I know.

Yes, I know you're sorry.

But this isn't the first time we've talked about this.

I worry about you when you are driving home. You know how much you mean to me, and not knowing if you're okay or not really is hard for me. Right, I understand - but you have a charger for your phone at work. You even have a phone in your office. All I want you to do is give me a call before you leave, so I have an idea of when to expect you - and I don't have to sit for hours not knowing.

But that's what you said last time. No, really, that's all there is to it. Get undressed and go to the den.

Walking into the den, you see right away a sturdy, plain chair is in the middle of the room, clearly out of place. It's from the billiards room; a solid-framed stool with arms. Technically it's called a "spectator chair", though right now it is the resemblance it has to an oversized highchair that preoccupies your mind, distracting you enough that you don't hear me enter until the door softly closes behind me.

My hands come to rest on your arms, just below the shoulder, a very slight pressure indicating I want you to walk to the chair. I sense your confusion; spankings are a regular part of our relationship, but this isn't the chair we normally use for them.

Have a seat. Yes, in the chair. No, don't worry about the seat, you won't hurt it.

You use the footrest to lift yourself into the chair and let out a little shuddering noise as your naked bottom comes into contact with the firmly-padded seat. With a slight wave of my hand I indicate that I want you to slide all the way onto the chair, and sit upright against the padded back. Another little shudder as your smooth back hesitantly settles against the padded, wood-framed cushion.

Yes, hands here. I guide one of your hands gently by the wrist onto the flat, solid armrest.

I take out a number of straps which look and feel very similar to the seat belt in a car - a strong, smooth nylon webbing with simple friction buckles, each about two feet long.

I wrap one around your left wrist and the arm of the chair, fastening it loosely in place. The process is repeated with your other wrist. They're not tight - you might be able to slip your hands through them, but the intent is clear.

I feel your arm tense up as I tug the free end of the strap on your right wrist. "wait...." you whisper.

I already did, that's why you're here now. It will be okay, you know we need to do this.

Another strap goes around each ankle, pinning them securely but comfortably against the legs of the chair, your bare feet now dangling several inches above the footrest. Each strap is pulled snug.

Sit up, please. Yes, all the way at the back of the chair. Yes, just like that.

A strap slides around you, low on your hips, and is pulled snug. It presses your buttocks down slightly, but mostly presses them against the back of the chair, ensuring you won't slide forward or slouch at all.

I'm taking out two last straps for your upper arms when it all snaps into place and you remember the discussion we had last week. Needles. Several minutes of frantic bargaining, then pleading, then promises, then soft crying ensues. I wait calmly, not responding, until you take a deep shuddering breath and look at me.

Are you done now? I don't ask it in a sarcastic manner, just matter-of-factly.

I touch my hand to your forearm, indicating that I want you to slide them backwards until your elbows are against the uprights at the back of the chair.

You know where you are now. Memories several decades old suddenly well up. The pediatrician's office. A routine blood test. You panicked. Until that day, the nurse had always done it in a quick, unexpected prick that you always forgot was coming until it was over, leaving you to feel nothing more than indignation, quickly offset by a bright red lollipop.

Not that day, though. The nurse had told you what was going to happen. You saw the needle sitting on the metal tray, bright, shiny, terrifying. You panicked and screamed for minutes.

And now you saw there were two needles. Sitting on a small metal tray. More promises. Never to forget to call. To be more careful. For real, this time.

But my hand waits calmly, patiently waiting for you to unclench your straining arms, and slide them backwards, so I can restrain you.

Eventually, without lifting your head enough to make eye contact, your arm relaxes enough, white knuckles still clenching the arm of the chair, but allowing yourself to be moved. The cool silky nylon webbing slides between your ribs and your arm, looping around your bicep just above your elbow, and the free end of the strap is slid through the buckle. It makes a soft slippery sound as the fabric slides through the metal teeth of the buckle until it is snug, pinning your arm against the sturdy wooden chair.

Stepping behind you, I repeat the process on your other arm, my fingertips checking to make sure the straps are positioned evenly on both sides. You know how I am about neatness.

My expression softens slightly, my eyes looking into your trembling, tear-filled eyes with sympathy, perhaps a touch of regret, too. I adjust your wrist straps now, making them snug, pinning your arms to the flat, cool, laquered arms of the chair, and I tuck the free end of each strap to keep it from flapping around and distracting you - or giving you any hope that you might be able to free yourself.

