A Spanking Story from Janus 30. More stories are available to read here.

Home From Home
by Andrew Grantham

CLIFF was somewhat used to seeing Andrea. The pretty, blonde 19-year-old had been a regular visitor to his home for the past eight years or so.

Andrea had mated up with Cliff’s daughter at the start of secondary school and the relationship had been maintained throughout the following years. Always a very pleasant and pretty young girl, Andrea had blossomed into a very attractive and nubile teenager.

Cliff himself would be the first to agree that Andrea appeared in quite a lot of his fantasies.

Since her parents had split up, the girl had come to spend more and more of her time in Cliff’s home; the main reason being that her mother had set up house with her ‘boyfriend’ on the other side of town.

There was generally a good reason why the pretty blonde spent so many nights under Cliff’s roof, sharing a room with his daughter – the last bus had gone, she had forgotten her umbrella, she didn’t have the bus fare, etc, etc. Cliff didn’t mind in the slightest. Andrea was no trouble at all and she was nice to have around the place.

She was the kind of girl who could listen to, and take, a joke without taking offence. Cliff’s jokes had gradually become more risqué of late, but personal contact had never gone beyond a peck on the lips on some special occasion – and a very rare pat on the bottom; an affectionate pat of course!

* * *

They bumped into each other on the landing outside the bathroom.

It was Andrea who spoke first.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, her bright blue eyes twinkling.

‘I live here, remember,’ smiled Cliff.

Andrea threw back her head and laughed, her blonde curls tumbling about as she did so.

‘I thought you were at work is what I meant to say!’ she corrected herself.

‘I’ve got the day off,’ Cliff told her. ‘I’ve been in the garage all morning, tinkering with the car.’ He showed her his oil-blackened hands and the blonde recoiled at the sight.

Andrea’s face was pink and shining and not yet made-up. Not that she needed any make-up – she was pretty without it. But it was obvious that she was not long out of bed.

‘Have you just got up?’ Cliff asked her.

She nodded.

Cliff’s own daughter had got herself a decent job, but Andrea was still unemployed. There might be a shortage of jobs, but all the same, she made no real effort to go and get one.

‘There’s nothing to get up for,’ she told him bluntly.

‘You’ll never get a job lying in bed all day!’ he sniffed.

‘I know,’ agreed Andrea. ‘I’m lazy, aren’t I?’ she added with a smile to reveal her gleaming, newly-brushed teeth.

‘You need your bottom smacking, young lady,’ Cliff wagged an oily finger at her.

Andrea laughed again. ‘You’d better not,’ she warned. ‘I might enjoy it!’

‘I might enjoy it myself,’ muttered Cliff to himself as he went into the bathroom to wash his hands.

‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ called out Andrea as she started down the stairs.

Whilst he was washing his hands, Cliff could hardly take his mind off his daughter’s pretty, blonde friend. Her legs and arse looked as if they had been poured into her faded, blue jeans. Her red, woollen sweater clung to the contours of her body.

There was a cup of tea waiting for him on the kitchen table. Andrea was already sat down, sipping her drink. She looked at Cliff over the top of the cup. It was the first time he and Andrea had ever been completely alone together. The proximity of the blonde aroused him and he wondered if he might just dare to make a pass at her.

As they drank and nibbled biscuits, Cliff again brought up the subject of job hunting. Andrea looked thoughtful. Suddenly, she put down her cup, got up and stood right alongside Cliff. He was totally unprepared for what she did next.

The tall blonde girl bent over his knees so that the palms of her hands were flat on the floor.

‘What are you up to?’ croaked Cliff unbelievingly.

She turned her head back to look at him. There was a trace of a smile across her luscious, full, red lips. ‘You said I needed a smacked bottom,’ she said slowly and seductively. ‘Are you going to?’

Cliff cleared his throat. ‘Yes,’ he replied somewhat meekly.

It took him a little while to gather his wits about him. Here he was, with one of his favourite fantasy girls across his lap, begging for her bottom to be spanked.

Cliff recovered his wits quickly. He wasn’t going to miss an opportunity like this.

‘If I’m going to give you a good spanking,’ he told her solemnly, ‘I can’t do it white you’re wearing jeans.’

Andrea sighed and gave him the answer he wanted to hear. ‘You’d better take them off, then,’ she invited.

It was a challenge as well as an invitation. Cliff responded to her challenge. He would lower her jeans all right. No way was Andrea going to take them down herself.

Cliff slipped his hands around her trim waist and found the button he was looking for. He pushed it through the hole and then fumbled for the zipper.

Andrea giggled as Cliff pulled on the metal tag. He was well aware that he was brushing against her most intimate part. And she didn’t seem to mind! He still found it hard to believe what was actually happening in the kitchen of his own home.

At last he managed to drag the fastener all the way down the metal teeth. He then moved his hands into the waistband of the jeans and tugged sharply.

Andrea humped up and down on his lap to facilitate the lowering of the denim pants. It was a little embarrassing for Cliff as she bounced about, obviously well aware of the effect she was having on him.

The jeans slid down and Cliff licked his lips at his first-ever sight of Andrea’s knickered bottom and thigh tops. He held his breath, unable to believe that he was actually living out one of his favourite fantasies.

Andrea’s pink cotton panties were so skimpy that most of her delicious bum-cheeks bulged out beyond the elastic borders. Her cheeks were faintly pink and beautifully curved, her thighs gleaming and generous.

Andrea turned her golden head and looked up at him. ‘What’s the matter?’ she taunted. ‘Have you got cold feet?’

‘I’ll show you if I’ve got cold feet or not,’ he retorted. ‘I’ll make your arse hot for you!’

‘Ooh, Mr Fraser!’ she squeaked and turned her head away.

Cliff put his left arm around her waist and raised his right hand high into the air. Taking a deep breath, he brought the flat of his hand down onto the pantie-covered target.

The flesh quivered, but there was no reaction from Andrea. He knew he hadn’t hurt her. And he wanted to hurt her! Although she hadn’t said it in as many words, she had dared him to hurt her.

Erotic experience it might be, but the pretty blonde still had to be shown that he was master of the house, and of the guest, too! Furthermore, he really wanted to make her arse so sore that she might just get up off it, and at least start looking for a job – even if she couldn’t find one.

He gave her bottom another swipe. It felt nice, but he knew he was not causing her any discomfort. Cliff wanted to see Andrea squirming across his lap and he wanted to hear her crying out as his hand delivered distress to her lovely rump.

Of course Cliff had never been fortunate enough to spank anyone before, not even his own daughter. What he needed was practice; and what better practice area was there then the gently-rounded buttocks he had at his mercy!

Perhaps a series of short, sharp slaps would have the desired effect? There was only one way to find out!

Instead of raising his hand high in the air, Cliff lifted it only about eighteen inches. Letting it hover for a little while, he then brought it down sharply onto the exposed part of Andrea’s right bum-cheek.

Serlap!

‘Ooh!’ let out Andrea. It wasn’t a cry in the true sense, but Cliff knew he had begun to make some inroads into the girl’s pain barrier.

There was a red mark on the pale flesh. He aimed for that mark.

‘Ow!’ This time, Andrea’s vocal reaction was higher-pitched.

Cliff permitted himself a smile and decided upon his next target area – the opposite cheek!

The scarlet handmark again sprang up, the small layer of puppy fat causing the cheek to dance delightfully.

‘Ouch!’ The response was louder this time and Andrea squirmed in his crotch.

With his on-the-job training now complete, Cliff began to pepper Andrea’s bottom with a succession of stinging smacks.

The palm of his hand began to sting as well as he covered every inch of her bare-fleshed buttocks and fleshy thigh tops.

As the intensity of the spanks increased, so Andrea’s pain and discomfort increased too. Her cries became more urgent and her protests more powerful.

Cliff had to grip her tightly around the waist as she wriggled and squirmed.

‘That’s enough please, Mr Fraser!’ she gasped eventually.

Andrea tried to rise and she turned her head to give him an appealing look.

‘Oh no, it isn’t!’ smiled Cliff smugly. ‘I’ve only just started. Your pretty arse is going to get a lot hotter before I’ve finished with it!’

Andrea had lost all her cockiness. The situation had passed out of her control. The most she had expected had been a few half-hearted slaps. Her first shock had been when he had taken her up on her teasing offer to remove her jeans. Now, he was really in the swing of it. Surely he wouldn’t go so far as to…?

She gave out a cry of protest when she realised Cliff was going to take down her knicks! He put his hands in the elasticated waistband and roughly yanked them down, aware of a slight tearing sound as he did so. The pink panties joined her fallen jeans.

‘Mr Fraser!’ gasped Andrea, aghast that he was now staring at her totally bare bottom. Realising that he might see the precious, dewy secrets between her thighs, she stopped wriggling and pressed her legs together.

Still gripping her around the waist, Cliff re-positioned Andrea, so that she was bent over one knee only. He then brought his other leg up and over to completely trap her lightly downed limbs.

‘What are you going to do?’ croaked the dumbfounded blonde.

‘I’m going to make your pretty bottom red all over!’ he told her, tracing a forefinger around the triangle of still white flesh. ‘If a job’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing properly. That’s what I always say!’

‘Please don’t, Mr Fraser!’ begged Andrea, her now watery blue eyes making the appeal as well as her voice.

‘No, Andrea,’ smiled Cliff grimly. ‘It was your idea, remember?’

She set her lips in a thin line and, resigned to her fate, she clenched her red and white bum cheeks.

Cliff really laid into the unhurt white triangle, and soon her entire bottom was a brilliant, scarlet hue. Andrea cried out and her legs thrashed about wildly.

All good things have to come to an end, and reluctantly Cliff gave her delicious behind a final wallop.

What would happen now, he wondered? Would Andrea slap his face in anger? Would she storm out of the house and tell her mother? He freed her and helped her to her feet.

‘Ooh! That hurt!’ was all she said as she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, her hands glued to her scorched bum. She didn’t seem to mind that he was looking at the downy, blonde fluff at the junction of her thighs.

She pulled up her knicks and her jeans and never even mentioned anything about what had just taken place but there now seemed to be some kind of a bond between himself and the girl.

* * *

He watched her walk to the bus stop, swinging a plastic bag containing her things. Looking at her, no-one would ever guess that her lovely denim-covered bottom was as red as the sweater she was wearing.

Cliff was still tinkering with the car when his daughter returned home from work.

‘I saw Andrea in town,’ she announced as she walked into the garage.

Cliff dropped a spanner and the metal rang on the concrete floor. Had she spilled the beans?

‘She was actually job-hunting!’ exclaimed his daughter. ‘Would you believe it?’

‘Fancy!’ was all Cliff said in reply.

‘Dad!’ began his daughter. Then she waited for a little while before continuing: ‘Andrea wants to ask you a big favour.’

‘What’s that?’ he wanted to know.

‘Andrea wants to know if she can come and live here!’

A Caning Story from Janus 44. More stories can be read here and the second part of this story is available here.

Behind high walls. Part 1
by R.T. Mason

THE discreet sign on the brick pillar at the side of the large iron gates says simply: ‘Balcombe Manor’. A black limousine draws up along the lane which leads from the main road. The uniformed chauffeur gets out, unlocks the gate and then drives through. In the back seat a pretty young woman glance around, her large eyes alert, inquiring. Are they apprehensive too? The chauffeur gets out again to relock the gates and then drives on, wheels crunching softly on the gravel of the driveway as it winds its way through leafy shrubs and stately old trees.

Yes, the young woman is apprehensive. She is trying not to be and tells herself, as she has told herself ever since it was decided that she was corning here, that there is no need to be apprehensive, that in fact she is very fortunate because a stay at Balcombe Manor is not at all cheap. But her new husband, Roger Filton, is rich and he can well afford to send his young wife here. They have been married just six months. Roger Filton is 45 so he has been in no hurry to make matrimonial ties. Annabel, our young lady in the back of the limousine, is 22; a very pretty girl with a lovely shapely figure, well educated and coming from an excellent family.

These are admirable qualities in a young wife but there are other qualities too that a gentleman may wish to see in a new spouse. In particular that whole area of femininity and submission which nowadays can be so neglected in a girl’s upbringing. Many gentlemen of traditional views will regard such qualities as almost beyond price. At Balcombe Manor, for a not unreasonable cost, they can be taught.

In addition to those ornate iron gates Balcombe Manor’s ten acres are surrounded by a high substantial brick wall. It is a beautiful, mostly Georgian house set deep in the heart of the English countryside. It was chosen for its purpose because of this very remoteness and seclusion from prying eyes, since the training that is offered here is clearly the sort of thing that the common press, if alerted, would make a very big meal of. One has only to think of that unfortunate establishment in Ireland, set up to give adult young women a taste of life at a traditional girls’ boarding school, which in recent months was discovered by the press. It was a highly traumatic experience for all concerned.

Mrs Blackett of Balcombe Manor shudders at the thought of anything like that. So you will not see advertise¬ments for her courses, not even in the most select and refined of periodicals; word of mouth is anyway quite suf¬ficient. Word does get around. Deborah X for instance, a highly admired young wife; oh yes, she spent two months at Balcombe Manor. That sort of thing. In any case it was not intended for the masses. It is expensive and it can only cope with at most five young women at a time. Because personal tuition and attention are essential. All applicants are vetted.

The black limousine comes to the end of the drive, in front of Balcombe Manor’s handsome facade. The chauffeur gets out and opens the rear door. Annabel Filton, looking a little nervous, alights. She is quite tall, with lustrous shoulder-length chestnut hair, in a restrained well-tailored navy-blue suit with matching patent leather court shoes. As the chauffeur moves round to collect her cases from the boot a housemaid appears at the front door. Smiling, she conducts the visitor in. Annabel has time to glimpse through glossy laurels an immaculate lawn shimmering in the afternoon sunshine. In the shade to one side in an old-fashioned garden swing-seat sit two young women in quiet conversation.

Inside, across a richly carpeted hall, the maid knocks quietly at a door. They enter a sumptuously appointed office/sitting-room. Opposite, behind a splendid rosewood desk is seated a maturely handsome woman, her thick grey-flecked black hair drawn somewhat severely back. She rises, smiling and extending her hand.

‘It’s Mrs Filton of course: Annabel. Good afternoon; I am Sylvia Blackett. Bring us some tea, would you, Bridget please.’

The maid curtseys and quietly exits. Mrs Blackett indicates two wing chairs looking out on the shimmering lawn. They sit down.

‘Good; now first things first. I shall address you by your Christian name, Annabel, because you are very much in the position of pupil and teacher. For the same reason you will address me as Mrs Blackett. So, Annabel, your husband has sent you here for two months of training. He is clearly an eminently sensible husband, if I may say so, and I do not say this because of my fee. Standards of behaviour in young women simply seem to go from bad to worse. Don’t you agree, my dear?’

Annabel hesitates, then nods. She does not necessarily agree and she has remonstrated with Roger at length after he suggested that she come here. But thankfully she is not a rebellious young woman.

‘Yes, I’m sure you do. Well, he may rest assured with us. When you leave you will be a credit to him, Annabel, and a credit to your sex. You will embrace all the traditional feminine virtues. Self-discipline and charmingly feminine submission to the male. That is the goal, is it not, my dear?’

Annabel says quietly, ‘Yes, Mrs Blackett.’ She is reasonably submissive already though and she has been able to see no good reason to come here to learn it. There has been considerable argument, accompanied by tears on Annabel’s side. But husband Roger has been adamant. The course has been highly recommended to him.

