"Well, there she is," crowed Sue. "Bent over and ready, her arse in the air and waiting for your hand. The bitch is begging for it. Aren't you, bitch?"

"Yes, Miss," I said through clenched teeth.

"Well, let's hear you. Beg, bitch, beg."

This was the most evil woman I had ever met. She had no regard for anything except her own gratification. She clearly felt such self-loathing and inferiority that the only way she could counter it was through this contemptuous and contemptible treatment of others. Her humiliation of me was, I felt sure, simply a more dramatic manifestation of the way she dealt with everyone in her sad, hate-addled life.

"Please, Sir," I replied, refusing to allow her the satisfaction of having to provoke me further, "please spank me, please thrash my bare arse." I hated myself for saying it, but knew in my heart that it was damage limitation: better that than further incurring her spiteful wrath.

I heard Ian step behind me and thought morosely of the lewd view he would now be getting of me, my arse cheeks spread wide and my private parts in full view. I felt his hand stroke the reddened and hot cheeks of my backside, his finger sliding pruriently between them and alighting on my hole and pussy. I closed my eyes in resignation.

"She's wet," he said, laughing.

I was. Damn him, damn her, and damn myself for feeling like this, but I was wet and I knew that, however much I hated what was happening to me - genuinely hated it - there was no doubt it also turned me on. Perverse, that's me. Perverse and perverted, Harriet the Slave Girl for your delectation. Odi et amo, odi et amo.

He stroked his fingers up and down the length of my slit, pressing firmly against my puffed lips, easing the tips of the fingers between them and sliding them into my hot and sodden depths. Involuntarily, I let out a groan. The almost gentle touch of his hand on my labia was a soothing contrast to the flaming pain in my rear. The sweet and the sour, soft and severe, the road to Harriet's heart.

"Kinky or what?" he laughed.

"Yes, the little slave bitch loves all of this. Come on, hurry up and belt her, lover man, I want you for myself."

Despite my predicament I couldn't help but laugh. Here I was, bent double, completely naked, in front of a man I had never met, having been forced into a series of indignities and having just had my exposed arse thrashed by a woman I loathed. I was now being felt up prior to another beating and God help me if the malevolent bitch Sue wasn't jealous of all the attention I was getting. Incredible.

Ian reluctantly withdrew his fingers from my crack and wiped the fluids on to my arse cheek. I tensed and waited. He readied himself beside me, then his hand fizzed through the air and landed on me with a rifling, searing accuracy and an intense burst of pain flashed across the extent of my rear. If he was new to this it was either extraordinary beginner's luck or he was a natural. My buttocks clenched and I felt myself rise on to my tiptoes, struggling to maintain my balance. A gasp expelled from my lungs and my eyes watered as, an instant after the impact the secondary, much more intense aftershock whistled through every nerve ending, blasting pain throughout my body. I grimaced, struggling to contain the agony. He thrashed me about a dozen times more, none of which quite matching the caustic perfection of the first but each inflicting, nonetheless, a rolling, roaring, roasting tumult of agony on my striped, tormented flesh. It was the accumulation of pain which was doing the damage, the lingering shards from each previous blow reawakening and shattering through me like shrapnel with every subsequent hit. I don't think Ian was really cut out for it though: he was no artisan, his technique lacking imagination and variation, and by the end he was flagging, his blows weakening as his arm grew tired and his palm ached. I was in considerable discomfort, my limbs aching, my back stretched agonisingly and my backside aflame, but I had held my position and taken my punishment. If anything, Ian was probably happier than me when it was ended, and I took that to be a moral victory.

"Okay, that's enough," said Sue, impatience and irritation showing in her voice. This was definitely not a woman who liked to live in the background. "Kiss me, lover." She grabbed Ian and wheeled him into a boa embrace. Unnoticed, I unfolded myself gingerly, my back stretched and in agony. I pushed against the small of my back, forcing my chest out, feeling the muscles scream as they contracted and returned to normal. Meanwhile Sue was all over Ian, her hands roaming over his body, pulling at his clothing, while her mouth was stretched so wide as she kissed him it looked as though she were trying to devour him.

"Take me, take me here," she said, oblivious, in her narcissistic reverie, of my presence.

"No, not here," replied Ian, his voice strangled with emotion. "Upstairs, let's go upstairs." Without waiting for a reply, he unpeeled himself from Sue's grip and sped towards the bedroom. Sue and I looked at one another, the unexpectedness of his action uniting us momentarily and unwillingly in surprise.

"Well, what are you waiting for, bitch," she snarled, using aggression to hide her discomfort. "Get upstairs, we've not finished with you yet."