The welts rise — a story about whipping and feet.

M enters the room and drops. Eager. He lays out his offerings. Two coconut waters, sake, sushi. He undresses down to his shirt and pants and unmasks. At every turn: “May I, Mistress?” While his outfit is flashy – elaborate leather boots, denim jacket, long curled hair - he has a quiet, soft demeanor. One of those men who were cool as hell in 1970’s New York, and can now walk around with the understated swagger of knowing they really lived. 

She instructs him to kiss and in an instant he is everywhere on her boots. The exchange is silent, punctuated only by her occasional moans. He kisses the boot with profound tenderness, his fingers grazing the contours of Cléo’s calves, trembling with desire. His diligent focus causes the world to shrink around us: in that moment there is only boot. His tongue licks repetitively, percussively as if in this moment we are rooted not in the heartbeat but in the fetishistic repetition of a pervert’s thirst for leather and feet.

She’s wearing only a bodysuit, leather trench coat, belt, and stunning calf-length square toe boots that hug her legs perfectly. Her legs are spread, giving him access to each boot. She towers over him, her face obscured by the shadows save the stark redness of her lips. She’s statuesque, unmoving, reminiscent of Masoch’s Wanda, luxuriating in drawing out each moment. Time has become thick and slow now, she is in no rush. At last she moves, but only to smile, transforming her face into wicked pleasure.

Hi worship is deliberate, luxurious. He breathes to the rhythms of his kisses. “Let me hear how wet your tongue is,” she groans, and falls back onto the bed dramatically. The sounds of wetness, suckling on her boots. “I’m horny.”

“Meredith,” she calls out to me as if fetching her courtesan, “will you read back what you’ve written thus far?” I do, and she groans in response. “What do you think of Meredith watching you?” she asks him.

He sighs his answer deep into her leather, “I think it’s absolutely wonderful.”

After a decadently slow introduction to her boots, she gives him his instructions: he is to unzip her boots, using only his teeth. His breathing changes instantly. A struggle ensues. The sounds of his teeth clanking on the zipper, his head twisting at first curiously then frustratingly from side to side looking for some way, any way. His dentist won’t approve, he protests. “Well it’s a good thing your dentist doesn’t have to know about this.” His demeanor is transforming rapidly: his soft devotion giving way to panic. She is unfazed. “You cannot have the foot unless you succeed.” She smiles. “We can just spend the next two hours doing this and if you fail then that’s that.” His eyes plea mercy. She doesn’t care.  

“Look,” she offers in a playful tone, “you want to worship the foot underneath the boot, yes?” He is emphatic: Yes, very much, Mistress. “And you know the foot is underneath the boot, right?” Yes, yes I do Mistress. “You can feel the foot, can you not? Go on, feel the foot.” He grasps around the leather, searching for the contours of her toes, arches, heel. “If only you could feel the foot under the leather without having to remove the leather, then you wouldn’t have to pull the zipper down!” 

They are standing now, he facing her. He rose with unwavering diligence, leaving behind the object of his desire for the subject of his devotion. He is taller than she, but it doesn’t look it: when he stands his head hangs low and his eyes dart downward. I can see her eyes now and they are wild, cruel, bright. His suffering amuses her. “Look at me,” she insists, searching for the impacts of her torment in his eyes.  She is having fun with him. Undressing him slowly, she pulls off his belt and snaps it. “What a big belt.” A whimper (from him) a laugh (from her). 

I can’t see what they’re up to: just his bare legs with his pants dropped around his ankles, his tee shirt, the contours of her trench coat as she slinks around him. The sound of leather rustling as she whispers into his ear: “Hello.” Every once in a while, I catch the sight of her eyes: their danger, their glow, their thirst for pain. It’s all remarkably slow. Every moment lasts a lifetime, their movements thick. She slows time and sinks us into it. She is in no rush. 

“What are you here to do?” 

“To serve you and to serve your friend.”

“To serve me and to serve my friend,” she repeats, pleased. “Meredith, are you hungry?” I nod. “Let’s eat.” 

Him: lying down on the cold floor, nestled between the couch and table. Her: royally lounging in the couch, her boots pressed down on him. “You can rest your feet on him too,” she offers me wickedly. I relent, removing my socks, placing one foot at a time on his stomach and upper thigh. He moans. “May I warm your feet, Meredith?” His hands gripping my feet, warm, firm, hands that had serviced how many feet, given women how much pleasure through his devotion? 

Throughout dinner footstool stayed quiet beneath us. . Only the sound of his breathing and the slow rubbing of my feet indicating his presence. She easily, effortlessly elevates herself above him. “A slave’s job is to do whatever he is told, whatever pleases his Mistress. Whatever that may be.”

The meal finishes and footstool has an idea for how he will unzip the boots. She is intrigued. He fetches his handkerchief and feeds it through her zipper (later: my father told me to always carry around a handkerchief no matter what. For once I’m glad I listened.) We gasp. Chomping down on the handkerchief he yanks the zipper down. He’s been waiting so long, he’s done so good, he just needs to….but Cléo stops him. Lounging back on the couch unperturbed by his arousal, she instructs him to take his time. Do it right. He obeys and slows down, dragging the zipper down slowly, revealing a long, thin triangle of flesh underneath. “Kiss” she whispers. 

