My asshole boss had fired me, and I’d fallen in a funk. No one blamed me. Josh certainly didn’t. But there comes a point in any funk where enough is enough. Josh seemed to think that time had arrived.

He tried to cajole me out of my bad mood. Making me laugh. Making me dinner. Taking me to the movies and my favorite bookstore.

When none of it worked, he went ahead and did what had to be done.

He came home from work and kicked off his shoes. He reached down, tugged off his socks and tossed them on the sofa. It drove me crazy when he did that, which was more often than I’d like to admit.

I felt myself scowling at him and hated myself for it immediately.  It was petty, really. But I couldn’t help it.

While I was scolding myself for being a fired loser who scowled at her man, he unbuckled his belt and whipped it off. It came off so fast it made a whooshing sound. Somehow, that got my attention.

“Enough,” he said.

“Enough?” I was sitting up straight, all of a sudden. The hair at my nape tingled, and my nipples tightened. Something in his tone had put me on high alert.

“Enough with the pity party. Enough feeling down. They fired you for no good reason, and honestly, I think you’re better off for it. You can find a new job, with people who appreciate a good worker.”

I shifted in my seat. His tone was clipped and almost angry — but not quite. I noticed a subtle throbbing in my pussy. I was getting turned on.

“I’m trying,” I managed to say.

“Maybe you need to try harder.”

“When I do, I fall down that rabbit hole of feeling like a failure.”

“Take off your clothes.”

There it was. That was the tone. I knew that tone. I stood slowly and popped the button on my jeans. I dragged down my zipper and took a deep breath, trying to steady my pounding heart. I pushed my jeans down and toed off my ankle socks. I yanked my sweatshirt over my head and shook my long hair back from my face.

I stood there before him, naked and trembling.

“Bend over. Hands on the sofa cushion.”

I exhaled loudly and did as he said. I placed my palms against the green upholstery, and the position forced my ass out.

“Keep your back straight,” he barked. “Like you’re doing a deadlift.”

I straightened my back like a table top, still keeping my hands pressed flat. The proper form pushed my ass out even farther.

His hand skated along my skin, which instantly pebbled into goosebumps.

He gave me a flat-palmed smack on my ass. I bucked as fire raced along my skin. I winced but tried to stay silent.

He gave me another smack, and I hissed. That whack was harder, and it hurt more.

“Staying in a vat of pity for yourself too long is bad for you — body and soul.”

I nodded silently.

He slipped two fingers into my pussy from behind, and I moaned. His fingers probed me insistently, and when he slid them all the way in, I realized I was holding my breath.

“You have to focus on what you can control. What you can do. How to move forward,” he lectured.

I nodded as if this was all perfectly logical and I’d been thinking it myself all along.

He pulled his fingers out of me and stepped back.

I was confused for a moment about his sudden disappearance. Then I heard the whisper of the belt sliding through his hand. My heart pounded, and my body tightened in anticipation.

“How’s six? One for every month you worked there?”

I knew Josh wasn’t really asking me. He was simply musing out loud. But I nodded as if it mattered.

The last time he’d used the belt on me, we’d gone a bit further than the time before. The intensity was overwhelming and so was the arousal — and the sex was some of the most memorable we’d ever had.

Just thinking about it made my wetness increase.

The first lick of the belt against my ass made me cry out. The line of heat it painted along my skin took my breath away. It was all encompassing and impossible to ignore. But just as quickly it started to fade, leaving behind an endorphin-fueled arousal thumping in my cunt.

But before I could say a word, he laid two more streaks along my skin with his leather belt. I bucked and tried to rub my legs together — to wiggle — anything to shake off some of the intensity.

I failed. I only managed to up my arousal but did nothing to dampen the sharp sensation.

“Come on now, love,” he murmured while dragging a fingertip down my asscrack. “You’re only halfway there.”

I gasped, and my body bucked of its own accord.

“How’s the head? Able to get out of the trap of your ever-processing brain and feel instead of think?”

“Yes,” I said, the word sounding nearly like a sob.

“Good. That’s what I want to hear.”

