Crispin is very excited, but also frightened, when he learns he is to receive his first caning from Mrs Clarke, a neighbour who he finds very attractive. However, the experience is an anti-climax. He'd expected it to be agonising, but in the event he managed to take it quite easily, and concluded that he might have a high pain threshold.
His conclusion is proved to be spectacularly wrong when, ten years later, Karla walks into his office. What follows is an excruciating journey to total submission as she has him dancing under the cane.