Discipline of the Blue Book. Portia Da Costa

I give him a punch on the arm, and he grimaces, making me realize I’ve got more energy left than I thought.

      “That hurt!” He’s smiling, though. Really smiling. And it’s still tricky. I can almost see the cogs of deviousness whirring behind that handsome, intelligent brow of his. “That hurt,” he repeated more quietly, the smile suddenly gone except for the merest trace that could or could not be a trick of perception.

      I feel strange. My heart thuds, and it’s nothing to do with the exertions of a terrific fuck. I understand at last what butterflies in the tummy feel like. There are tons of them in there, battering around and careening off my rib cage as my heart flutters too.

      Simon stares at me steadily. If he feels the same excitement, he’s not showing it. He looks composed, at the center of himself. In control.

      “I’m sorry,” I say in the smallest of voices.

      “So you should be.”

      It’s not said in a bossy way. There’s nothing stroppy or dictatorial about him. He’s calm, almost serene. He looks as if he’s on a higher plane somehow, even though his curly hair is all sweaty and tousled and his face is still flushed from his recent orgasm.

      “I’m sorry,” I repeat, ever more mouselike. “Perhaps…er…I…um…ought to be punished.”

      Simon’s lips quirk. So do mine. Neither of us really knows exactly what we’re doing, but a silent agreement passes between us in perhaps a sixteenth of a second. We’re going to try this thing, see if we can do it. Have a bash.

      “Indeed,” he says, “indeed.”

      I sit up and do a sort of shuffle toward him without the faintest clue how to get myself across his knee with any kind of grace. Despite spending hours breathlessly perusing the Blue Book, I really don’t know how to do this.

      Simon sits up too, and takes me by the shoulders. Without a word, he gives me a soft, exquisitely tender kiss on the lips, then brushes my hair back from my brow.

      “I think we should do this properly, love.” His thumb cruises my forehead, the line of my brow. “Tomorrow. Maybe in the afternoon, before tea. Make a thing of it, eh?”

      He’s right. We’re both hot, sweaty, and weary in every limb. Shagged out, you might say. This thing we’re going to do needs us to be sharp and fully alive, with every sense honed. I don’t know how I know these things, but somehow I do, and I’m growing in knowledge all the time.

      “Yeah, you’re right.” Even so, I’m a little disappointed. But he makes it all right by drawing me to him as he slumps back against the pillow.

      He strokes my hair as we both drift into sleep. His hand is gentle now, a nurturer’s rather than a lover’s.

      How different will it be, how ungentle, come tomorrow?

      * * *

      I don’t know why either of us imagines we can avoid thinking about our afternoon plans. They’re there all the time, looming large like some sort of bizarre, sexy elephant in the room. But we try and go through the motions, pretending it’s a normal day, nothing special, no big deal.

      Yet all the time, I’m on super, hyper red alert and I know in every fiber and molecule that Simon is too. Even when he’s sitting or lying still, he’s almost zinging with energy, his eyes bright, studying me constantly when he thinks I’m not studying him. He’s on a high, eager and ready, and so am I. I keep thinking I might suggest to him that we don’t wait, but always, at the last second, I hold my tongue. The more we do wait, the sweeter the tension, and the tighter the winding spring, poised for release.

      When lunch is ready and he doesn’t hear my call, I happen upon him clandestinely, reading in the sitting room. He’s so intent that I have time to stop short and hide just out of view.

      Simon is reading the Blue Book, studying it with purpose, his eyes studious behind his reading glasses.

      I almost laugh out loud. He’s swatting up for our little appointment with sexual experimentation. Just like me, this is something new for him, and bless him, he doesn’t want to take a wrong step and disappoint me. I see that and I’m impressed. If he doesn’t get his role correct, it’s just as bad as me messing things up. Worse even.

      My heart turns over. He cares so much. He’s not a sentimental guy, not soppy or overly demonstrative, but when it matters, what matters to me is his priority.

      He turns pages, his brow puckering as he peruses the images, flipping back now and again to ones he’s already looked at. Gnawing his plush lower lip, he pauses, then pushes the book down toward his knees. I dart back into the shadows when he flashes the furtive glance of a naughty boy toward the doorway, then reaches down to cup his crotch with his right hand.

      Bingo! If I ever had any doubts, or notions that he was simply indulging me and my kinks, they’re all dispelled now.

      He’s really into it!

      I sneak away and put the biggest piece of roast chicken on his lunch plate, to reward him.

      * * *

      The appointed hour swings around. We’ve been tacitly avoiding each other most of the afternoon, both lost in our own thoughts and respecting territories and observing demarcation lines. When I returned from a walk by the lake, Simon was reading again, but not the Blue Book. His eyes were serious as he perused a file from the work he was not supposed to have brought on holiday with him

      The idea that I might not be the only person who deserves a spanking bobs up like a fluorescent marker buoy for an instant, then I squash it and file that away for another time.

      When I descend from the bathroom a little while later, all bathed and prepped and gussied up in pretty top and a long skirt, I find my lover waiting calmly for me. Relaxed on the sofa in the sitting room, he’s half-lying, with his head tipped back against the upholstery and his eyes closed, his long elegant hands flat on the seat beside him. Is he meditating, or just planning his strategy?

      His eyes snap open as I step into the room, even though I could swear I’ve not made a sound.

      We stare at each other, silently sealing our agreement. My heart thuds, and so does my sex, excited by his utter composure. He knows what to do, I know he does. Maybe it’s coded into his genes and he only had to see the Blue Book to discover it?