This free chapter is taken from the new novel ‘The Bottom Man’ by longtime Janus writer Stephen Sims. 

CHAPTER SIX

She could smell the hay. Heat hung heavy in the stable. Sparrows fluttered about the wooden cross-beam above the woman’s head where she towered, glowering, a riding-crop flexed in her fists. Horses snorted. Tamar was on her knees. The fearsome face floated closer, the rod lifted to strike her flinching form – and she was looking at the curtains, gently moving where the air from the open window stirred them.

Geoff’s mouth was open in the darkness. He was snoring, his breath fragrant from spirits and beer. Tamar struggled from the duvet and stepped to the floor, half-stumbled out on to the landing in her shortie nightdress, tousle-haired and bleary, heading for the bathroom.

On emerging, Geoff’s snores sounded louder. Tamar saw no solution, short of waking him, which she didn’t want to. Instead she trod along to the small room she called her office on the other side of the stairwell. It was meant to be a child’s room, and when they decided to try for a baby it would be converted to that use.

Switching on the desk-light she thought again of Mr Blezard’s oil-lamp and his spooky schoolroom from another age. What was that about? Had the loss of his wife turned his mind in some way? An oval mirror framed with driftwood hung on the wall behind the filing cabinet. Tamar stepped over to it and studied her puzzled face in the reflection. “Christ,” she muttered to the mirror’s image, “I dreamed I was the girl on the cover of that stupid mag…”

She stepped away till she could see herself full-length, then lifted the nightdress so the light glowed on her lower back and bare behind. Perhaps hers wasn’t quite as peach-perfect as some she’d glimpsed in Claire Higson’s mag, but at the age of twenty-six, with visits to the gym and swimming pool keeping her toned, she felt she couldn’t complain.

The girl in the mirror raised an arm behind her and brought it down, palm open. The impact made a surprisingly loud sound, and stung, making her bottom wobble. She repeated the experiment a second and third time. The brief pain-flashes made her wince. Already the skin was pinkening there.

Feeling a bit ashamed at her antics, Tamar let the nightdress fall back in place and returned to the desk. The clock showed five past three, and she wondered if Geoff had stopped snoring yet. She lowered herself on to the swivel chair, feeling a not-unpleasant smarting where she sat. She opened the drawer and brought out the magazine. There was the girl, whose being she’d briefly inhabited in her weird dream. Printed above the woman’s head was, in forward-sloping letters: BRAZEN, with teasers down the side of the pleading victim: Women’s punishment fantasies revealed; Hot bots in the movies; More confessions of a female sub.

“What’s a ‘sub’?” murmured Tamar to herself with a quiet laugh. “Substitute? Submarine?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” The voice was grating, sleep-slurred. Tamar slid the magazine back in the drawer and slammed it shut, glad that her back was to the door. She stood and switched out the light.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said.

“Take a pissing pill,” said Geoff. She approached him where he stood in pyjamas in the doorway. He’d started a moustache, blond like the rest of his well-trimmed hair that was starting to thin at the front. Tamar wasn’t sure whether she liked the moustache. He’d be twenty-seven next time and his body was starting to store fat. By thirty he’d be portly unless he worked out.

“What were you doing in here, swatting fucking flies? It woke me up.”

“Get back to bed, Geoff.”

She took his arm and led him back along the landing. At five-foot nine he liked to think of himself as tall, but wore thick-soled shoes to enhance his height. Now, without slippers, he seemed to have shrunk. She steered him back into the bedroom, glad to see his eyelids drooping. On the bed he rolled to his side nearest the wall and she slipped in beside him and turned off the lamp. The alarm-clock glowed, faintly phosphorescent.

She closed her eyes, sleep took her quickly, and she started to dream again…

 

The gate squeaked as she pushed through it and hurried up the path. She was late, charged with terrible thrills. There was no bell, just a brass lion’s head knocker which she swung against the door, a single ‘crash’ that shocked the quiet garden and echoed away towards the hills beyond the fence.

She was wearing a dark-blue satin blouse and white pencil skirt, and carried a shopping bag filled with things other than shopping. She had to wait at least a minute, gnawing her lip with wonderful apprehension, before hearing his deliberately deliberate tread in the hall. The front door swung open.

He said not a word, but stood back to admit her. She meekly entered the imposing hallway and walked directly into his schoolroom. He followed her in and closed the door, then turned to face her.

“I presume I need scarcely point out that you are twelve minutes late,” he curtly reproved.

She fidgeted, breathing in the room’s unique fragrance of furniture polish, chalk-dust and fabrics. The smell made her weak with delicious terror. “Sorry,” she replied, breathless. “Th-there was a meeting, I had to take notes, sir.”

“Prepare yourself, I’ll fetch my gown,” he said bleakly, “and select a suitable implement. I feel perfectly certain it will be required. Would you agree, Miss?”

She could hardly get her breath. “Y-yes, sir – I’m sure it will be.”

She saw a frail, diminutive man of seventy-four with sparse silver hair, thread-veins on his nose and rimless specs through which blinked two watery myopic eyes; but all that was about to change. As she moved towards the ante-room with her shopping bag she felt his gaze follow her, blinking down the curve of her spine to her neat waist and the skirt’s provocative outswell, and she hastened from the study as though he had touched her there.

Minutes later she reappeared. Even the quality of the light from the window seemed to have altered: evening sun-shafts burnishing dust-motes seen with young frightened eyes, dust raised by flapping black gown and heavy tread, carpet yielding to fear-filled feet as she approached the dreaded desk, gulping in the smell of tobacco and tweed, burned matches, polish and chalk.

All traces of her make-up had gone. She wore flat shoes with white ankle-socks, a navy-blue pleated gymslip that showed most of her thighs, a crisp white blouse with red-and-blue striped tie knotted at her throat. Her palms felt clammy and her shoulder-length copper-coloured mane, which usually tumbled in burnished coils around her face, was gathered into a tail and tied severely back with a pale-blue ribbon; while the fringe that flopped over her forehead, and the gym-trimmed slenderness of her nimble-neat body, completed the illusion of youth.

“Come forward, girl!” His voice, bleakly authoritative, was deceptively quiet.

She shuffled forward, subdued and pale, head down-hung. He was standing stiff-backed behind his desk, a schoolmaster’s black gown over tweed jacket and flannels, mortar board on head. He stepped across to the cupboard and took from inside a crook-handled cane some three feet long, which he swished experimentally through the air with a loud whop.

Solemnly he turned to survey her with hot, bright eyes, gripping the cane in both hands and flexing the thin shaft into a quivering arc. Her mouth was dry and she felt her heart pounding. “Well, Tamar Linden…” His voice was icily severe. “What have you to say for yourself?”

“Nothing, sir. I have no excuses.”

She was staring at his midriff. The bottom button on his jacket was unfastened. The cane came into focus, supple and whispery in his grasp.

“Speak up, girl!” he said tartly. “I can’t hear you.”

“No excuses, sir! I’ve been wicked!”

“And you deserve to be punished?”

“Yes, sir!” It was a hoarse, defiant shout. “I fucking well do, I deserve it, okay?”

“Miss Linden!” The elderly face was stiff with shock. “How dare you use that disgusting expression!”

“I’m sorry, sir.” She gnawed at her lower lip, quailing.

“You have clearly been a disgrace to yourself and the entire school,” he said tartly. “Is that not so?”

“Yes, sir.” She was unable to meet his piercing glare.

“Such behaviour is deserving of the sternest retribution. Do you have anything further to say before I administer punishment?”

“No, sir.” The sound was a half-sobbed sigh.

“I will cane you over one layer of clothing. Six.” Her gasp and flinch were expressive. “You will raise your gymslip to the waist, Tamar Linden, and bend across the desk.”

The schoolgirl-woman walked to the side of the old oak desk and stood against it. Then, wretched with embarrassment, she hoisted the pleated skirt up to her hips to display shapely legs bare from the white ankle-socks to the undercurves of her navy-blue knickered behind. She spread her feet to lower her waist to desk height, then bent forward to lie along its polished surface, reaching out to grasp the further edge, feeling the coolness of the wood against her tummy and thighs.

In the silence she could hear him breathing, then the rustle of his gown as he took up position behind her. She could feel how her bent posture had tightened her knickers, the thin fabric sinking between each buttock and clinging to the soft curves. She knew that his eyes were gloating lasciviously on her there, and the fact excited rather than repelled her as she clenched her eyes shut in petrified anticipation, buttock-muscles quivering.

His arm swept down. The cane struck the springy globes with a snicky-whick and leapt away. Tamar’s body convulsed on the desk-top, her fingers scrabbled and wrenched, she gave a piteous mew, then settled again, ready for the next stroke. He had put power into it, and she’d taken it well.

Five times more he swung the cane, while she jerked and shuddered to the sharp detonation as it met its target, marking the visible flesh with streaks of white which turned to red, a burning epitaph to her self-acknowledged waywardness.

The cane ceased its activity and hung limp in his hand. She was sobbing harshly, slumped lewdly across the desk.

“Your punishment is over. Stand up.”

Shaking, tear-drenched, she pushed herself up from the desk and tugged the gymslip back into place. Her face was flushed, with swollen eyes and runny nose. She produced a tissue from her sleeve and blew noisily into it.

“And kneel,” he commanded.

She sank to her knees, palms kneading her punished bottom. He took the cane in both hands and held it horizontally out to her. She kissed it, wetly, then pressed her lips against the hand that had wielded it.

