It's something to do with the flow of blood, the mechanism that provokes a man like this in the face of pain. A vigorous birching leaves a man's backside practically glowing red and his prick stiffer than an iron bar, without fail. Fitzjames knows this from personal experience, and Crozier is no different — he responds beautifully.

Fitzjames runs a hand down the heated skin of Crozier's thigh — the bare-handed blows have left him reddened and warm, all the coarse bronze hairs on his body are prickling with attention and the sweet ruddy flush of blood at the surface is like the pink of a woman's skin at the peak of pleasure. If he should drag his fingernails down Crozier's flesh to tantalize — then Crozier might suck in a breath and exhale muffled curses and James himself would be undone. The white tracks that show up in the wake of pressure are even more provoking than the rosy prints of blows. Here they are alone, without an audience, and the only one to appreciate these curious phenomena is Fitzjames.

Francis stands at full attention already; a careful eye cannot miss it. He has a beautiful tool, short and stubborn and straining. Fitzjames wants very badly to finish him off this instant, to feel the heat of his spending against his hand, but he must restrain himself. No, they are nowhere near finished yet. He will only permit him satisfaction once he's had his own way.

Fitzjames must pause to clear his throat. "Have you had enough, Mr. Crozier?"

"No." His voice is thick, dreamy with desire.

"Then I'll have to continue."

"Christ. You have a damned way of drawing these things out, you know."

"Such language in the mouth of a young gentleman," Fitzjames trails the leather head of the horsewhip between Crozier's legs, watching his balls tighten. "I expect better of you, Francis. Do bend over."

Francis obeys him without hesitation, as a good subordinate should. There is nothing in the least nautical about their empty rooms, except perhaps a general masculine sensibility; the ceilings are high and the architecture is gracious, which only serves to make the furnishings appear comically austere. Francis has unpacked a familiar collection of personal articles, from the handsome desk and chest of drawers and rather more humble bed to the well-thumbed books that scarcely take up two shelves and the lonely razor-strop that fairly begs to be relocated to a cabinet elsewhere. None of these things could serve to narrow even this private room to the dimensions of a ship's cabin. Above all is the sense of vacancy crying out to be filled with the innocuous matter that attends on life ashore; the bedroom is empty as a stage is empty, laid in waiting for activity to fill it.

Fitzjames may not be as nimble as he once was, but he can still swing a stick. Ashwood and leather, with a satisfactory weight and a gentlemanly amount of flexibility. The only antidote to polar cold is heat — close quarters, draughtless lodgings, and a periodic thrashing or two to warm up the blood.

Both of them know the mathematics of discipline well, the tallying of stripes; they have both been witnesses to the theater of punishment as much as its actual exercise. Young gentlemen are punished through bruised pride rather than stripes and starts — they are forced to stand at attention where all the men can see their red-faced embarrassment or bent over like schoolboys to feel the whisk of the birch. What the two of them do here is an act of play — an enactment of the sort of discipline both of them have known well, suspended upon the strength of personality and the sting of shame rather than brute chastisement.

The whip has a pleasing weight in his hand. Fitzjames applies the first stroke neatly and trimly across the backs of his thighs, parallel to the sweet crease of his buttocks. This is only enough to make Francis start — his thighs jump and tighten, his arms tremble – but Fitzjames keeps the force exerted at a minimum. The leather tip of the riding whip barely grazes that lovely place, low on the buttock and high on the thigh, where blows can be administered without much fear — there will be bruises, perhaps.

"One, Mr. Crozier."

He can sound like a bored schoolmaster if he wants to, or one of those especially insufferable officers who takes it on himself to be father and tutor and judge to every luckless youth who crosses his path. Stern and hard, but not inflexible — that queer sense of whimsy that accompanies absolute power. Arbitrary favor and arbitrary punishment.

Crozier turns his head; his voice is muffled by the back of his arm. “Again.” He sounds amused.

James pauses for the count of ten before delivering the second stripe, parallel to the first — a beautiful raw line with the first reddening under it, harder now.

"Two, Mr. Crozier, if you please."

Crozier barks with laughter, like a cough. "Hit me again, goddamnit. You're chastising me, not torturing me."

"Don't tempt me."

"At any rate, you don't need to keep count."

Three and four are marked out in quick and severe succession, without such a pretty delay for the pain to unfold. By comparison, the preceding blows were caresses; it's a pleasure to see Crozier's knees buckle a little as the third blow falls, his hands flexing against the table's edge, and his back arch as he presses his elbows against the polished upholstery. The soft cry he gives is sweet as sugar. James mentally counts to a brisk ten; the already reddened flesh is blooming in scarlet, and the marks are already beginning to run blue. Or is that only a trick of the lamplight? He will bruise, of course, and James will kiss the bruises with wondering care, he'll mend him as carefully as wounding him and with as much careful deliberation.

Fitzjames paces the floor, thrumming with queer energy — there is power in his whole body from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes, an immense and hungry potentiality that exceeds any other desire. He wants to thrash Francis bloody, bring him to tears, bring him to ecstasies — he wants to give him satisfaction, more than anything, even if it draws blood. This thing of theirs is its own unique adventure, a voyage up the murky river of the mind.

Five and six come as light teasing strokes like the whisking of a birch, patiently spaced with a proper interval for savoring — Crozier seems to find them more unbearable than ever, squirming prettily and twisting onto his side to avoid the tickle of leather and rod. A well-placed hand brings him back into true.

