The man I met outside the anonymous doorway in the now-deserted CBD was an old school friend, Paul Denton. We had been close friends once, and there had been a . situation, involving a girl from another school. Paul was in serious trouble over it, threatened with suspension, and with possible criminal proceedings against him. I had put myself on the line for him, even though I couldn't condone what he had done. I lied for him and got him off the hook, but it was a close run thing. If it had gone the other way, neither of us would've enjoyed the university education and opportunity that led to our secure and prosperous futures. But after final exams, a few weeks later, we completely lost touch.

But I had bumped into Paul on the street, during the week, and we immediately ducked into a bar. Over a drink we, of course, compared careers, my partnership in an accountancy firm against his in a law firm, my wife and child (with another on the way) against his childless marriage and divorce. What sparked my curiosity was his quitting law, abandoning the six-figure salary to start a new business with three other partners from the firm. It was this business, a nightclub called Stripes, which we were about to enter.

Being in the commercial district, there were very few pedestrians after business hours, and the solid, art deco-style building was totally empty at eleven PM; even the cleaners had packed up and gone. Denton pushed an unmarked button on a panel and a click told that the door had been unlocked. I looked for the camera but couldn't spot it. He ushered me in and quickly closed the door. I was led down a long, echoey corridor that ran back from the main foyer to a goods lift, which we took to the top floor. As the lift door clattered open I could just make out muffled music and voices from behind a solid door opposite. Then there was a sound like a cry of pain. It was repeated; a woman's voice venting intense pain, muffled but unmistakable.

The solid door was opened from inside and Denton went in, looking back for me to follow. Sound swept out, electronic music with a solid dance beat, and many voices. I hesitated. There was a sound like the swish . of a cane! And that cry of pain again. What I saw, once I collected myself enough to enter, was a man in a long leather coat caning a naked girl. The girl was bent over, legs locked straight, her left hand gripping her right ankle and vice versa. When the cane swooshed and fell again on her buttocks, she cried out but did not move, apart from rocking forward slightly from the impact. Her grip on her ankles was so tight she must have been bruising them. In the dim light I looked more closely at her buttocks and saw that they were covered in welts. Although the cane marks were running into each other, I could estimate that she wore forty or more strokes from the long, whippy cane. There were even marks down the backs of her thighs, curving lines singing their tales of pain. Her face was flushed bright red, her eyes screwed up closed in agony, but letting out tears that dripped and splashed on the polished wooded floor.

Before the man in the coat turned and disappeared through a second door, he handed the cane to Denton, who then handed it to me. The cane was warm and slick with sweat, and its other end was stained darker, presumably from blood. The closer groupings of welts on the girl's buttocks were indeed bleeding, but not so much that the blood ran down.

'I insist,' Denton said. 'Three strokes, hard as you can.'

'You can't be serious. She should be in hospital. I can't hit her!'

'Three strokes. It's her first night, so she has to take fifty-one to pass the test, and if you refuse she'll be left waiting like that until the next customer arrives. Go on, put her out of her misery.'

I must admit that I have always entertained fantasies about caning a beautiful young girl such as was before me. The feeling of absolute power, of her having to bear the punishment I meted out no matter how painful, the power I would wield over her. Once, on a joke questionnaire, I had put down as my dream job, 'Deputy Principal of a girls' school, with responsibility for corporal punishment.' But I suppose many men have such fantasies, and, like me, kept them as fantasies, with little chance of realising them. But now, before me, was an extremely attractive young woman, beautiful even in her distressed state, and I was holding the cane, invited to inflict pain on her. Severe pain. And I could only assume she was in this position voluntarily. She gripped her ankles so hard so as not to succumb to the urge to stand up and rub her agonised arse, fighting her will so she could remain in that vulnerable position, accept further excruciating blows on top of the many welts she had already received, pain building on pain, magnifying, each stroke more unbearable. The girl was trembling slightly, and she closed her eyes even harder.

Three more strokes and it was over. I raised the cane and struck her, right on the crease between her buttocks and thighs - evidently a popular spot. She yelped.

'Oh, come on Vernon,' Denton laughed. 'That one doesn't count. Now thrash her like you mean it.'

