Which made it all the worse when, staring into his deep, implacable eyes, I finally realised that he was in earnest.

"No, Master, please," I pleaded.

"Are you defying me, Harriet?"

"No, Master, yes, no, I'm 3;" I didn't know what I was, or what I was saying. My mind was awash. People would hear; people would see; it was too humiliating to contemplate.

"I won't accept disobedience, Harriet. What are you?"

"A slave girl, Master."

"And what do slave girls do?"

"Obey, Master."

"So will you obey?"

I paused. This was a crucial moment in our relationship, a serious test of the bonds and the limits of my devotion to my Master. He had led me on a journey already which was far deeper, far more intense than anything I would have believed myself capable of. This was a further step, a more open demonstration of my subservience than anything which had gone previously. Was I willing to reveal myself in this tamed manner? My Master's eyebrow was cocked, and I believe that he, too, was uncertain as to my response.

Treacherously, my body decided before my mind.

Wordlessly I moved towards him and spread myself over his lap, gripping the wooden slats of the bench for balance. Although I had been completely naked for around fifteen minutes, I suddenly felt chilled, my buttocks icy cold in trepidation. I hung my head, eyes closed, and waited.

Dear God, I thought, please let there be nobody coming; please let this be over quickly; please let the noise of my punishment dissipate in the expanse of parkland and not alert the nearby footballers. Curiously, I realised I had given no consideration to the imminent physical pain. I knew it would hurt, especially since my flesh was cold, which made it sting more, but I did not give that a second thought: it was the mental pain, the torture of my public humiliation, which wrestled with my emotions.

My Master dragged out the moment, smoothing his hand over my buttock and telling me how well I had performed for him that day. Not well enough to avoid this, I thought sadly.

And then he hit me.

The ferocity of the noise was more penetrating than the force of the blow. To my mind, it cannoned round the park like a full-blown fusillade, an unmistakable, attention-grabbing announcement of intent. I scarcely felt the impact on my buttock, so panicked was I by the flagrancy of what was about to happen to me. My Master would have been as well announcing my punishment over a loud hailer, for all the chance I had of remaining anonymous. There was no question: everyone was going to hear, and so everyone would see. Morosely, I awaited my punishment.

Crack! His hand came down on me again, in exactly the same place, and this time it stung. Crack! A third time, and yet again in the same place. My Master normally varied his strokes, spreading them evenly around my backside, which at least gave the tortured skin some moments of reprieve before they were flayed again; this time, for some reason, he had changed his approach. Again and again, and once more again his hand landed square on the same, reddened, maddened patch of skin. The pain was excruciating, each moment of impact sending arrows of pain deep into my agitated nerve endings.

The next blow landed on my other cheek, and was followed by a rain of spanks, one on top of the other, raising red my agonised servitude. And with each blow, multiplying the physical pain a thousandfold, was the knowledge, the absolute, aching certainty, that the noise of my punishment would have alerted everyone within a couple of hundred yards radius.

Which included the footballers.

Draped over my Master's lap, eyes fixed grimly on the path beneath, I could see nothing around us, but my other senses transmitted the shocking fact: there was no sound from the adjoining playing field, no referee's whistle or breathless shouts. The game had stopped, and I was being watched by twenty-five, no doubt incredulous, men. I was being spanked in public. A tear sprung from my eye, not of pain, but of humiliation, a tear of helpless subjugation.

On and on my Master went. He selected four areas of my buttocks for punishment, lavishing on each at least six and at most twelve powerful strokes. I gritted my teeth, my muscles clenched and straining, cramps developing in my calves and thighs. This was no show punishment, no clumsy attempt to garner attention, but the real thing. My backside was throbbing, alive with the pain, molten and tempestuous. With a properly administered spanking, there is a moment when you think you can't possibly go any further, when the pain is so intense, so sharp, so penetrating, that you believe one more blow will shatter you in two, like a slab of slate mined along the seam.

And then you break through to the other side. The physical pain merges with the mental torment and an alchemical reaction takes place, shifting the focus from pain to pleasure; the cold, sharp ache gives way to a hot, generalised, erotic throbbing. It is a delicious moment. By concentrating his blows, my Master had hastened my moment of epiphany, and as I lay across his lap I felt dizzy with the swirling, vivid sensations which were overwhelming my entire body. I began to crave the caress of his strokes, pushing my buttocks towards him, crying for more of his disciplined love.

And then he stopped.

"Okay, Harriet, that'll be enough." I lay limply across him, my buttocks on fire and my mind racing. I knew I was turned-on, seriously excited by the very public humiliation I had just endured, but I couldn't comprehend why that should be so. Why did I crave such things?

"You appear to have quite an audience, by the way" he continued casually. The cruel confirmation of what I already knew stabbed at me, a darting pain wincing through my heart. Just then, the timing ironically perfect, a burst of applause sprung up from the nearby football pitch. I raised my head and saw all twenty-five men ranged across the touchline, watching me and clapping. I closed my eyes.