‘Stand up, please, Annabel.’

Annabel stands, her high heels sinking into the expensive carpet. She has a full womanly figure, the jacket of her suit showing the bulge of ripe breasts while, below, her straight skirt likewise indicates generous buttocks.

‘Yes; most charming, but we are not exactly a Twiggy, are we, Annabel? And I don’t imagine you are wearing a foundation garment?’

Annabel bites her lip and shakes her head. She has heard some talk of foundation garments in connection with Balcombe Manor.

‘No, I thought not. But a good firm foundation is the very basis of proper femininity, Annabel. Tight-lacing is a constant reminder to a young woman of that so essential self-discipline. A young woman of quality does not allow her body to sway and jiggle and flop, she keeps it under firm control. Tomorrow morning, young lady, we shall take a trip into town, to my corsetiere. We shall see about that too too exuberant flesh.’

Annabel pushes back a lock of errant chestnut hair. She had noticed, when Mrs Blackett was standing, that under her elegant plum-coloured gown she was remarkably slim-waisted for an older woman. The reason is now evident. Mrs Blackett has not finished.

‘And while we are on the subject of discipline, Annabel, there is that other very key area. Physical chastisement. Were you whipped at school? Caned?’

Annabel is still standing, rather as a schoolgirl might before her Headmistress. Mrs Blackett’s stunning words make this very appropriate. Flushing red the young woman shakes her head. Mrs Blackett gets to her feet, deep brown eyes smiling.

‘Another area of quite essential discipline, my dear. Just remember, those so charming Victorian and Edwardian ladies whom we so very much admire were all brought up with the constant threat of a sound whipping across their buttocks.’

She lightly touches Annabel’s arm. An Annabel who can feel her knees trembling.

‘So you’ll be pleased to hear that we have a regular regimen of the cane and strap here at Balcombe Manor. It is administered by myself and by Gillman, my senior servant, who is a mature and experienced man. A system of demerits is operated. All aspects of a pupil’s behaviour are kept under scrutiny arid demerits are recorded in her Record Book which she must keep up to date at all times.’

Annabel’s head is spinning. A friend who knew someone who was here had smilingly alluded to the cane but Annabel assumed it was simply a joke. Mrs Blackett squeezes her arm.

‘All pupils are assessed stringently, Annabel; that is how one learns and progresses, is it not? You can therefore expect to receive a whipping most days.’

A soft knock at the door. It is the maid with the tea: choice crockery and elegant silver on a tray. Mrs Blackett, as she deals with the tea things, is giving further details. So that body control can be achieved more rapidly and also to get the full effect of body discipline, a restraining garment will be worn at all times, including in bed. Annabel will only remove it for her bath. Annabel sips the fine China tea but its taste goes unnoticed as she listens to what Mrs Blackett is saying. Did Roger know all this? Can he be a party to this subjugation of his wife?

Almost as if Mrs Blackett can read the younger woman’s thoughts she smiles across at Annabel. ‘It is all as your husband would wish, my dear. It is what he would wish to do himself but to be effective it needs a third party, someone who can take an objective view.’

Mrs Blackett’s beringed hand puts down her cup. ‘He will naturally be permitted to visit you; up to twice a week is allowed – more than that does interfere with a girl’s training. And you will be allowed to see him in the privacy of your own room. We are understanding of a husband’s needs and there is no reason why he should be completely deprived of his wife’s marital services for the two months she is on the course.’

Annabel flushes. So Roger will be allowed to come and… and make love to her. So that he doesn’t get deprived. While she…

Mrs Blacken smiles her charming smile. ‘Does all this sound a little unwelcome, my dear?’

‘No… no…’ Though of course it sounds highly unwelcome. The cane and being constantly in corsets when she has never dreamt of wearing them.

The older woman’s tone is suddenly firmer. ‘I don’t think you are being quite honest, Annabel. I detect that you do find all this less than ideal. Now in the first place I require a pupil to be completely honest with me, and in the second place if one is unhappy about something one has to learn not to show it. So for a start we could call that two demerits, couldn’t we?’

Annabel’s face flushes deep red again.

‘Yes, Annabel?’

‘Yes, Mrs Blackett,’ she answers submissively.

‘That’s better, young lady. We shall call it two demerits.’ Mrs Blackett rises with a rustle of her rich gown and goes over to her desk. She returns with a small leather-covered notebook, maroon grain with Balcombe Manor printed in gold. The book is handed to Annabel, together with an expensive gold Parker pen.

‘Sit down and start your record, Annabel. Write on the first page: Annabel Filton: Her Record Book. On the next page write the date and: Two demerits. Underneath write: Lack of honesty and lack of self-control. When you have done that you will receive two strokes of the cane.’

Annabel’s hand seems scarcely able to write; the words that appear are hardly recognisable as her normal firm handwriting. Two strokes of the cane! Has Mrs Blackett actually said this?

That lady has pressed a buzzer and the door now opens. A man, of similar age to Mrs Blackett, in a dark suit like the chauffeur. His face has the impassive expression of the well-trained English manservant.

‘Ah Gillman. This is our new pupil, Mrs Filton. Would you fetch a medium-weight cane, please?’

His expression does not change. ‘Yes Madam.’ Looking at Annabel he says, ‘Good afternoon, Madam,’ then goes out. In no time he is back, a wicked-looking three-foot cane in his hand.

Annabel is trembling all over. She has put the Record Book and the pen in her handbag, as instructed by Mrs Blackett. Annabel’s big green-brown eyes fix on the cane, mesmerised.

‘Stand please, Annabel. Remove your skirt; then raise your slip and lower your knickers. Gillman will give you two strokes across your bare bottom.’

The green-brown eyes dart to Mrs Blackett in disbelief. She is looking as impassive as Gillman, now flexing the cane. What Mrs Blackett has said is impossible.

‘Please…’ she whispers. ‘I didn’t mean… it won’t happen again…’

Mrs Blackett’s voice is brusque. ‘Don’t be silly. And don’t prevaricate. Get that skirt off; and then get your knickers down. I assume you don’t want Gillman to have to undress yon.’

The desperate eyes go from Mrs Blackett to Gillman and back again. As a last resort she pleads what new pupils at Balcombe Manor frequently plead.

‘C…can you… do it then… Please, Mrs Blackett.’

‘I could but I am not going to. A pupil’s first caning is always from Gillman. I find there is a little extra shock value in having a male servant do it. And Gillman is a very experienced man, aren’t you, James?’

Gillman sounds as if it is all in the day’s work. ‘Yes, Madam, I have had some experience of young ladies by now.’

‘Of course you have. Now will you get that skirt off, Annabel! Or shall we put two further demerits in your book for insubordination?’

There is clearly no getting out of it. Annabel is here for two whole months, unless when Roger comes to visit she can persuade him to cancel her stay. Trembling hands go to her waist. Annabel lowers her skirt and steps out of it. Mrs Blackett places it on a chair. An unhappy glance at the older woman, and Annabel raises her lace-edged white slip. She is wearing flesh-coloured nylons, their darker welts tautly fastened by straps of a white suspender belt. Annabel’s thighs above the nylons are full and pale; she is not a sun worshiper and this at least will meet with Mrs Blackett’s approval. A feminine lady’s flesh should remain soft and pale, not coarsened and made dark by the sun’s searing rays. But Annabel’s knickers, white nylon, are tight and very brief and Mrs Blackett will not approve of this.

‘Slip them down, to the tops of your stockings. And then bend over the chair.’

Mrs Blackett pushes Annabel’s head firmly down in the pink brocaded seat, then slides up her slip, pushing it and the suit jacket up beyond the bending girl’s waist. Twin full moons are thrust up and out over the chair’s arm. Full sumptuous pale moons that have never known the kiss of cane or strap – as they have also never known the tight grip of a restraining garment. James Gillman’s face is as impassive as ever but his eyes are devouring this marvellous sight.

Mrs Blackett’s soft hands arrange Annabel, pushing her long legs further out and straightening her knees. She delivers a light slap to the soft bottom.

‘Try and keep quite still, Annabel. Show some dignity; Gillman doesn’t want to have to struggle with a bottom that’s squirming about like an eel. He will give you three strokes. The third one is because I regard your knickers as quite unsuitable. Perhaps you didn’t know but it will serve as a reminder in future. A young woman’s knickers should properly cover her bottom, not leave half of it bare. And they should be loose-legged.’

She steps back and looks at Gillman. ‘Right James. Three nice hard ones.’

The pain, when the cane makes its contact with her bare bottom, is something quite out of Annabel’s previous experience. Squarely across the fullest curve of her ripe rump, it is like a hot iron searing her soft and most sensitive flesh. Annabel’s breath bursts out in an instinctive and most unladylike howl while her whole body jerks in violent reaction. But there is no time to attempt to come to terms with the savage pain before the second stroke lashes down almost on top of the first.

Annabel lets out another gasping wail as a second narrow stripe rapidly reddens across her pale, quivering buttocks. The pain is still rising, intensifying, when the third and final stroke cracks down. Again it produces the desperate yelp, the frenzied flesh-wobbling writhing of ripe nates.

Gillman steps back. Mrs Blackett, bright-eyed, moves forward to pull the shaking young woman to her feet. Annabel’s stricken bottom feels as if it is literally on fire.

‘Not a very dignified performance, Annabel. We will certainly have to do better than that or we will be getting demerits for inability to take the cane properly. Now please take those knickers right off. If you’ve nothing more suitable with you you can go without until we can get some acceptable ones tomorrow.’

Still shaking with the pain and shock Annabel steps out of her knickers, then puts on her skirt. She glances at Gillman and quickly looks away. As well as suffering the intense pain she has never felt so humiliated in her life.

‘Write your third demerit in your Record Book, Annabel. Put it down as unseemly attire. Gillman will now show you to your room. Your time is free until dinner which is at 7.30. I should have a rest and then Gillman or one of the maids will introduce you to my other young women. I have three more pupils in residence at present.’

Mrs Blackett smiles her charming smile. ‘Oh, one thing, I do approve of your stockings. Tights are quite an abomination. All right, my dear?’

Annabel says numbly, ‘Yes, Mrs Blackett.’

Another smile. ‘Don’t be distressed. The first caning is a shock and it is meant to be. It gets a girl nicely in the right frame of mind. Don’t brood over it; just remember it is in a very good cause. Now here’s something for you to read. It is not difficult and you will be questioned on it in due course.’

The book she has handed Annabel is bound in maroon grained leather like her Record Book. It is entitled ‘The Submissive Woman’. With her bottom still searing, pulsating, Annabel goes out with Gillman. She ascends the stairs in front of him, all too conscious of that red-hot bottom; conscious also of the fact that she has no knickers on under her tight skirt and that Gillman, close behind her, is well aware of this.

Annabel’s bedroom is cosy, feminine, looking out over the garden, and has its own en suite bathroom. Her cases have been brought up and her things put away. She looks around but her mind is still full of that horrendous happening not five minutes ago. Bending over the arm of that chair with her bottom bare. And this man, this servant, viciously caning her. Gillman, it seems, is also still thinking of it.

‘I hope you won’t regard it as personal, Madam – what I had to do. It’s my duty, you understand, part of my job. I have to do it to all the ladies.’

Flushing, Annabel shakes her head.

In his obsequious manner Gillman asks if she will take a rest now. He will come back, in an hour, to take her out to meet the other ladies. They are probably in the garden, afternoons being generally set aside for relaxation.

Annabel says yes. She feels in urgent need of a period alone before meeting anyone anyway. Suddenly she recalls Mrs Blackett’s remark about being under scrutiny. Annabel looks away, not wishing to meet Gillman’s eyes.

‘I… I suppose you have to make a note of everything I do and report it to Mrs Blackett. Tell me please… Gillman… am I doing anything that will get me demerits?’

Gillman shakes his head. ‘I do have to report to Mrs Blackett, that’s part of my job, Madam. But there’s nothing at the moment, except that you’re supposed to call me Mr Gillman. With the maids you can use their Christian names. I’ll go then, Madam – unless you would like me to put some cold cream on your bottom. It does help with the sting.’

The thought of it is just too much. ‘Am I allowed to refuse..? Or would that be another demerit?’ she blurts angrily.

‘Oh no, Madam. You can say yes or no, it’s not a caning matter. If you make a sexual advance to me, though, I have to report that.’

The big green-brown eyes are suddenly bright with moisture. Annabel blinks rapidly to stop the tears. ‘Well I’m not going to, Mr… Mr Gillman.’

Gillman’s voice remains perfectly calm. ‘That’s all right, Madam; but some ladies do, at the beginning of their stay.’ He exits, just as Annabel’s tears well uncontrollably out. The trickle becomes a flood as she throws herself face-down on the bed. Annabel’s body jerks and rolls, overwhelmed with wracking sobs.

The sobbing continues for some time, at last becoming less intense, more intermittent. Annabel turns over, onto her back, to gaze up with tear-reddened eyes at the ceiling. She lies immobile, perhaps dozing for a while, her body exhausted by emotion. Her eyes open, the tears start again; then stop, and then start once more.

At length she gets up off the bed and goes to the window. Outside, standing by a flower border she can see two young women. They wear long light summer dresses and flowery hats against the bright sun. Annabel bites her lip. They are presumably fellow pupils here and presumably, under those light dresses, if what Mrs Blackett has said is anything to go by, is some form of tight restraining foundation garment. And are there also fresh red stripes on their bottoms as there are on her own?

In the bathroom Annabel splashes cold water on her face which is red and blotchy from crying. It is almost time for Gillman to come for her. She puts on powder and some lipstick, but cannot completely disguise the signs of crying. She would like to put on knickers but has none that Mrs Blackett would approve of. And outrageous as it may seem, from what has happened so far there must be a chance of Mrs Blackett – or even Gillman – slipping a hand up her skirt to check. And that clearly would mean one or more strokes of that horrendous cane.

Gillman when he knocks has that same obsequious manner. Annabel again experiences a hot flush at the thought that this man has caned her bare bottom. He asks if she is rested and feeling better; then takes her outside.

In the garden the three other girls are found seated together in a leafy arbour. They are Rosalind and Susan, both blondes, and Felicity who has reddish-gold hair. They are all young and pretty women, each, like Annabel, wearing a wedding ring. All three are in those elegant dresses, 1930s-looking with low necks and calf-length skirts, and broad-brimmed hats that Annabel has seen from the window. Gillman, having made the introductions, goes off.

Rosalind and Felicity have been here for three weeks, Susan for two. These periods seem to have been long enough to quell any rebellious spirit for they are all most docile and seemingly accepting of their lot. Annabel is warned to follow instructions to the letter otherwise there will be many demerits; but if she does she will find life very pleasant at Balcombe Manor.

Susan, laughing, says, ‘Like a holiday.’

That is really too much for Annabel. ‘A holiday when you’re getting caned?’

Susan has beautiful big blue eyes, clear and innocent. ‘You mustn’t be negative, Annabel. The cane is just a reminder to keep you up to the mark and to teach you to be submissive. You have to learn that submitting is the most wonderful thing. After all this Woman’s Lib pollution submitting is a cleansing act. Mrs Blackett will teach you that.’ She gives a blissful smile. ‘All I want from life is to submit to my husband.’

Annabel frowns. ‘Will your husband cane you then?’

Susan produces another sunny smile. ‘Of course. And he caned me when he visited last week, because of a shortcoming that Mrs Blackett told him about. He caned me and then he made love to me. It was just the most marvellous and wonderful thing.’