I thought I had hit her pretty hard, but I lined up and delivered a fuller stroke. Same spot. She screamed through clenched teeth, but held still.

'Good! Two more like that, even a bit harder if you can. See if you can land it right there again both times - that'll really test her.'

It was more by good luck than good aim, or because the pattern of my swing had quickly established itself, but I did hit the same spot two more times. The last time she gasped repeatedly with each short breath, knowing that it was the last stroke she would have to bear that night. But she would be in pain for days, unable to even sleep on her back, from the accumulated damage, the deep bruising of fifty-two agonising blows (or more - how many voided strokes like my first had there been?) from that terrible cane.

As the girl continued to gasp and weep, still holding her ankles and keeping her legs absolutely locked straight, I wondered how long she had been in that cruelly vulnerable position, and if she would now be allowed to release herself from it.

Paul watched her for a time, seemingly enjoying her battle against the pain, before he said, 'Sammi, you've held your position for over two hours and withstood the required number of strokes without flinching. You have passed the test. Now, stand up and face me.'

The girl did as Denton said, and I could see her beauty fully. Her breasts were large and stood out firmly, and her tears fell on them, trickling down. Her cunt was shaved and swollen. Marks from the cane showed even from the front, such was its whippiness. Her slim ankles were indeed marked in purple from her own excruciating grip. Seeing her slim build and slight arms, I wouldn't have credited her with the strength to bruise herself to the extent she had, so it must have been the agony of the excessive caning that magnified her grip to that of a strong man.

'My, you are a beauty, Sammi. You'll do well here at Stripes. Welcome to the team!' Denton suddenly switched to a formal tone. 'You will report for table training at nine on Monday morning, wearing what you're given tonight. And don't be late.'

A quiet, 'Thank you sir,' was all that Sammi could manage before a tall woman in black leather appeared from inside the club and guided her away.

Denton slipped back into his relaxed manner. 'I especially enjoy nights when there's a new girl starting, but we've made it a policy to have someone in 'on the door', as we call it, every Saturday night. The other girls don't like doing it, so we decided that the one who gets the lowest in tips assumes the duty.'

I said nothing, being somewhat in shock, and still digesting the exhilarating feeling of caning that girl, imagining the pain she willingly bore at my hand, but I allowed Denton to show me into the club proper. If this is just the entrance, I thought, what lies within?

It was no surprise that the décor was entirely black and the seating was all in leather. On the way up, I had imagined the theme of stripes in the décor, but once I saw Sammi being caned, the club's name made perfect sense. The smoothly appointed room was filled with extremely well dressed men, presumably the guests or members, and with many beautiful women, quite young and wearing very little. What they did wear, the young women, was apparently a uniform, but with variations. It was all black, leather, tight, skimpy, and each had a collar with metal studs and D-rings attached. And they all wore high heels. Extremely high heels - some pumps with ankle straps, Mary-Janes, lace-up Oxfords, and some strappy sandals. Glancing around revealed nothing less than five inches added to the height of each beautiful, slim woman. One of them approached Denton and me, her hips pivoting sensuously, one foot swinging in front of the other as she had no-doubt been trained to walk.

'May I show you to a table, gentlemen?'

'My usual, and you should know that you ought not ask me that,' Denton snapped. 'Hand me a crop!'

The girl blushed, but quickly went to a narrow cupboard concealed between two of the seating bays. She drew out of it a kind of sliding rack, which had hanging from it thick leather straps, a variety of whips, canes held in clips, and several types of riding crop. She chose a long crop with a plaited leather shaft and handed it to Denton, but not before delicately kissing the leather flap on the end of it and moistening it with her tongue. I could feel pressure building in my trousers.

'Raise your left leg,' Denton commanded, and she did, balancing on one precarious heel as she held her long, slender leg out perfectly straight, toe pointed like a ballerina. Denton whipped her smooth white thigh six times in quick succession, and hard. The girl neither flinched nor made a sound as the crop wrapped itself into the delicate inside of her thigh. 'Other leg.' She turned and obeyed, and soon wore six well defined, evenly spaced red lines wrapping each thigh. 'Well, are you going to take us to the table or not?' Denton said to the silent girl. She led us to a booth in the far corner of the large square room, one which had a clear side view of the platform stage, which had on it an altar-like construction covered in black leather and fitted with manacles.

