Rachel whistled. The volume of the snow outside her apartment window had doubled since the last time she’d looked out, less than a half hour ago. The sounds from other tenants spinning their wheels in the parking lot was becoming irritatingly familiar, and had already interrupted her phone call twice.

“So,” she asked playfully, “What are you wearing?”

“Right now, my work uniform… and in a minute I’m going to add a parka and boots,” came Bertie’s voice. “Bad news, honey – I’m going to be staying at my mom’s house tonight.”

Rachel’s smile slid away. She’d been hoping for a night in with her boyfriend – she’d even had the foresight to grab a bottle of wine while the sidewalks were still visible.

“But… you’re only a half hour away.”

“Not if the highway hasn’t been plowed. Look, Rachel… I have a morning shift tomorrow anyway. Even if I made it back tonight, I’d have to turn around and head back in a few hours.” His voice was beginning to fade in static. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, okay?”

“I thought you were having dinner with your mom tomorrow,” Rachel sulked.

“Early dinner. Plenty of time for dessert.”

She could almost hear him wink over the phone with that statement. Clearly he understood the reason for her frustration. Cold nights were a lot more enjoyable with company, after all.

“What kind of dessert were you thinking?” she teased.

“Cake is good.”

“Cake?”

“Chocolate or coffee. The ones here at the restaurant are just-“

“Dessert is code for sex, right? Now I’m not sure.”

He laughed, a joyful sound that crackled and buzzed with his cell’s distortion.  Fuck, but she missed him. She twirled a finger through her short pink hair, a tic she’d adopted back when phone cords had faded into obsolescence.

“Is there a particular kind of… cake… that you had in mind?” She exaggerated the euphemism. “You know I’m down for it – unless it’s butt stuff.”

“Um… define butt stuff.”

Bertie’s reaction was slow, and defensive. Weird for him, a guy who tended to be forthright about what he wanted in the bedroom, and peppered her with questions whenever they were experimenting. While his pop quizzes didn’t exactly set the mood, they’d both learned a thing or two about what turned them on, and it was simply by asking. So if Bertie was being vague, what did that mean?

And then the answer was obvious. For all that they’d played with his fetish, Bertie still had trouble saying the word out loud. “Are we talking about spanking?”

“Y-yes.”

“Uh-oh. I don’t even remember being naughty.” She giggled. She felt a little bad laughing at Bertie’s awkwardness, but if he wanted to punish her when he got home, she might as well deserve it.

“Not like that.” The wind shook the high-rise, and Rachel feared for a moment that the massive building was tilting. The static over the phone picked up, drowning out Bertie.

“Okay, Bertie, I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

She could almost imagine him, red-faced and whispering on the other end, “I wanted to know what you thought… about switching?”

His cell fell silent, and the automated voice began, the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. The storm must have killed his network. Sure, she’d be able to try him back when he (finally!) got home, but she doubted that she’d get any straight answers from having Bertie face-to-face. It may have only been the distance that had made him comfortable to bring up the topic of “switching”… whatever that meant.

His reluctance in mentioning it had her interest, though. She considered firing up her search engine and figuring out what Bertie had been talking about, but her old laptop was notoriously unreliable and prone to freezing. Even if that did work, if she just fired up a search engine, she suspected that she’d find herself buried under a pile of porn – maybe it would be illustrative, but not helpful in the way she needed. No, she already knew the resource she would be using if she was to find any answers. It had been years since they had spoken, but she knew who could give her the answers she sought.

After a quick text to confirm he was home, she grabbed her bus pass and made her way out to the sidewalk and the inevitable meeting with Hugo Caine.

***

Rachel was four years older than Bertie. She had a youthful look and was often mistaken for a teenager in her piercings and pastel hair, but that fact had been laid on the table since their first date. At the beginning, Bertie had been intimidated and Rachel had taken her share of grief for “robbing the cradle”, but time had normalized that difference between them. They behaved as lovers and peers, and the numbers attached to them had no meaning.

But what Rachel knew better than Bertie ever could was that the past mattered a great deal. Bertie was not only young, but also sheltered by his ambitious ex-yuppie parents – he went straight from high school to university to paying off his student loans and lived at home until his mid-twenties. Rachel’s life had followed a different path, traced more by her own desires than her parents’ expectations. She’d left home as soon as she could, drifting from job to job all the time writing and producing music.