"You know that I love you. Hold still, boy, or I'll have to do something regrettable."

James steps over him, between his legs, and nudges his heels apart — Francis laughs a breathless gasping laugh as Fitzjames nudges past him with a hand trailing over his flank. James can't resist giving him a loving swat.

Schoolboys get six of the best; the two of them are men, with knowledge of their own minds. James takes up the count again, this time from a fresh angle, from the other side.

Something lurks beneath the surface in Francis, just under the skin like a rising bruise. If he feels that he is guilty of some crime, if he feels he has more in common with vicious mutineers and upstarts than with Barrow and Ross — if he has loved the younger Ross with more than a brotherly love, if he has survived what he had no right to survive, then let it be so. None of these things can be held against him; their price has been paid. Whatever it is he is casting out through this particular rite, James cannot criticize. If it is only for pleasure, the purest pleasure, then that is not so disagreeable.

Francis can hardly be characterized as voluptuous, but he has a pleasing thickness that pads his harsh angles. He is well-suited to blows, and the soft swell of his bottom would cry out for an ardent pinch at the best of times, but bent over here with those gilt-haired thighs speckled with red welts and the wiry planes of his low back so naked to the eye, James can scarcely restrain his admiration. The man has a scattering of faint dun-colored freckles in the unlikeliest of places, peeping through the thicket of his stripes.

Seven: high up and glancing, aimed at the softest parts. This one comes resounding and sharp, the tip of the whip leaving its own barbed mark — swiftly delivered, and just as swiftly withdrawn. It draws a raw groan from Crozier's throat — a sound fit to chill any man to his bones. Not despair, but endurance, resistance, pleasure.

Christ, his own self-discipline threatens to fail him; if Francis would have it he'd fall on him now and finish him off without mercy. He'd take him down from such a martyr's posture and roger him senseless. These are the leisure activities that will welcome them now upon their happy homecoming.

Eight comes sharp and curt, a punitive rap left to linger across the buttocks for a moment as the sensation blooms. James’s hand drags down the nape of Crozier's neck — Francis' blond hair is damp with sweat, and the pulse can be felt through his skin, the sweet raggedness of his breathing is terribly loud, sharp shaking breaths drawn through his teeth. Fitzjames' own breathing is not so steady either.

Once, James was only an upstart to be shunned, once his conversation had been so utterly contemptible that Francis would have preferred to be shut away in the coal-hole with a bottle of poison for company — now they are equals, and James detains him at his leisure. By day they're at liberty to participate in any pastime fitting to a pair of bachelors — hunting in the fields, fishing in the streams. By night, they have their privacy.

The muscles of Crozier's legs are trembling, his knees are braced against the blows — Fitzjames reaches between his thighs and brings each limb into a more charitable position. The pads of his feet should be planted on the ground, and the angle of forearm and shoulder should not be so severe — James adjusts his body as he would adjust a remarkable scientific instrument, firmly but with great delicacy. From so near behind he can smell the sweat of Francis' body; his erection throbs.

"Very good, Mr. Crozier."

Fitzjames cups Crozier's balls in his hand and savors their smarting warmth; Crozier growls at him, tight-jawed, before James draws back to deliver the ninth stroke.

The blow is laid out in bloodless white on red — Crozier sucks a sharp breath between his teeth and jerks against the wood. The muscles of his arms are clenched and taut, even by lamplight one might count every freckle and dimple and scar there, each one shining out like a polestar. Every spot and pockmark on that body is wonderfully familiar — the trembling bend of Francis' back, the creases of his hips where he has so often pressed a kiss.

The tenth stroke, by contrast, is red and wonderful — James jabs the red welt with the tip of the whip and enjoys Crozier's groan. The blow lands squarely in that sweet spot that makes Francis gasp; he flattens against the desk like a man in his throes, but he does not budge from his posture of subjection.

All the appalling things he wants to do with this man, all the thoroughly shocking acts they'll perform together. Each of them will have a bedroom, of course, and he will have Francis in both of them, he will fuck him in a different bed on alternate nights if that will make this place feel more of a home — more lavish privacy than either of them has ever known, and they will make a home in it together.

Only ten strokes — wonderfully restrained, scarcely punitive at all. James’s blood is singing, and there is a distinct spring in his step. Ten strokes and Crozier is a quivering jelly beneath his hands.

Fitzjames rests the whip against his thigh for a moment; a light sweat is standing on his own brow. He is dizzy with mastery, but delivers two more strokes to the same precious place with the sternest regularity. Francis goes perfectly rigid under the blows and makes a succession of wonderfully expressive exclamations.

Crozier's manful little cries are exquisite to him. Fitzjames pauses, letting the ache in his arm bloom and the breath come back to his lungs. Crozier's suffering body has gone soft with pleasure, hot and lolling; his stocking-feet paw against the carpets as he recovers himself. James will have to purchase him new slippers for their housewarming.

James clears his throat. "How many is that?"

"Only the dozen, sir," Crozier pants. His knuckles are standing out white where he grips the table's edge, the soft furrow of his spine makes a gouge down his back. He will be all aches and pains in the morning, that's for certain, but he has never looked lovelier, never looked braver.

"Only a dozen strokes, what shocking cheek. I don't believe you have repented in the least, young fellow."

Fitzjames presses a kiss to the back of his neck.

Restraint in all things, moderation in all things — in boasting and in lovemaking and in chastisement. They have survived unimaginable hardships; now they must survive the whims of porters and shipping companies, and make a home for themselves in one of England's green places.