Curiously, there was no table where you would expect one in the semicircular booth, just a wooden floor.

'What is missing from this scene, Corinna? This is a serious oversight, for which you will pay later, severely. Bring us a table immediately.'

Corinna returned less than a minute later, leading another girl by a short chain attached to a studded collar. The girl wore nothing except very high-heeled sandals, with long straps that criss-crossed tightly up her calves and were buckled below the knee. Handcuffs locked her wrists in front of her. She knelt on the floor between Denton and me, and somehow tensed the muscles of her back so that it made the nearest thing to a flat surface that you would believe possible. Once in position, she kept still, perfectly. Corinna fastened the collar chain to a ring on the wall so the table-girl couldn't possibly stand up.

My attention was so fixed on our human table that I hadn't noticed Corinna had something hanging from her breast. It looked like a menu, and it depended from a harsh-looking metal clip fastened to her nipple. Denton pulled on the menu so that the clip tore off roughly from Corinna's nipple, after stretching it down considerably. As her breast sprung back and wobbled, the hostess grimaced at the pain, but made no sound. Without even consulting me, Denton pointed out to her some items from the menu and clipped it back onto her nipple. He added an extra squeeze of the clip that made Corinna (and me) wince. She turned and walked away, as alluringly as when she'd approached us before, but she must have been dreading the punishment that would come to her later because of her oversight.

While we waited for our order, Paul answered some of my questions about the club. Stripes had been operating for three years, and had built up a clientele of extremely wealthy businessmen, professionals, high-up public servants (including police), and politicians. Denton and the three other directors now drew salaries, he said, that left them with no regrets about leaving the law firm. And the girls were paid well too. Very well. They were prohibited from having any other employment, but they would most certainly not need it for financial reasons.

'Of course, they're all girls with a penchant for pain and subservience in the first place. If they didn't enjoy it to some degree, even what we pay them wouldn't make it bearable. Naturally, we do extensive background checks, including with their former lovers. You'd be surprised at the careers that some of these girls have put aside to work here. There's a number of top-notch degrees tottering around out there, and even a couple of doctorates, at least amongst the senior girls.'

Denton pointed out one of the 'senior girls' to me. She was the one who had led Sammi away after the caning. She couldn't have been over thirty, but she carried herself with terrific authority. She, in contrast to the younger girls, was clad entirely - showing no skin but her face - in tight black leather. She wore long gloves and tightly laced thigh-high boots with vicious stiletto heels, six inches at least. She carried handcuffs and a crop at her side, and a cane ready in her hand. She seemed to be observing the girls closely, looking for imperfections in their performance. Her glance understandably made them nervous. Denton summoned the woman over, and she glared at me coldly. She bent down and he muttered something in her ear.

'I told Stella about Corinna's oversight. There'll be a caning up there on the platform later. A severe one. Corinna's been here long enough to know not to make mistakes like that. She should have had our table .' Denton slapped the chained girl hard on her rump, 'ready and waiting at least an hour before I arrived. Corinna hasn't enjoyed a major punishment for a couple of months, so perhaps she felt she was due one. I don't know .'

'Paul, I'm amazed at what you've created here, truly amazed. Sure, I've see canings on those little movies on the internet, but they're like a dozen strokes, max. But forty, fifty strokes! This is so . hard core! And it must be totally illegal. I mean, what happens if one of your members decides to turn you in?'

Vernon, when you operate something like this, with big dollars involved, that's the first thing you think about. All I can say is . that, amongst the four partners, we have . how can I put it? A range of skills and backgrounds. We have our strategies for keeping things under control, keeping the lid on. I mean, you don't think I just casually brought you in here? After I ran into you the other day and thought about inviting you up, we had to do . well . some research.'

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I said nothing, but tried to imagine what the 'strategies' might be, and how they must have been prying into my affairs. Did Paul know about .?

'Oh, by the way Vernon, that new p.a. of yours . very tidy.'