It took her years, but finally, she was introduced to an entertainment promoter who promised to take her under his wing. Hugo Caine was a larger-than-life personality, a man with five cars and three houses, who vacationed in the Bahamas and took business trips to New York and Los Angeles. He doted over her, buying her whatever she wanted and introducing her as his girlfriend at industry parties. She’d been twenty-two when the fifty-year-old entrepreneur had asked her to move in with him, and was over the moon.

Bertie knew only the broad strokes of what had happened. He knew who Hugo Caine was, of course, but her boyfriend had been told that Hugo had suffered a mid-life crisis, that Rachel had decided she didn’t want to be his trophy wife and had left him.

All of that was true, but she had purposely left out some of the more prurient details. Like the sex – Hugo’s brand of energy was persistent and demanding, whether he was at work or in the bedroom. Or a hotel room, or the pool, on the hood of one of his cars… he was not a careful lover, and Rachel had once commented to him that if she’d expected to get bruises from lovemaking, she’d have imagined it would come from being tied down.

His eyes had lit up from that conversation, and the next day he took her to his winter residence and showed her the hidden room behind his home studio. Her jaw had dropped at the array of chains, whips and paddles he’d maintained there, and she was unable to respond as he announced that, starting immediately, she would be his “pet”. She would wear a collar with whatever clothes he instructed her and present herself for discipline whenever he saw fit.

She played along at first – after all this time as his protégé and fuck-buddy, it was almost natural. Then one night, he had her serve drinks to his friends while dressed in an open-back latex skirt and six-inch heels. She’d been so focused on staying upright that she broke two glasses, and he’d dragged her downstairs, tied her to a ceiling beam and whipped her raw. A week later, she left the collar at his doorstep and took a job selling jewelry at a mall kiosk.

She was hardly the first girl scared off by his rough predilections, she later discovered. There was a small community of singers and actresses who privately credited their careers to a few months spent as Hugo Caine’s girlfriend. And so Rachel herself never reported or ever spoke out against him.

Every few months, she got a call or text from him, and he’d ask how she’d been, then start promoting some new talent that he was probably sleeping with. Enough time had passed that she felt nothing toward him but a lingering residue of resentment – and yet thinking about him now put Rachel’s teeth on edge. She stared at her vibrating reflection on the bus window, asking herself if her idle curiosity was worth the price of inviting him back into her life.

The bus pulled to a stop less than a block from Hugo’s house. The snow had piled up quickly, leaving mountains of slush on the curb in piles almost as high as she was. Stepping into the relatively clean street, she followed the road down to the house she remembered so well.

It had been eight years since she’d last set foot here, and they had not been kind. When Hugo had moved into this neighbourhood with its postwar houses and tiny lawns, he’d decided that he needed something timeless, yet hip. He’d started growing Virginia creeper along the exterior, thinking it would give his home a rustic look, but the voracious plants had gobbled up the house, and little had been done to stop them. The cold weather had stripped them of their leaves, but they clung on throughout the year like dead skin.

Rachel shivered, not entirely from the cold. She didn’t have to go through with this, she told herself. She could walk back a few blocks and catch a bus going back her way, wait a couple more days, ply Bertie with alcohol and ask him what he’d meant to say during that phone call…

“Well,” she heard, “Look who’s back after all this time.”

Rachel started, finally noticing the bundled figure with a shovel in front of the garage. She’d been so lost in afterthought that she hadn’t noticed him clearing the driveway as she’d approached. He took off his slouch cap and greeted her with the same charming leer that had been his trademark throughout their courtship. His hair had gone white, she noticed, he’d been so proud of his earlier salt-and-pepper pate.

“Hugo,” she replied.

“It doesn’t sound the same anymore,” he mused. “Where’s the awe? The desire? I liked it better when you called me Master.”

“All in the past.”

He shrugged and went back to his shoveling. Rachel kicked herself inwardly. Much as his self-satisfaction set her teeth on edge, she was here to ask him for a favour. He had nothing to gain by talking to her – yet.

“Besides,” she caught herself, “I can’t believe a man like you would stay single for long. I’m guessing she’s probably about thirty years younger, blonde-“

“No, not at the moment. It’s tiring, trying to keep up with these younger women all of the time. Or maybe I’m just getting old.” He stuck his shovel into a drift, breathing heavily. He laughed at himself. “Why are you here, Rachel? You made it pretty clear you didn’t want to see me any more. Even after all the doors I opened for you.”

