I love the word peultimate (as well as antepenultimate) - it has a ring to it. But today I was thinking about the penultimate stroke of the cane.

Luckily my Cariad is rather good at judging my limits and knows how far to go. We both find the cane very sexy, so it almost always features if we 'play' at home. To be effective it has to be bearable, but only just. I sometimes know how many strokes of the cane I'm getting and sometimes not. if I don't know how many I'm to get, I am always told when I'm getting the final three or six for the time being. And that's where the penultimate stroke comes into its own.

The caning will usually get progressively more painful, but the last few strokes inevitably so. And almost always, that penultimate bite of the cane will take my breath away and leave me gasping, knowing that always, the final stroke of the cane will take me to my limit. And it does. For then. And sometimes later, the process begins again....