not imagine how much I thought myself bound, by being
thus allowed to remain loose, and how much spirit this confidence in
me gave me, so that I was even from my heart careless how much my flesh
might suffer in honour of it.

All my back parts, naked half way up, were now fully at his mercy: and
first, he stood at a convenient distance, delighting himself with a
gloating survey of the attitude I lay in, and of all the secret stores I
thus exposed to him in fair display. Then, springing eagerly towards me,
he covered all those naked parts with a fond profusion of kisses;
and now, taking hold of the rod, rather wantoned with me, in gentle
inflictions on those tender trembling masses of my flesh behind, than in
any way hurt them, till by degrees, he began to tingle them with smarter
lashes, so as to provoke a red colour into them, which I knew, as
well by the flagrant glow I felt there, as by his telling me, they now
emulated the native roses of my other cheeks. When he had thus amused
himself with admiring, and toying with them, he went on to strike
harder, and more hard, so that I needed all my patience not to cry out,
or complain at least. At last, he twigged me so smartly as to fetch
blood in more than one lash: at sight of which he flung down the rod,
flew to me, kissed away the starting drops, and sucking the wounds eased
a good deal of my pain. But now raising me on my knees, and making me
kneel with them straddling wide, that tender part of me, naturally the
province of pleasure, not of pain, came in for its share of suffering:
for now, eyeing it wistfully, he directed the rod so that the sharp ends
of the twigs lighted there, so sensibly, that I could not help wincing,
and writhing my limbs with smart; so that my contortions of body must
necessarily throw it into infinite variety of postures and points of
view, fit to feast the luxury of the eye. But still I bore every thing
without crying out: when presently giving me another pause, he rushed,
as it were, on that part whose lips, and round about, had felt this
cruelty, and by way of reparation, glued his own to them; then he
opened, shut, squeezed them, plucked softly the overgrowing moss, and
all this in a style of wild passionate rapture and enthusiasm, that
expressed excess of pleasure; till betaking himself to the rod again,
encouraged by my passiveness, and infuriated with this strange taste of
delight, he made my poor posteriors pay for the ungovernableness