I place a desk clock onto the table in front of you, a few feet away. You recognize it as the one from my office upstairs, and the fact that I brought it down only makes you feel smaller and more powerless. You often lay on the small sofa in my office while I work, reading quietly, the time slowly passing, measured by the soft, steady ticking of the clock's expensive internals, a familiar and comforting anachronism.

I'm going to let you sit and think for a little while. When I was waiting for you tonight, I had no way of knowing if you were okay. It is very frightening to me, the idea that you might need help, and I might be here doing nothing instead of helping you.

I peel the backing away from two oval-shaped adhesive pads, very similar to the ones that might be put over a small scrape or scratch. Or over an arm after getting an injection. But the butterflies in your stomach have taken flight; you know the purpose of these ones.

A tissue gently wipes each of your eyes, the remaining tears quickly being absorbed into the slightly-perfumed paper.

One pad is picked up, you can see the white border of shiny, sticky adhesive surrounding the fabric-like pad in the center, ensuring your eyelids stay gently covered without touching the adhesive that holds them in place. You softly nibble on your lip as the pad is placed over one eye, a fingertip holding it in place while other fingers carefully and gently press the adhesive part of the bandage against the skin below your eyebrow, at the side of your nose, under your eye, several times.

You open your other eye just in time to see the other pad inches away. I see you flinch, and I pause for a second and softly apologize for having startled you, then proceed with placing the other pad over your eye. Smoothing it in place. Then - that obsession with everything matching - gently circling each eye and making sure both are covered. You can - with some effort - open your eyelids, if you wish, but a vague glow is all that comes through the eye pads, and you find it is more comfortable to keep your eyes closed - and perhaps just a bit less claustrophobic. Letting you tell yourself you could see if you wanted to.

I'm going to let you wait now, and think about how it feels to sit here and wait for you at home. I didn't know how long you'd be - or if you needed me and I was... not coming for you.

When that time is up, I will place one needle through each nipple, horizontally. It will only take a couple of seconds for each one. You'll feel the alcohol to clean them, then I will place the needle against the outside of the nipple, and slide it through, and put a cap over the tip. The pain will pass quickly, I promise you. My fingers touched each breast very gently, calmly showing you exactly where the sharp, gleaming, cold steel needle would enter, pass through, and exit your skin, breaking it twice.

It will be forty-eight minutes from now. I paused. Do you understand?

I saw your arm muscles tense for a moment, thoughts that there might be some room for negotiation, some bargaining, then they relaxed, and with a soft shudder you nodded.

I love you, and... I'm sorry I have to, but, I want to take care of you, and you need to be responsible.

A soft kiss, on your cheek, not on your lips.

"Open, please."

Fingers slid a compacted foam-rubber ball between your lips and into your mouth, which quickly expanded to fill your mouth completely. A light touch on your chin to let you know to close your lips around the ball, then the sweetly smell of the adhesive on the medical tape filled your nostrils for a second before the wide strip of tape was placed over your lips, neatly pressed into place, and smoothed down. A wonderful find, this tape - it offered little pain and surprisingly little resistance if pulled directly away from the skin, but without fingers to remove it, it would stay firmly in place through anything less than heroic efforts to push it away.

You heard me take a few steps, then the creak of the well-worn leather of the chair as I sat and the rustling of paper.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

60 seconds in a minute. Count down the seconds until the sharp, awful pain? or try to think about something else?

Don't think about the needles. About waiting for them. About the cold, clinical smell of the alcohol pad.

Don't let the fear build. Only a few seconds of pain. That's all it will be.

Don't panic and thrash uselessly in the tight, carefully-fastened restraints. Don't cry and feel the horriblness of the foam ball preventing any protests.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Don't count the minutes. Forty-six of them. Forty-six times sixty. Two thousand seven hundred and .. fifty seconds now. Maybe a few less.

If you start now, pull as hard as you can against the tape over your lips, maybe you can get the tape to come loose. Maybe you can get him to change his mind. Promise not to forget again.

How long? It's been ten minutes. Hasn't it? Tick. Tick.

Fucking pads over eyes. A tiny layer of gauze preventing you from seeing the clock.