Annabel cannot find a ready answer to this. She pictures herself submitting to a caning from Roger. The thought is scary but also distinctly erotic. Rosalind suggests a walk through the garden and they get up and go out, into the warm sunshine. Rosalind says that Annabel should have a hat on. A girl must keep her skin soft and lovely for her husband. There is something else that Annabel must ask about. Corseting. Do they really have to wear a foundation garment all the time?

‘Of course,’ Rosalind replies. ‘Tight-lacing is the essence of femininity. It may feel strange at first but once you’ve been tight-laced for a few days it begins to feel really marvellous. A lovely sense of your body being controlled and disciplined. And it’s super for your figure. My waist can he tight-laced down to 19 inches now.’

Annabel is not at all sure she wants to do that. There is of course the other question. What do they do here all day? Mrs Blackett didn’t actually say.

‘Oh all sorts of things,’ Felicity says. ‘All kinds of lectures and talks, by Mrs Blackett and various other people who come in. There’s Music and Movement every day after breakfast, that’s to improve your grace and poise; and of course there’s your reading programme. You must really study at that and make notes because Mrs Blackett tests you. Most afternoons are free of organised activity but you are supposed to use the time constructively. Walking in the tranquility of the garden is highly beneficial if you concentrate on positive thinking. About being feminine and submissive, that is. In the evenings we often watch a video film. Yesterday there was a lovely film about country house life in Edwardian times.’

Annabel hesitates and then asks that paramount question. ‘What about those demerits; the caning?’

Rosalind gives her a wide-eyed look. ‘You have to think about that in a positive way too, Annabel,’ she says softly in her calm, very feminine voice. ‘It is intended to show you how you can improve. We each have to take our Record Books to Mrs Blackett before dinner every day. Each of us has an appointment time in the hour before dinner. Either Mrs Blackett will deal with the demerits or Mr Gillman will. But you mustn’t think of it as a punishment.’

They stroll on, through splendidly kept flower borders and then across the immaculate lawn and into the rose garden. It is almost like being in a dream with the heady scent of the roses and a blackbird trilling, and Annabel’s three beautiful companions in their elegant dresses reminiscent of a bygone age. Am I dreaming? Annabel wonders. But she knows she isn’t. She knows that across her bottom, which is bare under her skirt, there are three very real red stripes. If she were to put her hand up – which of course she daren’t – she would be able to feel their ridges clearly with her fingertips. But she doesn’t need to touch them to feel them. What about the others? she asks. Are they still getting caned – after three weeks?

Rosalind smiles serenely. ‘Oh yes. You are here to improve yourself and so the standard gets higher. Oh yes, we all still get the cane – or the strap.’

They continue to wander in the garden and Annabel has to admit it is highly satisfying and restful. They are allowed to walk freely except that they are not permitted to go near the front gate or the driveway. They return eventually to the arbour and it is here that Gillman later comes to tell them it is time to prepare for dinner. Annabel has already noticed that none of the others has a watch, and she has been told that they are not needed because their day is organised for them and there is always someone to tell them what to do. Annabel still has her watch.

They return to the house, each to take a relaxing pre-dinner bath. When Annabel emerges from her bathroom she finds the maid, Bridget, has brought a dress. In her slip Annabel sits at her dressing table while with long sensuous strokes Bridget brushes Annabel’s thick chestnut hair, then coils it high on her head. The maid holds out the dress which is similar in style to the ones the others were wearing: pale green silk with a calf-length pleated skirt and long sleeves. Annabel puts it on and it is very lovely. The maid then leaves, taking with her the blue suit Annabel had arrived in and also Annabel’s watch.

Henceforth Annabel will have no independent knowledge of the time while at Balcombe Manor. In the lovely green silk dress, again without knickers, and with her own suit and watch gone Annabel feels completely divorced from her own life. As she sits down again to put on her make-up she wonders what Roger is doing, and whether he is thinking of her at all.

Meanwhile, in their own rooms, the other girls are being tight-laced into their corsets: Rosalind by Gillman, Susan and Felicity by two maids. While Annabel sits dreamily in her room waiting for the call to dinner the other girls go down in turn to Mrs Blackett’s office. Later when they meet, with Annabel, in the dining room Rosalind and Felicity each have two fresh cane stripes on their bottoms.

* * *

At 9.30 the next morning the shiny black limousine is again at the big iron gates, now going out. In the back seat Annabel is accompanied by Mrs Blackett and they are driving to town, to Sylvia Blackett’s corsetiere. The chauffeur drives smoothly, expertly, while Mrs Blackett puts questions to Annabel on the book ‘The Submissive Woman’. She is supposed to have started it last night while waiting for dinner and afterwards. But Annabel is unable to concentrate, her mind returning again and again to the events of the day and the things the other girls have told her. Her ignorance of the book is at once apparent. Mrs Blackett lightly pats her thigh.

‘Write 5 demerits in your Record Book, Annabel. Put down: Private study quite inadequate.’

Annabel gives Mrs Blackett a stunned look. Five! Mrs Blackett tells her, ‘You’re properly on the course now, my dear, and you must take matters seriously; we can’t have a girl not pulling her weight. But I think once we’ve got you tight-laced it will help. It does give a young woman that sense of purpose and discipline.’

It is a private house in Chelsea that they go to. A maid opens the door and takes their coats and hats; then conducts them into a sumptuously appointed sitting room where they are greeted by an elegantly dressed man of perhaps 60. Annabel had naturally assumed it would be a woman and this increases her feeling of embarrassment and apprehension. She is introduced to Mr Delvine whose keen eyes size her up. Annabel is wearing the green silk dress again, with her darker green high-heeled court shoes, and is looking very lovely in spite of her apprehension.

‘A full-bodied young lady,’ he observes. ‘And definitely in need of a little restraining, I should say. Would you slip out of your things, my dear.’

Annabel’s heartbeat quickens. She had definitely expected a lady. Is she to have to take everything off? Yes she is, apart from her stockings and shoes. The dress, her slip, her bra, the suspender belt, each in turn must be removed; there are no knickers, of course. Annabel eventually stands nude, trembling slightly and with difficulty controlling the urge to put her hands and arms across that thick red dish-brown bush, those full, pinkish-brown-nippled breasts. Across her ripe bottom the stripes left by Gillman’s energetic caning can still be faintly seen.

Mr Delvine measures Annabel: hips, waist, bust; then goes out of the room, and returns. In his hands is a cream-coloured satin garment. It is a busk front-fastening Edwardian control corset with back lacing. The silk laces are loosened and the basque is slipped around Annabel’s statuesque figure and fastened. She gasps slightly at the sensation of the cold satin on her bare flesh. And then gasps again, in earnest, as the lacing is tightened.

‘Stand firm, and brace yourself,’ Annabel is instructed. As Mrs Blackett, seated on a sofa, watches intently the basque is drawn drum-tight around Annabel’s full figure, and then tighter yet. It pushes up her breasts, enclosing the lower halves but leaving her nipples free, while below it extends to contain the full upper curve of her hips. The tight-lacing continues, the laces are finally tied. Dangling free are four two-inch-wide silk suspender straps with metal fastenings. Mr Delvine bends to fasten these tautly to Annabel’s stockings and then she is finished.

‘How does that feel, my dear?’ smiles Mrs Blackett.

The feeling is enough to literally take Annabel’s breath away for she has the panicky thought that she won’t be able to breathe and is going to suffocate. This does not prove to be the case, though, for she can breathe perfectly well but the sensation of being held in an iron grip remains. She weakly shakes her head. There is no real answer to Mrs Blackett’s question. The feeling is indescribable.

Mrs Blackett smiles at Mr Delvine. ‘It looks excellent. I’ll take two others for her as well, one a long-line, I think. Perhaps one in black, and shall we have one in blue, Annabel? I have an awfully pretty blue dress for you. And of course we want some knickers for her, Mr Delvine.’

Mr Delvine produces a pale basque similar to the cream one plus a black long-line corset which will enclose the whole of Annabel’s generous buttocks. There is also a selection of pretty silk French knickers in various shades. At last, at least, Annabel can put knickers on. With her head still spinning she slips on a pair of cream coloured lacy-edged ones. Then her own cream slip and finally the green dress. She is complete now. A properly attired pupil of Mrs Blackett.

Annabel and Mrs Blackett have lunch at an expensive restaurant but Annabel can only toy with her food. The constraining feel of the tight-lacing is eerie, giving her that continued sense that she can’t breathe properly although at the same time she knows she can perfectly well. Annabel also can’t help thinking of Roger. His office is in London and he could easily come into this restaurant. If he saw her and came over she would probably burst out crying. There is as well the thought of those five demerits in her Record Book. Before dinner tonight she is going to get five strokes of the cane across her bare bottom.

Mrs Blackett tells Annabel to eat up and stop dreaming. Time passes, as if she is in a dream. The perfectly normal environment of the restaurant has taken on a new meaning to her: all is changed by being under this training. The chauffeur meets them; they are in the back seat of the limousine again. At the gates of Balcombe Manor. The iron gates clanging to behind them…

In the garden Annabel is greeted by the other girls. It is another lovely sunny afternoon and they go to sit in the cool arbour. Rosalind and Felicity are wearing different dresses from yesterday but in that same elegant 1930s style. Annabel has on a wide-brimmed straw hat with a dark green ribbon matching her green dress. The others smilingly inquire about the tight-lacing. Doesn’t it feel super, Felicity says. It doesn’t feel super but Annabel is at least now getting more used to the constant tightness. Felicity wants to know Annabel’s waist measurement. It is 24. She says that in two weeks Mr Gillman and the maids will have that down to 20.

There is a current of excitement because Rosalind is having a visit from her husband this afternoon. Some time later a maid comes for Rosalind and takes her back into the house. Susan and Felicity giggle like schoolgirls. The three of them decide to go for a walk, through the rose garden and out into the wooded area beyond.

Susan smilingly asks, ‘Are you concentrating on good thoughts, Annabel? Are you concentrating on being submissive?’

Felicity giggles. ‘I expect Rosalind is being submissive in her room right now. I hope she’s concentrating. Lucky girl!’

Annabel wonders what it will be like to have a visit here from Roger. Very painful, she thinks, because at the end of it he will go off and she will be kept here. None of them are allowed to phone out or receive telephone calls at Balcombe Manor, and in addition the television only shows video films, not news or any other regular programme; so the visits from their husbands are their only contacts with the outside world. Felicity tells Annabel she will not get a visit for at least a week so that she can settle in.

The dreamy afternoon passes and eventually Gillman appears, to conduct them in for the pre-dinner rituals. He accompanies Annabel to her room. In his obsequious way he tells Annabel that he has to unlace her, for her bath.

Annabel can’t see why she cannot unlace herself but Gillman tells her Mrs Blackett’s rule is that it must be done for her. He also says that she must not take too long over her bath because she will be the first today to take her Record Book in to Mrs Blackett. That at least gives Annabel something else to think about. Shuddering, she removes her hat and then unfastens her dress and steps out of it. Her slip follows and, after a reproachful glace at Gillman, her knickers as well. He bends to unclip Annabel’s suspender straps, his eyes hot on her thick-bushed mound, then turns her and unties her taut-lacing.

Inch by inch Annabel feels her body being released from its strait-jacket; finally, with all the lacing loosened, Gillman reaches round and unhooks the front fastening. Annabel can see red marks at her waist and on her hips where the foundation garment has hugged her in its vice-like grip. She slips quickly into her dressing gown, conscious of the way Gillman’s sharp eyes are caressing her flesh, then takes off shoes and stockings.

Annabel has a quick warm bath and dries herself, then goes out again to the waiting Gillman. While Annabel could have taken the basque off herself, if she had been allowed to, the same would not be true for putting it back on again for proper tight-lacing does demand the services of a helper. Once again, as she was with Mr Delvine, Annabel is soon gasping as the reinforced satin is drawn tighter and tighter round her burgeoning body. Gillman takes a while, his hands seeming to need to touch a lot of Annabel in the process, but eventually he is finished. A quarter of an hour later he is knocking at Mrs Blackett’s door and ushering Annabel in.

Mrs Blackett inspects the Record Book which is silently proffered. There are just those five demerits entered during the car journey.

‘Good!’ says Mrs Blackett, businesslike. ‘Knickers down then if you please, Annabel; and get yourself over the chair. I think we’ll have Gillman giving them again, shall we? Shall we, James?’

‘As you wish, Madam.’ With his unexcited, even tones Gillman sounds uninvolved, as if it is nothing more to him than opening the door to a visitor or making sure the cats are out at night. But his eyes tell a different story. As those eyes gaze on Annabel’s bared ripe nates, now enticingly framed in basque, wide suspenders, the dark welts of her nylons, there is little doubt that James Gillman will enjoy what he is about to do.

Five strokes of the cane on the bare bottom forcefully delivered by a fit and enthusiastic adult male are not easy to take, especially for one not used to the cane. It is not simply two-and-a-half times as bad as two strokes because if the caner continues to hit with full force, as James Gillman does, the excruciating pain is multiplied rather than simply added to. Before her ordeal Annabel had some thought of taking it in silent dignity, of not letting Gillman, or for that matter Mrs Blackett, see her howling and writhing in agony. But that resolution very quickly goes out of the window once the caning begins. Indeed Annabel’s reaction to the fifth, and fortunately final, stroke is such that she jerks right off the arm of Mrs Blackett’s chair and finishes up on the carpet.

Mrs Blackett lets her stay there, shaking with tears, for some minutes, before telling Annabel to get to her feet.

‘We really must learn to exercise more self-control, Annabel; must we not?’

After more of Mrs Blackett’s lecturing Annabel is taken back to her room by Gillman. She scarcely knows where she is. The hot pain is still intense, pervading her whole body, but it is mixed with a feeling of strong arousal which being caned in the ultra-tight-laced basque has brought on. In the state Annabel is in the thought of dinner is quite impossible but one must always present oneself for dinner at Balcombe Manor, whether one is capable of eating anything or not.

Annabel washes her face and puts on fresh make-up. Dreadful Gillman is there, hovering, and he repeats his offer of applying cold cream to her bottom. Annabel shakes her head, fearful that she is going to burst into tears again. She has been here barely one full day. There are two full months to be endured.

The second part of this story can be read here.

A Spanking and Caning Story from Janus 37. For more stories click here.

Under a Mediterranean Sun
by R.T.Mason

It was August. The sun burnt implacably down from a brassy sky, parching the Southern Italian landscape, sapping men’s efforts and energy. Outside the sun held sway but in the room in the ancient stone house, behind thick walls and closed shutters, it remained very cool. A cool retreat and also a very convenient one for the purposes of Don Stefano, the middle-aged country priest, who now in the early afternoon sat in this small room reading, and waiting for his first visitors.

For the house was joined to the back of the church – Santa Lucia – and could be discreetly entered by that route through a door otherwise kept locked. Discretion was something routinely sought by Don Stefano’s afternoon visitors – his female parishioners or their teenage daughters – as they came to do penance for sins they would not wish to be made public. Sins which typically involved some sexual transgression, for the local women were notably hot blooded.

Perhaps, Don Stefano thought, it was different to more northerly cooler climes but here the women seemed to find it extraordinarily hard to resist the sins of the flesh. It had to be the sun. While it sapped men’s energies it seemed to produce an extra fire in the loins of the local women. It was always the same – I am sorry, Father, I could not help myself. The sun and the Devil. Fleshly sins could be properly dealt with only by chastising that same flesh, but, like the sin itself, this chastisement was not something the sinner ever wished to become public knowledge.

