The Night I Sunk His Fleet by Lady Jericho

I didn't cheat. I just didn't play by rules he was expecting. I admit I'm surprised he didn't expect the duplicity; he's smarter than that. To be fair, it was his first public scene, so while his mind was filtering the typical anxieties of public play, I went on the hunt, pressing his buttons like a matador hooking a bull.

He laid out the scene, a luxurious blanket went down on the dungeon floor - we settled on it, and the box came out. It was still in shrink wrap; he bought it just to play with me. While I slid a fingernail along the seam of the box and peeled the shrink wrap off he watched me, his eyes still smack talking with defiance. I flipped the box right side up and let the bottom fall out of it slowly. It landed with a soft sound, unhearable to anyone but us. We each took out a battle station; he sorted out the white and red pegs while I broke the battleships away from their plastic moorings. When I handed him most of the ships, he stammered, confused, I was giving him an advantage. No, those weren't the rules. He wanted to win, true, but he wanted to win fairly.

I should mention the stakes. We'd negotiated for a scene of Battleship. You know the old "B7" "You sunk my battleship" game. The stakes were as follows: Standard Rules. If I win, he lets me hit him with my belt three times, in the dungeon (my choice). If he wins, he bottoms to me at a BARR munch (his choice). For each battleship of mine he sinks, I kiss him in whichever scenario we end up in (my choice). For each battleship of his I sink, I barehanded spank him in whichever scenario we end up in (his choice).

I insisted he take the extra ships. He tried to give me back the carriers, insisting they would be harder to sink, and I shouldn't give him such an advantage. I smiled at him, assuring him that I wasn't the slightest bit concerned and he should set up his fleet. I waited until he was nearly finished before I pulled out the hood and slipped it over his head. He gasped so loud I'm certain that even the people sitting behind us in the spectator section heard him. It took him a moment to catch his breath and protest softly about how this wasn't in the rules. It took just a few moments in the hood with my hand on his thigh for him to abandon his desire to play by any rules but mine. It was warm in the dungeon, warmer so under the hood. I let him struggle to set the rest of his board up, and when he was done I removed the hood.

I looked at him, long and hard. He bit his lip, looking back at me, expectant. I couldn't let him down, so out came the belt.  His hands went behind his back. I don't even remember telling him to do it - perhaps I didn't. I wrapped it around his wrists, looping, and tying. I leaned in so our bodies touched and with my lips against his throat below his ear I told him "That's the belt I'm going to beat you with" and he let out this soft little moan and leaned a little closer to me.

With magnanimity, I let him have the first move. He missed. I took a red peg, and with my eyes on his, I leaned across and put the peg in the first ship on his side. He let another moan pass his lips; this time tinged with some despair. It went like that turn after turn. He did manage, along the way to sink two of my ships (even with his hands tied behind his back) but I sunk his entire fleet, systematically annihilating every single vessel. I had him clean up the game and pack the blanket away. He approached nervously when he was done.  His eyes darted everywhere but came back to my face and to my eyes where they finally settled. He took a deep breath and looked that the bench next to which I was standing. He looked from me to it and back, and when I nodded he put his hands on it, bracing himself. "Are you ready?" I asked him, my hand gently rubbing along his back. He shook his head no. I shook my head yes, and he repeated my gesture. I took my first swing at him, and the belt snapped hard against his butt. It was a brutal swing, strong, hard. No warm up. His breath came out in a frantic gasp. Once. Twice. Three times and I kissed him then, long and hard with the same deliberateness I had applied the belt. He half moaned, half whimpered against my mouth, and I hit him again. And again. And again. I circled him like a matador.  I'd come in close, lay my body against his, or my mouth on his skin, my teeth on his flesh, and then I'd strike and move away. I weakened him systematically, methodically, and with deliberate brutality. I lost track of how many times I'd hit him or how long we'd been ‘in scene’. I hit him hard enough and long enough that my shoulder still hurts two days later, and my belt has a crease in it that hasn't flattened out.

He was drenched in sweat and shaking. He cleaned up after us - well, I might add, and we stepped outside into the cool night air. He asked to not be in the tent, to be out in the air alone, and I agreed, sitting there on the bench against the wall. He'd planned to sit next to me, you could see it from his stance, but he didn't, he dropped like a stone to my feet. He leaned into me there, like that, on his knees, and I held him. When he could finally lift his head, he gazed up at me. The total trust, adoration, and respect I found in his eyes then must have been the mirror image of the respect, adoration, and total trust he found in my eyes, looking down at him in that moment.