Pointe Shoes

 I sit in the middle of my favourite room in the house, my little dance studio. It's a small room, filled with artificial lighting, a mirror covering the wall opposite the door, with a barre attached to all three walls that don't host the door. The floor is bouncy and wooden, perfect for dancing on, and there's a chair tucked neatly in the corner- though that's Miss Ally's chair, I'm not allowed to sit there. There's also a little shoe rack by the door, that houses all mine, and Mistress' dance shoes. This room was a present for a birthday not so long ago, Miss Ally got it done up for me so I'd have somewhere to dance. In my hands, I hold one of a pair of shiny new satin pointe shoes, that Miss Ally took me to get this morning. I'm busy sewing on the last ribbon, concentrating with all my might to get it looking neat and tidy- a task that is very difficult to do with such delicate shoes. You can't penetrate the satin with the needle, as the satin is so delicate even the tiniest touch of the needle leaves a mark; God forbid you sew an actual stitch through the satin, as, even though, from far away, it's not noticeable, from up close, it looks messy and unprofessional.

I finish sewing the ribbon onto the shoe, winding up the cotton reel and putting away the sewing kit, before fully the shoes onto my feet. I tie the ribbons around my ballet tight clad ankles, making sure to make it neat, and stand up. I walk over to the barre that's in front of the mirrored wall, and place my hands daintily on it, rising up in first position, smiling at myself in my black, strappy leotard and pink ballet tights. I keep rising up absent-mindedly, rising, and plié-ing sequentially.

After a little while, I'm broken from my balletic trance by the door being opening, and Miss ally standing there, leaning against the door frame on her shoulder, arms folded across her chest. I see her in the middle, and immediately turn around and drop to my knees, grinning at my new shoes. She smiles down at me, walking over to me and standing much closer, and directly in front of me. "Take them off, let me see." I scramble into a sitting position, and pick at the knots tied in the insides of my ankles, pulling the ribbons out of their careful positioning, and pull the shoes off my feet, heel to toe, and hand them carefully to her. She takes them over to her chair in the corner of the room, and instructs me to work on strengthening exercices at the barre, which I complicity begin, standing up, and carrying out a basic plié exercise. All the while, she meticulously inspects my shoes, the stitching of the ribbon, the bend of the arch, and the placing of the ribbons, making sure they're up to her high standards.

I'm stood right over my own pointe, on the tops of my toes, knees bent, when Miss Ally stands up, bringing the shoes over to me. "Bring the chair over here, place it facing the mirror." She demands. I nod, running over to the chair, carrying it into the centre of the room, and placing it about a metre away from the centre of the mirrored wall, facing the mirror. I don't quite know what she's going to do with it. "Good girl. Stand behind the chair, arms by your side." I do as I'm told, standing closely behind the chair, arms relaxed by my sides. "I'm going to run through your errors and then you're going to tell me what consequences you deserve."

"Yes Miss."

"Firstly, the ribbons are mainly good, but this one-" she points to the last one I sewed, "this one is lazy, you've gone through the satin two, no, three times!" I keep looking forward, watching her in the mirror as she paces around behind me. "Secondly, the ribbons are slightly off, they're angled a little too much towards the box. And, finally, they're not broken in enough."

"But-"

"Don't interrupt me, stupid girl."

"What consequence do you deserve?"

"A spanking, Miss." I say.

"Good choice." She smirks, "It's exactly what I was thinking." She weaves the ribbons of the pointe shoes expertly between her fingers, slowly ending directly behind me, taking my leotard by the straps and yanking it, leaving my top half completely bare and my leotard around my ankles. "Bend over the chair."

I bend over the back of the chair, it's a chair with fairly low back, and two arms. I grasp hold of the two arms and brace myself. She pulls down my tights and thong in one swift movement, not letting go of the shoes for even a second. Once she's done this, she takes hold of one of the shoes firmly in her right hand, standing to my left. "Watch yourself in the mirror darling. If you're not going to break the shoes in properly, then we might as well break you in." She smirks, bringing the shoe up, and slamming it down on my ass. I groan, gripping the arms of the seat tightly, each blow pushing me into the back of the chair as I groan, being forced to watch my pain in the mirror, being punished with my prized new shoes.