Cora tested her bonds, though she already knew they would have no give. Natalie was far too good at tying people up.
"Ready?" Natalie was slowly pacing around her. Though Cora couldn't look up to see her face, she was sure her friend's lips showed that wide, evil smile of hers that always sent a thrilling shiver down her spine.
Cora was lying in a tight hog-tie on the floor, her arms forced behind her back and tied to her ankles with just enough leniency that her shoulder's didn't kill her. Yet.
She had that familiar sinking feeling in her stomach. There always was a sense of dread right before a session started. Even though she knew that she'd ultimately enjoy it, she also knew that it would be intense. Especially today.
Over time Cora had learned to live with, and even embrace that twinge of fear. It was a nice spike in adrenaline that fully focused her mind on what was to come. "Ready," she confirmed with barely a tremble in her voice.
"Well, well, well." Natalie's feet and shins appeared in Cora's field of vision. She made sure to let the thick leather strap in her hand tangle down far enough that her friend would see it, just to let the anticipation build a little.
Cora bit her lip, which in her current position was about the extent of her freedom of movement. Even her big toes were tied together with a string, robbing her of what little wriggle room she might have had with her feet. She could have maybe rocked her whole body if she tried, but her shoulders wouldn't appreciate the attempt. Once Natalie started to go to town on her, there was absolutely nothing she could do to protect herself.
But as stringent as the bondage was, it also confused Cora a bit. Sure, it was appropriately uncomfortable, but it also restricted access to all obvious targets. Her back, ass and thighs were all hidden under her arms and folded legs, and pretty much her entire front side was pressed into the floor. Natalie might be able to get a few swings at her breast in, but only at a really awkward angle.
This realization of relative safety only served to further unnerve Cora. Natalie knew exactly what she was doing and she was a bona fide sadist. She must already have a plan to make her suffer, Cora just hadn't figured it out yet.
"You stand with what you said earlier?"
Cora made an affirmative grunt. The little lump of dread in her stomach tightened. They'd had a couple of play sessions since they'd first admitted their kinky desires to each other, but nothing too crazy yet. Some light bondage here, a good spanking there. At one point Natalie had whipped her with the very leather strap she was holding now. That had been fun. But so far they'd only been experimenting a bit, feeling each other out. For today Cora had requested the real deal. She wanted to see what her friend's twisted mind came up with when she was allowed to do whatever she wanted.
"And you're sure crying is not a safeword?"
"Yes." Cora might be a masochist, but pain still made her eyes water pretty much immediately. It was rather inconvenient and had led to an awkward, though in hindsight pretty adorable, situation during their first spanking session when Natalie had gotten completely overwhelmed by Cora's tears and had spent the rest of the evening making sure she was okay, with Cora all the while insisting that she was fine.
"Okay then." Both the strap and Natalie's legs went away. Cora could turn her head a little, but not enough to follow her friend's movement. Not knowing where exactly Natalie was didn't exactly calm her nerves.
"You know, there's something I've stumbled upon in my research." Natalie's voice came from right behind her. Cora started when she suddenly felt Natalie's hands on her bound feet. "Apparently feet are really sensitive. I've seen videos of people making the cutest squeals and I couldn't stop wondering what you would sound like if I tortured you in the same way." She retreated her hands, but not before quickly running the tips of her fingers over Cora's soles.
Cora bit back a giggle. She wasn't all that ticklish, but being completely unable to move made every sensation that little bit more intense, something she loved about bondage, even though it always came back to bite her. Which might be the very reason she loved it in the first place.
She didn't know how to feel about Natalie's plans, though. Or rather: She knew exactly that they made her heart thump almost painfully with anticipation. Spankings and whippings were something she'd had on her mind forever, and even though the reality of them had been vastly different from her imagination, having a mental framework had helped to prepare herself. However, she didn't have the faintest idea what Natalie intended to do with her feet or what it would be like and that ignorance was both exhilarating and terrifying.
"Do you want a little warm-up?" Natalie's fingers were back, dancing over her soles in a flurry of movement for a few seconds before mercifully retreating again.
This time Cora couldn't hold back the giggle. "Please no!" Somehow the tension made the tickling a thousand times worse and at the same time only cranked up that same tension even more.
To Cora's great surprise Natalie actually didn't tickle her again. Usually Cora begging her to stop only made her go even harder. The whole point of their safeword was that she could beg and say "no" to her heart's content without stopping the scene. However, she quickly learned that Natalie wasn't sparing her out of mercy.
When Cora heard the hiss of the leather as it cut through the air, it was already too late to brace herself. The strap hit her soles with a frighteningly loud crack and Cora screamed. Initially out of surprise, but once the shock wore off she realized that it actually really fucking hurt.
"Whoa, are you okay?" judging by Natalie's voice she hadn't expected the impact to be this dramatic either.
"I'm fine," Cora quickly said so her friend wouldn't worry. But because she was an honest person, she couldn't help adding "stings like a bitch, though. Your research didn't lie."
Cora twitched when something touched her feet, but it was just Natalie's fingers again. The way they stroked over the smarting area with intention, almost like a soft massage, actually felt pretty nice. "Is that a go or a no?" Natalie asked.
"It's a go," Cora decided. Yes, it hurt, but that was exactly what she was here for after all. That this was a new, unfamiliar kind of pain, made it more intense, but also deeply intriguing. Even still the burn of that single strike hadn't stopped and it was only going to get far, far worse from here. That thought gave rise to a different kind of itching burn in her lower body. Cora grinned to herself. She still found it funny how much of a masochist she really was.
"Nice." The fingers disappeared and when the strap hit her again, Cora was ready for it. Or at least she thought she was ready.
She didn't scream this time, so that was something. The loud crack still made her flinch and when the burn set in for real she exhaled in little bursts, mumbling a few "fuck"s between her breaths. The initial flash of pain was bad enough, but damn, did it linger! It almost felt like the burn only reached its peak a good couple of seconds after the strap was already gone, and from there it took for-fucking-ever to fade again. It was similar to the whipping, only with less immediate impact because feet were harder to hit than a spacious backs, but the increased sensitivity of the target more than made up for it.
Cora held on for a few more strikes, but when the strap hit her right across the balls of her feet and even cut into her toes, her vision blurred as the first tears shot into her eyes. She did her best to blink them away, but without a means to rub her eyes she knew she was stuck with that additional itch for the foreseeable future.
"You're pretty brave, staying this silent," Natalie said after strapping her some more. By this point there was no part of Cora's sole that wasn't burning fiercely and she was learning to really appreciate the cruelty of the toe bind. It was just a tiny piece of string and yet it robbed her of all her power to cross her feet and protect at least parts of them from the punishment. "That sounds like it must hurt so much."
Cora recognized the tone of voice. Once Natalie got over her initial fear of hurting Cora and let herself get into the mood, she liked taunting her victim. While her sentence could've been taken at face value as a "poor you" type of commiseration, it very much carried the energy of "Wow, it must suck so hard to be you right now. Muhaha."