Drake by Peter McLean

probably drunk most of the vodka myself. Ally had kept on filling my glass up but I couldn’t remember her actually drinking that much at all. I winced as she twisted my nipples between her fingers, her hips moving faster on me as I gasped in pain.
    â€œYour friend,” she said. “The mean one.”
    â€œThat doesn’t narrow it down,” I said, trying to make a joke of it. “I’ve got a lot of mean friends.”
    She smiled. “I’m sure you have,” she said.
    â€œI’m starting to wonder if you’re one of them,” I said. I was starting to wonder if she was ever going to take her knickers off, actually, but that’s not really the kind of thing you can say out loud on a second date.
    â€œNow don’t be like that,” she said, and slapped my face. Hard.
    I blinked with shock, more surprised than hurt. “Debs didn’t mind me going off with you,” I said, although I knew for a fact that wasn’t true. She had minded, for all that she didn’t have any real right to. “We’re just friends, she said so herself.”
    Ally laughed and raked her nails from my shoulders to my belly button, leaving long red welts behind them and re-opening the half-healed wound the Burned Man had left me with when I last fed it.
    â€œThat sad little thing in the restaurant?” she said. “No, not her. She could never keep me away from you, Don.”
    â€œFuck me, that hurts!” I gasped.
    â€œIt’s supposed to hurt,” she said, “and I’m not fucking you. Not again. Once was enough, sweetie. Once is all I need.”
    She gave me another slap across the face that made me gasp, then grinned and hopped off me without warning, leaving me standing to attention like the last private on parade.
    â€œWhere are you going?” I demanded. “We’ve got unfinished business here!”
    Maybe I’m slow on the uptake but I was still assuming that at some point we were going to have some semblance of sex. You know, like normal people. How silly of me.
    â€œTwo ticks,” she said.
    She bent over her handbag, giving me a view of her behind that ensured she held my full attention. She pulled something out of the bag, and kept on pulling. When she turned back to face me with six feet of rapidly uncoiling bullwhip in her hand I think the awful truth finally sank in. I have to confess I actually started to whimper. No doubt there are people who’d pay good money for this sort of thing but I assure you I’m not one of them. The fingernails had been more than kinky enough for me, ta very much.
    â€œOi, leave it out!” I said, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice.
    I’ve never gone in for stuff like this, and now suddenly the whole being tied up business was rapidly losing whatever scant appeal it might have had in the first place. Ally cracked her whip in the air over my prone and helpless body, her eyes gleaming with obvious excitement.
    â€œYou’ve been a bad boy, haven’t you Don,” she said. “A very bad boy indeed .”
    â€œI fucking mean it,” I said, twisting against the knots that held me. “I don’t want to do this, Ally. Seriously, I don’t.”
    That was the end of the last private on parade, let me tell you. He was asleep on duty in double-quick time.
    â€œOh you spoilsport,” Ally said. “You rotten spoilsport, I was really hoping to give that a good lick of the whip.”
    She flicked me with it anyway and I twisted away just in time. All the same, she laid a long red stripe down the outside of my right thigh. I howled.
    â€œJesus!” I shouted. “Jesus fucking Christ you bitch!”
    â€œPotty mouth,” Ally giggled, and cracked the whip again.
    She was so fast I barely saw it coming, but just managed to jerk my head out of the way so that it only laid open the side of my cheek. If I hadn’t moved quickly enough I