“Thank you, sir,” she whispered.

 

*       *       *

 

Tamar turned into the modern cul-de-sac of orange-brick houses, eased the car through the open gates, triggered the garage doors and drove inside. There was usually a scramble in the morning: she had further to drive to work than Geoff, but sometimes he liked to get in early. So they were used to jockeying each other’s cars.

For mid-September it was unseasonably warm. Although gone seven there was still no Geoff, just a message to say he’d be back around ten. Tamar felt too agitated for more than a snack, poured herself a red wine from the open bottle, and took it into her little office room.

She’d decided on the drive home that whatever was in Claire Higson’s magazine needed to be confronted more fully. Her vivid dreams last night had disturbed her, especially the one about Mr Blezard caning her on the arse across his desk. In the dream he’d left her panties on. Parts of that dream had kept straying into her mind during the day, it was time to draw a line under it now – its contents were starting to bug her more than she might have expected and she didn’t know why.

Tamar stood up and shrugged off the jacket that matched her black skirt. The turquoise silk top with Chinese patterns shone where the light caught it in the mirror. She pulled open the drawer, took out the magazine, braced herself, then began to leaf through it. There was the expected pageant of well-toned female rears, faces stern and pleading, implements of discipline, surprisingly civilised letters from readers, contact ads. The ‘dominant’ men in the photos looked wholesome and well-groomed, the girls on the receiving end of their punitive attentions were all attractive with good figures, while the text accompanying the photospread was literate and sensitive.

Tamar began to relax. Even the woman with the riding-crop betrayed, in the shoot with the very pretty girl who looked like a fashion model, a vulnerability of camera-

consciousness. Her snarl as she upbraided her quailing victim looked posed, while the shots of the half-nude ‘stable-girl’, now out of her jodhpurs and draped over the side of a stall with her shapely rear uppermost, seemed unconvincingly staged.

An item by a contributor put a name to the apparent ‘need’ being exploited by the magazine. Apart from the fairly routine ‘buttock fetishism’ possessed by many (‘including females,’ it added) was a condition called ‘algolagnia’, from the Greek for ‘pain’. Algernon Swinburne, whose florid poetry Tamar could remember Mr Blezard eulogising over, was reportedly prey to this and his ‘constant craving’ in this respect was kept in check by his cousin, Mary Leith, who gave him regular whackings. Even Percy Grainger, who wrote ‘In An English Country Garden’, was seemingly at it, flagellating himself when he wasn’t making music. Decidedly odd, all of it, Tamar decided.

Then an article written by a female caught her attention.

 

RAINCOAT MEN?

 

by Sarah Veitch

 

Recently I read a book review which claimed that sad men in raincoats were the only ones who bought this kind of literature. I don’t know where that reviewer shops – but it’s definitely not at the same book stores as my friends and I. The reviewer portrayed the usual reader of magazines such as Brazen as a lonely bachelor who has never had a relationship.

The reality is very different. Most of the dominant men I know are married, separated or divorced. Admittedly they haven’t all found a woman who wants to be willingly treated in this way – but that’s because there are relatively few of us out there. Why? Because although many women like to fantasise about the submissive role, fewer understandably have the courage to act these desires out.

So my married male friends find erotic satisfaction in books or magazines like this. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that? It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a brutal sadist or a cringing masochist. One woman’s pleasurable pain is another’s visit to hell; but tone it down and ease up, apply with consideration and care and true respect, and the landscape becomes very different for that second woman…

Tamar took another sip of wine. It was floating into her senses in a delicious way.

The reviewer implicitly made the assumption that anyone who seeks out erotic literature per se is sad. If that’s the case, then we’re an entire nation of inadequate bastards, for the number of people buying arousing materials is very high. Millions of us obtain explicit magazines and books by mail order, via the Internet or from specialist shops.

Our sexual desires shouldn’t be a source of shame. We are all here as the result of a sexual act (you can tell I was top of my Biology class) and most of us will go on to become sexual beings. So long as it is legal, gives harm to no one and is consensual to the adults involved, why shouldn’t we seek out printed stimulus to enhance our fantasies?

There are still too many Thought Police around. They decide that only a very narrow number of sexual responses is completely acceptable. Usually they favour vaginal intercourse in the missionary position with a spouse, preferably for the purpose of creating a child. The further you deviate from this, the more they want to stop your fun.

Yet the fantasising dominant man is surely the least harmful creature on earth. He’s probably asked his wife if he can give her a loving spanking and she’s laughed dismissively or said not in this lifetime. He’s a nice man so doesn’t want to embarrass her by broaching the subject again. So he buys an erotic flagellation novel, locks himself in his study and lets nature take its course…

 

Tamar laughed, accidentally splashing wine on the page. “Lets nature take its course?” she said out loud. “He has a wank, you mean?” For some reason this amused her. She realised she was feeling woozy. Her eyes were hectic when she glanced in the mirror. She began leafing through the photos again, drank more wine, then started to read an illustrated fiction story which drew her into its fantasy scenario till she was fully immersed.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the graphic images so much as the emotional sensations inspired in her by the words which triggered the erotic surgings that tickled and grew as her fingers worked, the floaty daze as her gasps came quicker and her knees spread wider…

She heard the front door slam. Slapping the magazine shut and tossing it back in the drawer, Tamar stood up hastily, knocking over what was left of the wine, grabbed tissues to mop it up. The television began to blare downstairs.

Geoff was standing in the lounge in his business suit, still holding his briefcase. He smelled of beer and smoke, swaying slightly as she came in.

“Oh there you are!”

“That’s nice,” she said.

“What’s nice?”

“The tender greeting from my adoring husband.”

“Don’t you get clever with me, girl. You always were too clever for your own good.” He peered at her. “Are you pissed?”

“You’re a fine one, look at the state of you. I thought you wouldn’t be in till ten. And why are we shouting?” Tamar searched for the zapper. “What’ve you got it on so loud for?”

“I’ll get in any time I fucking want,” he yelled.

“Stood you up, did she?”

“Slut!”

Tamar turned the sound down. Her head was swimming. “What did you just call me?”

“You heard. It’s wha’ you are!”

He was fumbling for cigarettes. She slapped them from his hand. “Don’t you dare start smoking in this house. It’s disgusting!”

“Disgusting?” he sneered. “You talk to me about disgusting?”

“And forgive me, please, for seeming to suggest that your increasing latenesses getting home might imply dalliances elsewhere.”

“Fuck you!” He hurled the briefcase across the room.

“Geoff! Please stop… I’m sorry.” Her hand was on his arm, he shook it off. “Just calm down a minute,” Tamar pleaded. He stared at her, his face hating. “You always seem to think I’m getting at you. I’m not.” He was breathing heavily. “Anyway, I want to ask you something. If I don’t say it now, I never will.”

“What?” He was peering suspiciously at her.

“Couldn’t we sometimes make-believe a bit?”

He was frowning. “What’re you on about?”

“Be friends like we used to be? Maybe – I don’t know – play a game sometimes.”

“What’re you talking about?”

Tamar swallowed hard. “Like… I don’t know… pretending I’m naughty sometimes.”

“Naughty?” He spat the word out. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t ask me to spell it out, Geoff. Use your imagination – please. I only want to try it, I don’t know why…” He was staring hard at her now. She turned side-on to him and pushed out her bottom. “Just for fun, see what it’s like…”

He ran at her and kicked her there. She shrieked. It was a full-blooded kick that almost lifted Tamar from the ground and sent her slamming against the sideboard, smashing one of the glass panels and causing the crockery displayed inside to jump out, crashing to the floor in pieces. The furniture rocked and threatened to fall, dislodging framed photos and other items from the top and sending them groundwards to shatter.

Tamar was on the carpet, crawling, dazed with shock and aching with hurt from the impact, crying rawly, her left arm bleeding from the broken glass.

“You dirty-minded cow!” he was yelling. “I saw it, that fucking disgusting magazine in your drawer after you went off this morning. Thought you were up to something last night, and I was right. I’m married to a fucking freak!”

She was sucking in air, coughing it out in harsh croaks. “It’s not, Geoff, not what you think.” Tamar clawed at his legs, hauling herself up. Her hands reached for him, he swung a fist that hit the side of her head and sent her sprawling back to thump face-first against the side of the settee. Blood gushed from her nose.

“Slag! Fucking slag!”

Tamar was wailing, sobbing, choking for breath. As she tried to stand, blood smeared the furnishings she’d chosen with such care. At last, on her knees, she twisted her body and slumped weakly on to the cushions, gulping harshly. The front door slammed. Vaguely she heard his car start up, reverse with a shriek of tyres and roar off up the road.

The television muttered. The ceiling blurred through her ever-welling tears, swirling spots obscured her sight, there was a buzzing in her ears and her senses left her.

‘The Bottom Man’ is now available to download from the Janus Online Store by clicking on the highlighted link.

You can also read a full interview with Stephen about his time working for the magazine here.

 

A caning story by Christopher James from Janus 64. More free spanking stories from Janus and Februs can be found here.

For the Colonel’s Lady an’ Judie O’Grady
Are sisters under their skins!

Rudyard Kipling

*   *   *

LADY ANGELA was bored. Very bored. All of the customary occupations available to a Lady had become tedious. At 30, slim with long, red-brown hair and green-blue eyes, she was considered very handsome. Her husband having been killed while hunting, early Victorian society decreed that she should not do much entertaining whilst in semi-mourning. But she had to face the fact that she needed a man; indeed — and this was an appalling thought, which she was compelled to admit — that what she really needed could be spelt in three unutterable letters: s-e-x… To this end her late husband had sometimes indulged them both by laying his riding-crop across the seat of her riding-breeches… or a stout, lithe and supple rattan cane without those breeches.