He dragged the looped belt down the line of my spine and along my shoulders. The tiny hairs on my arms stood on end.

He let the belt unfurl, and the very end licked my asscrack. He took a step back, extending the amount of leather that would come in contact with me. One, two cracks, and I stood up, forgetting myself. I cried out. My nipples were like pebbles. My juices were dampening the tops of my thighs, and my cunt throbbed. But my mind had gone blank from the sizzle and crack of that leather.

“Bend over,” he said evenly.

“I can’t.”

“Bend over, love,” he said, not wavering a bit.

I shook my head as I grabbed my ass and chewed my bottom lip.

“OK, then.” He started to put his belt back on. “If you can’t take your last lash like a good girl I’ll just — ”

“No!” I said. “No, no. Just give me a moment.”

“No. Bend over. Now.”

I obeyed. He traced the heated marks on my skin with his fingers and even pressed a few just to watch me buck. Then he smoothed his palms over his handiwork in the most soothing way.

I shut my eyes, knowing what was coming even as struggled to relax and accept it.

My cunt was flowing like a river, and I felt my heartbeat in my pelvis. My pussy was plump and wet, ready for him to enter.

The last blow landed, and I gritted my teeth as my body bucked instinctively. I forced myself to hold my pose. I forced myself not to cry out.

The belt hit the floor, and he dropped to his knees. He laid small kisses along my throbbing flesh. Each was searing but lovely.

“How are you? Out of your head now?”

I nodded. I didn’t trust myself with words any longer.

Another kiss, that one on the back of my thigh. Another on my right flank. Another on my left ass cheek. When his lips brushed my butt, my eyes drifted shut.

His fingers found my pussy lips and stroked me. I moaned softly. I was so flushed, so wet, so fucking ready.

He pushed his fingers inside me then, working them rhythmically in and out. I was so drenched I could hear the squishing noises.

“Turn around, my good girl,” he said to me.

I turned and watched him brush a soft kiss across my sex. He did it again, and I found myself arching forward to get more contact. He parted my lips with his tongue, licking and lapping at me gently at first, then harder when he warmed up. His fingers resumed their easy slide in and out of my pussy. His tongue was pure heaven gliding over my clit.

I couldn’t catch my breath, but that was fine. The ache in my ass had become a dull background thump that only served to heighten my pleasure.

I gasped as he flexed his fingers. He sucked my clit, and bright colors exploded in the darkness behind my closed eyelids. My orgasm made me weak in the knees. The warm liquid pleasure of it coated my bones. I grabbed his shoulders, trying to hang on to my sanity.

Josh was never one to let me off the hook that easy. He kept licking and thrusting his fingers until the very last drop of goodness had passed.

Then he stood and turned me, putting me back in position.

I heard his zipper and then the slippery sound of his pants sliding down. His cock found me easily, and he pushed into me eagerly.

I held on as he bumped into me, rocking me with every thrust.

“That’s it. That’s my good girl.”

His fingertips dug into me where I was the meatiest — my hips. He held me tight and stayed close. He never pulled out of me very much. Just enough to thrust inward again. I felt myself growing wetter every time he drove into me, forcing me to surrender.

He knew what I needed. Focusing on the physical always snapped me out of my mental doldrums.

Josh smacked my ass, his hand coming down on a spot already licked by his belt. The burst of intensity surprised me. I let out a cry. But when he did it again, in a different spot, the fiery spark pushed me over the edge, and I came again.

My climax seemed to fire him up. He grabbed my hips firmly and started a new rhythm — faster and harder, all for him and his pleasure.

I pushed back to take him, barely keeping my balance with my fingertips.

He tugged me up roughly, wrapping one arm around my waist and another around my chest, and drove into me with short, upward thrusts.

When he came, his whole body felt as if it were vibrating, then he stilled.

We stood there silent for a moment, with his cock still buried in me.

“How do you feel?” he whispered in my ear.

“Better,” I said, smiling dreamily.

“How much better?”

“Good enough to start hunting for my new job tomorrow.”

“That’s my good girl.”