So discretion was doubly sought and Don Stefano did not deny it. What was important was that the sin was punished, that errant female flesh was properly chastised, female buttocks bared and offered up, for the sharply searing cut of the cane. And, as that most fleshly part of the sinner was vigorously scourged, so hopefully the Devil in the sinner’s flesh would therefore be subdued.

In Don Stefano’s eyes actual subjugation was a forlorn hope but at least the Devil could be kept in check. And for that purpose the priest came here in the afternoons to this quiet little room behind Santa Lucia in the little market town. Under the burning sun he rode the three miles from his village on his bicycle. The sun could never defeat Don Stefano.

There was soon a discreet knock at the door. The priest, who despite his grey hair, was still lean and athletic from those many miles on his bicycle, went to open it. Two women, or more correctly one and a girl, stood there. Elena Solari, bringing her fully developed 17 year old daughter Maria. Submissively they entered and he locked the door behind them.

It was not the first visit for the young but ripely fleshed Maria Solari. Her parents were keen to marry her off to a neighbour, a bachelor in his forties who enjoyed the relative affluence of owning his own small-holding. Though very interested in Maria he had as yet made no firm commitment and in the meantime the girl, who clearly had to remain a virgin, was showing every sign that her ripe body was ready and eager to be sampled. In particular, though strictly forbidden to, she had been out with a number of the local boys.

It was the latest of such escapades which had brought her to Don Stefano this afternoon. She was still virgo intacto – her mother had grimly determined that – but another salutary caning from the priest, and she’d had several already, was obviously called for.

The room was quite small and now seemed full with the arrival of the two newcomers, but there was space enough for what had to be done. Don Stefano told the mother to be seated in an upright leather chair to the side – then sat himself sideways on to the desk and told the girl to stand right in front of him. And then to bare herself.

Maria, as always in this situation, felt a tremor of excitement. Don Stefano might be a priest but he was also a man, a not unattractive one, and having to bare herself in front of him made her blood run just a little faster. There was also the thought of what was to come when she was bare. Don Stefano’s cane. That, undoubtedly, would make her blood run a little faster too.

It was Maria’s fourth such visit to the priest. Her father used his leather belt on her bottom but the priest was the only man to have caned her. The first time had been six months before, when her mother found out about that boy, Giorgio. That time she had been terrified, about to get the cane for the first time – but, in fact, because it was her first, Don Stefano hadn’t caned her all that hard. Not as hard as the subsequent two times. Not as hard as he would today. She shivered.

Maria’s hands were fumbling at the waist of her skirt, undoing the buttons, then the zip. She slipped down the full calf-length mauve skirt and stepped out of it. Underneath was a half slip and she stepped out of that too. There was now only the pair of white knickers, tight-fitting over womanly hips and bottom. She glanced at Don Stefano, then her hands went to the waistband of her knickers.

The knickers came straight down and off. Maria stood still and straight with her hands at her sides. Her face was flushed and her heart was racing. She was now as he required her for the caning. She still wore her white blouse, her thigh-length self-supporting black stockings and her flat shoes but from waist to mid-thigh she was naked.

Her full ripe hips and her equally ripe bottom were bare. And squarely in front of Don Stefano’s unblinking eyes, at the centre of her intimate flesh, was the luxuriant black tuft which those boys would get so excited about if only she would let them see it. Maria wondered if Don Stefano got excited by it. He became very red in the face at times.

Standing still and straight Maria received her lecture from the priest– on the sins of the flesh and the Devil’s perpetual desire to seduce young girls into his lustful ways. Don Stefano had said it all before, to this girl and to many others. His eyes flickered from the sensuously pretty face to the ripe foliage around her loins. She was without doubt a prime target for the Devil’s desires, and he would have to ensure that the cane really bit in. Much harder than before.

It was for her own good – but equally Don Stefano knew he would get pleasure from the act. But that was merely the pleasure of doing his priestly duty. He finished his monologue and then stood up. Maria was told to get down over the seat he had vacated.

She felt the dryness in her mouth and her body trembling as she did as she was told. Head down near the floor and plump, ripe young buttocks thrust up high. The priest’s cane tap-tapped at her legs and she obediently parted them as wide as she could, her knees straight. Maria waited, conscious of her mother looking on. Don Stefano positioned himself and then raised the cane…. CRACK!..

Square across the ripest part of the buttocks, a flesh-juddering cut that was distinctly worse than anything Maria had received before. It brought an involuntary gasping grunt, a desperate clenching of the buttocks, as she fought to come to terms with the knifing pain.

The priest waited, until the now red striped bottom was almost still. Then he raised the cane again.

CRACK!..

Equally as hard, it splatted the resilient flesh close below that first red stripe. The gasp this time was half a shriek. It was murder! She couldn’t take many like this!

CRACK!.. The third stroke struck lower, just above the tops of Maria’s thighs, an excruciatingly sensitive region and she almost toppled off the chair in her reaction. Don Stefano ran his hand lightly over his brow. Despite the cool room it was hot work for he was using all the strength in his arm. That, though, was not the only reason for his perspiration; there was also that nerve-tingling excitement when caning the ripe bottom of a young girl. Not a sinful excitement of course, the priest quickly reminded himself, but the excitement of dealing with the Devil.

CRACK!.. Once more the thick rattan bit into the quivering youthful flesh.

He gave her ten strokes in all on that luscious round rump and, at the end of it, the pretty girl, tears coursing down her hot flushed face, did not know which end was up. She got up off the chair and hopped from foot to foot rubbing her tortured rear. Watched by her mother and the priest she fumblingly replaced slip and skirt and then, very gingerly, her white cotton knickers. One could almost see the heat radiating out of them.

“I hope I shall not need to see you here again!” the priest told her sternly. Still crying, the girl vigorously shook her head. But the experience of Don Stefano was that she would be back. The pain in her bottom would die away and be forgotten, at least temporarily, in the face of ardent male blandishments.

Wiping her eyes, Maria had a muttered word with her mother and then went outside to catch the bus home on her own, for her mother had further business with Don Stefano which she would not discuss. Her day’s tribulations were not over, for there was still her father. Maria knew that, this evening, he would want to reinforce the lesson administered by the priest.

* * *

Maria’s exit left Elena Solari alone with Don Stefano. They exchanged a brief word about the girl and the desirability of getting her marriage arranged as soon as possible, but that was not the reason Signora Solari had stayed behind. She would not wish to disclose the fact to her daughter, but Elena had a penance of her own to do. The priest’s cane had not yet finished its work.

Don Stefano gave a muttered instruction and Elena went to re-lock the door. At 35 she remained a very attractive woman, a somewhat more mature version of her daughter, but with face still handsome, shoulder-length hair still glossily chestnut, and ripe breasts and buttocks still taut and firm. A ripe and responsive body which, it seemed, could not always be controlled and kept strictly for the sanctity of the marriage bed. It was that implacably burning sun, Don Stefano told himself, forever heating up a woman’s loins. That pagan sun and the Devil.

In Elena Solari’s case – her most recent case – it was a tourist she had chanced to meet on a country road. An American who, without any great difficulty it seemed, had been able to persuade the 35 year old matron to walk with him to some nearby woods and there engage in the act of sexual intercourse.

As she now stood in front of him in the little room Don Stefano made Elena repeat all the details – what the man had done, what she had done, the precise position they had adopted for their illicit coupling. Unblinking eyes on the scarlet-faced woman, the priest felt his blood stirring. The Devil never slept. When he had got the last detail out of her he told Elena to take all her clothes off.

Hands at the bodice of her knee-length blue dress, unbuttoning, the dress then lifted up over her head and off. The white petticoat, worn in spite of the heat on Sundays and for visits such as this, was removed in similar manner. There remained only tight white cotton knickers and black, self-supporting stockings, like her daughter’s, plus a white nylon bra enclosing her full creamy breasts. Elena hesitated, glancing at the priest, then slid down her knickers before unclipping and removing her bra. She now stood naked apart from stockings and shoes, full, firm rosy-nippled breasts pointing at the priest.

Eyes firmly fixed on the nude body, on the jutting breasts and the thickly tufted mons veneris, Don Stefano delivered his homily – on the sin of adultery and fornication. Elena heard it as she had heard it before, standing straight and still, hands at her sides. She tried to concentrate but she was thinking now of the American greedily thrusting hard into her – and then of Don Stefano’s cane which would shortly be searing her bottom, as it had Maria’s. The priest’s voice droned on.

He finally stopped and rose from his chair… and half hypnotised by the droning voice in the still air, Elena nonetheless moved forward and bent her nude body over the seat of the chair… just as her daughter had done earlier. She lay waiting… one minute… two… and then the cane was slicing through the air.

CRACK!!

Elena gave a gasping grunt as her daughter had done. The first stroke always came as a desperate shock. After the first you were, to a certain extent ready, on the right wavelength, but the first was always murder.

The strokes followed in a regular cadence. Elena was ready now but each one nonetheless knocked the breath from her lungs. Don Stefano was in fearsome form today. She remembered her daughter’s desperate tears. Elena, with more experience, had more control but the pain was indeed ferocious. He gave her 10, like Maria.

Elena stood, face scarlet, pulse pounding, the ten strokes on her ripe bottom and thighs now swollen purpling welts. She gave a sharp intake of breath as the priest ran his hand over them. He muttered something and Elena briskly assented. Yes Father, she would never sin again. In fact, she was at this moment wet between her legs, her body stimulated by the cane in spite of the pain, ready and eager for sex. The priest’s hand continued to stroke Elena’s inflamed flesh… and she was shocked to find herself wondering if he had an erection.

Outside the molten sun was high in the cloudless sky, its brightness washing out colour, reducing things to black and dazzling white. Elena was used to the heat but now in her aroused state it felt almost unbearable. While she waited for the bus, a man stood at the bus stop and seemed to sense the state she was in. He rubbed up against her, his hand rubbing and stroking her hot bottom. With difficulty she forced herself to move away.

Once at home she grabbed her husband, Franco, and pulled him into the bedroom. Without speaking she locked the door then pulled him down on the bed on top of her. They made love, Elena with that fierce desperation which the cane always induced in her, though she was careful to ensure that her husband did not get a look at the state of her backside.

Afterwards Franco asked about Maria. Fastening his trousers he said, grimly, “Well she’s in for a belting this evening!”

* * *

By 8 o’ clock Franco had finally finished his work in the fields. He washed his face and arms, put on a clean shirt, then went to look for his daughter. She was in the living room leafing through a magazine but with her mind only half on it, the rest centred on the matter of her father’s belt. She looked up with frightened eyes as Franco entered.

“Upstairs!” he ordered tersely.

Maria obediently got to her feet. Her mother watched impassively, remembering when she herself was 17. Maria was just like her. She had also received the belt from her father and a whipping from the priest and her schoolmaster, but none of it had ever stopped her going out with boys. Elena waited, listening for the inevitable sound of anguished cries.

Upstairs in her bedroom, Maria stripped nude in front of her father, her body hot with fearful anticipation. His belt on top of the cane weals would be unbearable. Meekly she turned to present her bottom. The 10 stripes were now an almost puce colour.

“If I find out you’ve been out with boys again I’ll beat you so hard you won’t sit down for a month! Is that clear?” her father barked.

Maria whispered, “Yes, Papa.”

He put an arm around her bare waist, his voice now softer. “You know, you’ll want to marry Bruno – then you’ll be nicely set up for life. So be sensible; he won’t want you if you’ve been out with all the boys in the district.”

“Yes Papa,” she said quietly. Bruno was all right; he was a man and the thought of being married was exciting. But that didn’t stop her thinking about Giorgio – or indeed her embraces with lots of other boys.

Franco ran his hand down over the quivering cane-striped bottom. She was a lovely girl, and he loved her dearly, and what he had to do was undeniably for her own good. She knew he would always complete the punishment the priest had initiated. He told her to lie across the bed.

Her father had placed a pillow at the edge of the bed and Maria lay across it, the pillow under her hips so that her bottom was prominently raised. Franco unfastened his belt, wrapping the buckle end round his hand to leave a foot and a half of three inch wide leather dangling free. He slapped it against his palm, and told Maria to straighten her legs. She complied and lay submissively still, no movement except a trembling of her haunches.

The belt was raised and brought whistling down. A crack like a firework as it curled around Maria’s soft flesh. She let out a yelping cry; the pain was murderous, though her father, conscious of the state of her bottom, had not struck her with anything like full force. The beautiful young bottom wriggled and danced in a despairing effort to shake off the pain.

Down in the room below, Elena heard her daughter’s anguished cries – spaced at about 30 second intervals. Eight in all. She gave a shiver. If Franco found out about the state of her own bottom and then discovered the reason, it would be she who would be ordered upstairs – and getting something which would make what he was meting out to Maria seem like love taps. Elena’s safety lay only in her husband’s ultra-conventional approach to love making.

He was a good man but….. she sighed and then shivered again. She thought of the stranger at the bus stop who had fondled her bottom and wondered if he would be there tomorrow. Tomorrow when, as always, that infernal sun would be beating down producing the stirring in her loins she could not resist, just like her daughter and all the other women. But Don Stefano would be there, as ever, doing his best to stem the tide.

A Spanking Story from Janus 55. More stories are available here.

The Perfectionists. Part II.
by Stephen Sims

THE PERFECTIONIST chapel, grey-slated and sombre-bricked on its high rocky spur, seemed to glare sternly about itself through colour-stained panes that shone with sunrise as it reared up out of a mist which blanketed the countryside far below – so the chapel appeared to be floating through clouds as if the heaven-high ideals of Perfectionism were influencing the solid Victorian structure as comprehensively as they aspired to transform its human adherents.

Even at so early an hour the frontmost pews of the tiny congregational hall were crammed with young females, 35 in number, who comprised the growing sisterhood – for this was a very special occasion. The only approach to the chapel was up a steep flinty climb from the road, often slippy with mud, and though all the devotees were in vigorous health each was aware as she entered, panting hard, through the carved stone doorway, that an ordeal had already been imposed and undertaken. Upon their arrival today all girls had been obliged to strip off their everyday clothing at once and don the penitential grey gowns over their nakedness, for although only one of their number was to receive Prime Atonement, the Magister had decreed that all taking part must themselves be garbed for penitence.

Aged between 18 and 25, each ardent aspirant led a normal everyday life when not at her devotions, for though each yearned to achieve a state as close to absolute soul-purity as the human condition allows, the Magister deemed it essential that the intensely arduous striving towards Perfectionism was undertaken not in some airy-fairy ivory tower, but from a standpoint of gutsy reality. As mothers-to-be and prime influencers of the coming generation the Perfectionists formed thereby the nucleus of a wonderfully elevated society which would spearhead a worldwide movement to raise Mankind from the morass of degeneracy, amorality, apathy and violence into which it had allowed itself to sink.

Now they sat on the hard wooden benches, hips shivering warmly against hips and hands clasped on laps as they waited raptly for their spiritual guide the Magister to appear. Many a softly-curved cheek was flushed with guilt at its owner’s little weaknesses which she strove continually to transcend; and private pleas for inner strength fluttered on plumply kissable lips. Yet all too many an eye gleamed with not-entirely-admirable excitement today – an excitement which each who experienced it would feel compelled to own up to, and be punished accordingly for, when next she took contrition. A Prime Atonement was a rare event, but the anticipation of it struck into their hearts, for every girl knew that a sufficiently serious breach of Perfec¬tionist principles would have her on the receiving end of the awesome ritual about to be carried out.

