Wednesday, 5:50 p.m. The teaching research meeting let out. I sat in a stall in the academic office restroom for seven minutes. Not using the toilet. Just sitting.
On my phone, the WeChat he sent at noon: “Home by six thirty. Don’t be late.” Seven words and a period. He never puts periods in his messages.
I was still in the gray suit from that day, skirt hemmed two fingers above the knee, Langsha black stockings, 15 denier, Belle black stilettos, seven centimeters. During the meeting Xiao Zhou from the math group stared at my legs three times and I slapped the table and told her to take minutes.
6:28. I parked in the underground garage and sat in the car touching up my lipstick in the rearview mirror. Then wiped half of it off. A dean of studies doesn’t wear it that red.
Elevator to seventeen. Smart lock, fingerprint, beep. The door opened.
He really was standing in the entryway. Gray polo, holding his Septwolves belt, black, half coiled in his hand. The entryway spotlight was on him. On the shoe cabinet were the lilies I bought last week, in bloom.
“Come in. Close the door.”
I closed it. Bag still on my shoulder. He hadn’t told me to put it down, and I didn’t dare.
The air conditioning was on, twenty-four degrees, and I was sweating through, my blouse stuck to my back. At two that afternoon I had stood in the principal’s office reporting midterm data for forty minutes and my legs never went soft. Standing in my own entryway now, they went soft.
“Kneel.”
I looked at him. He looked at me. The entryway tiles are from his shop, 800 by 800 faux marble, gray-white, cold. When I went down, something crunched under my stockinged knee, a bit of grit.
“Bag down. Hands on your thighs.”
I did it. Kneeling, face tilted up, him standing, so much taller than usual. He wound the belt once around his hand and the buckle touched my chin. Cold.
“Director Han, what meeting was it today?” “Teaching research… midterm quality analysis.” “Chew anyone out?” “The math group.” “And what were you thinking while you chewed them out?”
“About what you said. Kneel when I come in,” I said. It came out. Steadier than I expected.
He didn’t smile. He pushed the buckle into my mouth. “Bite. Crawl to the bedroom.”
The buckle was metal, tasting of rust and the cigarette smell of his hand. I bit down, teeth clacking on it, drool running from the corner of my mouth. If the hundred and seventeen teachers at school saw Director Han like this, what would they say in the staff group chat.
Buckle in my teeth, on all fours, I crawled from the entryway across the living room. Twenty-seven square meters, the sofa we bought three years ago, the 65-inch Hisense, half a cup of his morning tea gone cold on the coffee table. Stockings dragging on the tile, knees going hot. The skirt rode up, my ass stuck out behind me. He walked behind me. I knew he was watching.
At the bedroom door he stepped on my hem from behind. “Stop.”
I stopped. He bent and flipped the skirt up over my waist. Black lace-trimmed panties, matched to the stockings, the third pair I tried on this morning before settling. He pressed one finger into the middle of them.
“Soaked through, Director Han. Three meters of crawling and you’re this wet.”
The living room curtains weren’t drawn. The building across is eighteen floors, level with us, four or five windows lit. I lay on the floor with my skirt at my waist and his finger rubbing back and forth over my panties until my knees slid on the tile. “The curtains…” “They can’t see.” “How do you know…” “I’m guessing.”
“Don’t call me…” “Call you what?” His palm cracked across my ass, not hard, loud. “On the bed. Face down. Hands up to the headboard.”
Our bed is from IKEA, the headboard a row of wooden slats. He pulled the belt out of my mouth, wound it twice around my wrists, threaded it through the slats, and buckled it. Tight. One twitch of my wrists and it bit.
“Say if it hurts.” “It doesn’t.” “Don’t say it even if it does.” He changed his mind.
He didn’t undress me. Suit jacket on, blouse on, skirt rolled to my waist. Stockings and panties he yanked down together, to my thighs, and the stockings laddered from the top of my thigh down in one long run. The panties stopped at my knees and stayed there, my legs cinched together, unable to open.
“Honey…” “Wrong.” “…” “What do they call him in the book?”
