Did you say I’ve got a lot to learn?
Well babe, don’t think I’m trying not to learn
Since this is the perfect spot to learn
Go on, teach me tonight.

She needed to return to that space that set her flying. She was close, on the periphery of the haze and electrical numbness, was almost there. She felt herself slipping, her arms spreading wider and looser as if to embrace it.
 
He brought her back. He wanted to show her things that she would remember, and in that euphoria, only wisps of memory would remain.
 
So he changed the rhythm, made her stand, made her undeniably here instead of where she wanted to be. He asked questions that needed answers, told her to count the strokes of fire.

Starting with the ABC of it
Right down to the XYZ of it
Help me solve the mystery of it
Go on, teach me tonight.

“Does this,” he began, lightly flicking the cane against her upper thighs, “hurt more than this?” He asked, as he punted her cheeks with a half-swing.
 
“Yes,” she hissed. “The thighs are worse. Much worse.”
 
“Good. Stay with me,” he whispered as the cane met those thighs again, eliciting another deep breathed reaction.
 
“Stay with me.”

One thing isn’t very clear, my love
Should the teacher stand so near, my love?
Graduation’s almost here, my love
Teach me tonight.

She stayed for as long as she could, his hand covering the recent welts with an all-over burn. She was pushed to the left, to the right, forward. Her breasts battled against her arms; her hair stuck to her tears; her toes clung to the carpet.
 
He taught her how far she could go before she left.
 
Everything loosened. Her hands released the footboard. She drooped forward but never felt the mattress beneath her. Embraced by the float, his voice came to her as the ocean comes through a seashell — a soft rush, a gentle pressure.
 
He taught her what came before. She wrote what came after.