One of their number, a dancer called Melissande, was especially intrigued, for this ultra-special atonement would climax something which took her back to her very first visit here three months before. The 19-year-old’s pretty eyes blinked at the memory of Anita, the stunningly attractive lady lawyer who had taken contrition ahead of Melissande on that occasion, and had then hurried from the chapel in obvious distress. Whatever Anita’s ‘offences’ were had clearly been considered extremely grave by the Magister, for her atonement had evidently been continuing ever since, and this Prime Atonement at the sleepy dawn hour was to be its cataclysmic finale. Melissande certainly recollected how astounded and embarrassed she herself had been, having shyly responded to the Magister’s invitation to take her own first contrition, to find herself bent double across a padded beam being spanked firmly on her bottom with a paddle over tight-fitting whipping drawers by way of initial atonement! And yet, extraordinarily, the experience had filled her heart and mind with light somehow; and since then the sprightly ballet girl had expanded her vital awareness to a remarkable degree, eliminating many selfish traits and negative attitudes which had been holding her back. But the road to inner purity was rigorous indeed, and Melissande had so far received six further chastisements, without the scant protection afforded by the whipping drawers, on her glaringly bared bottom. Indeed, the rear ends of most of the girls gathered in the chapel that morning, pressed squirmingly against the time-seasoned pews, glowed from the Magister’s recent devout attentions.

Now the object of all this speculation and anticipation, the young female barrister called Anita, was alone in the chapel basement kneeling on a rush mat, as naked as the rest beneath the grey gown she wore. She had been in that cripplingly humbling position for six hours following a midnight arrival. A single candle had burned the night hours away with the scent of joss, accompanying the agonised inner contemplations of her lone soul-vigil. Physically Anita was lovely. Five feet eight inches tall, her magnificently-proportioned body was crowned with a head of shiny-thick butter-coloured hair which made it seem that sunshine played constantly about her vivacious film-star face. The candle-light flapped and flickered on her bowed figure, casting the rounded cheeks into shadow and igniting summer-sky eyes, half-closed in the healing anguish of penitence. The vertical forehead and plucky chin were a sculptor’s dream, the full red lips seemingly made for kissing rather than mere functions like eating or speaking.

As Anita squatted there with pain-cramped muscles, the flame-radiance glissaded down her spine and brought into shadow-valleyed relief the twin rumps trapped tightly in the gown’s fabric, while her breasts hung hidden like cherry-tipped moons under cloud. Pressed for so long against the floor the girl’s knees had ached to burning-point, then numbed. Her hands had chafed with elegant fingers at thighs and hips to restore circulation during the long hours, and had wrung themselves hard together as she had contemplated over and over the deep offence against Perfectionism for which the Magister had ordained such extreme atonement.

Yet and again too, Anita had relived in her mind the particular contrition she had taken those dozen or so weeks before – of stripping naked as usual and pulling on the chill grey gown, then kneeling inside the Contrition Box. The Magister, so imposingly tall and broad in his snowy robes, the white hair of a magician or prophet belying the youthful handsome features, had invited her to unburden to him the lapses from grace which were retarding her way to Perfectionist enlightenment.

‘I have broken a marriage,’ she had declared in her husky, highly-cultured tones. Her normal niceties of expression and clever word-flow had deserted her. ‘His wife found out,’ she had continued bluntly, horribly aware of how coarse and flagrant it sounded. ‘I’m a normal woman with full appetites, Magister! Because of my – well, my looks – I have many temptations. My lover’s wife begged me to end the affaire, if only for their children’s sake, but I insisted that the decision lay with him. Her husband refused to stop seeing me, so she sent him packing, had a breakdown. It all amused me, rather. He asked me to live with him – then begged. I felt only contempt at how quickly he fell apart under stress, and told him to go. And then I found another. And another. My body burned for sexual gratification. I am Scorpio. My body rules me, Magister. The more I attempt to pursue the Perfectionist ideal, the more my body burns with impure lusts. One day I wish to marry, to truly and purely love, to have children raised in enlightenment. But I cannot get through. Help me…’

Here Anita, choked with emotion, had been unable to continue.

The Magister had helped the distraught young woman from her side of the Contrition Box. This time he did not fetch any instrument of chastisement, but said with passionate solemnity: ‘The first part of your atonement, Anita, is abstinence from all sexual practice for the next three months.’ She had gaped at him, appalled. ‘During this period,’ he went on, ‘you are forbidden absolutely to relate to any partner in a sexual way. Nor are you permitted to gratify yourself. You will conduct your professional life with your usual dignity and skill, but not respond to or make use of sexually orientated advances. Chastity and decorum must be your watchwords. If at the end of this period you have managed to triumph over these base bodily cravings, you will receive Prime Atonement…’

At this the already shocked Anita had cried out in amazed protest. ‘Yes, Prime Atonement,’ the Magister repeated firmly. ‘To be regarded as privilege rather than punishment. It will take place in the chapel hall with all your Perfectionist sisters participating, for in this ceremony of ultimate abasement you will be celebrating the ascendancy of spirit over impulse, and have demonstrated to yourself that you truly have lit your inner light which will lead to Perfection.’

That had been three months ago. Now, upstairs in the chapel hall, the grey-gowned neophytes sat up more alertly as the Magister appeared through the velvet curtain from his inner sanctum. For more than a minute he stood surveying each of his charges in turn from beneath the imposing brow, sensing each tender soul quail under his searching gaze, his Messianic form etched dramatically against the high eastern window behind him. Then he raised large hands, of crushing power or butterfly-gentle, to demand their total attention, and many a girl’s eye grew moist at the recent memory of those hard palms spanking their rosy upturned rumps in the atonement room, rumps which had grown so accustomed to the stinging detonations that they yearned for more, for soul’s ease, as a thirsty body yearns for drink.

‘Sister Perfectionists,’ the Magister began in a clear, reverberating voice. ‘We are here to help our fellow sister Anita transcend the shackles of her baser senses, just as each of you must learn!’ In the congregation breasts rose and fell, fingers twisted tensely. ‘As you are discovering, we weak human creatures can find great strength by constant self-examination of our sinful selves, and by unflinchingly driving out all foulness and damagingly negative traces from our natures. As mothers of the generation yet to be born you hold the keys to a vivid new world of joyous fulfilment, of universal peace and plenty and compassionate understanding. A world where cowardly crime, uncaring cynicism and self-degrading morals will have been rooted out in their infancy. Perfection is attainable by all. We are here to make reality of dreams!’

The Magister now turned towards the altar stone – a flat surface of prehistoric granite some three feet square, raised as many feet above ground level. With great ceremony he took a spotlessly white cloth which he opened out and laid over the chill stone so that the multicoloured daylight streaming in through the tall windows stained it with rainbows. He then indicated a large open box beside the altar, filled with what appeared to be long strips of dark coarse hair tied together in bundles.

‘You will file up here, please,’ he instructed more quietly, ‘and each take one of these swishes, with which you will at once assume your positions around the hall, in readiness.’

The congregation rose with a strange collective sigh and shuffled silently forward, one by one, to withdraw from the box a horsehair swish some two feet long, bound with a thong at the top to form a handle. Pretty faces, pursed lips, gleamy eyes, hips broad or slender, breasts softly shivering, feet bared, the Perfectionist sisterhood moved dutifully, love-hot in the purest sense, and took up their individual prearranged stations around the walls of the little chapel – a long grey-garbed snake of perfumed femininity which began at the head of the basement steps and ended at the snowily cloth-draped altar stone, each gripping one of the long swishes as though a pony’s tail grew from her feminine fist.

‘Ready yourselves,’ came the Magister’s ringing tones. ‘The Prime Atonement of our sister Anita will now begin!’ So saying, he strode across the hall and started with awesome solemnity down the steps.

In the basement side-chapel the kneeling Anita stiffened. The three-month sex ban had seemed to her an impossible ordeal when the Magister had ordained it. Many times since, she had woken sweating in the night, aching for masculine comfort. Many times she had decided the Perfectionist road was far too arduous for such as she. And yet that dream of enlightenment had continued to shine like a beacon through fog – and the highly intelligent, erudite young woman had rebelled furiously against her own frailties and continued to relinquish all carnal or romantic contact with men, though the yearning was like an appalling void in the centre of her being. Racked by desire, her fingers had strayed time and again to her own roused moistness – but had not touched, for in those rages of need the thought of the Magister’s reproving gaze had stilled her.

In due course, then, the intense yearnings had ebbed, as a fever will pass. She re-read Nietsche, seeking solace. In ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ Anita had smiled to find again:

I teach you the superman. Man is something to be surpassed.

And under the heading of ‘Chastity’ she had wept contentedly to read:

Would at least ye were perfect, as are the beasts. But to the beast belongeth innocence. Do I counsel you to slay your senses? I counsel you innocence of the senses!

Now, three months later, already much elevated in spirit by her abstinence, Anita had to face and endure the Prime Atonement. Still kneeling, she pushed steepled fingers against her lips, mumbling pleas that she might bear the humiliation and pain. She had heard the rustling commotion up in the chapel as the sisterhood prepared to receive her, and her heart began to slam as the Magister’s footbeats approached down the basement steps. Then he was there.

‘Are you ready to receive Prime Atonement?’ His voice was calm and deep as he stood over the kneeling penitent.

Anita’s lips had dried. She could not speak, but managed to dip her head in obeisance. Now the moment was here, trepidation froze her.

‘It is time to be brave,’ he murmured. ‘You may stand now.’ The Magister stooped and grasped the girl’s elbow to help her rise. Anita’s muscles were cramped, and although the stabbing ache was acute as she slowly straightened her legs, the brief physical contact with the man shot exquisite bolts into her which made her gasp. The Magister at once released the young woman. ‘Take off your gown,’ came his commanding tones.

‘Must I?’ It was a plea. Surely this ordeal would be enough without the ultimate abasement of nakedness! The restoring circulation stabbed her with a million pinpricks.

‘Take off the gown,’ he insisted.

Anita’s fingers trembled as she fumbled with laces, then eased the grey garment back off her shoulders so that two beautifully spherical breasts burst clear in the candleglow, softly quivering, marble-white. The crimson nipples surrounded by dark-brown areolas were stiff with fear. Even the Magister, as accustomed to naked females as a surgeon, felt an awe settle into him as he gazed at the sublime girl. Her gown rustled to the floor, and Anita stood defencelessly exposed, every inch of her bare flesh lapped by the candlelight. Her butter-cup-yellow hair framed a face of heart-wrenching appeal, the dazing blue eyes wide with apprehension. The neat nose and full sensuous lips, the plucky chin and plump cheeks, seemed to the Magister to have come to glorious life from some mediaeval masterpiece. Her body was truly magnificent, the broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, the belly flat as a boy’s beneath the ripely hanging globes of her gorgeous breasts. Her hips and pelvis widened to support long stately legs, at the apex of which was a triangular bush of yellow-gold hair. Instinctively the graceful arms swung forward to cup hands over her private regions and a faint flush appeared on her cheeks. Untouched for many weeks her skin was elsewhere flawlessly pale, tender and warmly pliant.

‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered.

The Magister’s voice, normally vibrant, sounded hoarse. ‘What is about to happen,’ he declared, ‘is done with purest love, Anita. There is not one of your sisters who does not wish you the ultimate fulfilment of Perfectionist enlightenment.’ He moved around behind the young woman, and his throat constricted. Her supple back swooped down to the top of the deep incurving cleft between the swelling glories of two exquisitely rounded, petal-soft buttocks, the undercheeks dipping tightly into the bushy crevice between sturdy silken thighs. A staunchly-controlled joy surged in him, for that marble-white, flawless bottom – the gateway to her soul in Perfectionist parlance – was to be his to chasten and control on the final drive to the ecstasy Anita yearned for.

‘Go now!’ he instructed. And Anita squared her shoulders, stepped out into the lower passage. Then, her extreme agitation tempered by an incomprehensible elation, she mounted the steps.

Up in the congregational hall the 35 young females tensed where they stood in a staggered line to left and right of the path Anita would have to take around the back of the pews and down the far side to the white-draped altar-stone. Grey-gowned over their nakedness they gripped their swishes more tightly. The first in line, called Berenice, red-haired and freckled, gaped in momentary stunned rapture at the sight of Anita as she came slowly into view up the steps. Indeed, Anita’s appearance was as sensational as a Venus rising from the deeps to walk among mortals – and there wasn’t a girl there who didn’t sense that this breath-catchingly lovely young lady, as naked as when she was born, was about to blaze through her self-imposed barriers to achieve a glorious destiny.

Anita sensed it too. Her glamorously attractive face was rapt, the angelic eyes widely alight as she took a pace towards the first girl, Berenice. The redhead, transfixed for a moment more, came suddenly to herself as Anita drew alongside, eyes fixed on the ground a few feet ahead. She swung back the light horsehair flail and struck it with an energetic grunt at Anita’s thigh. The scourging was symbolic rather than punitive, and although the coarse hairs lashed the soft flesh of her upper leg with some force, they did little more than prickle the skin there and pinken it, as a light slap might do.

Anita had paused, surprised at the lack of impact in the caressive thrash. ‘You must not stop. Keep walking!’ Was that the Magister’s voice, somewhere behind her? Anita felt entranced, like a firewalker dreading the sear of red-hot coals yet experiencing instead a mild, almost pleasurable, warmth. She took another step – two, three – and to her left a grey-robed figure swung an arm. There was a brief whistle in the air and a slap against her other thigh, tingling in her blood like sparkling wine. On she moved into the waiting gauntlet of femininity till the next mild, hissing splat of a hair-flail sprayed against her stomach – that firm, flat belly with its snug golden triangle between the slender thighs, across the backs of which the following flail lightly stung. Her golden head held high like a lovely nude model practising deportment with an invisible book perched atop it, Anita trod ever forward along the sides of the pews, flinching only slightly as each swish hissed and tingled.

At every stride, and as she turned the corner to start along the rear of the hall, Anita’s bright bobbing hair ruffled her shoulders, the glorious pendulous breasts shivering and swinging. The light caught her eyes and lit each with glittering radiance, her redly kissable lips raptly parted as each gowned sister waited her turn to apply the gentle scourge – the collective purpose of which was to stimulate the Prime Atoner’s skin follicles like a loving massage, to attune her beautifully statuesque young body for what was to follow once she reached the altar-stone; to open up her senses as sunlight opens a flower.

Swish-swosh! Two flails struck almost simultaneously with a slight smart and a tickle across her back and shoulders; and still Anita trod on past the staggered line of grey-garbed young women with flails raised to whip down or across with calculated accuracy as she came by. The coarse hair-bundles flicked and flashed as each sister struck – now on Anita’s calves, her elbows and knees, the back of her neck. Each girl had been pre-primed to strike in a particular spot on Anita’s delectable anatomy, and after more than a dozen flailings Anita’s proud straight back was reddened as if from sunburn; as were her shoulders, the backs of her legs, her thighs. Pinkly tingling, arousing her like the light-fingered subtle stokes of many diverse lovers, one after the other with scarcely a pause. The licking blows had a cumulative effect, stimulating from its dormant state the inexpressibly sweet arousal she had spent so many long, lonely weeks denying.

