I have had a number of vivid dreams lately, but the one I had about you last night was the strangest I had for a long time. I was in a room with stone walls and a high ceiling, next to a wide chimney where a log fire was burning. My hands were bound to the chair, and so were my ankles. There, in front of me, you were sprawled on a wide dark blue sofa, your shapely legs folded. At first I did not recognise you, although I felt I had met you not that long before. You were wearing a lose grey bathrobe that did not quite hide the top of your breasts and your thighs, but enhanced your lovely auburn hair. The view was both charming and puzzling, as you were holding in one hand what I recognised as a leather whip. At first I only heard the sound of wood crackling in the fire, then I heard your voice, not as if you were speaking in front of me, but as if it came from a little behind me, near my ear.

“So, there you are, at last” the voice said, “I have long waited for this instant, ever since you wrote that story, where I am your victim, your toy, your object to dispose of at your will. Now I hold you in my power, bound and vulnerable.”

I then discovered I could not reply: no sound came out of my throat as I tried. I was trying to remember, find a name, a place.

Your voice continued:

“I see you are puzzled. So innocent, aren’t you? But no, you are not, and you will deserve your punishment. I am no-one you met in flesh, you invented me, I am one of those you created in your morbid imagination, and subjected to your fantasies. Yes, I see, you are beginning to comprehend… I am going to give you time to reflect, then I will start showing you what pain and humiliation is.”

Later, before dawn, I woke up. I was alone, I was sweating, all my body ached. I got up, went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror: my chest, shoulders and limbs were covered with what looked like sharp lashes from a belt or a thin whip. My wrists and ankles wore the marks of some tight rope that must have bound them.

Later, I logged in, and read what I had been writing not long before. I sighed.

Inspired by Fandango’s Story Starter #127

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