Her boredom was about to be broken. There was a knock upon the parlour door and her butler entered, followed by a young maidservant. ‘What is it, Heathley?’ she asked, smothering a yawn.

‘I am extremely sorry to trouble your ladyship,’ said the portly gentleman who ruled her establishment below stairs, ‘but really something should be done about this — er, this young person.’

‘Should it, Heathley? Cannot you do whatever should be done?’

‘With respect, I am wondering whether this young person is fit to remain in your ladyship’s service. Not for the first time she has badly upset Cook — indeed, Cook went into hysterics, because Emma, here, ruined dinner by dropping a dish containing smoked trout —’

‘Not part of the Royal Doulton dinner-service?’

‘I am afraid so, my lady.’

‘Really, that is too bad! Who… what… is this, so difficult girl?’

‘She is Emma, the kitchen-maid, my lady. You engaged her six months ago. I am sorry to say that as a kitchen-maid her services have not been very satisfactory.’

Her ladyship had a feeling of anger. She was fond of that Doulton service. ‘Come here, girl,’ she said.

The girl gave a little bob of a curtsey, approached Lady Angela, gave another little bob, and awaited the awful pronouncement of her fate. Indeed, tears were already trickling over her grubby cheeks. My lady saw before her a girl at the end of her teens, a dirty-faced girl wearing a sadly soiled apron over a cheap, greasy, black alpaca frock. Emma hung her head, flushing beneath her employer’s critical gaze.

‘Come, girl, what are you crying for? Nothing has happened to you, yet.’

‘Oh, me lady! You’re goin’ to turn me orf.’

‘Certainly there is no place in my kitchens for a girl who drops valuable china and ruins dinner. And I will not have Cook upset.’

‘I’m that sorry, me lady. If you turns me orf I mightn’t get no other place, an’ if I got nowhere to go I’ll get sent back to the ‘ouse.’

‘The house? Do you mean your home?’

‘N-no, me lady, ain’t go no ‘ome. I means the wuck’ouse.’

‘The workhouse. I see.’ Her ladyship pondered. She was not an unkind woman and she realised that for Emma to be sent back to the workhouse would be cruel. But if she upgraded the girl to the post of under parlour-maid she would probably break one of the valuable Wedgwood pieces. Lady Angela also realised that beneath the kitchen grime was an elfin, rather pretty, little face. Likewise, it occurred to her perceptive mind that the girl’s blue-grey eyes were sharp and her features not unintelligent.

‘You may go, Heathley,’ Angela said. ‘I wish to speak with this girl.’

‘Very good, my lady.’ With the slightest bow the butler withdrew, closing the door silently behind him.

‘I collect that you are not happy, working in the kitchen, Emma?’

With another little bob, Emma replied, ‘Well, me lady, I knows I’m lucky to be ‘ere. But I knows I’m that clumsy, an’ Cook’s always shoutin’ at me that I’m under ‘er feet. She’s always on at me. “Do this, Emma, do that, Emma, you ain’t black-leaded the range proper, Emma!” It was Cook makin’ me nervous as made me drop that dish, me lady. I does me best, but… Please, me lady, I will try, please don’t send me away.’

‘I suppose you could get another place, if I gave you a character… of some sort?’

Emma, a workhouse orphan, knowledgeable about the heartless competition of the hard, cruel world with no job, mumbled — with another little curtsey — that she might, but that she would prefer to stay in her present position, even in the kitchen. Meanwhile, her ladyship was thinking. Cook, whatever her moods, was the second most important person in her establishment. ‘How old are you, Emma?’

‘Nineteen, me lady.’

‘There is no necessity to curtsey every time you speak, child.’

‘No, me lady, thank you.’

‘And, if you can, it is “my lady”. Can you manage that?’

Emma set her mouth and replied, ‘Yes, moi lady.’

‘Try saying “kind”.’

‘Koind.’

‘No! You must open your mouth wider. Now. Kind.’

‘Koi — kind, me — moi — my lady.’

‘Come, now, that is very good.’ Angela’s eyes, sparkling with a hint of salacity, were roving over the girl’s form. The large, blue-grey eyes were very attractive, the hair, properly washed, would be flaxen; and the figure quite shapely, a little buxom; a distinct curve of bust and no corset.

‘Turn around, Emma. Let me see your back view.’

Obediently Emma turned, displaying a distinctive, even tempting, outward swell below the waist. My lady was comparing the shape of this commonplace girl with that of her stepdaughter, Honoria, at present away at finishing school, who was the same age and there was a well-defined advantage. And, inevitably, Lady Angela thought of the punishment she had been compelled to mete out to her stepdaughter when that wilful young lady had been home during the holiday… and, with wishful thinking, she thought of a certain room upstairs, which over several generations had become known as the punishment room. Angela, it may be said, had a penchant for the use of a supple cane.

‘Would you consent to be punished, instead of being discharged?’

‘Oh yes, my lady, anything.’

‘Have you ever been caned?’

Caned…! That was ominous. ‘Yes, my lady. I been caned by the wuck’ouse Master. The ba —, I means the Master, enjoyed it.’ Emma had learned to hate and fear the cane at the workhouse but she perceived that if she wished to remain in her ladyship’s household she could not refuse chastisement now. It would certainly be better than being discharged.

Her ladyship was an impulsive person. ‘Tell me, girl, would you like to be my personal maid?’

Emma gasped. She, a lady’s-maid? She knew that Betty, her ladyship’s abigail, had recently left to get married, but a lady’s-maid was almost as far above a kitchen-maid as was the butler himself, and he was a very grand personage indeed. ‘Oh, milady! Me — moi — my lady. I couldn’t. Never!’

‘Why not?’

Why not? The idea was fantastic. Abigail, a personal maid to Lady Angela! Although, as the widow of a mere baronet, Lady Angela knew herself to be upon the lowest stratum of the nobility, to Emma she rated somewhere between God and the Great queen.

‘I — I… I dunno, me lady. My lady. I ain’t trained. Nor I can’t read and write. And talk proper.’

‘You need not address me as “my lady” each time you speak to me, Emma. You may call me Ma’am when we are speaking together. I should train you in your duties. In addition I am willing to devote four hours each day to teaching you to speak properly, to read and write, and perhaps play upon the pianoforte. But it would mean hard work. And discipline.’

‘Discipline, moi lady — Ma’am?’

‘The cane or a leather strap across your bottom if you misbehave or do not work hard.’

‘Oh, Ma’am, I’ll work hard. Oh, gosh! I means moi lady — Ma’am, I can’t hardly believe you means it.’

‘This offer is not definite, you understand.’ Emma’s spirits dropped. ‘I shall think about it while I punish you for breaking a valuable dish.’

‘Ye-es, Ma’am.’ As my lady had perceived, Emma was by no means an unintelligent girl — she realised that there could well be some connection between her willingness to accept punishment and her ladyship’s ‘thinking about’ the glittering opportunity. To become a lady’s personal maid, to be taught to speak well and to read and write, that was the opportunity of a lifetime.

Nevertheless, she was afraid. ‘Please Ma’am, you goin’ to give me the cane now?’

‘That is my intention, Emma.’

‘Will you do it on me ‘ands or me bum?’

‘One does not use that word. It is coarse. You say “bottom”.’

‘Sorry, Ma’am.’

‘I shall administer punishment upon your bottom. Bare, naturally.’

That did shake Ernrna. ‘B-bare, Ma’am?’

‘Certainly.’

‘You means… without me drawers on?’

‘Come, now, do not be foolish. If you had your drawers on you would hardly be bare, would you?’

‘No, only… Please, Ma’am, I never bin bare. You’re never proper bare in the ‘ouse. Even when you’re caned.’

‘Have you never taken a bath?’

‘Please, Ma’am, I’ve bathed in the tin bath in the kitchen. But I’ve always kep’ me drawers on. An’ me camisole.’

Angela raised her eyebrows. But she did not enquire further. There was no accounting for the habits of the menials. But that would be changed.

‘I cane my stepdaughter upon her bare bottom and there is certainly no reason why I should not do the same to you.’

‘Your stepdaughter, Ma’am? Miss Honoria? But — but she’s real grown-up.’

‘She is the same age as yourself. If she is disobedient or if I am sent an unfavourable report, I give her a thrashing and I assure you that her buttocks are completely uncovered. When I was her age I was accustomed to being birched, uncovered, by my Papa and that hurts far more than the cane. So no more nonsense! Now, my girl, are you willing to submit to a thorough caning upon your bare bottom?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’ What choice had she?

Lady Angela was elated. She had never anticipated having the opportunity of caning another girl as well as Honoria. She said, ‘You know the punishment room upstairs, Emma?’

Emma had never been inside it.

‘You will go there now. Take your drawers down. Take them right off. Also — I do not think you need be entirely naked, but take off everything except your chemise. You will find three punishment canes hanging upon hooks. You will select — take — the middle-sized one, then stand in the corner, holding the cane. Face the wall. And — understand this — you will not turn round until I give you permission. Now, do you understand what I have told you?’

‘Ye-es, Ma’am,’ Emma mumbled, with sinking heart.