Anita turned the second corner at the top of the hall to pursue her naked walk along the frenziedly active line of grey-garbed lashers; and the swishes continued to strike her, from either side and sometimes both sides at once, with tickling tingles – now across her throat, her midriff, the backs of her knees, her feet. One bundle of rough hairs caught her left breast and made the lushly pendulous mound quiver and blush; another kissed her right breast with the same effect; the next brushed both nipples to full erection. And Anita strode on, her lovely long-lashed eyes watching in dazed fascination the gowned arms rising like train-signals at her approach, to unleash the swiftly-whipped swish then fall to rest as the recipient passed on her way.

Anita’s body was now swarming all over with warm tingles, itching and tingling in a most arousing way – but it came to her, even in the heat of the activity, that the only part of her body that none of the switches had touched was her buttocks, which shivered chaste and inviolate at every step she took. In a sort of wonder her hands went behind her and cupped each fleshy cheek, marvelling at their unblemished coolness. She could not see, as she turned the final corner in a continuous hail of whippy tickles against her shins, forearms, upper chest and sides to move along the front of the pews to the altar-stone at the front-centre of the chapel hall, that almost every inch of her skin-surface was now flushed a bright pink where the 35 swishes had aimed and struck. Except for her buttocks, whose enticingly swelling rounds glared like two white moons in contrast.

Reaching the sanctuary of the altar-stone, Anita sank devoutly to her knees. The first part of the Prime Atonement was over, and all but four of the gowned sisterhood filed wordlessly back to their places in the pews, where they perched and tensely watched for the next stage of the proceedings to begin. They saw how unmovingly the beautiful young lawyer knelt before the altar-stone, her naked reddened back towards them, tapering from broad shoulders clouded by tumbled saffron hair to the enviably narrow waist and outswell of nubile hips. They could not properly see, until Anita rose up off her haunches, how flawlessly white above her flushed thigh-backs were the exquisitely rounded buttocks.

Four of the Perfectionists had remained standing when the others returned to the pews. They were Melissande, the young dancer, Gail, the fashion executive, the redhead Berenice, and a girl called Ingrid who had a mop of flaxen hair and was a Scandinavian au pair. Having been allotted this important role by the Magister, they stepped around to flank the kneeling nude, two on either side. And then the Magister was there, appearing dramatically between altar and high eastern window. His imposing, white-robed form approached Anita – who, in rising from her haunches while remaining on her knees, was offering herself submissively for inspection.

This the Magister now did, with great and exacting thoroughness, noting how the creamily petal-soft nether-cheeks stood out in stark contrast to the pink skin-flushes which lividly coloured every other part of her body. And a sigh went up around the chapel hall, for the grey-garbed sisters knew that their spiritual mentor was satisfied with the part they had played in the ritual scourging of this lovely young woman.

‘Present our sister Anita to the Place of Punishment,’ came the deep-toned command. The statuesque blonde shut her eyes as if in prayer as the four Perfectionists so detailed assisted the Prime Atoner to her feet. They led her, unprotesting, to the altar-stone and stood her to one side of it. Then they turned Anita so that she was facing the rapt congregation.

With the window at her back, the young solicitor appeared ethereally beautiful: sapphire eyes upraised in the face of an angel, a face wreathed by the thick hair-clusters of tumbled golden radiance set atop a figure with the timelessly exquisite proportions of a Greek goddess. And all those in the pews watched entranced as, at a signal from the Magister, Anita turned her mother-naked body to her left to face the side of the white-draped altar-stone, which reached up as high as her pelvis. Her upright, graceful form was now in profile to the watching congregants, who gazed in dazed pleasure at the firmly out-thrust glories of her unsupported breasts, the supple swoop of her spine to the ripely-rounded convexities of her marble-white buttocks and the long slender legs, pinkened in contrast, which by now were shaking more than a little.

‘Place our sister across the stone,’ the Magister intoned. Just for a moment Anita struggled, like a wild bird trapped in a net, as the four assisters were required to use a certain force to draw, heft and pull the Prime Atoner forward over the high, flat stone. But once she was lying helplessly across it, and the chill of the stone, striking up through its snowy drapery, was sinking into her naked belly and breasts and thigh-tops, Anita gave a long sigh and her struggles ceased.

‘Secure our sister to receive her thrashing.’ At this ringing command, Gail and Melissande each seized one of Anita’s outflung wrists and squatted down. In like manner did Berenice and Ingrid each take one of her ankles and do the same – so that the lovely nude girl was spreadeagled across the altar-stone with her outstretched arms and legs secured in an enchanting cross. And, with the four limb-pinioning assisters crouched low at each corner of the stone, the rapt congregants had an unrestricted view of Anita held down naked across the draped altar-rock, her pallid buttocks, swellingly rounded in horizontal profile, gleaming ripely in the strengthening light.

The Magister now took up a long-bristled ceremonial brush called an aspergillum, dipped it into a font of pure spring water and flicked it with devotional fervour and a murmured blessing at Anita’s sacrificially pre¬pared bottom-cheeks, observing the muscles flicker beneath the pump satiny skin. Then he drew out from behind the ancient lectern a stout rod of birch-twigs, raised it on high – and all in the congregation gasped. Muttering invocations, the Magister now stepped down from the slightly-elevated platform behind the altar and stood before Anita’s down-hanging head and its cascade of butter-hued hair. Stooping, the tall powerful man placed the instrument close to her mouth with a humbly sacramental gesture. ‘Kiss the birch, Anita,’ he murmured.

With an involuntary shudder, Anita pursed her mouth and touched it to the birch-twigs, smelling the brushwood aroma, tasting the bitter tang of the whippy strips.

She kissed tentatively at first, then greedily, with her sensuously wide, full red lips. The Magister then withdrew the rod, remounted the step and took up a position facing the congregation of grey-gowned femininity, standing a little above Anita’s smooth white waiting buttocks, his right arm at sufficient height to allow for a vigorous down-swing.

Standing thus, with his ruggedly handsome head irradiated in dramatic silhouette against the sun-filled coloured windows behind him, he raised his voice to address the sisterhood.

‘The world which our sister Anita seeks is the world you all seek, the one I have had the everlasting joy to find!’ he exclaimed. ‘A plane of soul-incandescing experience infinitely beautiful, beyond this immediate plane and yet an integral part of it, where joy and light infuse every element of our beings!’ His voice lowered to a husky growl, inflexibly sincere. ‘It is in pursuit of this rapturous and perfect life-condition, attainable by all who truly seek it, that Anita’s Prime Atonement now continues.’

There was a watchful, exhilarated stillness as the Magister paused, then proffered the birch-rod to the Prime Atoner’s rich, springy bottom-cheeks; and Anita sucked in her breath at the tickly feel of the slender twigs pressing coolly against the fleshy cushions upon which she normally sat. The rod felt so intimate, intimate and virtually alive, and thrilling flickers deeped into her. Elsewhere her lightly-flagellated, reddened body continued to tingle with deliciously langorous warmth. Anita squirmed, with the softest little groan of what she had to admit of as pleasure, as the supple twigs sank into the snug crevice between her posteriors and briefly, tantalisingly, touched the quick of her. She felt the eyes of the entire congregation focused upon her, an exhibitionistic, self-sacrificing rapture kindly in her soul.

Then the Magister raised the birch-rod into sun-hazed silhouette, paused a further moment in stern contemplation of the recipient spreadeagled naked across the altar-stone before him, then brought it swishing down to collide with a profound Thrashhh! against the marble-white cheeks of that glorious upraised bottom.

Pain roared through Anita’s senses and found expression in a harsh yowl which echoed round the wails of the tiny chapel. While the shock of the blow, full-blooded on the petal-soft mounds of that exquisite womanly arse, infused them with furnace-heat, the birch climbed above his shoulder and swept down again to jar splatteringly against her buttocks with the sizzling impact of a lightning-flash. The watching sisterhood strained forward with mouths agape and hearts drumming, imagining with stabs of bewitching dread how that fearsome rod would feel battering against their own bared bottoms.

Even the Magister grunted with effort as he dropped the next stroke with accurately-placed force against the shuddering hillocks, making them wobble and jump. A meshwork of scarlet lines had sprung up glaringly on the satin-smooth surfaces of the target area, changing their previous ivory hue to the healthy pinkness of a maiden’s blush; and he knew it was his stern duty to cover every inch of those ripely curvacious mounds so that Anita’s entire bare body was one all-suffusing flush. Thwosh! The birch-rod slammed against the under-cheeks of Anita’s rippling seat; and when she began to plead incoherently and tug against the four girls who held her legs and arms in rigid grips, he struck through her cries with another scorching stroke.

As the hurt erupted again and again in searing shocks against her bottom, Anita began to squirm and groan all the more, grinding the front of her naked body on the hard cool surface against which it was pressed, restrained as she was at ankles and wrists. Berenice and Ingrid, hugging her feet to their breasts with all their strength, strove against Anita’s kicking struggles and stretched her long shapely legs. Anita’s gasped shrieks rent the chapel air as the Magister shifted position and directed the birch in a series of hissing swipes to turn even the flesh closest to her intimately private zone a livid red.

As the thunderous birching continued, thrashing and swoshing across her roasting nether-globes, it seemed to Anita, impaled on a rack of anguish, as if a tiny silver spot in the very centre of her consciousness were beginning to activate, as if the blasting pains which slammed with such remorseless regularity through her entire being were combining with the throbbingly pleasant post-chastisement tingles of her back, breasts, legs, arms, hands, belly and thighs to melt into a single core of paradisal sensation somewhere at her spine-base. Anita lost count of the number of thrashes which lashed with stunning severity across her proud haunches: 15, 20, 25 – it had now become of vital importance only that they continue. The Magister took on, in her hazing senses, the aspect of a tower of numinous magnificence hovering somewhere on another plane – and as her mind floated into a limbo where pain and joy were fused into one extraordinary new sensation, only the slashing impacts of the twigs served to connect her to earth; while piece by piece, as stroke followed stroke, the fierce sparkling jolts were easing the beautiful, highly-sexed girl free from the shackles which bound her to baseness: the scalding blasts were transmuting to concussions of sweet energy feeding into her soul via her blazing bottom-cheeks – an inner-irradiating force which began to vibrate to her very extremities, swelling and intensifying.

Hrrrassh! The twigs slammed yet again across the lushly feminine derriere now crimson-hot – but the Magister did not stay his hand, for cries of a subtly different kind – little sobbed bleats and trills of wonderment – started from Anita’s red, parted lips, her adorably lovely features contorted to bare perfect pearl-white teeth in a silent snarl remarkably like that of a woman in the throes of mounting desire. Melissande and Gail still clung to her rocking wrists, Berenice and Ingrid her ankles, yet found it increasingly difficult to maintain their hold on the perspiring skin as Anita’s soundly-thrashed body bucked and writhed in its anguish on the altar-stone. The four girls holding her down were beginning to sweat themselves, and each could feel a dark excitement building inside them where they crouched – transmitted from the naked gold-haired beauty being birched so intimately close to them, whose every breath and groan might have been their own, whose every muscular contraction rippled through their own bodies, whose arousal was striking directly into their senses now, like a maddeningly exciting perfume.

Thwash, thwosh, swish! The birch had life of its own. Anita was no longer Anita, but an entity of light: a blazing light which had intensified from that tiny silver core; and as the vortex of delectable sensation swirled ever wider and deeper, Anita’s hips began to rock with rhythmic urgency, and at each spasm her tormented buttocks heaved upwards, so eager did they seem to meet the birch’s downstroke. And the Magister saw, and a stern joy flowed through him as he subtly altered his arm’s rhythm to match that of the beautiful livid bottom which was now rising and falling with the intent thrusting energy of a piston.

For Anita, the whirlpool dominating all her senses boiled suddenly up. She did not know how loudly she cried, nor how her body wrenched and pushed to the plunging kisses of the birch. She did not know that the four Perfectionist sisters who held her were in the grip of those same transmitted throes which incandesced her entire being, their own thighs beneath the grey robes jerking with elated shivers. She did not know that five of the watchers in the pews had sagged sideways in a faint, nor that the rest were ululating in transports of shared ecstasy. The thrilling, sparkling whirlpool turned in on itself, became a sun which burst apart into wave after wave of inconceivable rapture.

Anita’s long climactic wail was the enthralling culmination of the symphony her delicious body and the birchen scourge had played. At the massive intensity of her release the sisterhood in the pews fell forward, spent. The four who had held her sank down shaking and weeping. And the Magister stepped back and laid the birch-rod to rest, with great reverence, on the altar-stone beside his Prime Atoner.

And Anita burst into a land of light: she was transformed, flying through zones of spirit unimagined. No mere lover could ever give her what she had just known, an emotional implosion so comprehensively prodigious that she would never again experience self-doubt, or fear the path she must take. It was as though the burdens of her worldly self, grey and poisonous, had fallen from her like a chunk of granite as cumbersome as the altar-stone across which she still lay, face-down and gasping, laughing, weeping.

When Anita stood up, the Magister saw that she was indeed transformed. Her eyes were clear, the storm had passed; her smile was of a quality that only he could recognise, as one who had himself broken through that largely self-imposed barrier which separates the dross of earthly life from the spiritual gold.

Anita sank to her knees and kissed the Magister’s hands. She did not thank him in words, for words were too preposterously trivial a vehicle of communication. Her lovely upturned eyes, melting into his own steady gaze, said what her lips could not. And the rest of the sisterhood, enchanted by the revelational happening to which they had all contributed, felt their own souls uplifted, their own wills reinforced to continue along the path to Perfection.

A spanking and caning story from Janus magazine. For more stories click here.

There were tears in Sara’s eyes as she stared at the passing countryside. Just a year ago she seemed to have everything she could ever want. Now she was being driven against her will to a place where she knew she was going to be practically imprisoned for a month.

She was not actually going to prison, although there had been occasions in the past couple of months when that could easily have happened. The Abbey was one of the most expensive rehabilitation clinics in the Country, and for the amount her four-week stay was going to cost Sara expected there would be plenty of home comforts. Not that it was going to cost her a penny. The TV Production Company was picking up this tab. And quite right too, Sara thought.

After all, who was it who made such a fuss about her party lifestyle? So she liked to drink – was that not why they hired her to front the celebrity gossip show? Heaven knows, she was not going to get a job doing anything else, despite the expensive private education that Mummy and Daddy had paid through the nose for. She failed most of her exams, but why bother working when you know there is a nice, fat trust fund waiting for you on your twenty-first birthday? And, eventually, she would marry, and it would naturally be to a man of means. That was what girls like her did – it was inevitable.

After school and before marriage it was time for fun. And Sara had so much fun people started noticing her. Not just her own people, but ordinary people. Some of the parties she went to also featured pop stars and page three girls, so there were often photographers hanging around. With her pretty face, long brown hair and slim figure, Sara was an attractive girl, and with enough champagne inside her she could be loud and outrageous enough to be noticed. Soon her picture was appearing in the papers, and instead of the society broad sheets, it was the gossip sections of the tabloids, those dreadful rags read by builders and car mechanics.

The tabloid reporters soon found out who she was, and once they realised she was rich, upper class and boasted a double-barrelled name, they started asking her what she thought about all sorts of issues. It seemed strange to her that they should do this, and sometimes her answers seemed to provoke great amusement from the whole nation. Sara could never really work out why, but to be honest she did not really care.

When she was offered the job of fronting The Party Scene she leaped at it. She did not need the money of course, but it was something she could do. Unfortunately it was to be her downfall. Broadcasting people drank, but they seemed far more interested in drugs, and cocaine in particular. She was not that bothered to begin with, but soon found herself dabbling when a hectic schedule put her in need of something to keep her going. Unfortunately she liked it.

