I cropped her a few more times, just like she had asked, until she was sputttering, hanging in her bonds. I knew how to use the crop so as to not to leave any permanent marks on her beautiful fair skin - such would have been a crime. In time stripes would fade. They undoubtedly hurt, though, it was obvious from the way she winced as she hung from her cuffs, her knees weakened by the cropping.

I picked up a collar and placed it around her neck. She was too exhausted to resist or even make much of a protest. Then I pushed the button on the winch and lowered her to the floor, where I undid her cuffs from the beam.

"Thank you sir."

I did not acknowledge her. "Get on all fours."

"Sir?" I picked up the crop and took a step toward her and she scrambled to comply with my order. Without a word I attached a leash to her collar.

"Heel," I said and took off without waiting for her, giving the leash a jerk when she didn't crawl quickly enough. She didn't have time to protest before I had her crawling after me. After a quick lap around the room it was obvious she was having a difficult time keeping up, as I had to keep jerking the leash to bring her up alongside me. I stopped for a moment, and so did she, breathing hard.

"Is my puppy tired?"

She looked up at me, and for the first time, I saw anger in her eyes. She clearly did not like this little exercise. I let the silence build.

"Is my puppy tired?" She glared at me, but made no move to indicate she was even considering answering such a demeaning question. "I guess not," I said, giving her leash a jerk as I took off on another lap. She crawled behind, but grumbled, resisted, even, to the point I had to yank so hard that she fell flat on her face with a yelp.

"I'm not impressed," I said.

She looked up at me from the floor, anger still in her eyes. "Neither am I," she said through gritted teeth.

"What did you say, puppy?"

"Neither. Am. I."

"I think what we have here is a failure to communicate," I said, pulling out my favorite old line from Cool Hand Luke.

"Enough," she said. "I've had enough. I let you do what you wanted, I did the begging thing. I'm not doing this anymore."

"Let me, huh?"

"Yes, I let you do as I wanted. This isn't - I'm not, I just want to go home."

"This is not about you letting me do anything. This is about me doing what needs to be done."

"Well I guess we have a difference of opinion," she said, rubbing her neck where the collar bit into it. "I'll do a lot of things but I'm not going to crawl around like a dog for you. In fact, at this point I'm not going to do anything for you."

With that she rose to her feet and brushed off her knees, then stood upright. I gathered the leash around my forearm and pulled her close to my face. She gasped with surprise, and her eyes went wide at the force with which I held her.

"As you just said," I smiled, "I think we have a difference of opinion."