From the Top Shelf - Concertina III

In the second half of her book, Concertina, Susan Winemaker describes her relationship with a lover and former client. This excerpt is about a game that he invented. 

The idea was simple to begin with, but it evolved into an enduring and intricate dialogue, an art form. We took turns waiting on the landing at the top of the stairs, naked on all fours and completely still. He chose that position because of its submissiveness, its exposure, and for its beauty and elegance. It was a statement of readiness and willingness; it was an offering of openness.

Whoever was home first the following evening would text the other to say so. They in turn had to say when they'd be back and text again when they were exactly ten minutes away, at which point the other would get into position.

It was me who arrived home first the following day. When I received the ten minutes text, I removed my bathrobe and folded it under my knees to protect them from the hardwood floor when I got down on all fours. I dropped my head, hung my ankles over the top step, and waited. And discovered the challenge of staying perfectly still for even one minute. Try it and you'll know what I mean... My knees were hurting and so was my back and I was getting bored by the time I heard the key turn in the lock and then it was my heart thrown open. Interesting how his presence changed everything. I forgot my physical discomfort, I stopped waiting, and my self-consciousness became intense, acute. He slipped off his shoes as quietly as a thief, and then I heard his trousers rub and the stairs creak as he climbed closer, closer, out of step with the wild drumbeat of my heart, the flow of thoughts in my head. What does he see?  What does he think?  What's he going to do?  Is he pleased?  I did not move.
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A couple of days later the vision I saw at the top of the stairs was his firm bottom, his broad back dipping, and his intense stillness.  He was so severely silent, and the vision so startling, so powerful, that it's branded in my mind. He turned himself into a gift that evening, a statue, an entree, a feast for my eyes. I saw my lover supplicating and offering himself to me---and that was enough. I didn't want to do anything. I really didn't, but he was waiting, and I knew what that was like.

I climbed the stairs and then I saw he was biting the handle of a whip and two clothes pegs were clamped on his nipples and there was a strawberry on his back. My lover was an artist. My lover made this effort just for me. It was beautiful and I thought: people should see this vision of a lover's sheer effort.

But he was waiting. I could do whatever I wanted to do to him, but he'd suggested the whip. So he wanted to be whipped by me, or for me, because he thought it would please me? Does he want pain or does he want to show me that he'll hurt for me? It was too confusing. He wants me to be myself but he wants the self to be a Mistress, to be strong, sexual and persuasive; a vixen, a vision, the one who can fix him.

I'd never whipped him before because the whip left marks. I bit the berry and took the whip from his mouth and gave him a fruity kiss. I teased him and prepared him with the suede tails of the whip before I swiveled and got ready to strike him with full force. I saw his effort not to move. I was still wearing my coat and the neighbors were downstairs. I snapped my wrist like a lion tamer and landed one heavy lash across his bare ass. The adrenaline, not knowing how he'd react, the sound of the smack, my expert aim were but brief rewards before the tidal wave of his roar. He sounded so angry and resentful, and that in turn made me angry and resentful; I was not his foe and he'd turned on me again. He gives me the power and then he yanks it away. Who put the whip there in the first place? I was upset, but I leaned over his body and kissed his moist neck, and at the exact same time we whispered, "Thank you." and it was over for the night.

Do you think you might try that game, or some variation of it?