The punishment room had been known, and feared, by generations of the baronet’s family. Its remote location in this rambling old house had been chosen so that no sounds emanating from it would be heard in the servants’ quarters. This room contained a couch, a high, padded stool, and a ‘horse’ of padded leather, adjustable in height. It also contained three rattan canes of varying thickness and length, a long, thick leather strap, and a split-tailed leather tawse. Time had been when half-a-dozen rueful boys and girls had awaited their turn for painful correction in that room.

Lady Angela was a strong, capable woman, and she was excited by what she was doing. She always keenly enjoyed whipping her stepdaughter and fully intended to continue these treatments until the girl was married. Honoria took it for granted, just as she assumed that in the fullness of time she (or her husband) would similarly discipline their own offspring.

Emma did as she had been instructed. Quivering with apprehension, she removed the ubiquitous apron, her alpaca frock, two petticoats, and her calico pantalets, which were buttoned and covered part of her thighs. Laying her clothing upon a chair, she took the middle-sized cane from its hook and faced a corner of the room, oppressed by the feeling of disgrace, dreading the punishment that awaited her. It was the first time she had actually handled a cane. The jointed length of thin rattan was at least half as pliant as rubber — that suppleness which provides the fierce, indescribable sting.

But she made a mistake. When, after about ten minutes, her mistress entered the room she turned involuntarily. Without a word my lady strode across the room, raised the girl’s shift, and inflicted one heavy, resounding slap upon the top of each fat, wide thigh.

‘Ow!’ cried Emma.

‘I told you not to turn round until I bid you. That is what discipline means.’

‘Yes, me — my lady. Ma’am.’

‘Now I’ll have that cane.’ She took the thin, yellow, quivering rod. ‘Pull your shift up, right up above your waist, and bend forward.’

Emma obeyed, trembling with fear. Lady Angela grasped her, her arm around the back of the girl’s waist, bending her over more. Another time, she was thinking, she would have the girl kneeling upon the couch, but she was enjoying the personal contact. Emma felt very forlorn as she waited, her uncovered hindquarters feeling very vulnerable, her thighs still smarting. Angela gazed down at that nude posterior with a feeling of glowing gratification and erotic desire. She realised that this girl, being more plump, and with more fleshy contours than her stepdaughter, possessed a much more spankable — or caneable! — bottom. Emma’s skin was also more tender. My lady adored that close-up view of those very tempting, tender, voluptuously rounded globes with the bewitching cleft.

Honoria had been accustomed to take her hidings fairly stoically, for many similar punishments, not only from her fond stepmama, had toughened the skin of those rounded areas which were always the target of hand, cane or tawse. It took at least eight hefty whacks to make her protest too vehemently.

Not so Emma. The cane swished and cracked forcefully. Momentarily she felt nothing… then she uttered a shrill cry, and her body jerked in her mistress’s firm grip, as a very peculiar feeling, accompanied by an exceedingly sharp, burning sting tore through her proffered bottom. She received a further four hard, wickedly stinging strokes, and she did not pretend to be a heroine. She yelled lustily at every resounding thwack as the cane whipped down, a yellow streak of compressed agony, across that so enticing derriere.

The room resounded with pitiable noise. ‘I’Il’ — THWACK! — ‘Ooh!’ … ‘teach you’ — WHACK! — ‘Oh-ow!’ … ‘to drop’ — CRACK! — ‘Ooow-oh!’ … ‘dishes’ — WHACK! — ‘Ooooh-aagh!’ Emma continued to gasp loudly after her last cry. Upon each side of her squirming backside were five scarlet-hued, raised weals.

The servants were shattered by Emma’s news when that young lady, with reddened eyes, clutching at her anguished rear — but with a broad grin upon her pretty face — hobbled into the servants’ sitting-room. They were incredulous and outraged. The good-for-nothing kitchen-maid, a clumsy, uncouth, untaught workhouse brat, to become her ladyship’s personal maid…! Even the imperturbable Heathley lowered his Morning Post to ponder upon the unpredictable peculiarities of the Quality…

Emma found her new duties infinitely more pleasant than the kitchen. First, she herself had to have new clothes — which meant, incidentally, that for the first time in her deprived young life, she saw her body reflected in a full-length mirror. What she saw was worth looking at: a voluptuous form, rather more curvaceous than her ladyship’s slim figure, with delightful plump breasts with rosebud tips and large areolae; a femininely-rounded belly with a cupid’s kiss of a navel; an alluring, delightful triangle of crisp hair. She could only partially see her back view, but Lady Angela saw a creamy-skinned, well-fleshed back, the hips swelling from trim waist, the indentation of the spine culminating in the most adorable, tantalising, dimpled cleavage, terminating in ripely luscious chubby buttocks; and beneath these posterior glories, shapely long legs with broad, rounded calves.

Across the rear cheeks were those ignominious cane marks, now faded into pink lines, but nobody would have been surprised at such evidence of correction upon a 19-year-old girl’s rump; it was an age of severe corporal punishment.

She was overjoyed by her new clothes. Smooth cotton drawers with short legs and no button covered her from her waist down, which garment, for the first time, Emma heard called ‘knickers’, not drawers, knickerbockers, nor pantalets; a camisole, smooth cotton vest, two petticoats, the outer one, which at once became a treasure, of real cambric, and a very pretty floor-length cotton print dress. Angela did not begrudge money to give this girl — and herself — pleasure. She happily anticipated many occasions when she would have to uncover Emma’s behind for disciplinary purposes.

There was no boredom now for Lady Angela. She was a natural teacher, and was pleased to find that her estimate of Emma’s intelligence was not misplaced. She set herself to teach her new abigail elocution, to read and write, to learn her ‘tables’ and do elementary arithmetic, to embroider, and at least a grounding on the piano. It was inevitable that such tuition required a sound spanking, always upon the bare nates, or liberal use of a leather strap, hairbrush or cane. The girl picked up first reading from simple story books, then more advanced reading, and copperplate handwriting. But she was less clever and quick with arithmetic and elocution — which inevitably left her with a very sore rear.

Emma did not, at first, derive any pleasure from such discipline; yet, perhaps oddly, she did not mind it — at least, after it was over. She soon realised that beating her on the bottom, or even caning her on her hands, did give my lady pleasure; and such was her love for her employer, and her gratitude, that she was only too willing to suffer physical pain. But she did not suffer in stoic silence. She would find herself across her mistress’s lap, her skirts above her waist, her knickers pulled down, howling as she was vigorously belaboured either with Lady Angela’s hand or her hairbrush — that same oval-shaped brush with which Emma loved to brush my lady’s glorious mass of long, shining, auburn hair. A spanking could mean up to thirty hard smacks, well distributed over all parts of bottom and thighs.

Occasionally, if her ladyship was really exasperated or if Emma had been particularly obtuse it would mean a caning. Caning was more formal than a summary spanking.

Apprehensively, with that faint sickly feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach, Emma slowly, reluctantly, climbed the stairs to the punishment room. She removed her apron, her highly-prized dress and cambric petticoat, and the smooth cotton knickers; fearfully selected the middle-sized cane (about 3/8-inch thick), and stood in her customary corner, feeling the thudding of her heart and the queasy anxiety in her belly. The Cane… the true symbol of her relationship with her mistress. Emma’s cognition with the cane was, at first, sheer, utter fear; gradually that cognition changed to a sort of inevitable acceptance, and then again to another feeling which was a compound of her growing affection for her stern mistress and the so familiar sensation of lust. And then she began to derive a strange, ambivalent feeling of thrilling enjoyment, so that every intolerable sting was actually sensually blissful.

Waiting, in some dread, for Lady Angela, she wondered what she might expect. Four strokes if she were lucky, but it might be six. She had certainly been difficult and her mistress was angry with her. She stood in the corner, flexing the long, slender stick, which was so pliant she could bend it into a circle. The door opened, but she did not dare to turn until she was bid; that would earn her two or three painful smacks upon her thighs.

‘You may turn, Emma.’ Emma turned and proffered the cane; the handle was trembling perceptibly as the woman took it. She licked her dry lips. ‘I-I know I’m a naughty girl, Ma’am.’

‘Yes?’

‘I was very stupid over my sums, Ma’am. And I was impudent and disobedient. I know I deserve a severe caning, but I-I’m frightened.’

‘Eight strokes, Emma.’

Emma gulped. ‘Eight! Oh, oh, Ma’am…’

‘I have often given Miss Honoria a dozen strokes. You are a bright girl, Emma. You know you can do arithmetic if you will exert yourself. And how many times have I told you not to answer me back? You are just recalcitrant! I will not have impudence, Miss. Now, I want you over the horse.’

‘Ye-es, Ma’am.’ Her voice was so soft it could hardly be heard. The girl, her knees shaky, hoisted her underslip and vest and, curving her body over the leather-upholstered top of the ‘horse’, she lay over it, naked from the small of her back, and her hands took a firm grip upon the horizontal struts. In a low, unsteady voice, she said, ‘Please, Ma’am, I do love you.’

Her ladyship was touched, it was a cry from the heart of a girl who had never known love — but her punishment was to be none the less because of that. Deliberately, because she knew it was what her mistress liked, she parted her legs.

‘What a darling you are,’ Angela said, ‘but I have to thrash you severely.’

Emma no longer felt shame or embarrassment. Only fear. Indeed, she was glad that her bottom, and her so private charms, were exposed to her beloved lady. It excited her, for there was no doubt that such bare-bottomed punishment was a powerful aphrodisiac… for both of them.

