Without question, if my parents were to ever see me voluntarily in such a painful and compromising situation, they would first kill my Master, then kill me.
Despite the eleven inches of snow covering the mountainside, i wore only my black thigh-high laced-up boots and my collar. The moon was full and very bright on the absolutely-clear night, reflecting nicely off the snow to provide adequate illumination even though W/we were about ten feet inside the tree line above the cabin's clearing.
This was the tree W/we had selected as "O/our tree" when W/we moved here five years earlier following my Master's glorious windfall when His company was bought by an international media conglomerate. Now retired save for the occasional consulting call or requested interview, He was able to devote His full attention to me, His lifelong best friend and longtime devoted slave. i had long ago lost count of how many occasions i had been chained to this very tree – often for pleasure or for putting some new "tools" through their paces, but sometimes for punishment.
On that particular night, i was once again secured to the tree. As often occurs, the thick, padlocked wrist cuffs were connected by a heavy chain, forcing me to "hug" the thick tree, its bark cold and sharp and raw against the front of my shivering body. The spreader bar and its attached padlocked cuffs ensured my legs remained separated at an odd angle.
my voice rang out across the mountainside, screams of intense pain and agony certain to be heard a long distance away from "O/our tree" in the cold, still night air. Again and again, my Master applied the bullwhip to me, making absolutely no effort to reign in His displeasure. Three days beforehand, i had broken one of His favorite AD&D statuettes, and it had taken all three days for His anger to finally dissipate to a point where He could be truly rational enough to properly punish me without giving me more than He knew i could handle.
From my upper shoulder blades down to just above the tops of my boots, the back of my body was pummeled severely. The intense punishment created an equally intense burning sensation, a significant counterpoint to the cold air and the cold hard bark of the tree. It felt as if my back and rear and legs were actually on fire. The screams pouring forth from my lips were as much a result of the punishment itself as from the juxtaposition of hot and cold on either side of my body. Even the hot tears carved rapidly-cooling streaks in the skin of my upper cheeks, presenting a microcosm of the battle of hot and cold upon my body as a whole.