I held back my resentment at what Paul had done, rather, I tried to excuse him for doing it, accept that it was justified as necessary for the survival of their business. And Corinna arrived at the perfect moment with our order, which turned out to be a superb antipasto platter, and which we enjoyed with a bottle of fine French wine, all delicately poised on the young girl's firm back. Before Corinna had placed the meal on our table, though, she had instructed the girl to raise herself. As if by pneumatics, the girl elevated her back about eight inches, by straightening her arms and bringing her legs into a squatting position. I couldn't imagine how she could remain steady for more than a few minutes like this, but Denton insisted we take our time with the platter. She must have held for forty-five minutes at least, before being allowed to return to the 'drinks table' position, and, although I could see her legs were trembling, her back remained flat and motionless throughout. I couldn't help noticing, though, that her back was scored with what looked like scars from a whipping, dozens of them, criss-crossing, laid down by an expert. I asked Denton about it.

'Table girls take a fair bit of training, and this one's the best. It was a hard road for her, though.'

'What's her name? You've referred to Corinna, Stella, and Sammi. Doesn't she have one?'

'Sammi won't be called by her name here again until she graduates from table girl, which she hasn't even made it to yet. This girl hasn't earned the right to a name. Table girls are at the bottom of the scale. If she can pass the test to make hostess, she will be given a name, and a substantial salary rise.'

I enquired about the test but Denton was reluctant to give much information about it in front of the table girl. I pushed him, and he eventually let on that part of the test involved learning to walk properly in progressively higher heels, days on end of walking and working, sleepless nights of standing. Pain administered through the feet, basically, with the risk of getting busted back to table girl with extra scheduled punishments, if the prospective hostess didn't make the grade. Denton may have decided that a little bit of fear of what our girl was in for in the future wouldn't hurt her. Looking around the room, I saw at least five other girls acting as tables. One was in the next booth. As I watched, a full wine glass fell from her back, smashing on the hard floor. Corinna appeared in an instant with another girl on a chain, whom she made kneel, and she transferred the remaining contents of the first girl's back to the replacement's. Then Corinna knelt to pick up the glass fragments, and, I think, (I couldn't quite see, and I didn't want to crane over the booth), lick the spilled wine off the man's shoes. Then the first table girl was unclipped and roughly pulled up and the second inched herself into position, not spilling a thing. Corinna apologised to the man in the booth and dragged the table girl by her chain up to the platform.

Corinna locked the girl's ankles firmly into the manacles, then pushed her down harshly and went around to lock her wrists on the far side. The senior girl, Stella, strode up onto the platform and, with the pointed toe of her boot, activated a mechanism that set the whole thing revolving slowly. Soon I could see the manacles that bit into the girl's wrists and pulled her arms down extremely tightly. I guess the revolving mechanism must have also drawn the manacles down, because Corinna couldn't have stretched the girl's limbs so harshly. In fact, the table girl looked to be in great discomfort even before the first cane stroke fell.

The girl cried out, and Stella yelled, 'Silence. That stroke is ruled out.'

Denton explained that the mandatory penalty for a spillage is a dozen strokes of the cane, but crying out annuls the stroke. If she cries out again, a penalty stroke is imposed, as well as the annulment. The third outcry earns two penalty strokes, and so on. The record, he said, for 'a dozen' currently stood at thirty-eight, held by the girl who was up there now. 'She can keep silent if she wants to,' he said. 'I've seen it. If she's not in the mood, she'll take the dozen and that's that. Tonight she's making a noise, which means this could go on for some time. She's great like that. Knows how to entertain, earn her keep.'

As we ate, the caning continued. The members were getting into it, counting off each stroke, groaning and calling out things like, 'Dear oh dear' when the girl cried out. The count was rising.

'Going for her own record, by the look of things. You've come on a good night, Vernon - first Sammi, now this, and Corinna's punishment to look forward to later.

The count passed forty and the girl had let out no further cries of pain for a while. Her buttocks were a red and purple mess. Although the strokes were fewer than Sammi's - finally forty-six - the caning was without pause, but each stroke was timed to land when the pain from the previous had sunk in, Denton explained. He went on to tell how there was a tremendous amount of scientific data and information on the subject of human punishment and torture - what the body and mind can stand and what it can't, how to inflict maximum pain using various implements, with the least actual tissue damage - that kind of thing, recorded over centuries in many languages. You just had to know how to access it.