She liked it so much it was impossible to keep it quiet. The newspapers got wind of it, oblique references frequently popping up. Sara was not really aware of these, but she was aware of the unsuitable men she kept waking up with. The final straw was when she made a total fool of herself in front of the world’s TV cameras at a high-profile film premiere, throwing her arms around an astonished Hollywood leading man, and gabbling incoherently about all the things she would let him do to her, if she were allowed back to his hotel room. She was supposed to be interviewing him, and her bosses were not impressed.

She expected to be fired, but what actually happened was much worse. She had signed a contract, which she had not read, and found herself being threatened with a law suit which would bankrupt her, and possibly Daddy too. The only alternative was for her to sort herself out, and this was the TV company’s way of doing that.

The limo pulled up outside the main entrance to the impressive building. It had started life as a genuine abbey, before becoming an ostentatious private residence. After falling into post-war disrepair its own salvation turned out to be the business of offering hope to rich and famous burnouts.

Not that Sara knew any of this, or would have cared if she did. She just saw it as a place where she had to spend her four-week sentence, and she wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. She stepped out of the car as quickly as possible and was greeted by an attractive dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties, who appeared to be waiting for her on the large stone steps.

‘Welcome to the Abbey, Sara’ she said, her voice bright and cheerful. She wore a modern white nurse’s uniform of tunic and trousers. ‘Come with me, and I’ll take you to your room. I’m Katherine, by the way.’ She turned and led the way into the house. Sara followed, as the driver took Sara’s cases from the boot, before getting back into the limo and disappearing down the drive. Katherine stopped at the large oak doors and turned to look at the three large cases. ‘What about your luggage?’ she asked.

Sara was stunned. ‘You’ll be sending someone down for them, surely?’ she said.

‘Oh, of course, the bell boy’ said Katherine. She smiled again for a moment, till she realised she was not actually getting through to Sara. ‘No dear, here we encourage you to do the ordinary things for yourself. I’m afraid you’ll have to carry them on your own.’ And she turned to lead the way inside again.

Sara was about to argue, but found she had no one to argue with. Making a mental note to demand a discount, she struggled to pick up her bags.

The journey to her room was not easy. If the Abbey had a lift then Katherine was not disposed to use it, nor was she prepared to take one of the cases. After hauling them up the main ornamental staircase, which dominated the entrance hall, the exhausted socialite had to carry them up another, shorter flight to the second landing, then along that to a door numbered seven at the far end, where Katherine was waiting for her. As Sara caught up, Katherine opened the door and led the way in.

Sara followed, dumping her bags on the carpet as she stared around in breathless horror. ‘This is your room’ Katherine announced, ‘you’ll find everything you need here.’

Sara could not believe it. Not only were the curtains and bed linen the most drab and unimaginative she had ever seen, including her boarding school, it was also tiny. The narrow single bed, chair and cheap pine wardrobe practically filled it, leaving not enough room to swing the proverbial pussy. And Sara could not help noticing that there was only one door, and she was standing in it.

‘Excuse me’ she said, her tone deliberately sarcastic, ‘but where is the bathroom?’

‘Down the landing. There’s a shower and bath, and a couple of basins for every floor, so you’re only sharing with four other guests.’

Sara’s jaw dropped. ‘Share?’ she exploded, ‘share! I’m sorry, this really is unacceptable! The amount of money I – I mean, we – are paying you, the least you can do is organise an en suite room! I demand to be moved to a more suitable one immediately!’ And she turned up her little nose and threw her hands on her slim hips, in the pose which had struck terror into hotel managers from New York to Sydney, finding to their cost that the curtains were the wrong shade of green.

But Katherine was unmoved. She did not fluster an apology, or cower obsequiously. What she did was to give Sara a long hard stare. Sara was not used to that, and she found herself beginning to shake inside and out. She was not used to employees who did not back down when they were faced with the ultimate sanction of Sara not spending any more of other people’s money with them.

Finally Katherine moved. She walked towards Sara, but then stepped straight past her. Sara thought she was leaving, but Katherine had no intention of doing that. What she did was pull the door closed. Then she turned back to a very worried Sara. ‘It’s time you and I got a few things straight’ Katherine announced ominously.

The next five minutes Sara will always remember as a turning point in her life. It happened so fast; sometimes she was not even sure it all really happened, at least not the way she remembered it. When Katherine turned back into the room Sara thought she was going to push past her again. She did not expect to have her wrists seized, and feel herself being dragged towards the narrow divan.

Taking Sara by surprise, Katherine had no trouble pulling her down as she herself sat on the edge of the mattress. Sara had no idea where she was going, only that her head seemed to be going there first. Then the wind was knocked out of her, as her stomach landed on Katherine’s thighs. Her left arm was twisted neatly behind her back, and Katherine’s right leg clamped down across the backs of her thighs. Far too late to escape, Sara realised she had been put across Katherine’s lap, with her bottom unprotected and vulnerable. Sara may not have been very bright, but she knew why people put other people across their laps – to spank them.

Katherine’s hand landed on the seat of Sara’s designer label mini-skirt. She had wriggled and squealed all the while Katherine had been hauling her into position, but the shock of the first slap stunned her into silence. The second seemed to wake her up, and she began wailing, uttering the most unladylike oaths and threats she could think of. Katherine was unmoved, and the rain of heavy blows was unrelenting, as her left hand and both legs held the struggling Sara like a vice.

The spanking stopped, and so did Sara, blowing hard, pleased it was over and framing in her mind how she was going to make clear her utter shock at being treated so scandalously and disrespectfully. She thought she had the words, but her mind emptied as she felt Katherine’s fingers at the hem of her skirt. ‘No!’ she howled, twisting like fury.

‘Yes!’ said Katherine triumphantly, as the shiny snakeskin garment was pulled up. Sara’s bottom was exposed, literally. At that precise moment, and for the first time in her young life, she regretted having her thong as her underwear of choice. Katherine looked at the tiny piece of string that disappeared into Sara’s cleft, hissed ‘slut!’ under her breath, then resumed the spanking, this time on her bare bottom.

Now it really hurt, and Sara began to cry, tears of pain from the spanking, then shame when Katherine began to lecture her: ‘This is not a hotel, you are not here to be pampered; you are here to be cured of your bad habits; you are an arrogant, spoiled little bitch, and someone should have done this to you ages ago; from now, until you leave here, you will do exactly as you are told; do you understand?’

Katherine paused, and Sara tried to take advantage by squirming free. It was no good, the woman was obviously used to holding people captive whilst she handed out such undignified punishments. The torrent of slaps resumed, but much harder this time. ‘Do you understand?’ she repeated, with more menace.

‘Yes! Yes, I understand! I’ll do as I’m told!’ Sara sobbed. Suddenly she felt very exposed, almost as if she were a schoolgirl again, back under the strict guidance of her teachers. Not that any of them would have dared do this to her – Daddy would have had her out of there in an instant had that ever happened.

‘Excellent!’ announced Katherine, finishing with a volley of hard spanks that made Sara squeal again. Then she found herself being hauled upright, before being tipped backwards onto her bottom, wincing as she landed on the sore and abused flesh.

Katherine got up and headed to the door, without a trace of emotion on her stern face. She turned and looked down at the undignified heap that Sara had become, before leaving. ‘Dinner is in half an hour – the dining room is down the stairs on your left – and if you don’t turn up for a meal on time, you don’t get fed. Do you think you can follow a rule as simple as that? And you’ll eat what you’re given, no complaining because the food isn’t cordon bleu. Afterwards there’s a special treatment session in the main common room on the opposite side of the hall from the dining room. I want you there; you need to see more of our methods so you understand why it’s in your interests to do as you’re told. Don’t be late.’ And with that Katherine was gone, the door clicking behind her.

Sara finally got her breath back, and stood gingerly. She pulled down her skirt and made herself decent again. Staggering to the bathroom, and glad to find it empty, she washed her face to get rid of her tear-streaked make-up, then ran her face flannel under a cold tap and dived into a cubicle. Lifting her skirt, she applied it to her smarting bottom and sighed in relief.

Then she heard the door open and Sara froze in horror. Safe in her stall, she was hidden from view, but still did not feel up to meeting any of the other guests in this state. She heard the taps of two basins being run, along with the voices of a pair of young women, evidently here to wash their hands before dinner. But if she was alarmed at their arrival, she was to be horrified by their conversation.

‘Did you hear the racket from room seven just now?’

‘Certainly did. Sounds like Katherine had to get straight to business with the new girl. I’m not surprised though – do you know who she is?’

‘No?’

‘Only that Sara Pointlessly-Hyphenated bitch who’s all over the telly and the tabloids. That ‘It’ girl who got famous for being famous. Oh, and for having a rich daddy.’

‘Never!’

‘The very same. Had booze and drugs problems for months, apparently. The last straw was when she was caught giving some B-list pop star a blow job in the toilets of some swanky night club.’

‘Sounds like she needs Katherine’s help more than we do. I wonder how she liked her first taste of the Abbey Treatment?’

‘You heard what a fuss she kicked up. God knows what she’ll think when she sees what’s going to happen to poor Natasha this evening.’

‘Quite. Now there’s a girl who’s shoes I wouldn’t want to be in!’

The voices tailed off as the unseen girls left the bathroom. Sara emerged from the cubicle even more alarmed than before, and a little put out. She had heard that story about herself and the pop star before, and it was not true. Well, at least she could not remember doing it.

She did not have much of an appetite, but still decided to go to dinner. For all she knew, not going could give that beastly woman another excuse to smack her bottom. She found the dining room without any trouble, and was shocked, although not by now surprised, to discover it was self-service, and for some very basic food.

Taking a small portion of mashed potatoes and a couple of sausages, she found a solitary table in the corner where she picked at her food, trying not to make eye contact with any of the other guests, who were eating around her. One or two she recognised, household names she was astonished to see here. Everyone seemed to know her, and there were plenty of winks and nudges. For the first time ever Sara was not happy about her celebrity status.

The one thing she did have in common with her fellow guests is that they were all young women, mostly in their twenties, a couple in their early thirties. The clientele of the Abbey was exclusively female, and this was one of the reasons for its selection, according to the TV executive who told Sara she was going. She had been distracted by men often enough, he had said. She needed to be in a place where her libido could take a break, as well as her nose and liver.

She had only half-finished her food by the time Katherine appeared. She clapped loudly and the quiet murmur disappeared completely. ‘I hope you enjoyed your tea ladies. Now, as you all know, a spot check of some of the rooms last night had a disappointing result. Some whisky miniatures were found hidden underneath Natasha’s mattress.’ Nervous laughter ran around the room. ‘She’s confessed, and is waiting in the lounge for her punishment, which is, for this serious offence, public. If you would all like to go through and take your seats. Attendance is mandatory, not just for Natasha’s benefit, but also for yours, in case any of you had ideas about trying the same thing. Come on now.’

The group of about n dozen young women trooped out of the dining room, all taking their plates and crockery back to the main service table before they went. Too used to restaurants, Sara left hers where they were. A sharp rebuke from Katherine had her scuttling back to correct her mistake, blushing with shame and grateful no one was left to witness it.

This made her the last to reach the lounge, and she was astonished at what she found there. The name Natasha had meant nothing to her, but now she saw to whom it belonged. Standing alone before the audience was one of the most famous young female singers in the world. Sara gasped. This girl was so well known even she would not have needed a researcher to explain who she was.

Now she looked very unhappy. A sex symbol lusted after by millions, she wore her trademark baggy T-shirt, combats and expensive trainers. Her hair, boyishly short and jet black, framed her beautiful elfin face perfectly. On her right wrist there hung a big bunch of silver bangles, while on her left she wore a large, trendy black sports watch. She wore no other jewellery, and her face, much paler than normal, was cast to the floor with a very apprehensive look.

Her hands were clasped before her, even though there was a straight-backed chair beside her. The other girls had all sat down in the various armchairs and sofas around the common room. Sara found another wooden chair in the corner and slipped her still-sensitive bottom onto it.

Katherine arrived and there was an audible drawing of breath in the room. Natasha looked up at her, and was visibly trembling. Katherine was carrying something, something long and thin. Sara peered at it from her seat in the back row, and could not believe her eyes when they fixed on the curved handle in Katherine’s fist. She was clutching an old-fashioned school cane.

Katherine addressed the shaking girl. ‘They all know why you’re here’ she told her, indicating the rest of the guests with the tip of the cane, and you’ve been told what to do, so let’s not waste time. Get on with it.’

Natasha’s shaking fingers went to the large buckle of her belt, and she fumbled it undone, before unbuttoning and unzipping her combat pants. Letting them go, they dropped to her ankles, exposing a pair of very shapely tanned legs. Reaching underneath the hem of her black T-shirt, there was a snap of elastic and sound of fabric sliding over her smooth skin until Natasha’s skimpy maroon knickers appeared, on their way to join her trousers. She kept her eyes on the carpet all the time, and her T-shirt was al least long enough to cover her pubes, sparing her the humiliation of total exposure to the audience.

‘Turn around and show everyone your bottom’ Katherine barked. Somewhat hampered by her crumpled combats, the unfortunate girl shuttled around and bent forward over the chair, its purpose now clear to Sara. With a gulp that was audible to everyone, Natasha reached back and flicked the tail of her T-shirt up to reveal one of the most desired bottoms in the celebrity world. And everyone gasped when they saw it.

It was red, with vivid handprints all over. ‘That’s right’ said Katherine, ‘she’s had a good hand spanking in her room, while you were all having dinner. You all got one from me sooner or later, although it didn’t take one or two of you very long to get the wrong side of me.’ Sara blushed furiously, as Katherine shot her a pointed glance. ‘But the full penalty for alcoholic or narcotic contraband is, and always has been, this – a public caning on the bare bottom. Brace yourself Natasha.’

The brunette’s hands were placed on the chair seat, and her fingers tightened around the edges. Katherine lined the cane up along the centre of both cheeks, held it still for a second, drew it back, then swished it across Natasha’s bottom with a mighty whistle and crack. ‘Aaagh!’ the poor girl screamed.

‘Keep still! Count it!’

‘Oh! One… thank you, Katherine!’ Natasha’s beautiful voice, normally used to pump out rock numbers or power ballads, was thick with real pain and emotion. Katherine gave her a few seconds before delivering the second stroke. ‘Aaah! Two, thank you Katherine!’ Another moment of brief respite, then the cane cracked across the slim but curved cheeks once again. ‘Oooh! Three, thank you Katherine!’

‘Good girl. Halfway there’ said Katherine, as she paused to stroke the abused and striped bottom, making its owner shiver in fear. ‘I hope you’re all paying very close attention’ she added, addressing her ashen-faced and silent audience. ‘This is what would happen to each and every one of you if you’re caught with booze or drugs.’

She took her left hand away from Natasha’s skin before the cane swiped down for a fourth time. ‘Eeeeah! Four, thank you Katherine.’ Natasha’s feet drummed on the floor. She was in real pain.

‘I don’t care if you are a multi-million selling pop star, or a top soap actress, or a posh bitch with a trust fund, you’re all here to be taught that there are limits…’ The cane punctuated Katherine’s sentence. ‘…And you must all learn not to cross them.’

‘Five, thank you Katherine’ Natasha sobbed, clearly in tears. She was allowed a little longer before the cane crashed down for the last time. ‘Aaah! Six… six, thank you, Katherine.’ Her voice tailed off into a pathetic snivel.