Refocused by her instruction, he takes her leg into his arm and begins to kiss the newborn flesh. The way he cradles her boot in his arm he looks like a preteen boy comically making love to a mop. She asks him what they call this but he has forgotten. “Meredith: write down that he has forgotten.” I do. “It’s called going to church.” A flash of memory and a shiver down his spine. “Yes, I’m so sorry Mistress. Going to church.”

“Well then, go to church.” He removes the boot and the world shudders and shrinks again to accommodate his desire. It feels now like her foot has some gravitational pull, drawing us all into it. Shimmering in his spit, her toes wiggle, flashing red polish every time they do. “Mistress,” he sighs into her soles, her toes splayed across his eyes, “may I tell Meredith about my first memory of feet?” He confesses the memory into her feet, begging them to bear witness or forgiveness or satisfaction. In kindergarten during nap time he used to touch himself – yes, even at five years old – thinking about his teacher’s feet under her desk. Even that young, he wanted feet. What kind of shoes were they? Sensible ones. Lace ups, almost masculine. “May I make a request?” Can Meredith place her feet at the table?” I wonder whose feet it is that he worships. Does he worship the foot or a foot, the particular or the universal? Does he rediscover the contours and fantasy of his teacher’s feet in Cléo’s feet here, or are they Cléo’s feet and Cléo’s feet alone? I lift my feet onto the table and wiggle my toes. 

“Mistress may I say something? It’s lovely to see the reflections of Meredith’s feet on the table.” I hadn’t noticed, but it was true – the table was a mirror. The two of us, table and anthropologist peering back onto the scene. 

“Ahh footstool is noticing the details!” Cléo laughs and places her feet on the table as well. She draws out her knife – which she had fetched to open the soy sauce packets for dinner – and starts dragging it down his back. The knife is stunning: a Damascus dagger with a band around the handle. She points it straight down over his neck. He quivers. “Is this the night you kill me, Mistress?” The energy is electric now, Cléo vibrates. She gets up and straddles him. Wraps the blade around his neck, he closes his eyes. “I have nothing else to live for,” he confesses, “it would be my greatest honor.” I hold my breath. She is dragging the knife slowly up and down his back, stopping occasionally at his heart. She lifts the knife dramatically and thrusts it down stopping just short of his flesh. “I would love to kill you…but think of all the paperwork Meredith would have to do.” M and I exhale at the same time – is it relief or disappointment? “Meredith, how much paperwork would you have to do if I killed M tonight?” 

“Well,” I stammer, “I’m not sure what the IRB would say about it.”

“Exactly,” she cooed. 

Instead, she’ll whip him. He’s standing by the window now, heads up over his head “like a pin up doll.” She pulls her whip from the counter slowly, it seems to slither into her grip like a snake. “May I Mistress?” he asks, his voice thick with anticipation. “May I tell Meredith what the whip means?” 

She gives permission as she starts to throw. “It’s a gift that the Mistress gives to her slave. It’s her way of showing she cares.” Cléo is throwing harder now, he is starting to feel it. His words punctuated by gasps, moans, snaps. It’s the punctuation marks,” a gasp,” of her declaration of affection,” he manages to stutter out as the intensity increases. She pulls off her coat and the curves of her form are lit up by the lamp behind her. The whip seems to slide off her shoulders, she hardly moves: focused, deliberate, aloof. “Keep talking,” she commands. He moans to the beat of the lashes. The rhythm is hypnotic. The swoosh the sound of punishment, power, trial. A chorus of “Thank you Mistress,” sometimes a whisper sometimes a scream. “Tell Meredith why you say thank you.” He is quivering now. “Because,” a gasp, “I am grateful.”  When the whip hits his flesh it looks like it has snatched something from him, retrieving it for her. He shrinks and she grows, him giving willingly her taking eagerly. 

He’s facing us now, his eyes clenched in pain, her encircling him like a predator to her prey, the whip wrapping around his body. The whip is flashing faster. Each throw draws his torso toward her so that he is swinging to her beat. His lips, his elbows, his knees all trembling; a stark contrast to her smooth coolness. 

She stops to inspect, dragging her nails across his flesh. He looks at me, his eyes pained and wild. He is watching me take my notes. Does he like to be watched? Does he want this? What must it feel like to be seen while you’re being taken to such a deep and scary place? He evades my silent questioning and shuts his eyes. His breathing is heavy, a new rhythm: long, slow, breaths. The whip loops around and embraces him. He reads my mind: “the whip,” he whispers, “is like an embrace. I love the way it hugs me.” He sinks into the pleasure. “Is this the whip I got you Mistress? Such a clear thing, the whip.”  

“Show Meredith your marks,” she commands. He approaches me, sheepish, his eyes glazed over but elated. Is this sub space? His marks are everywhere, red and purple dashes cover his torso as if she had taken a paint brush to his skin. They’re beautiful and grotesque. I want to touch them, to feel the way the welts rise from his skin, as if calling out begging for more.

—session observation by Meredith Talbot, @meredithsgaze.