I buried my face in the pillow. His hands gripped my ass and pulled the cheeks apart, and I heard him spit into his palm.
“Master,” I said. Muffled in the pillow.
He was in with one push. Legs pressed together, tight inside, and when he forced his way in I lurched forward and the belt cut into my wrists. Hurt. He didn’t care. He grabbed my waist and hauled me back and drove in, stroke after stroke, every one to the hilt.
“Is this how Director Han manages her teachers?” One sentence per thrust. “On her knees?” “Crawling?” “Tied up?”
“No… ah… no…” “No what?” “Not like this…” “Then tell me. How are you?”
I couldn’t. My tits jolted inside the blouse with every slam, the second button popped, then the third, and they squeezed out and ground against the sheet. My nipples were hard enough to hurt.
He reached under and grabbed one, whole hand around it, squeezing. “Thirty-five and tits this big, who at that school doesn’t stare. Who do you wear blouses this tight for?” “No one…” “No one?” He squeezed harder. “How many times did Xiao Zhou look at your legs?”
I froze. “How do you know…” “I don’t. I guessed.” Another slap on my ass, hard this time. “Did I guess right?”
“Three,” I said.
“A young girl looks three times,” his hands digging into my waist, “so how many times do the men at that school look?” “I don’t know…” “Then count. From now on you come home every day and report the number.” “…Okay.” “Okay what?” “Okay, Master.”
He pounded harder. My wrists chafed in the belt, my face rubbed against the pillow, tears came out at some point and snot with them, a wet patch spreading. Stockings hung off my calves, shoes still on, seven-centimeter heels kicking at nothing, one of them landing on his shin.
“What are you crying for?” He didn’t stop. “I don’t know…” “Does it hurt?” “No…” “Then what are you crying for?”
I didn’t know. Truly didn’t. Thirty-five, first time tied up, first time crying while a man fucked me, first time this wet, wet enough that every thrust was a slap and a squelch, wet enough that it ran down my thighs into the panties still cupped at my knees.
He slowed and ground his cockhead around inside me in circles, and my ass pushed back on its own. “Look at you,” he said. “Hands tied, legs cinched, still shoving your ass back onto my cock. If anyone at that school saw Director Han like this.” “Don’t say it…” “I won’t.” He rammed in to the root. “I’ll just watch.”
“Master… I’m going to come…” “Wait.” “I can’t…” “Wait!”
One hand came around the front and two fingers pinched my clit and rolled it. I screamed, back bowed, the belt cutting two red lines into my wrists, shaking so hard the bed shook with me. I squirted, all over his hand, onto the sheet.
“Now you can,” he said, and then he came too, inside, pulse after pulse, and didn’t pull out, just collapsed on my back and panted.
When he undid the belt there were two marks on my wrists, deep purple. He turned me over and held me and rubbed my wrists, one after the other, for a long time. I was still crying and couldn’t stop.
“What do I do at work tomorrow?” I asked, thick-nosed. “Long sleeves.” “In June?” “Then wear your Cartier. The band’s wide, it’ll cover it.” He squeezed my wrist. “From now on I leave marks every time, and you wear it every day.”
“Jingjing.” “Mm.” “Do you still want it?” “…Yes.” “Then from now on there are rules.”
When he said that it was my husband’s voice, not the one from a minute ago. He kissed my forehead, like every Wednesday.
“Starting tomorrow, you kneel when you come in the door,” he said. “Even if I’m not home. Three minutes, then you get up. Dinner on your knees. Weekends at home, no clothes.”
I nodded.
“Say it.” “Kneel when I come in, dinner on my knees, no clothes on weekends.”
He got up to run the bath. I lay there, the marks on my wrists throbbing, two buttons gone from my blouse, one stocking dangling off my ankle, shoes still on. What he had shot into me leaked out, sticky at the top of my thighs, going cold. My phone chimed in my bag. I couldn’t reach it.
He leaned out of the bathroom. “Your phone went off. Old Zhou. Tomorrow morning at seven thirty, the education bureau is coming to observe classes. You need to be in by eight.”