A whine escapes your lips and you try to push the panic back down. If you keep your hands still, if you don't feel the strong, smooth straps holding your wrists down, you can pretend it's your choice. You're sitting here on your own. You could get up if you wanted to. You could look at the clock if you wanted to. You could swat those cold, sharp, gleaming metal needles across the room if you wanted to.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

A creaking noise of leather makes you feel like you're going to faint. NO! IT'S NOT TIME YET! IT CAN'T BE! the voice screams inside your head. But it's followed by the sound of a page being turned. Did he just move slightly? Was that all? Your nostrils flare and your fingers remain rigid, not wanting to give into that panic that will end only with fingertips reaching uselessly, unable to stop anything, going back to the doctor's office and the humiliating tears and pleas.

Pleas that didn't stop the cold swab against your arm.

Cries that didn't slow the needle from being pressed against her skin and slowly sliding in. Pain. Violation. Helplessness.

Your tongue tries to find a more comfortable place under the mouth-filling foam ball, trying to wrest some control back from it. But it won. It always did. It insistently pressed your tongue down, expanded again to fill your mouth completely.

A tiny itch on your forehead makes you reflexively try to touch it, your arm held down by the strong straps on your wrist and elbow. You can feel the slight bump of the buckle on the top of your wrist and before you can make it go away, the panic reaches your fingers as they uselessly try to reach backwards impossibly to undo the simple metal friction buckle pinning your arm down to the chair. The strap that keeps you from throwing the needles away. They're going to hurt. They're going to make you cry.

Eyelids flutter open and closed, a whine rising in your throat before you force them closed again.

A creak. Something being put down. FUCK! It can't be time yet!

Something being torn. Then the smell. Pungent. Fingers tensing as the cold alcohol pad touches your left nipple, a hand steadying your breast - a gloved, impersonal hand. The coarse, wet surface of the pad rough against your nipple. The cold making it stand out and stiffen painfully even as the voice screams NO NO NO PLEASE NO I DON"T WANT IT!

Then the pad is taken away. Too soon. Please, it needs to be cleaned more, the voice cries inside you, but this time it leaks into your throat and the ball stops you from pleading, stops you from bargaining. Please not yet. Please wait.

A cold touch against your nipple, but it's on the wrong side, it's on the side of your nipple away from your arm - it takes several seconds to register that it is a small piece of rubber, a safety cap for the needle to push into.

Then it touches your nipple. It is just a tickle. Then it hurts. It HURTS. He waits only a moment before pressing smoothly until the needle penetrates the skin, and you can feel the texture of the pointed tip of steel as it goes through your nipple, passing through the incredibly sensitive tissue, before again painfully breaking the skin on the other side.

For a moment you are observing yourself as if from behind, hearing your own voice in a cry of pain and helplessness as the shock passes. The needle is already in. It's pressed into a small rubber block on the other side. The cold, hateful, gleaming steel is inside you, and every movement, every breath, lets you feel the slight weight and movement of the shaft inside your opened skin.

A hand touches your arm and after a moment you realize he's checking your breathing and pulse, and you shake your head, no more, I understand, I won't do it again. But then the hand is gone and the tearing sound of a sterile packet is followed by the renewed clinical scent of the alcohol. Now you scream. Now the panic takes hold and racks your body, arms and legs shaking futilely and harmlessly against the straps holding you in your punishment chair. The fresh pain in your left nipple makes your head shake urgently, no no no you can't!

But then the jab. The pressure. The sensation of being cut. Flesh being separated by the angled tip of the needle. The slight tugging, painful, of her breast as the second needle is capped.

And then the tears start. Deep, gasping, violent, uncontrolled sobbing. Fingers tug at a loose corner of the tape, pulling it back in a single careful but quick motion, barely allowing her time for surprise. Other fingers pluck at the brightly-colored foam ball, taking it out of her mouth. Her head rests against a warm shoulder, steadying her gasping, heaving movements. Each breath caused her breasts to shake slightly, releasing not the sharp pain she felt initially - it became an ache, still painful, still humiliating, still punishing, but moderated and blunted by the flood of adrenaline and endorphins coursing through her body,

In a few minutes, he removed the needles. The slight resistance of the tender flesh against the needles as they were withdrawn from her nipples elicited a mixture of yelps and language that would - in any other context - have earned her a mouthful of soap. But this was not the time for that.