This was always a wonderful moment for Angela. She visualised herself lying across that leather horse awaiting the biting strokes of her poor husband’s crop across her taut breeches. Now, with her whole body filled with concupiscent joy, she stared down at those superlative creamy-white spheres that awaited the cane as though in supplication, relishing the thrill aroused by their absolute nakedness and vulnerability. The skin was firm and satin-smooth as she ran her fingers over the silky surface… the girl’s thighs writhed as she sensuously caressed her bottom’s curves…

The cane fell with a clean, crisp snap, precisely as she had intended, across the soft flesh where the buttocks swelled outwards from the broad thighs. Emma took the first stroke of red-hot pain, an anguish that seemed almost to be a lustful pleasure, with nothing but contorted mouth and a little wince. But as the lithe stick continued to slash down, her stoicism broke.

THWACK! — ‘Ow!’ … THWACK! — ‘Ooh-owch!’ … CRACK! — ‘Oooh-aagh!’ Stretched as she was, on her toes, gripping the struts with whitened knuckles, the girl could scarcely move. Big tears oozed over her eyelids. ‘Oh, Ma’am, it hurts!’ she wailed.

‘My pool girl. I am sorry to have to punish you like this.’ Which, as they both knew, was something less than the truth. ‘It is only through pain that you will learn to be a good girl, isn’t it?’

‘Y-y-yes, Ma’am. I will try harder.’

Lady Angela stared down libidinously at the reddened weals swelling across the so delicious globes. Was she being cruel? Those strong, sturdy hips and buttocks could take plenty of punishment.

‘You have four strokes to come. Be a brave girl.’

‘You know I want it, Ma’am. I was a naughty girl.’

‘Yes, I know. I understand. It is good for you to have your bottom well caned.’

The slow, very deliberate thrashing continued. The culprit wept and sobbed, moaned and wailed. Her ladyship was breathing hard. The cane was raised high, back over my lady’s shoulder and came swishing down, adding stinging agony to the fire that already blazed in the pert, voluptuously-rounded buttocks. The girl shrieked and tears streamed down her face, dropping to the floor. The entire area was inflamed but none of the weals crossed.

That was all. But Emma simply could not help herself. She felt as though she had been sitting on a fire — yet she wanted more. Her desire was irresistible; it was ambivalent… all she knew was that, although each blow was hellish, agonising, it was also blissful. The sensual tension between girl and woman was electric, transcending all social differences. She was crying, with short, staccato sobs.

‘M-Miss Honoria t-t-takes a d-dozen strokes, Ma’am?’

‘If I consider that she merits it she certainly does.’

‘If — if she does, I c-can.’ Emma was burning as much with erotic craving as with pain.

Again the cane swished down with ruthless force. Emma yelled as intolerable agony tore like raging flame. She cried pitiably and howled at each of the four severe strokes.

With a clean handkerchief Lady Angela wiped the streaming tears. ‘Now,’ she said softly, ‘first a kiss.’ Her ardent lips were pressed against each buttock in turn, slobbering saliva over the stinging, aching flesh. Then from a shelf she took a pot of fragrant cold cream and gently, tenderly, anointed the red and swollen welts.

*   *   *

As Emma made progress in her lessons, her mistress introduced one or two new subjects less conventional than the others. Emma learned a little of the art of massage. This took place in her ladyship’s bedroom with the door locked. Lady Angela was taller and slimmer than her maid, with perky, rounded, but almost boyish buttocks. She lay naked, face-down upon her big bed, and explained to Emma how to knead and manipulate her shoulder muscles, and to massage her back with quick, chopping movements with the edges of her hands, which treatment she thoroughly enjoyed. Then, to Emma’s amazement, she said, ‘Now hit my lower parts. Below my waist. With your open hand.’

Emma stared down in some bewilderment at the intimacy of her mistress’s inviting rear. ‘With my open hand, Ma’am?’

‘Yes, Emma.’

‘But — but you mean, smack you, Ma’am?’

‘Yes.’

‘On your behind, Ma’am?’

‘Yes, yes, of course. Do it hard, don’t be afraid. Until it hurts too much, then I’ll tell you to stop. It is a sort of massage.’

The girl was puzzled. But those seductive curves were inordinately tempting. She brought her open hand down with a loud slap upon the soft, fleshy side of one lovely cheek. ‘Like that, Ma’am?’ she asked diffidently, still scarcely believing.

‘Yes, just like that. But hard.’

Emma understood at last. Her mistress wanted a smacked arse — and it was purely sexual. She obliged with hard, sharp slaps all over that enticing bum. The skin became first pink, then a deep rose colour, which turned into carmine and scarlet, and Angela was wincing and moaning, writhing and rubbing her thighs together, her whole body moving on the bed. She began to cry loudly. It was a noisy affair, the ringing cracks of flesh against flesh as Emma’s large, work-hardened hand fell with unmerciful force upon the heaving aristocratic backside, mingling with my lady’s cries, until the girl was breathless, her arm felt heavy and weary, her palm sore and smarting. It had been a severe spanking, the fiery-red patches were taking on a tinge of blue.

Now, Emma understood. She was intensely grateful to Lady Angela… and she was eager to please her in any way she could. They were both perfectly normal heterosexual females, and Emma hoped that one day she would have a husband; she understood that because of the temporary semi-mourning period, her mistress was precluded from seeking a new husband…

However, Emma had yet to discover what a glutton for punishment her strange mistress was. Lady Angela’s ravenous body yearned for a flogging. A horsewhip across her back and buttocks… she could imagine it so well, but in reality that would be too extreme. It would have to be the cane. But it would have to be very severe, something she really feared, or it would be useless.

Angela never knew for certain whether it was a pure accident or an accident-on-purpose, but while rearranging some of her expensive collection of Wedgwood, she dropped and smashed one. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, in vexation. ‘Oh, Emma. Just see what I have done.’ She looked at her maid with a strange, questioning expression. ‘I think we must go up to the punishment room.’

The girl was alarmed. She had done nothing wrong. With a little thrill of excitement she assumed that her mistress wanted another spanking for breaking that ornament. But to her surprise and some trepidation, she watched Lady Angela take the largest cane from its hook; this rather grim implement was nearly a half-inch thick and three feet in length. Emma knew it would be excruciating. Going to the couch, my lady raised the cane and brought it down with all her strength, indenting the firm upholstery with a loud Whap!

‘Now, my dear, try if you can do it as hard as I did.’

Emma obeyed, rather bemused, making the pliant stick swish and bend itself across the couch.

‘Now do you understand? I want you to give me a severe caning. Just as I do with you when you misbehave.’

‘But… But, my lady, I can’t cane you, your ladyship.’

‘Please, Emma. After all, you gave me a pretty severe spanking.’

‘Well, yes, Ma’am. But that was massage.’

‘It was a form of massage, certainly, but it was still a beating.’

In a flash of sudden discernment, Emma realised that the relationship between mistress and servant had changed. The ambience in this room of pain, the phantasmic influence of the room was redolent of chastisement; of cracks and cries, as cane, strap or whip descended upon her aristocratic posteriors; it was voluptuous, punitive, electric with sensuality. She took a more purposeful grip on the limber cane, flexing it. Watching Lady Angela’s eyes fixed upon it, more green than blue, Emma underwent a metamorphosis. Temporarily, while she held the rod of justice, she was mistress… She, Emma, was dominant.

The aristocratic lady was yearning to be dominated. This had been somehow, amorphously, in the back of her mind ever since this liaison; it was what she had missed since her husband had died. For just a few minutes, she was indeed the ‘culprit’, and she had to endure — wanted to endure — the sublime ecstacy of harsh anguish. Her body… her bottom… seemed to tingle with her longing.

Emma whipped the cane down across her hand with a pleasurable sting, and saw the eagerly watching woman lick her lips with the tip of a pink tongue. When she spoke she was amazed at her own words, at her sheer temerity.

‘Your ladyship has been a very naughty girl, ain’t — haven’t — you?’

‘Yes, Emma, I am afraid I have. My clumsiness was unforgivable.’

‘What do you think you deserve for your naughtiness?’

Angela uttered a little moan of sheer, avid craving. She said, ‘Not less than twelve strokes on my bare bottom. Perhaps more. And four across my thighs.’ Seeing the startled surprise flicker in her maid’s eyes at the harsh severity of her own sentence, she added, ‘Don’t worry, Emma. I am pretty hardened.’

‘Very well, Ma’am. Perhaps the cane will help to make you more careful. You must go across the horse, naked, for your whipping. You understand?’

Emma helped her mistress undress, as she did each night. First the buttons down the back of the long, very full red satin dress had to be unfastened, and the woman stepped out of it. A taffeta underskirt followed, then two cambric petticoats; beneath those was a stiff, waist-length horsehair crinoline, and beneath that the tight corset, which pinched in her ladyship’s already slender waist. Finally a long lawn chemise and the smooth lawn knickers that covered her body from waist to the upper parts of the thighs. And Angela stood, with eyes modestly cast down, blushing a little, in the proud glory of ravishing nudity. But Emma was now accustomed to seeing her mistress in the nude. She brought the long, thick cane hissing through the air — and had the pleasure of seeing her ladyship flinch.

Then, obediently, just like a naughty slip of a girl, the 30-year-old woman curved her tall form over the punishment horse, gripped the horizontal strut, and waited submissively, for the punishment for which she yearned… yet which she dreaded.

