Worth It

I deserved it. I totally deserved it.

Celeste swung and smacked my back hard with her rope, testing the technique Rough had just shown the class.

It hurt. A lot. I deserved every bit of the pain.

The day before was the first of two of Roughinamorato's Rough Body play classes. He spoke about different parts of the body, the ways to hit it, the best places to hit, and those to avoid.

But there was one topic he said he would get to at the end of class that he almost forgot: the feet.

As we all worked in pairs, practicing the information Rough had imparted, it dawned on me that no one had brought it up.

I like Celeste a lot, but I wanted to learn what I knew would be an incredibly mean set of techniques. With a need to give myself an excuse, I saw Elf was about to talk to Rough. Spiriting over, I leaned against him and whispered into his ear.

"Ask Rough about feet."

Spiriting back to my partner, Elf immediately stepped up to Rough and spoke.

"Rough, could you talk about feet?"

"Poetic!" Celeste exclaimed.
"What?" I said with a mostly straight face.

The pairs dissipated, returning to their chairs. Everyone wanted to see this part of the lesson.

As Rough worked on Celeste's feet, French curse words fled her lips. She squirmed. She yelped. Though her face had been very expressive during class, this was the most vocal Celeste had been that day. It was wondrous to watch.

So, when she struck my back hard, multiple times, I knew I deserved it, knew the pain I endured was recompense for my attempt at underhanded ways.

But, for those precious fifteen minutes, hearing her screams and seeing her squirm, it was worth it.