Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 44304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
“What the fuck are you…”
He looks down at me with those icy blue eyes that belong in a cologne ad. “You came here to learn some discipline. Nothing’s changed.”
“Something has changed. My mind. I want to go home.”
“You’ll go home in ninety days, as agreed.”
“Uh. No. I’ll go home now.” I start to get up. Being on my knees in front of this guy feels undignified and kind of filthy. I start to get up. That’s a mistake.
CRACK!
There’s a loud snapping sound. At first I don’t connect it with anything in particular, and then a second later I feel a blazing hot line of pain right across the center of my ass.
“FUCK!” I scream at the top of my voice as I lunge forward, hands on my ass. That grip doesn’t help. If anything it makes the pain worse. I roll over onto my back, while trying to keep my ass off the ground, which brings my knees up toward my chest, and my eyes up to the asshole who just hit me with a long piece of tapered bamboo. Unbe-fucking-lievable.
“You can’t hit me! I paid for this!”
“Sure, I can,” Soren says, his face relaxing into an easy grin. “You paid to be disciplined.”
“No. I paid to learn how to be more at peace.”
“Same thing,” he says.
“It’s fucking not. This feels more like one of those shows where they take some spoiled teen and make their lives miserable than the expensive, did I say, expensive as FUCK retreat I paid for.”
“You’re going to get what you paid for,” Jason assures me.
“You’re spoiled,” Soren says. “And we won’t spare the rod. Of course, if you do as you’re told, there won’t be any need for it. Now. Are you ready to settle in? Or do you need a little more orientation?”
This place is remote. I’m not even sure what country I am in anymore. On arrival, it felt like a place beyond borders and time. Now it feels like a place without human rights.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I repeat.
“That’s not an option. The boat won’t return for three weeks with fresh supplies and walking out of here is not recommended without a guide. You’ve made a commitment to be here, to discover your true nature, and to find peace,” Soren says.
“Yes. And nowhere did anything mention the big muscle-heads with the canes.”
They look at each other, and I see the muscles in their jaws twitching. They’re all but laughing at me. I’m not amused. I’m sore, I’m feeling very sorry for myself, and I need a fucking drink.
Soren
She’s cute. She doesn’t know it, but we almost didn’t accept her application. Sass rolled off the essay portion thick as molasses, a particular sense of entitlement and even grandiosity. I’d put money down that she didn’t read any of the terms and conditions. Too busy, too arrogant, to notice what she was signing up for.
Here’s what I know about her. She’s thirty-two years old, an executive, single, childless, career-driven, and absolutely riddled with anxiety she doesn’t understand.
I convinced Jason she needed our help. And it’s not like we’re being swamped with people prepared to pay our fees. Nothing about this experience is cheap, but we promise it will be transformative.
Jason conceded I was probably right, then said she’d be more trouble than she was worth. I agreed with him. But we needed a challenge. I think we’ve gotten one.
Here we all are. Our guest is crouched on the ground, pouting up at me with those big brown eyes, looking at me like she doesn’t know what to make of me. Her hair is messy from the pointless struggle she decided to engage in. Her jumpsuit is going to present a problem, because it is only a matter of time before I turn her over my knee, and when I do that, I like to have the recipient bare. The cane is a good tool for getting attention, or teaching a harsh lesson, but she needs a gentler introduction to having her ass spanked given how much of it she seems to need. She’s not going to like it, but it’s going to do her a world of good.
“I was tricked,” she declares. “I thought this was going to be massages and mai tais on the beach. I thought it was cocktails on a cruise. I thought I’d be poolside with a pina colada in a coconut.”
“How many different vacations did you think you’d booked, exactly?”
“Twenty grand worth of them,” she snaps back at me. “Not this fucking primitive kink escape. You baited and switched me.”
She wasn’t tricked. If anything, she played herself. She’s so spoiled. The kind of person for whom everything is someone else’s fault.
It’s actually astonishing how quickly the cane has ended up in my hand. I’ve never had to punish a client before. Most of them come here with some idea as to what to expect, and with a respect for Jason and me. Most of them want to change. They want to learn. They crave something different. I don’t know what Aslin thought she’d get from this. I refuse to believe she booked the trip without knowing what it was. We have an essay portion for a reason. Aslin knows she needs this, or she wouldn’t have applied. But that doesn’t mean she wants it.