Emma gazed enraptured at the piquant, provocative hindquarters and her body was gripped by a passion of lascivious desire to administer chastisement. Positioning herself well to the side of the bending woman, she laid the cane gently across the apex of the erotically beautiful orbs… raised it… tapped it once, then lifted it high. She poised it above her shoulder before bringing it down with a swish and a resounding thwack, leaving two white marks perfectly across the middle of the buttocks, which turned immediately into pink. Her victim’s body gave a little jerk, but that was all.

THWACK! There was another little jerk of Lady Angela’s bending form, but nothing more. Emma put all of her powerful young body into the third smashing welt, but still with not a murmur from her mistress. She did not know how resilient Lady Angela’s lovely derriere had become over the years: a stern, disciplined upbringing at the hands of a mother and governess who both believed strongly in the efficacy of strict physical punishment; a husband who had enjoyed using cane or riding-whip; and all her life she had ridden horses.

The caning was inflicted with slow deliberation and salacious pleasure on the part of the punisher — indeed, of the pair of them — but, inexperienced as Emma was, the bamboo did not always land precisely where intended. The fifth blow crossed two swelling weals and, for the first time, elicited a loud wince.

Walloped my bare bum for smashin’ a bloody plate! thought Emma. I’ll teach you! Yet she still loved this woman, and would never, as long as she lived, cease to be grateful to her. Yet she was indulging in the most thrilling excitation as she brought the cane biting mercilessly into the white skin of her mistress’s jerking rear cheeks and thighs. She did not see how contorted the woman’s face became at every stroke.

At the eighth stroke Lady Angela started weeping and groaning. Emma’s arm was heavy and she was breathing loudly. For these few minutes maid was mistress — and with incredible boldness, she intended to demonstrate the fact. The whipping paused.

‘Remember why you are being punished, you bad girl?’

‘For — for being a very clumsy, naughty girl… ooh! My naughty bare bottom is burning! It needs this whipping, Emma. Thrash it hard.’

With the next hefty whack Angela uttered a loud cry. The impassioned Emma swished the rod down with her lusty young strength, imparting vicious slashes across those writhing nates. Angela shrieked as Emma counted ‘Twelve’. Thereafter the recipient howled just as Emma had done upon similar occasions. The cane continued to bite venomously, ruthlessly into those delightful buttocks and thighs, producing exquisite reactions to each infliction.

The erstwhile kitchen-maid was learning more than her schoolroom subjects. Maid and mistress, after all, were sisters under their skins.

A spanking and caning story by James Kenway from Janus 34. More free spanking stories can be found here.

SELINA turned the amber-coloured Volvo off the little side street and up the curving drive. Gravel scrunched under the tread of the new tyres. The spreading evergreen still stood at the back of the building, its branches shading the bay windows and the mellow old brickwork. She parked the car and turned off the purring engine and lit a long, expensive cigarette and gazed at the house and what she could see of the grounds and the pond. It had been, she reflected, more than a dozen years since she had last seen this view.

After a few moments she flung open the car door and stepped out, shaking out the skirt of her two-piece and dipping into the car for her elegant beige leather handbag. She flung her half-smoked cigarette onto the gravel without bothering to put it out and slammed the car door, walking away without locking it. The autumn breeze lifted the fringe of fine blonde hair from her brow.

When she stepped through the door and into the corridor, off which led the doors to most of the ground floor classrooms, she was at first struck by how small the place seemed. The ceilings had been higher, the polished boards wider and more glossy, the panelled walls endless, she thought.

‘Of course,’ she murmured to herself. ‘I wasn’t even quite 18 then. The place must have seemed a lot grander. After all, I’d seen little enough of the world. Now then, where’s the staircase?’

At this hour of the early evening – before classes had commenced – there were but a few people in the old priory which had been the scene of Selina’s schooldays. The one or two members of the administrative staff who passed her directed a curious glance or two at her, but her confident bearing and the cut of her clothes gave her an air of authority, as if she had every right to be there. No one challenged her. And she was making her way so directly to where she was going that nobody thought to ask if she needed directions. She ascended the oaken staircase. The paintings that had been on the walls in her day were no longer there. Kept by the trustees, she guessed, when they had sold the building to the local authority to be an annexe of the technical college and evening institute, and the small private school had moved out into rural Warwickshire.

Miss Felton’s form room was where she remembered it: at the head of the stairs, across the landing. The branches of the evergreen swung near the panes of the bay window. She fancied she could still scent the chalkdust in the air, although the old blackboard on its tripod had gone, replaced by a modern, greenish one on the end wall. The walls were bare except for a few timetables and the fire regulations. The heavy old desks and chairs, scored by innumerable compass points and penknives, had been superseded by insipid, modern furniture. Miss Felton’s desk, raised on a dais a foot so that she could stare down on her pupils in regal authority, was replaced by an ordinary table with a formica top.

Selina closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, her hands pressed flat between the wood and her bottom, and took a deep breath. The years fell away and it seemed as though she could hear the scratch of pens, the rustle of textbook pages, the measured tread of Miss Felton patrolling the ranks of desks as the class of a dozen girls laboured over their set task. It seemed she could hear the hissing whispers of the plump, fair girl with the pageboy hairdo, a rather florid girl who was an incessant chatterer – what had been her name? Gail! Gail Wethered.

‘Gail Wethered! Come here at once, girl! How many times do you think I am going to tell you?’

The hush that instantly fell upon the class was that of a dozen girls holding their breath. Gail’s round face had instantly constricted with something approaching panic as soon as she heard her name rapped out in that tone. Her china-blue eyes were as round as saucers and her jaw hung down. She gulped and shot a look at Selina before haltingly rising to her feet. Selina, perhaps disloyally, just felt enormously glad that she had merely been the slightly irritated target of Gail’s whispered chatter. She had not reciprocated nor had she, it seemed, been included in Gail’s crime. Miss Felton was standing, hands on her hips, in stern reproof, in front of the class. Her position made the severe cut of her tweeds look even more formidable and masculine. She tapped her foot, once. As if stung by this sign of increasing displeasure, Gail leapt to her feet and scampered out to the front of the class, the hem of her dark-grey pleated skirt bobbing. Miss Felton waited until she had stopped and then thrust her face forward into that of the trembling plump blonde.

‘Did you not hear me when I reprimanded you for talking not ten minutes ago?’ she asked, her voice low and even.

Gail seemed to shrink. ‘No, Miss. I mean yes, Miss.’

‘Are you trying to disturb the entire class, is that it? When I specifically tell you there is to be no talking do you set out deliberately to defy me?’

‘N-no, Miss.’

Turn around and face the class. Stand in front of that desk there.’ Miss Felton propelled the unlucky pupil about-face by one shoulder, shoving her against the edge of one of the empty desks which always somehow gathered in the front row.

‘Get across it.’

‘Oh no, Miss, please!’

‘Are you arguing with me?’ Miss Felton’s tone was icy.

‘No, Miss,’ Gail mumbled miserably, leaning forward over the desk so that her hair swung around her face. Miss Felton picked up the heavy wooden ruler from her own desk top.

‘Right down, Gail.’ The girl grimaced and leaned even further forward, flattening her ample breasts against the wood surface which sloped down and away from her. Her rear end was now higher than her head. Miss Felton seized the hem of the short pleated skirt and flung it up around the girl’s waist. Selina and the rest of the class drew a corporate breath of teenage horror. They were then treated to the sight of Miss Felton taking hold of what they rightly supposed to be the waistband of Gail’s panties. Poor Gail gave a wail and attempted to stand up, clapping her hands behind her in a vain effort to stem the tide of indignity being visited upon her. But Miss Felton simply and expertly crossed Gail’s wrists at the small of her back and, holding her thus down upon the desk, hauled the panties down with her indefatigable right hand before picking up the ruler once more.

The class could now be in little doubt as to what was about to follow. They could see Gail’s face, but not her bottom. Those at the sides of the classroom craned for a better view of the brief knickers now resident around her knees. Miss Felton lifted the ruler above her shoulder and brought it swooping down onto that ignominiously bared behind where it landed with a crack which echoed across the room. Gail’s yell was ear-splitting.

‘Arrgh!’ she howled, and all Serena’s nerves were thrilled by the sound. The ruler went up and down again with speed and regularity, its reports punctuating Gail’s squeals and Miss Felton’s remonstrances.

‘In future –’ Whack! ‘Owwch!’ ‘– you will keep quiet when you are told –’ Whack! ‘EEErgh!’ ‘– and if you ever dare –’ Whack! ‘Yeeeow!’ ‘– to disobey again –’ Whack! ‘Owwwww!’ ‘– then you will find that –’ Whack! ‘Ouch, oh, please –’ ‘– a taste of the cane will soon deter you from –’ Whack! ‘Ooooh –!’ ‘– ever doing so again!’ Whack! ‘EEEEEK!’ ‘Now get back to your seat!’

Miss Felton turned and strode back to her desk. Poor Gail scrambled her panties up beneath her skirt, wincing as the elastic scraped across her flaming cheeks, then hurried, head down, back to her place beside Selina. She sat down, and immediately rose again, with something which started out to be a screech, but which, at a glance from Miss Felton, was quickly cut off. She snuffled a little throughout the rest of the lesson but was more silent than Selina had ever known. Her cheeks were still wet when the bell rang.

*   *   *

Selina came to with a start. She looked around the classroom as if surprised that it no longer contained the hushed class, the cowed Gail and the imperious Miss Felton. Daydreaming again, she thought to herself, and giving a shrug, left the room and started down the stairs to the college office.