'What happens to her now?' I asked Denton, as the semi-conscious girl was released from the platform and helped away.

'She'll be back on the job soon enough. They don't get the night off after something like that, you know. We're open until dawn, and the guests will want to see her out and working, and of course she'll be on cleaning duty with the other girls until well after that. (My God, that's something to see, believe me.) Actually, we charge a premium for her to be someone's table girl now. They like to have a close-up look at the damage from the cane, give her a bit of a slap and see if she spills anything else.' Paul slapped our girl hard, leaving a pink hand imprint on her buttock. She didn't flinch, and nothing on the table moved more than a tiny wobble.

'Christ, what happens if she spills something else? She can't be caned again - it'd kill her!'

'Correct, but she doesn't escape. Punishments can carry over, or we might give her the bastinado - a whipping on the soles of the feet. Surprisingly, that's even more painful than on the arse. After that, we'd put her on hostess duty, so she'd have to walk in high heels while her feet give her absolute hell. It's happened to a few of the girls, two 'severes' in a night. They get a week off on full pay after it, though, so they don't mind.'

'You must have a high turnover, though. I mean, surely a person could only stand such punishment for so long .'

'You'd be surprised at that too. Most of the girls develop their taste for it. Some have no ambition to rise above talbe girl, the most degrading position. Others become seniors, like Stella. Boy, do they have to go through something to earn that privilege! You don't just get to hand out punishment instead of taking it by asking nicely, you know.'

'I can imagine.'

'No, you can't, even after what you've seen tonight. I'm not going to tell you either, suffice to say that the girl who wants to become a senior has to write out the maximum punishment she believes she can stand. Then we four directors and the other senior girls review it, and usually try to talk them up a bit.'

'So does that happen out here? Do we get to see it?'

'We've only done it four times so far, and during the daytime, behind closed doors. It takes several days, if that gives you any idea.'

Christ, I thought. How can they get away with this? I wonder if they've ever seriously hurt one of the girls. Or killed one.

Denton must have read my thoughts, or else I was muttering aloud. 'No, we have a medical doctor here at all times, and she supervises all punishments. She's had to step in a few times, but we try to keep that so you wouldn't notice it.'

I was wondering if Stella might in fact be the doctor, when our coffee arrived. But as Corinna stepped onto the raised floor of our booth and leaned over with the two cups of black coffee, she must have turned her ankle, because she overbalanced and fell into my lap. She still managed to place the coffee cups on the back of the table girl, but both cups tipped in their saucers and spilled onto the whip-scarred skin of our table. I would have expected the table girl to move, but she didn't. Corinna just sat in my lap and watched in horror as the scalding coffee pooled between the table girl's shoulder blades, then ran off down her neck and around her ribs, to drip from both of her breasts. For the first time she raised her head and I could see her bare her teeth against the burning, but her back remained as flat as before. I suspect that Corinna's horror was not so much because of what she'd done to our table girl, but because of what would now happen to her. She was already on a 'severe', and I imagined that this clumsiness would double it.

Once Corinna gathered herself and got off my lap, she bent over the table girl and put her lips between her shoulder blades, and, unbelievably, sucked up the hot coffee. This was to Denton's jibes about Stripes not being a lap-dancing establishment. She then unclipped the girl and ordered her to stand by while she got down and cleaned the floor with her tongue. I could see that Corinna was crying, even though she was trying to conceal it.

As Corinna licked at the floorboards, Denton bent down as quietly said to her, 'So, what would you prefer to enjoy first, my dear? The forty strokes or the bastinado?'

I thought she asked for the caning, but her voice was choked. Then Stella appeared, swooping on the prospective punishment victim like a vulture on a carcass. 'Nice of you to offer her the choice, sir,' she said. 'But I think we should throw in a vaginal whipping in between the two as well, don't you?'

'A bonus, yes, but you should begin. It will all take some time, don't you think?'

