Soft as Pudding
It was only twenty minutes after the skin scuba that I finally managed to climb out of the bathtub. Senior had gotten out long before me and simply spent those twenty minutes leaning her arms on the rim, staring at me the entire time. When I finally tried to stand, a sudden wave of dizziness hit so hard I nearly toppled over.
"You're going to fall~."
She made no move to stop me. Convinced I really was about to go down, I dropped back into the tub like a sack of wet laundry. Blood finally started circulating again; my head felt faintly foggy.
"Ah—uh—I'm dizzy…"
"Mm, it's fine. Want me to hold your hand?"
"Y-yes… please…"
I had once read an internet post claiming that people who die alone are overwhelmingly found naked. Whether it was true or not, stepping onto wet bathroom tile in this state would almost certainly add one more naked corpse to the tally, so I reached for her.
Senior's hand felt ice-cold. Or maybe my own body was simply so overheated that anything cooler felt freezing.
With her help I finally staggered free of the tub. She patted me dry with a towel large enough to wrap my entire body, dabbing as if I were some medieval noble. I hadn't lifted a single finger the whole time she washed me.
It might even have been a pleasant experience—if that soft towel hadn't also passed between my thighs and over my ass. Of course, once we returned to the room I would still have to lie down on sheets already soaked with my own slick, but still.
"…"
Once every drop was gone, her hand trailed down the small of my back, gave my ass a casual squeeze, then she folded her arms and left the bathroom. Just the act of crossing her arms seemed to make her absurdly happy; her face melted into a dopey grin and she hummed under her breath as she led me back to the room.
And there it was again—the same room as before. The only difference was that my body was now physically overheated to the point where I wanted nothing more than to collapse onto that bed under a fan and sleep.
"Shall we lie down, then?"
"Ah—um—Unnie, do I… do I still have to be tied up…? I won't run…"
I mumbled the suggestion while she still looked happiest. Somewhere underneath was the calculation that someone smiling that loosely probably wouldn't suddenly slap me across the face.
"Hm? All of a sudden?"
"I-it's just… being tied up makes everything so stiff… and my wrists get hurt…"
The memory of the raw marks on my wrists surfaced mid-sentence; I grabbed one and rotated it a few times. Her eyes followed the motion.
"Is that so?"
"Y-yes… so…"
"But our Heeyeon still has a punishment coming, doesn't she?"
"…What?"
"Earlier you called me Senior. Aha, you're not even that stupid."
…Right. I had. People get a little dumb when they come hard enough; it couldn't be helped. But right now everything just hurt too much.
"…"
I walked slowly into her arms. The self-loathing that came with deliberately performing the act that had just popped into my head was almost unbearable. I had lived more than twenty years as a man; that only made the shame worse.
When I wrapped both arms around her I could feel the solid frame of her bones, the density of her muscle. She was stronger than me by a mile—the same way you can tell who will win an arm-wrestling match the moment your hands lock, before the game even starts.
She startled half a step back, then realized I wasn't attacking. After a blank second she set a hand on my head and pulled me into a matching embrace. I felt her cheek press against my bangs.
"…Pfft. What is this? Going the cute route?"
Her voice was full of playful amusement. My stomach turned. Selling my heart like this just to keep my body safe—wasn't that exactly what a whore did? Back when I was a man I used to think, offhandedly, that women had it easy making money.
So my body started trembling. I had no idea how she would take that.
"Huu, fine. The punishment still has to happen, but I'll tie you a little looser."
The arms around me slid lower until her fingers were jiggling my ass. Shame flooded up hot.
"…Thank you…"
What else could I do? To stay alive I would do anything. Looser restraints meant escape might still be possible.
And so I ended up straddling Senior's lap while she sat kneeling on the bed. The way she had slapped my thighs inside the tub had already told me that "punishment" for this woman meant nothing but hitting. I wasn't hoping for anything sexual, but if the penalty had been something like "come five times" it would at least have been easier than getting beaten.
My lower belly rested on her thighs. Every time the pressure increased it throbbed a little; I couldn't tell whether that was just organs being squashed or leftover pain from earlier blows.
"Heh-heung."
She made a satisfied little hum. Apparently the view from below made her happy; she stared up at me for a long while before gently resting a bare hand on my bare ass.
"Hht…!"
The heat from the bath had cooled enough that the dizziness was gone, yet residual warmth still made her palm feel ice-cold against my skin.
Her touch was different from simple groping. She stroked, then settled her hand right in the middle—on the classic target, the cheeks—and jiggled them like pudding.