To her surprise, the room which had housed the school office was now a classroom, the original door from the hallway bricked up. A half-glassed door bearing the sign ‘College Administration’ was in front of what she remembered as the principal’s office. Selina entered without knocking, causing the single occupant of the room, a middle-aged woman seated before a typewriter, to look up.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

‘You may be able to,’ answered Selina briskly, striding so purposefully to the counter that her full skirt positively swished around her slender knees. She placed her handbag on the counter and paused for a moment to let her appearance have its customary effect. It usually got the desired results from people employed in menial positions.

She was tall for a woman, five-feet-eight without heels, and her model’s training showed in her walk. Her sheer hose, high heels and careful and exquisite make-up all combined with the obvious expense of her outfit to give the impression of privileged elegance; a woman who had no need to work and no worries over money. The fine fair hair framed her face and fell neatly around the collar of her jacket. The green eyes, set above a rather long, straight nose, were cool and aristocratic. They were the eyes of a woman who, at the age of 29, had grown used to getting her own way.

When she was convinced that the other was suitably impressed, Selina spoke.

‘You are aware, perhaps, that this building was formerly the Priory Academy for Young Ladies? A private school? Before it was sold to the local authority and turned into –’ Selina flapped her gloves around her in a gesture of distaste. ‘In those days it was presided over by a Miss Felton, MA (Oxon) I believe, who –’

‘Miss Felton, yes, that’s right.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Selina, irritated by the interruption, looked hard at the woman behind the typewriter. ‘You know of her? I am trying to trace her.’

‘I don’t know of her,’ replied the woman archly. ‘I know her. She teaches English here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.’

‘She does?’ Selina was momentarily taken aback. ‘I had thought that she had retired. I expected to find her at an address in the country somewhere. Tuesdays and Thursdays, you say? Will she be in this evening?’

‘It’s a Thursday, isn’t it?’

Really, thought Selina, some people scarcely know their place.

She extracted a small gold propelling pencil and a leather-bound notebook from her handbag and wrote busily for some moments. ‘Would you give this to her?’ She passed over the folded slip of paper.

‘Why not wait for her?’ asked the woman. ‘Her class starts at six and she’s always well ahead of time.’

‘No thank you,’ said Selina, turning to go, firm in her determination to be in the driving seat when she finally did come face to face with Miss Felton again after all these years. The woman had always had such a powerful personality that Selina, like all her classmates, had been in awe of her. Going back to try to beard her in her den after all this time was an attempt to exorcise the power she had once wielded. She, Selina, was now in possession of both wealth and position. Miss Felton was stuck; apparently still teaching bored office girls and surly louts at night school. She did not seem to have prospered. With her acquired poise and experience Selina knew she ought to emerge victorious in any confrontation but she still felt some kind of disquiet which convinced her she ought to choose her ground. She moved towards the door briskly then suddenly halted, her attention arrested. Something about the way the light fell had shown her a glimpse of this room as it used to be: long and richly carpeted, with leather furniture. She had a sudden memory of Betty Trask, dark and curly-haired and 17 (just the same as Selina herself), face down over Miss Felton’s lap. She could see the dark grey gymslip crumpled around her waist, the dark blue knickers around the gyrating knees. The sound of the plimsoll was like a pistol shot each time it landed and Betty was squealing and promising, her hands firmly held in the small of her back, out of the way of that devilish plimsoll. Selina’s throat was dry and she had felt momentarily dizzy. The trepidation that she felt as she watched that scene, the only other person in the room, swept over her once more: she had known it was her turn next.

‘Er… I said, is there anything else?’

Selina jolted herself out of her reverie and went towards the door. ‘Just see the message is delivered,’ she said thickly. ‘That will be all.’ She left the office and then went out of the building and down the drive, past her Volvo.

*   *   *

The interior of the pub was quiet at that hour. Selina walked in with the newly-bought local evening paper and stood at the bar to order a vodka and tonic. The landlord, when he perceived that she was alone, looked her up and down suspiciously. Selina glared at him and he looked away, abashed. ‘Anyone of my class who was on the game wouldn’t pick this hole,’ thought Selina crossly and sat down and opened her paper.

Try as she might, she could not help but feel a creeping and gradually growing nervousness. It was foolish, she told herself. Even if she comes, which I doubt, she’s an old woman now. The school seemed so much smaller and so will she. She’ll be old and feeble now, and I’ll be able to get free of her lurking shadow.

She signalled to the landlord for another drink. After her glare and her action in sitting in one of the alcoves, disdainfully glancing at the decor and shaking out her skirts like a dowager duchess at a state function, he had come over, drywashing his hands and being very considerate. Could he get her anything? She was waiting for someone, perhaps? She agreed that she was and allowed him to fetch her next drink. This was her third, on an empty stomach. She began to feel mellow and her mind began to drift… Betty Trask had levered herself off Miss Felton’s knee and stumbled tearfully away, rubbing her blistered behind. Then, Miss Felton beckoned sternly, fixing Selina herself with a severe glare. Gulping, with eyes downcast, Selina went forward on dragging feet. She came to a halt within a couple of feet of the tailored tweed knees.

‘Bare your bottom,’ rapped the mistress. ‘And get across my lap this minute. Come along, girl!’

Swallowing hard, Selina hoicked up the back of her grey skirt and pulled the blue knickers down to her knees. Her face burned with embarrassment. Avoiding the piercing gaze, she left her knickers around her knees, then lifted up the folds of her skirt at the back and leaned forward. At the point when she could go over no further without toppling, she put her hands on Miss Felton’s left leg (the skirt stayed up by itself now) and lowered her weight across the woman’s lap. She felt the rough texture of the skirt, scratchy on her soft bare thighs. Her bottom felt huge and vulnerable and way up above and behind her. She felt it clench and twitch. Her hands moved down onto the floor and she balanced herself by placing her palms flat on the carpet. Far away, she could hear Betty Trask snivelling and Miss Felton seemed to be lecturing her but her head spun and the wisps of blonde hair which escaped her plaits tickled her chin. Then there was a pause and she caught her breath. All of a sudden she felt the impact of the plimsoll on her buttocks, numbing at first and then hot and stinging…

‘Oww!’ she heard herself squeal.

Whack! The plimsoll landed again.

‘OOOOh,’ howled Selina, her hands flying back behind her as she reared up. She heard Miss Felton’s voice raised in reproof and felt her hands seized in a firm grip.

Whack! The plimsoll seared across her soft curves, her hips churned and swivelled around on Miss Felton’s lap.

Whack!

‘Owww! Oh please, Miss –’

Whack!

‘Eeeek! Oh Miss, no more, please –’

Whack!

Would it never end? Would Miss Felton’s hand rise and fall until Selina lost all her composure?

Whack!

‘Oh, ow, ooh! I’ll –’

Whack!

‘Miss, I’ll be good, I will!’ –

……………………..

‘Well, well, so it is you! Little Selina Smith! After all this time.’

Selina looked up, totally flustered. A figure, weighed down with a satchel full of books, stood before her.

‘Uhh, actually, it’s Selina Parker, now. Um, Miss Felton, excuse me. I-I-I was miles away. S-s-s-sorry –’

Damn the woman, thought Selina, standing up, first waving to the landlord and then offering her hand, covered with confusion. She has me stammering like a schoolgirl already, she realised.

Miss Felton accepted the offer of a dry sherry and seated herself with the minimum of fuss. Selina was disconcerted to note that she had not aged at all and looked no less firm and determined than she ever had.

‘Well now, Selina, you’ve changed your name I see. Married, then? And what does your husband do? Where do you live? Have you children? I always enjoy meeting my former pupils. How long have you been married?’

Selina suddenly found herself pouring everything out. What on earth is the matter with me? she found herself thinking. Her mouth was running away with her. She could hear herself blurting out all the troubles of her marriage and how Derek had suggested that they had a trial separation and think about divorce. She even told Miss Felton how she had blocked Derek’s chance of promotion by refusing to live in Geneva – ‘too antiseptic a town’ she had said. All the dissatisfactions with her life poured out of her; all that she felt was wrong about the privileges and the ‘easy life’. I must be drunk, she thought.

Miss Felton listened to it all, sipping her sherry. Finally, when she put the glass down, it was empty. She allowed Selina to call for it to be refilled, and watched with lips primmed in self-evident disapproval as Selina ordered a double for herself. And then, when silence had fallen between them and Selina, if it were not for the effects of the alcohol, would have been feeling thoroughly silly, she spoke, her voice low and non-committal.

‘What happened to the Waterford glass?’ she asked.

Selina gaped. How on earth –? She gulped and stumbled and it was a long time before she found her voice. ‘I suppose you want the truth this time?’ she said, at about quarter volume.

‘That would be best, yes. I never was given it before, was I?’

‘I broke it. That is, er, someone else broke it and it was because of me that they did. I’m sorry, I don’t think I can give you the other name. It would be like snitching, even now.’

Miss Felton inclined her head. ‘I can understand that,’ she said.

Selina experienced the same warm glow which praise from this older woman had always caused her and marvelled that it should have the same effect all these years later.

‘Do you want to tell me how it came about?’ asked Miss Felton, lifting the sherry glass to her lips.

Selina shrugged. ‘We were in the staff room where it was laid out – where we had no business being, of course – and she said something I didn’t like so I pushed her and she pushed me back and I pushed her again, but a lot harder this time and she cannoned into the table where it was all set out and crash, over it all went. Funny, really, that’s what we’d sneaked in there for another look at. We thought it was a smashing leaving present and that particular mistress was so popular – even though I can’t remember her name. Then when you got up in assembly and said would the culprit please confess, well, we knew it was only two days to the end of term and we just had to keep our heads down for a little while to be in the clear. We knew you weren’t going to stop all of us – the whole school – going on our summer vac, just to find out.’

