Tease your whumpees for me.
Take something that they really, badly want or need... and hold it just out of reach.
Maybe it’s a cool glass of water, and they’ve not had a drop all day out in the dry heat. Maybe it’s the chance to come inside out of the elements. Hot food for the hungry. Painkillers or healing magic for the badly hurt. Or something more personal.
Let them see, let them imagine how good it would be. How much relief. Watch those wide desperate eyes track the thing they want with achingly intense attention. Offer it to them. Make them hope. Maybe they even start to feel gratitude.
Then stop just before they get what they want.
Drag out the desperation. Do they despair? Do they stay right on the edge, waiting on tenterhooks? Do they get angry? (Let them get angry. And humiliate them with how desperate they are anyway.) Do they beg?
Make them beg. Make them kneel and debase themselves and perform for a chance at getting what they need. Hold it just out of reach and make them strain against the restraints. Push their limits, see how far they’ll go. If they won’t do it, they can’t really need this, right?
Pretend to give in, then change your mind and dangle it out of reach again. Pretend to leave, then let them talk you round with their desperation. Drag out the teasing until they’re a mess of hope and despair and frustration and need.
Maybe in the end they get what they want. Watch them feel that powerful relief. Are they humiliated, by how good it feels? By how easy it is to feel gratitude, despite everything? Perhaps they’re already past that point, and they’re just glad to receive a little mercy.
Or maybe they don’t get what they need after all. Maybe it’s snatched away at the last moment and they’re left aching with need, unable to ignore it after the brief brush with the possibility of relief, and sobbing with frustration and disappointment.