One of the best things about being immersed in all those bubbles was that the ringing could never get to you.

She stayed just as she was, chin and nose sticking out of the rose scented bubbles, toe playing lazily with the cold tap and her hair in a messy top knot.

The day had been rubbish. Not rubbish, awful. Not awful, she cast a furtive look around, the day had been shit, utter shit, shit with bells on.

Smiling and nodding to herself she held half an ear out her boyfriend. It was unlike him to be so long on the phone. It had to be one of his friends, maybe they were organising a night out. ‘Lovely’ she thought, ‘A night to myself, well, me, Mr Hugh Jackman and Mr Cadburys.’ Maybe the day was not totally lost.

But then she heard him, her handsome, dark haired boyfriend coming up the stairs, still on the phone, still talking.

Her lips pursed to one side in thought. It must be a couple’s thing and he wants my ok. Men are useless- they had a routine for this and he had forgotten. Take the date and ring back later so they did not have to have one of those mouthed conversations when the person waiting on the phone knows exactly what you are doing.

Katie sighed heavily, blowing bubbles off her nose as she did so. The theme of her ruddy day continued- men being useless. She just had never thought Lawrence would be one of their number. Man, of course, all of him, from his messy dark hair to his comically large feet but useless? Never.

Still, she had thought the same of her boss. He was not supposed to be useless either. She sat up, peaceful mood ruined, heckles rising as she just knew Lawrence was going to come into the bathroom and interrupt the first happy activity of her day.

The door clicked and he came in, still talking and bringing a gentle wave of cool air with him.

‘Just bloody perfect,’ Katie thought as she gave her best glare at the interloper.

“Who is it?” she mouthed, “Why are you bringing him here?”

“Yes, James, she is just here.” Lawrence ignored her questions but answered her nevertheless.

“Oh bloody hell, get rid of him, not in here,” more desperate mouthing accompanied by a rather wimpy shooing motion as she tried to move without making a splashing noise and betraying her position.

Lawrence totally ignored her, still talking.

“Absolutely, James, I agree totally. Yes … that is what I would do … yep.”

Katie sat still for a moment and tried to work it out.

She was aware of her breasts, bouncy globes resting in the bubbles and how uncomfortable she was starting to feel. Lawrence was sounding very strict, the kind of strict were she used to argue and try to back away, the kind of strict where any kind of resistance from her would be paid for with extra strokes and more time spent sobbing in the corner.

She traced a little circle around her knee as she bent it up to her chin.

It was true that Lawrence and James had known each other for years. It was true that James was her boss and had been there today when her bloody bastard co-worker had set her up to look like a total idiot and wasted weeks of work. It was true that she loved working for James. It was also true that part of that was because he had exactly the same calm, Toppy demeanour as Lawrence. But, she looked up into the green eyes of her man; none of this could be connected.

She watched as Lawrence got a small towel and made a dock for the phone on the windowsill.  Then he turned and held a hand out to her as she sat open mouthed in the cooling bath.

Katie looked at the phone and at him. If she spoke she would betray what was happening, and in truth, she had not argued with Lawrence for months when he had that look on his face.

She remembered that last time as she stood up slowly, trying not to disturb the water and make a splash.  Last time she had sobbed as he had caned her, up and down her thighs, methodical and measured until she promised never again to make him wait when he was to punish her.

Which is why now, as he guided her out of the bath, she simply put her eyes to the floor and hoped this was to be a silent lesson.

Katie was seldom quiet, certainly today she had not been as she bawled out the man that had made her day so difficult but now she was. She was quiet as she allowed Lawrence to turn her around and bend her slowly at the waist. She was quiet as he placed her hands on the rim of the bath, forcing her bottom to be obscenely raised. And she was very quiet as he nudged her feet apart, exposing her utterly to the eyeless phone.

When Lawrence spoke, he did so distinctly enough so that his voice was clear to Katie and James. They both knew the other was listening, they were both silent.

“Katie, James tells me that you had a difficult situation at work today. He tells me that you were not at fault and had to work hard to diffuse a situation created by another person.”

Katie blushed hard, her face matching the coral pink of her exposed bottom. She was too shy to think about what was happening, too shy to order the reality of what was happening to her body inside her head.

“James also tells me that you didn’t handle yourself very well, that you expressed yourself in a way that you and I have discussed before as unacceptable. He tells me that you lost your temper, Katie. At work. In public.”

Katie’s head dropped down. She rested her cheek on her shoulder wishing the soft flesh was Lawrence’s hard shoulder and that she was safe in the circle of his arms. Lawrence had spoken to her about this before, they were hard conversations. He had helped her to train what was an incontrollable beast of a temper into something less abusive that she could manage. But not today. And James had found out.

Katie was starting to realise that there was a deeper friendship between James and Lawrence than she had understood before, they shared something between them, not just the demeanour of dominant men; she smiled a rueful little smile to herself.

She waited for Lawrence to continue. This was the space he gave her to defend herself: to tell him what he did not know. Anything she said to him would make it worse now- his summation had been pretty fair and at least had not included that multitude of expletives that she had hurled about this afternoon.

“I am going to use the bath brush now and you will count each one, thank me and ask me for another.” His words were solid as the wood he held and no less horrifying.

Her hands scrunched into little balls on the bath and she squeezed her eyes tight together. ‘Too much, too much. James will hear. He will hear me cry and he will hear me say those words. I will never be able to face him again.’

But she said nothing, as Lawrence knew she wouldn’t. To argue when she was sure to lose would have been worse for her than anything.

The first strike was central and hard. Breath whooshed out of her in a hiss, the burning circle was just starting to form as she quietly spoke.

“One thank you, Sir. Please may I have another?”

With no warm up the second was as brutal as the first, hard wood on wet skin.

“Ow! Two, thank you, Sir. Please may I have another?”

Three, four and five followed, making her warm pink skin deepen to red and her voice grew louder as Katie tried to stay still.

On the sixth her voice caught on itself, and came out in a sob.

“Six, thank you, Sir. Please may I have another?”

Lawrence worked from the tops of her thighs and, with careful focus on the lower crease of her bottom, covered her entire cheeks with hard, firm swats, never rushing and listening each time for Katie’s request.

Only once did she miss. Her sobs were all he heard after stroke 17 and so she got another hard swat before she asked for 18. A shame, he thought, she was doing so well. But her breathing settled again and he focussed on bringing Katie to the place she needed and deserved to be in.

By the time they reached thirty Katie had stopped squeezing the bath mat between her toes, her voice had gone through embarrassment, pleading, hope and repentance. She accepted him now, accepted every stroke he gave her and every stroke he ever would give her.

Placing the bath brush down Lawrence picked up the phone and spoke to James as he stroked Katie’s back while she leaned against him.

“Yes, James. I think so too … quite right. … Ok and thanks for letting me know about this. Katie feels better too and I will make sure she thanks you herself tomorrow. Goodbye”

Too far inside Lawrence’s creation to care about the promise he had made on her behalf, Katie let him pick her up and melded herself into his arms.

He whispered softy to her as he gently stroked lotion into her sore and swollen bottom and thighs making her sigh into the almost the final stage of peaceful submission she would reach for him that night.