"…"
"Aha, your ass is completely soft."
Her voice brimmed with teasing laughter; I burned with embarrassment. Did people who liked this genre endure this kind of shame? Or did they enjoy the shame itself? Either way, being spanked in this classic position was something I had never experienced even as a small child, so I buried my face in the mattress for no good reason.
"It jiggles."
Still annoyed at the way she kept fondling me, I tensed every muscle. She ignored it, kneaded a few more times, then poked with her fingertips and spoke.
I didn't actually see her mouth open.
"All right—I'm going to hit you now?"
"…Eut, y-yes. Yes…"
A broad, flat whoosh cut the air—
"Eut…?!"
My face jerked up from the sheets on its own. The pain was nothing like any childhood discipline I had ever known; it was closer to the level meant to cause actual injury. Heat exploded across my skin and my legs twitched involuntarily.
Her hand left, then returned. A sharp smack vanished into the soundproofing. I shifted just enough to endure it and my injured finger scraped the blanket; a broken little "heup" of a moan slipped out before I could swallow it.
"Euaat, ahh…!"
"Two. Heung."
She kept her palm pressed to the stinging flesh, murmuring, then—smack, smack again.
After that she seemed to settle into pure focus, landing five in a row with no pause. The raw signals screaming up from my body overrode any willpower; my left hand flew back to cover the target.
"Heuat—w-wait a second…!"
I curled and uncurled my toes, then clenched them hard. Senior waited without brushing my hand aside, but that didn't mean the punishment was over. The moment I slid it away she brought her palm down even harder—
"Heuyaaak…!"
I could hear her draw in a sharp breath of effort right beside my ear. The hand I had bravely removed slapped right back onto the burning skin and rubbed frantically as if putting out a fire.
"Hand down, Heeyeon."
I kept it there, ignoring her for as long as I could; the sensation was simply too much. Her breathing had grown rough compared to the start.
"Eu—Seon… Unnie! Unnie…! J-just a second, huu, w-wait…"
"Heung, you're going to do that during a punishment?"
"I-it hurts too much—c-could you hit the left side instead…!"
I kept rubbing—and covering—while I begged. How stupid I must look no longer mattered. When you are being hit, vanity is the first thing to die.
"Of course not. Move your hand. Quickly. Okay?"
She sounded urgent. I pulled the hand away—smack—and whether she was putting more force into it or simply striking the same already-bruised place, the pain was doubling, squaring, with every blow compared to the first.
"Heuu… huuuu… eut…!"
Another strike. This time both hands shot back to shield me. My belly had long since lifted off her knees; I was basically in a push-up position on my knees.
"Ah—hurry, hurry and move it. Okay? Heeyeon. Move it."
She pressed again. My toes scrabbled against the sheets. If I didn't remove my hands the next punishment would be worse; even if she didn't care about the defiance itself, the tremor in her voice made the rest obvious. Fear wasn't the reason she was shaking.
"A-uh, Un-Unnie, huu, how many… how many left…?"
I asked just to grab some scrap of willpower. Then the sudden terror that she might simply ignore my injured fingers and keep swinging made me snatch my left hand on top of the right for extra cover.
"Choose. Rest a bit and take it on the stomach, or keep taking it like this."
"Eu-eua, euaat—I'll take it…!"
Her words were impossible to ignore; my hands finally dropped. Delighted, she raised her arm at once and brought it down.
One. Face buried in the mattress again.
Two. My whole body jumped. Her free hand pinned me hard. It hurt so much I kicked both legs against the bed like a child.
Three. I was genuinely about to cover myself again when—smack—four.
Her hand rose for the fifth. I twisted halfway around, seized her arm with both hands, and clung.
"Un-Unnieee, it hurts too much, i-it hurts too much…!"
I was ready to do anything to stop the next blow. My vision blurred and swam; tears slid down my cheek and pooled near my ear now that I was on my side.
"Heuk, u-Unnie, please…!"
I gripped her arm and begged. Her smile only widened. It was an ordinary, almost beautiful woman's smile, yet somehow the corners of her mouth seemed to stretch all the way to her ears in a grotesque curve.
"All right. Rest a little, then."
She gave me a gentle shove, climbed off the bed, shook out her stiff legs a couple of times, and walked to the nightstand.
The drawer slid open with a soft shhh (no wheels, so that was the sound it made). From inside she drew something wooden.
The moment I recognized what the spatula-shaped object was for, I scrambled on free hands and feet to the far side of the bed, putting as much distance as I could between myself and her.