"Master?" I queried from the bottom of the stairs. He had come home from work and rushed straight upstairs without pausing to greet me, so I knew he must have made some new acquisition. What was it? I would find out soon enough, I figured, as I stood expectantly with my hand on the banister.

"Have you got a minute?"

For you, my Master, I have all eternity, I thought, as I started to climb the stairs. And sometimes it feels like it.

I was aware of that curious mix of emotion washing through my veins: the fear of the disciple, in awe of her Master and waiting with trepidation for his pronouncement; the dread anticipation, that gnawing, scraping sense of foreboding that something terrible is about to happen; and, of course, the sexual charge which that anticipation lights deep within my psyche. All of them spun through my mind, muddling it, twisting it. Oh no, here we go again, thank god 3;

What would it be, I wondered. Another outfit, something even more humiliating than my little maid's dress, obscenely small and totemic of my Master's power over me? Or restraints, new chains with which to bind me, as if I was going to go anywhere in any case? Or clamps, or whips, or some other device of torment? Something like that, I imagined. But I was wrong.

Boy, was I wrong.

"I'm in here," my Master called from the study. Well, that was curious: I was expecting him to be in the bedroom, the scene of most of my prostration.

"I've bought us something," he said.

"I thought you might have," I replied cautiously. "Will I like it?"

He was seated at my computer, staring at the screen and impatiently prodding at the keyboard. He seemed to be gripping a ball in his hand, a lump of hard plastic, and I could tell from the rapid, jerky movements of his body that he was close to completing whatever he was doing.

"There," he said triumphantly and assaulted my keyboard with an outstretched finger. I looked at the screen and saw a box open up, black and incomprehensible. It looked like an image of the inside of a barn at night, all textures and shadows, but as I continued to look it seemed to be changing, the shadows sworling and contorting. And then suddenly, as though a light had been switched on, the image changed from dark indistinction to an airy, ethereal mix of blue and cream and yellow, and it looked like it was moving, rushing headlong towards me, its shape finally twisting into definition. My heart lurched in my throat as I realised what it was. I looked from the screen to my Master's hand, to the little plastic ball he was holding, to the small fish-eye lens on the ball which he had now revealed and which he was smugly pointing at me. And I looked back at the screen.

And saw myself, staring back at me.

My Master had bought a webcam.

"Oh God," I said. I didn't know what he had in mind for me, but I knew this was ominous.

"Brilliant, huh?" he said, fiddling with the controls. Gradually, I came into focus, and the full extent of my fear, etched in the grimace on my face, was projected from the computer screen. "Give us a wave." I shook my arm desultorily at the screen, aware of the tingle of nervous anticipation in my stomach. The screen waved back at me. My Master moved the cam around, swooping towards me and catching me in close-up, then pulling back and capturing me in profile, and all the time the screen flickered and contorted in response. At first it would be unable to deal with the speed of my Master's movements and would blur into liquid abstraction, like a late Monet, before settling itself and focussing once more on its task of reflecting my discomfort. Which it did, all too well.

"Do a dance," my Master said, settling the cam beside the keyboard and framing me clearly in its view. I began to shake my hips, feeling foolish as I danced without the comforting accompaniment of any music. I shimmied and shook, all the while unable to take my eyes off the image of myself on the screen. I stretched out my hand and stared at the screen, as though daring it not to follow suit. But of course it did. I repeated the action with my other hand and the screen echoed the movement, and again and again, faster and more regularly, settling into a rhythm, my movements evolving into a fluid dance while the eery reflection from the cam, limber and melting, betrayed my increasing excitement.

"Turn round." I stretched my hands upwards and twisted round on the spot, my body writhing to the silent melody of my incitement.

"Strip," he said. I started for a moment, shaken from the casual narcissism of watching myself by the implications of his order. That familiar sensation of nervous, almost nauseous excitement began to seep from my stomach through my arms, legs and chest into my head, and into my mind.

I stripped.

Slowly, all the while watching myself on the screen, I unbuttoned my blouse and eased it down my shoulders, gripping it and pulling it wide, sliding it up and down my arms, teasing, affording a glimpse, a promise, before slipping it off completely. Bucking my hips, rising alternately on the toes of each foot, I tugged at the zip of my trousers and peeled it downwards to reveal a triangle of white panties, before sliding it upwards again and hiding them once more. Circling on the spot, I began to lower my trousers, slowly exposing my hips, my buttocks, my thighs. From behind, I looked over my shoulder at the screen, watching my knickers and arse appear,` watching my dance, watching my body.

I stepped from my trousers and stood before the cam in my bra and panties. I danced on, stroking my hardened nipples through the fabric of my bra, sliding my fingers inside, scraping my nail against the sensitive, puckered surface of my areola. Stretching behind, I unhooked the bra and bent forward, letting it slip from me before catching it in my hands and pressing it to my breasts. I watched the screen, enraptured, as my breasts began to emerge, the nipples slowly appearing from their refuge, their stimulation evident, hard and stiff and long. It was strange, like watching someone else, but at the same time experiencing every instant of it myself. Finally, I pulled my bra free and danced topless in front of the all-seeing lens, my hand fluttering up and down my chest and stomach, stroking my nipples and grazing my skin, sliding slowly down, down, down towards my hips.

And my panties.

And my pussy.

And I gripped the waistband, tugging it, pulling the panties from my body. Looking down I could see what the cam still couldn't, my trimmed bush, and below it the swelling, puffing lips of my pussy. Turning and turning, I watched as I exposed myself, saw the crack of my backside appear, the swell of my cheeks, the light shadow of my bush. I peeled my panties lower and lower, gripping them between my thighs, feeling the resistence as I tugged harder, dragged them to my knees, before finally relinquishing them and allowing them to drop to my feet.

And I stood before the camera, naked.