After a clean up our table girl was restored to us. The scald on her back, sides and breasts was painfully visible. More coffee was delivered, and Corinna's punishment was the background to the rest of our conversation. Assumedly, the rules about crying out still applied, but, by contrast to the table girl, Corinna exercised her willpower and bore her horrific caning in silence. It wasn't Stella who administered the caning, but a larger, even more powerful looking woman, similarly clad in leather. The idea of pussy whipping sounded horrendous, but I found myself incredibly turned on by it. Stella took over, and the strokes of the leather multi-stranded whip weren't super hard, as caning had been, but Corinna writhed and squirmed in her bonds and begged for it to stop. A hundred strokes must have fallen on her beautiful snatch, and by the end, Corinna was moaning more than pleading. It appeared as if she climaxed at one point, after about eighty strokes, but I couldn't be sure. It seemed unlikely, but Denton seemed to think it happened.

'Did you see her come in the eighties? Subtle, but nice. If they lay it on thick, it looks fake. Bastinado next. I love that.'

As Corinna was bound in a new position for the foot whipping, two hostesses appeared beside her with champagne buckets. Denton explained. 'That's ice water. Can't have her getting out of it by fainting, can we.'

The ice water wasn't needed, thankfully, although they threw it over her later on for effect anyway. Frankly, I was glad when the bastinado was over. Corinna had screamed through the much of it, and I'd had enough. It was like something out of a South American prison torture cell, and I couldn't believe that Corinna could have experienced the least bit of pleasure during the horrendous whipping. Most of the members were silent too. Finally, Stella had told the other senior girl to cease the whipping, and Corinna was released and helped to her feet. When at first she stood, though, she couldn't bear to put even one foot on the floor, let alone put her weight on it. This made me feel ill, and I wanted to leave. Corinna was led slowly away, and I could hear her tiny squeals as she placed each foot a few inches ahead of the other.

'So, you reckon she's going to be on her feet, wearing heels and working for the rest of the night, Paul? Look at her, she's crippled!'

'Oh, don't be silly, Vernon. Look, just stay half an hour longer and watch. She'll be out. I can tell you that what you saw was a little bit of an act. I don't mean she wasn't hurt - that bastinado would've been agony, it's just that we're extremely careful not to do any real damage. We don't want to lose girls, you know. The rest of the guests probably feel the same way you do, but you just wait for the cheer when she comes out carrying a tray of drinks. It's like the hero of the football team playing on after a heavy tackle, the crowd loves it every time.'

I took a sip of coffee, noticing that our girl had once again assumed the marginally more comfortable 'drinks table' position. Denton had taken to running his hand gently over her scald, right down to her breast and nipple. 'It's getting late. Will Corinna come out soon? I'm leaving when she does.'

'Look, Vernon, I didn't just bring you here to show off, you know. I haven't forgotten that business at school that you saved me from. You risked a lot for me then, and I want to show you that I appreciate it. I mean, there's no way I'd be in this position now if the truth had come out back then. Besides, I should've kept in touch, I know, and I apologise for not doing so. But I'd like to offer you something now, as partial recompense.'

My curiosity was pricked, although I had pretty much decided that Paul was a monster, and the best thing would be the return of the status quo; that is, I never see him again. I really did enjoy caning that girl, though, and I wondered if it were possible to do something like that again, and for longer. The only way to fulfill that particular desire was through Paul, as I knew my wife Sara would never take to the idea. God, what a feeling it was to swing that cane .

'Vernon, what I would like to offer you is a basic membership of Stripes, gratis. You would get to come here twice a month, on a week-night if you'd prefer. That way you could tell your wife it was a business club meeting, like a lodge. And believe me, aside from everything, you can make some superb business contacts here.'

I sat back into the soft leather and took a sip of the liqueur that had arrived as Paul spoke, and admired the way the remaining dainty, narrow based glass stood on our girl's back. Suddenly there was a huge round of clapping and cheering, and I turned to see what I hoped it would be for - Corinna walking out sexily in her six inch heels, a silver plate of drinks held high with one hand, her broad smile lightening the room. 'I inclined to accept your offer, Paul,' I said, raising my glass. 'But there's a thing I need first. I would like a girl for myself, to cane hard, for as long as it takes me to make up my mind.

Paul laughed as he raised his glass to mine. 'But of course, if that's what you'd like. Let me show you out the back .'