She could feel the moisture slipping into her boots. “You know what? Never mind. Forget I came here.”

He’d oversold himself, and he knew it. He laid a hand on her arm.

“I’m sorry, dear. Come on, why don’t we get you inside?”

***

Once they’d taken off their coats and boots, Hugo guided her downstairs. He’d modified the basement since she’d lived there with him – the hot tub had been paved over, the wine rack minimized. It looked like a rich grandfather’s sitting room now – except that he hadn’t knocked down the false wall, and she immediately knew that his old toys were still there.

He returned with a tumbler of port and two glasses, which she declined. He’d changed into a silk shirt unbuttoned to his chest and rolled up at the sleeves.

“So, how is the kid?”

Hugo hadn’t been impressed when he learned that Rachel had started dating a younger man following their breakup. He’d made a point of not remembering Bertie’s name any time the conversation came up.

“We’re fine.”

“But he spanks you?” The question brought an explosion of colour to her cheeks, and Rachel had to remind herself again that she’d taken herself here.

She nodded, clenching her teeth. He tilted her chin up, studying her face.

“Even though you left me for doing the same?” he asked.

“It’s not the same. I like being a brat. I like being…” she nibbled at her tongue, she was beginning to appreciate Bertie’s phobia of the word, “…spanked. Bertie knows that, but he knows my limits, and if it looks like he’s going to cross them, he stops.”

“Oh, I understand. Sexual communication, it’s all the rage of the Tumblr generation. What’s that word… consent? When you have to ask what a woman wants, even when you can smell how bad she wants it?”

“You really don’t want to start this conversation, Hugo. Not when you know what I’m here for.”

He nodded, conceding her point. “Switching, you said. His words?”

“Exactly his words.”

“Well, now.” He bit his lip. “See, that word has two distinct meanings in this little community of ours. Care to step into my office?”

He approached a corner of the wall marked with a keypad and a telling lack of furnishings in front of it.  She crossed her arms as he gestured for her to follow.

“What?”

“Two conditions. One, you keep that door open throughout.”

“My neighbours…”

“They won’t be able to hear anything over the storm. It’s for my peace of mind.”

“Fine. And the other thing?”

“You will respect my safeword. Or I walk now and live with uncertainty.”

She watched the thoughts play across his face. Either she risked his temper making demands, or he would see her newfound mettle as a challenge. Either way, she was probably making it worse for herself, but she’d be damned if he was going to walk all over her again.

With a mechanical hiss, the hidden door opened.

In a reasonable impression of Boris Karloff, he bowed and stated, “Your terms are… agreeable. You may proceed.” He gave her a little grin and stood aside as she stepped into Hugo’s playroom.

The smell of the leather and treated wood was the first memory that came back to her. Strange how after all the time she’d spent in his dungeon that she’d forgotten the strong odour of the place. His tools of chastisement had been well maintained, though she noticed that his shelves were emptier than she remembered them. Maybe he’d broken some of his toys.

“The first kind of switching,” Hugo was saying, “involves the application of one or more twigs to your naughty young lady’s derriere. In ideal circumstances you’d send her out to gather them herself – ideally during the spring, as you want twigs that are green, supple and thin. Willow and birch are both good. You want them to be about the width of your thumb, hence the common saying-"

“Rule of thumb?”

“You always were a quick study. Sadly, you’ve chosen the wrong season for that part of the lesson.” He pointed to a trestle planted in the centre of the room. “Bend over. I’ll see what I have.”

She felt a tingle as he walked away. She couldn’t lie to herself – she’d gotten a thrill from this aspect of their relationship, how Hugo would give orders in that soft, nonchalant voice, comfortable in his authority and she, accepting in her surrender. Almost without thinking, she found herself leaning forward against the sawhorse, hands cradled beneath her body, her pose accenting the curve of her bottom encased in yoga pants.

He returned with the smell of seawater wafting around him. In his hands was a long, tapered stick with a custom handle.

“I find my namesake makes an acceptable substitute under most conditions,” he said, an edge creeping into his voice, “You’re sure I never used this on you before?”

She shook her head. Her spit was growing thick in her mouth, choking off any more coherent reply.

“Hmm. Aren’t you forgetting something?” He laid his hands on either side of her waistband and without ceremony brought her tights and panties down to her knees. She threw her hands back to cover her modesty, but he snatched the first wrist to come his way. “You asked for my expertise, Rachel. You think your young man is going to punish you over your sweatpants? Besides, there’s nothing here I haven’t seen before.”

