessa feel safe or at least relatively so.

But when he played with someone else, it scared her.  There was no security.  No way of knowing whether or not this was the girl who would finally take him away from her, as she had taken him away from his last submissive girl.

When he played with someone else, it made her wonder how long she could realistically expect a relationship with a guy like Michael to last.  She began to cry again, softly at first then a little bit louder.

“Okay,” Michael said.  “If you can stop the waterworks, you can come out.”

But she didn’t want to stop.  She wanted Michael to want her instead of Kathleen.  She wanted to be enough for him.  “Why do you do this?” she asked brokenly.

“Do what?”

“See other women.”

He sighed.  She heard him from all away across the room.  “We’ve been over this, Tess.  I don’t want to do it again.”

Tessa remembered.  They’d had that talk way back in the beginning.  Michael had said he liked to see different women.  That it wasn’t serious.  That it was just the way he was wired, but Tessa hadn’t been prepared for the reality.  She hadn’t been prepared to feel inferior to every girl he touched.  She took a big, shaky breath.  “Why do you always pick girls who are prettier?”

“Prettier than what?”

“Prettier than me.”

He laughed.  “Well, there wouldn’t be much point if they were uglier.”

She began to cry even louder.

“I’m kidding,” he said.  “She isn’t prettier. She just has a different kind of a look.”

The crying began to wind down.  “A prettier look?”

“Not really.”  He was quiet. “You have a few things going for you that mean more than looks.”

She wiped her nose with the back of hand.  “Like what?”

“Like, for whatever reason, I like you.”

Liked.  Not loved.  Tessa knew Michael didn’t love her, but it always hurt to be reminded.  “Because I’m submissive?”

He laughed again.  “You’re not all that submissive, Tessa.”

She stood and stared at the wall.  If she wasn’t all that submissive, what good was she to him at all?  She heard Michael get up and cross the kitchen.

“Turn around,” he said.  “Let’s get the belt back on.”

She turned around and Michael went down on one knee in front of her, chastity belt in hand.

Tessa wanted to be good.  She wanted to pick up her dress and let him put the belt back on, just like he wanted to.  But she couldn’t. The tears started again. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

He gave her an odd look.  “Okay,” he said.  “Why are you crying?”

“I want to be good,” she said.  “But I have to go the bathroom.”

“You’re allowed to go the bathroom,” he said. “You just need to ask permission.”

She fought back the tears.

“This isn’t supposed to fuck you up,” he said. “It’s supposed to help you get yourself under control.”

“I know,” she sniffed. “You must get awfully sick of seeing me cry.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes I like it.”

“Really?”

“Of course.  Sometimes I like it a lot.  You know that.”

She supposed she did know.  Michael was very sadistic.  Oh, he could keep a lid on it for a certain period of time, but the sadism was never very far from the surface, and when it bubbled up, he liked to see her react. 

“Are you going to play with me at all?” she asked.  “While I have this thing on?”

He stood.  “What do you think I just did?”

“You punished me.”