D/sweet 1 (micro): Tethered

My psychoanalyst, you report, asked a little warily how sometimes being tethered to the bed for an evening makes me feel. Secure, I said.

Slaves shouldn't be punished for just showing up. Yes, you agree. Let them earn their stripes the old-fashioned way, through disobedience. 

You pet a new pony girl. She licks your hand, but the groomer's whip laid smartly across her back reminds us not to play with the animals.

Clean your plate like I've trained you, I admonish. You lean down to lick up the remains of your dinner as our waiter looks on impassively.

Two weeks. All-inclusive. Twelve thousand dollars. That's the way Norah Traube's new perspective guide and trainer, Mister Jonathan, explains it to her. His mottled gray hair is cropped tight to his skull in short, exclamatory stalks. The wiry muscles of his arms run along lateral lines like a bicyclist or diver as his eyes scan her body without inhibition or reserve. Mentally extrapolating upon her form, re-building, re-composing her, he takes in the smooth opalescence of thigh disappearing upward into the brisk charcoal Helena Jorensen suit ...