Even without being able to see him behind her, she could sense him grinning behind his severe front. Taking a deep breath, she moved back into position. He stepped back, testing the rod in his hand.

“What misbehaviour shall we say we’re treating, by the way?”

She mumbled under her breath, “An error in judgment.”

“Impertinence, then.” His arm made a swift movement, and the cane struck home. An instant after it landed, she felt a line of fire burn into her bottom, and she shrieked loudly, rocking forward and throwing back her hands.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, dear. Your ass can take the heat a good deal better than those delicate fingers of yours. Perhaps I should tie you down?”

Rachel grimaced and returned her hands to their pose under her chest. Without warning, she heard another swish and cane sliced across her backside like a rapier. She cried out again, stamping her feet. He waited until her contortions had stopped, then brought down his arm for another, then another in quick succession.

“V-velvet! Velvet!”

Hugo raised his hands in surrender and laid the cane down on the trestle in front of her. Her hands crept back to her bottom and the welts that were already beginning to show.

“I’d get some aloe on those stripes before long,” he mused, “Usually strokes are assigned in batches of six or so. This means you’re going to have to disappoint the boy, doesn’t it?”

She sniffed, tears running down her nose. The sting had grown exponentially with each strike, and she felt as if he’d cut into her cheeks with a hot knife. She twisted her hip to inspect the damage.

“Well, thanks for stopping by. I’m glad we could catch up, but there’s a driveway out there that won’t shovel itself.”

She glared at him, her contempt overwhelming even the pain in her seat. He set the cane back into a bucket of salty water.

“What about the other kind?” she asked through trembling lips.

“The other kind of what?”

“Switching, You said it had two meanings.”

“Well, yes. There’s using a switch, and then there’s switching roles.” His voice became uneven, and he added, “The person on the bottom becomes the top, and the person on top becomes, er-"

A strange look came over Rachel’s face, and his lecture petered out. This explained some of the variety of pornography she’d seen on Bertie's laptop and which she would have to explore in much greater detail. A range of new possibilities began to bubble up in the back of her mind, but the foreground was occupied with a single notion, that on all or many of the times that Bertie had slung her bare-bottomed over his knee, that he had desired to be in that same position himself.

Her hand drifted along a rack beside her, brushing up against a frighteningly large, studded paddle. “Are you going to show me how that works as well, Hugo?”

It wasn’t a trick of the mind, she was sure he heard him gulp.

“I’m a dominant through and through, young lady. Spankings are for naughty girls and sissy boys.”

She noted his hesitation at the mention of spankings. Reverently, she removed the paddle from its hook and gave it a practice swing against the trestle. It struck with an enormous crack that made Hugo jump. She licked her lips.

“I get it. When you’re in charge all of the time, you can’t relax. You get tired, you make mistakes, and you just want to… surrender, don’t you?” She cleared her mind of the sight she must seem, a small wet-eyed woman naked from waist to ankle. But it seemed her indifference had disarmed Hugo. She paced slowly forward, and he backed away.

“You’ve got something coming to you… don’t you, Hugo?”

She caught up with him, taking him firmly by the collar and lowering him to her level. She could see the bulge forming in the front of his slacks, and wondered if it was just fear that was accomplishing what usually took a cocktail of drugs.

“Yes,” he admitted. She’d almost forgotten that she’d asked him a question.

She said, “Huh,” and hitched up her tights. The fabric scratched against her welts, and it took everything in her power not to let her discomfort show. She set down the paddle and stepped back into the basement sitting room. By the time she could hear his footsteps following her, she’d already put one of her boots back on.

“You’re not going to…” he began, his voice trailing off in disappointment.

She shook her head, unable to speak. She was jittery with adrenaline, filled with the rush of sexual power, and to have realized it in front of a man who she’d once submitted herself to, body and soul… it was so fucking indescribable.

He held the door open for her as she dressed. Did he think she would reconsider leaving? He stroked her short, salmon-coloured hair as she walked by and whispered, “You’re not going to think less of me for this, are you?”

“Not for this,” she replied, and stepped out into the snow.

The thrill warmed her as she trudged her way back to the bus stop, and she thought of Bertie, somewhere far from home – and what kind of surprise he should face when he got back.