Chapter Nine
But what did he want? She needed to find out. She knew he wanted to hurt her, and she wanted more of that, a lot more. She wanted to let him know all the perverse things she would like, but she didn’t want him to feel she was making demands. It wasn’t for her to take the initiative, he must be the one who directed her.
And direct her he did. He beat her or otherwise inflicted pain on her almost every day. Sometimes there was an elaborate scene-setting. He would tell her in advance what was to occur, such as that he would cane her for fifteen minutes before dinner, and he would tell her the exact position she must adopt, waiting in readiness for him to enter the room. At other times it was spontaneous, or at least seemed to be so to her. He would tell her peremptorily to bend