But Katherine was unmoved. ‘Stand up’ she snapped. Natasha did so, stiffly. ‘Pull your knickers up. And your trousers.’ Moving awkwardly, the girl obeyed. ‘Turn around.’ She shuffled round to face the audience, her make-up ruined by her tears. Katherine put her fingers under Natasha’s chin and lifted it to look straight into her beautiful green eyes. ‘God, look at the state of you! Well, let it be a lesson to you – all of you – don’t drink the wine if you can’t pay the fine. Now get off to bed, and don’t show your face till breakfast.’

As Natasha slunk out the room, one hand rubbing her bottom and the other rubbing her eyes, Sara checked her Cartier watch. It was barely seven! She was not sure which would be worse, the pain of the caning or the humiliation of being publicly sent to bed like a naughty child. Then she remembered how much a simple spanking had hurt, and guessed she would take the early-to-bed-with-no-supper option any day. So much so that, even as the other girls switched on the TV in the corner, or reached onto a shelf for a collection of board games, she too decided on a very early night.

The turbulent emotions caused by the events of the last few hours had exhausted Sara and she dozed off almost immediately, then slept like a log till she was woken by the early sunlight filtering through the thin curtains. She was used to waking up in strange bedrooms, either alone or with a new male companion, and for a moment she wondered where she was. Then the remains of a dull ache in her bottom reminded her.

She stumbled out of bed and wrapped herself in a silk robe, then picked up her towel and sponge bag and headed for the bathroom. She was relieved to find no one else using it yet, and even more pleased to discover there was plenty of hot water. She spent longer luxuriating under the hot jets than she really needed to, and only got out when a knock on her cubicle door told her others wanted to use the it. She quickly wrapped herself in her towel to shield her modesty, before grabbing her robe and scampering back to her room past three surly looking girls, who shot her annoyed glances as she went.

She planned to have breakfast alone again, and had almost finished her cereal when a voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Mind if I sit here?’ Sara looked up to see Natasha standing beside her with a tray of food.

‘Of course.’ Sara was taken by surprise, but indicated the spare chair opposite her. She noticed Natasha wince as she parked her bottom on the hard seat. This morning she was really dressed down, wearing baggy jogging bottoms and a hooded lop, as if she were about to go running. She wore no make-up at all.

‘Thanks’ the beautiful singer whispered. ‘After last night I think everyone’s avoiding me. They probably don’t know what to say.’

‘Does it still hurt?’ This was all Sara could think of herself.

‘I’ll say! I slept on my tummy all night! And the humiliation – honestly, I cried myself to sleep.’ Sara could see by the redness of her eyes that Natasha was not kidding.

They chatted happily for ten minutes, until they realised they were the last in the dining room. As they got up to leave Katherine appeared and walked straight to them. ‘Sara, you’ll come with me right now.’ Her tone was curt and clipped, brooking no dispute.

‘Is there something wrong?’ Natasha asked, apparently anxious to defend her new friend, who had been frightened into silence.

‘This doesn’t concern you. You’ve got a class in reinforcing a positive self-image to get to, and you’ve been in enough trouble with me already. I suggest you get to it.’ Suitable chastened, Natasha hurried away, casting a nervous glance at Sara as she went. ‘Now follow me’ Katherine ordered the frightened It Girl.

The older woman led the way to the bathroom, where she flung open the door. ‘I believe you are responsible for this’ she said. The floor was soaked, with a trail leading to the cubicle Sara had used half-an-hour ago. The basin she had used when she cleaned her teeth and prepared her face before breakfast was in a similar slate, with smear marks around it and some discarded make-up packets on the shelf in front of the mirror.

‘I – I think I did use that shower and basin’ Sara stammered, ‘but haven’t the cleaners…’

‘Haven’t the cleaners picked up your mess for you?’ Katherine finished the sentence for her. ‘At the Abbey we don’t have cleaners. The emphasis is on taking responsibility for your own actions, whether that means cleaning up after yourself in the bathroom or acknowledging you’re to blame for your addictions. This is as good a place to start. You’ll find the cleaning gear in that cupboard.’

‘You mean you want me to…’

‘Mop, bucket, cloths and cleaning fluid. And I suggest you put on an older pair of jeans than those. Even I know that designer label retails at a hundred and fifty pounds a pair, and those are almost new. Same goes for that smart sweater.’

‘But… but these are the oldest clothes I have! I give all my old stuff to charity shops once the right people have moved to new designs.’

‘You have no idea how pretentious you sound, my sweet. Okay, if you have no suitable working clothes, you’ll have to do it school PE style.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘In your bra and pants.’ Sara stared at her in horror, but Katherine cut off any further protest. ‘You’re going to do it, so if I were you I would do it now, because you’re getting very close to doing it after you’ve had my hand on your bottom again. And this time I won’t be so gentle.’

Sara was not sure what she should do, but she knew she did not want another spanking, so miserably pulled her jumper over her head. Katherine held out her hand and look the garment from her, so she could slip off her sandals and unbutton and unzip her expensive jeans. They dropped to the bathroom floor and she stepped out of them. Katherine took them and threw them over her left arm, before stooping to pick up the sandals. ‘I’ll take these to your room’ she said. ‘I see your liking for labels extends to your intimates.’ With her right hand Katherine grabbed the elastic in the small of Sara’s back, pulled her black knickers open and peered inside, right at her bottom. ‘Hmmm, DKNY. Top of the range, bra and panty set’ she said. ‘I can only afford M and S or BHS, the pittance I get for babysitting stuck-up brats like you. Would you like me to take these back to your room too? At least they won’t get messed up if you work in the buff, and it’s possible no one will come in while you’re doing it.’

‘N-no, really, I’ll keep them on!’ sobbed Sara.

‘As you wish’ said Katherine, releasing the waistband so it snapped back into place, drawing a howl of shock and pain from Sara. ‘Now get on with it!’ Sara squeaked again as Katherine slapped her bottom, then was gone.

Deeply ashamed and humiliated, Sara knelt and opened the cupboard. One by one, she removed each cleaning article and examined it. It took some time, but she worked out what each one was for and set about using them. It had never occurred her that she had enjoyed such a sheltered childhood until now, when she realised her only experience of cleaning a bathroom had come from watching others, domestics at home, school or in the best hotels. She never imagined she would be doing the work herself, much less after being forcibly stripped to her bra and knickers.

Nevertheless she worked away, and finally stood back, pleased that she had actually done a passable job. Stowing the cleaning things carefully back in the cupboard (she had learned her lesson), she decided to dash back to her room and hope she made it before being spotted, where she could change her crumpled and grubby underwear and retrieve her clothes. She opened the door and peeked around it. There was no one there. She scampered along the corridor and grabbed the handle to her room, dived inside and slammed the door behind her. She closed her eyes, then opened them again and nearly leaped out of her skin.

Katherine was still there, sitting quietly on the bed. Had she been there all this time? And what was she waiting for? Sara did not like the expression on her face. ‘You’re still here?’ Sara mumbled.

‘I certainly am’ Katherine replied, ‘and I have some bad news for you.’

‘B…bad news?’ Sara was mystified.

‘Very bad. I decided to put your clothes back in your case for you. And do you know what fell out of one of the inside pockets when I opened it?’

‘Er… no?’ But Sara was beginning to have a vague and horrible idea what it might be.

‘This’ said Katherine, pulling a small plastic packet of white powder from the top pocket of her nurse’s tunic. ‘Any explanations?’

Sara’s mind flew back into the haze that was the last few weeks. She could just about remember a nice young man at a party in New York giving her the packet, and how she stowed it carefully in the lining of her case. Evidently not careful enough to fool this nosy cow. She did not believe for a moment it fell out of any inside pockets. But she was caught bang to rights. ‘I… I got it ages ago. I forgot it was there. I wasn’t going to use it, I promise.’

But her entreaties fell on deaf ears. ‘Save your breath sweetheart. You’ll need it for crying when I’ve done with you.’ Sara blanched when she realised what Katherine meant. ‘You saw what happened to Natasha when I found drink in her room. You needn’t think the penalty for drugs is any different. Downstairs, now.’

‘But can’t I get some clothes…’

‘No point. Your pretty arse is going to be bared for your punishment, so why do you need to cover it up now? Come on.’

Katherine rose and took hold of Sara’s ear. Half-dragging and half-guiding her, she escorted the unhappy girl to the sitting room, where she was placed on a wooden chair in front of all the other empty seats. ‘Now wait here while I round up everyone else’ Katherine told her, before disappearing.

Sara remained frozen in the chair, too frightened to move, as one by one the other girls drifted in. She kept her head bowed to avoid eye contact with them, although she did look up once when she heard Natasha whisper her name. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll soon be over’ the dark-eyed beauty breathed, before taking her seat at the back of the room, just before Katherine arrived. Sara looked up again and gulped when she saw she carried the long thin cane. The muscles of her bottom twitched involuntarily. ‘I’m sorry to have to gather you here at such short notice’ Katherine announced to the expectant audience of young women, but, less than twenty-four hours after dispensing discipline for one breach of the rules, I find there has been a second, much more serious misdemeanour. This young lady feels a rehabilitation clinic is the ideal place into which to bring cocaine.’ There was a murmur of shock and apprehension throughout the room, before Katherine went on. ‘Of course there can only be one punishment, we all know what it is, and so I suggest we get on with it. Sara, stand up, turn the chair around and bend over the backrest.’

Sara was too overwhelmed to resist, so, with tears in her eyes, she got to shaky feet and did as she had been told. She had always been proud of her slim frame, but her bottom felt enormous as she leaned forward and presented it to her peers. Suddenly she felt Katherine’s hands at the waistband of her panties, and gasped in shock as they were pulled down and sent to rest on the floor about her ankles. She had done lingerie shoots for a couple of mid-shelf lads’ mags, but the pants had always stayed on. Besides, she knew she was still displaying some redness from yesterday’s spanking.

She felt the cane tap against her helpless bottom, and barely managed to suppress a gulp. ‘It’ll be six, just the same as you saw Natasha getting, and I’ll have each one counted with a nice loud ‘thank you, Katherine’ afterwards, her tormentor ordered. Here we go!’

There was a momentary silence and Sara closed her eyes and pictured the cane being lifted, as she had seen Katherine do the night before. Then there was a whistling noise and a sharp ‘thwack!’, followed a micro-second later by the sensation of a thousand red hot needles being shoved into her bottom, all in a line. At least, that’s how it felt to her. She yelled in pain and shock.

‘Oh dear’ she heard Katherine say after a few seconds. ‘I do hate repeating myself. Since that was the first stroke, I’ll not repeat it – provided you count it for me right now!’

‘Oh! One, thank you Katherine!’ Sara had genuinely forgot, but counting it only made her wonder how she was going to take five more of those.

She did not have long to find out. The second crashed down almost immediately. ‘Aaaah! Ah! Two, thank you Katherine!’ She was allowed a few seconds to recover, before number three landed, making her jolt forward and knocking her breath from her lungs. She sucked in a mouthful of air before counting it off.

Number four was bad, but did not seem as bad as the others, for some strange reason. By number five Sara assumed she had just become numb, and was not as sensitive to the latter strokes as she had been to the first couple. But this thought was dispelled by the sixth, a real stinger that Katherine laid squarely across the meat of her bottom. ‘Eeeaah! Oh my God! Oooh! Oh, six thank you Katherine!’ she wailed through eyes misted with salt water. It hurt like hell, but she knew it was over, and she was still alive. She even found herself taking a slightly perverse pride in the muttering of the assembled audience, knowing they must be talking about how severe a caning she had just taken.

‘Stand up.’ Katherine’s instruction was terse and businesslike. She obeyed, rubbing her bottom as she did so, drawing some relief from the action. ‘Pull your knickers back up.’ Sara bent to do so, not caring what she showed the other girls as she did so. Pain was all to her at the moment. ‘Now get to your room for the rest of the day, and think what it means to be a spoilt, self-indulgent brat.’

As she limped to the door she mostly kept her head down, but did look up once, to catch a couple of knowing winks, including one from Natasha. Five minutes later, naked and face down on her bed, she reflected on what a long month this was going to be.

Of course, Sara could not keep out of trouble. Almost every other day she found herself being spanked in her room, after Katherine came up with some excuse to discipline her, from not going to bed early, to listening to her personal stereo so loudly in the lounge that the other girls could not hear the television properly. Try as she might, she could not avoid being taken to her room to have her knickers taken down and her bare bottom smacked hard. But she did manage to avoid another public caning, an experience she was in no hurry to repeat.

So when her final day arrived and she packed her bags, she was quite happy to bid a civil but frosty farewell to Katherine, knowing she would never see her again, far less feel the wrath of her angry palm. She climbed into the limo and watched the grounds roll slowly by as they drove towards the gate. ‘Straight home please’ she told the driver. She was not even in the mood for a detour via Harvey Nicholls.

‘I’m sorry Miss. I have strict orders not to take you home’ the driver said gruffly.

‘Not to… well, where are you going to take me then?’

‘To the producers’ offices, miss. They want to see you straight away.’ Sara relaxed and settled back into her seat. They probably want to apologise for sending me to that awful place, she thought. Or maybe I’m going to be offered more money, now I’ve cleaned up my act? Or maybe even my own talk show? She continued to daydream as the luxurious white car joined the A3 and cruised towards central London.

She was dropped outside the smart West End office block, and sashayed in without a word to the receptionist. Several admiring looks followed her slim figure down the hall, clad as she was in expensive black leather jeans which hugged her slim contours perfectly, as did the black cashmere sweater.

She found her producer’s office and walked in without knocking, feeling her old arrogance beginning to return now she was back in the real world. Her producer, a healthy-looking man in his forties, a pastel green designer suit and purple shirt, looked up. He smiled at her. ‘Sara! How nice to see you back! Take a seat.’

She sank into the armchair in the corner of the room, and was about to launch into a tirade against the Abbey and its brutal methods, but the producer spoke again before she could put her thoughts into words.

‘I’m glad you completed the Abbey course. I know how unconventional some of the techniques are, but they do get results. Of course, getting you clean for now is only part of the process. We have to keep you clean, and to that end we’ve enlisted a little help. I think you know Katherine.’

The door opened and closed again to admit the woman Sara had grown to loathe over the past four weeks. She stared at her aghast – not only was she here, she was carrying her cane!

‘You may have noticed your limo taking a couple of scenic detours on the route up here. We sent a second car to the Abbey, which got back here before yours. The fact is Sara that if you want to continue working for us, and not get yourself sued for breach of contract, this is the deal. Every Monday morning you come here at nine AM. We take a breath and urine sample, and if there’s any trace of alcohol or drugs, Katherine will provide suitable discipline. Her fee is a combination of cash and shares in our company, so she has every incentive to cane you hard if you stray from the straight and narrow. And just to make sure you know we’re not bluffing she’s going to give you half-a-dozen here and now. I know it might not seem fair, seeing as you haven’t done anything, but, well, life isn’t fair, is it?’

‘Come on Sara. Take down those tarty trousers, and whatever elastic string you have passing for knickers underneath, and get over the desk.’ Katherine flexed the cane in front of her as she issued her orders. Sara stood up and obeyed, almost as if she were in a trance. Or was it a nightmare?

As she was stripped naked from the waist to the ankles and placed in position for the first wicked stroke of the cane, she wondered how many more weeks would begin like this.

She knew herself. She knew she was weak. She knew there would be many.