‘But I never needed to find out. I always knew. I just looked around at assembly and the guilt was written on your faces large as life. I just hoped that I had taught you enough self-respect to want to own up and take your punishment. I felt bitterly disappointed in you.’

Selina, who had gaped at the news, now shivered theatrically. ‘No fear,’ she said, tossing her fine blonde hair. ‘I had had quite enough experience of being walloped by you when you slippered Betty Trask and me that time for smoking. I didn’t want any more. Especially as it was a caning job this time, we were all sure of that. I’d heard quite enough about your skill at wielding a cane, Miss Felton, I was only too glad not to have to find out at first hand. Funnily, sometimes I find myself feeling almost wistful about that. Sort of wishing I’d had the moral fibre to own up and take what was coming to me and that you might have respected me for that. Now I learn you’ve known all along. How you must have despised the pair of us! You know who the other girl was, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do: Betty Trask.’

Selina sighed. ‘That’s right. But tell me: if you knew, why didn’t you punish us anyway?’

Miss Felton shook her blued grey locks, and tutted. ‘Can’t you answer that question for yourself? After all I tried to teach you?’

Selina raised her glass and took a deep swallow to cover her confusion. She was definitely feeling a little tight. ‘Not unless,’ she said at last, ‘you wouldn’t punish us without proof. That you’d feel that wasn’t fair, according to what you always used to tell us? That if there was evidence or we got caught red-handed, then we’d been stupid and deserved a tanning? That owning up to something we could have got away with would be, I don’t know, sort of character building?’

Miss Felton looked at her with what Selina could swear was warmth and affection. ‘All these years,’ she said. ‘And I thought that I had failed with you. But it did sink in, didn’t it? You did, ah, as you young people say, “get the message”, didn’t you? A pity that you don’t seem to have put it into practice.’

Selina gasped; her hands, with their perfectly manicured and polished nails, flew to her face and her cheeks were suffused with a blush. ‘Why, what on earth do you mean?’

It was the older woman’s turn to shrug her shoulders, clad in their greenish tweeds. ‘Look at your life,’ she said softly. ‘You’ve made a mess of your marriage to the extent that your husband is thinking, quite rightly in my opinion, of turning you out. You’ve everything you want and yet you aren’t content. All because you lack the ability to take the more difficult option. You drift in whatever direction is easiest. No wonder you’re not happy.’

Selina’s eyes blurred with tears and she lowered her head. ‘That’s not fair,’ she said. ‘It’s not true!’ Deep in her heart, though, she knew she had heard the truth. She did lack the ability to take the harder option: it was a lesson she had never learned. ‘Besides,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t just me! I couldn’t confess without dropping Betty in it! She’s as guilty as I am! Why should I take all the blame?’

Miss Felton stroked her hand reassuringly. ‘You don’t, my dear,’ she said. ‘Betty has fully admitted her part in it all, a couple of years ago. She came to see me, just like you did. She was in a very similar situation. She, too, recognised her failing, all those years ago, but she faced up to it and she felt much better when she’d settled her account. She writes to me regularly. She’s blissfully happy with her husband now and wishes she had realised what she needed to do years earlier.’

Selina raised her eyes, now filled with tears. ‘What do you mean: “settled her account”?’ she asked.

Miss Felton primmed her lips. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘She just took her medicine – the way she should have done when she was a schoolgirl. Got it all off her chest. The relief, she said, was enormous.’

‘D-d-do you mean –’ stammered Selina. ‘B-b-but how? I mean, wh-wh-what?’

‘My dear I still keep a locker over at the old school, even though there is little that I do there now. Sentiment, if you like. There are still a few souvenirs of my days as a Headmistress. I was able to ferret out a cane without a lot of difficulty and Betty gritted her teeth and took her medicine.’

‘B-b-but she’s a grown woman! She must have been! I mean she couldn’t just bend over for a caning, could she?’

‘Of course she could: and did. It did her the world of good. And on the bare backside, too, madam!’

‘B-b-but where? How?’ Selina could scarcely take it in. No-one who knew her now had ever seen her like this.

‘Why, across at the college, of course! I have always had keys. After nine o’clock the place is completely empty. We had absolute privacy. A half-an-hour and it was all over. Like a weight lifted from her shoulders, she said. Now, my dear, I think I will have one last sherry. I think you have had quite enough. Why don’t you go and powder your nose? Your mascara is a little streaked.’ So saying, she rose and went to the bar.

Dizzily, Selina clambered to her feet and wended her way to the ladies. A few minutes later, when she emerged, Miss Felton was sitting, engrossed in the evening paper. Selina stood at the bar, ordered a double and drank it at a gulp. Then she walked with a determined stride across to her old Headmistress’ table, stopping beside it but not sitting down.

‘Miss Felton,’ she said. ‘Do you still have keys to the college? It’s gone nine o’clock, hasn’t it?’

*   *   *

The lights flashed on and filled the oblong classroom with illumination. Miss Felton held the door open and closed it behind Selina, who looked around the room and gave a slight shiver as she heard the key grind in the lock. Miss Felton crossed to the formica table and placed upon it her bag, a long garment of black cloth and a slender beige-coloured object nearly three feet in length and slightly curved, with a complete semicircle twist at one end. Selina hugged her shoulders, looking around the room, her breath coming faster now. Her gaze came to rest on the black windows with the branches of the evergreen waving outside.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Could we have the blinds drawn?’

Miss Felton obligingly complied then went to the table and shook out the long black academic gown and shrugged her way into it.

‘I’m glad you had that here,’ murmured Selina. ‘It makes it seem more – more sort of official, somehow.’

‘Quite so, my dear,’ replied Miss Felton smoothly. She took a chair from behind one of the desks and placed it in the clear space in front of the rows and facing them. She then picked up the rattan cane and flexed its springy length between both hands.

Selina spoke, her voice coming out at first in a nervous squeak. Her knees had turned to jelly.

‘Uhh, Miss Felton, umm, er…’

‘Yes, my dear?’

‘Um, I was wondering, so I can prepare myself, er: how many?’

Miss Felton pursed her lips. ‘Well now. I should have given you six at the time, so what do you think would be fair?’

Selina gulped. ‘Well, I was thinking: suppose six for the original thing and, er, six more for dodging. And so I’ll remember. What do you think? Would that be alright?’ She glanced anxiously at the older woman, sensing that it would be unacceptable to propose less. And she had to find a sufficient antidote to her own cloud of guilt.

‘Yes my dear, I think that that would be fair. Now, shall we get on? If you’ll just come here and position yourself over this chair. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how.’

Selina’s high heels tapped hesitantly on the floorboards as she approached. She gestured down at her full swinging skirts. ‘Er, shall I, er…?’

‘If you’ll just bend over, my dear. I’ll arrange you how I want you.’

Selina stood behind the chair and leaned forward, grasping the seat of the chair with both hands, bending straight from the waist.

‘Right down, please Selina, head well down now, bottom up.’ Selina complied and suddenly felt the hem of her skirt and slip lifted and laid across the small of her back. A slight chill seemed to waft across her bare thighs.

‘Ah good, my dear, I’m glad to see that you eschew tights: unhygenic as well as unsightly things. Now, let’s have these down and then we can get to work.’

Selina was wearing skimpy nylon lace briefs in a shade of coffee. Her suspender belt matched and was also trimmed with lace and held up sheer tan stockings with stretched, glossy welts. As her bottom was revealed, perfect and flawless and fully rounded, complete with matching dimples, a tremor went through it. The panties ended in a scrap of tangled cloth just below her stocking tops. She took a deep breath. Her bottom felt fragile and vulnerable.

‘Place your ankles together. Now lower your tummy onto the chair, that’s right. Now stretch your legs out straight. Now, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you not to put your hands in the way, do I? Or not to attempt to stand up before I have finished? If we are going to do this, after all this time, let us do it right. Now, I want you to count each stroke after it lands. After that, I will deliver the next. After twelve, you may stand. Are you ready?’

‘Yes, Miss.’ Oh, the comfort of falling back into that former diction.

Miss Felton tapped the very centre of Selina’s pale and perfect bottom with the cane, just to show where the stroke was aimed, and then drew the rattan back. There was a pause, then Selina heard the cane hiss through the air.

Swish!

‘Owwww! Uhh, I’m sorry Miss. One.’ A thin red stripe now bisected Selina’s twin cheeks.

‘That is alright, Selina. I don’t expect you to hold completely still, nor to keep silent. Next one coming up.’

Swish! It was really loud.

‘Oww! Two.’ Selina shifted her feet and clenched her hands on the seat. A second stripe had appeared below the first, where her bottom was slightly fuller.

Swish! No holding back at all!

‘Eeeek! Oooh! Oh, sorry, Miss: three,’ Selina moaned. Ducking her head, which had involuntarily bobbed up, down again, Selina awaited the next stroke.

Swish! It cut the air.

‘Ahhhh! Oh, um, four.’ Selina gritted her teeth. The blonde hair hung over her eyes and her skirts were awry. The panties had worked their way down to mid-thigh. There were three double-edged stroke marks visible below the original one. This time the cane tapped above.

Swish! The sound seemed to rip the very fibre of the air.

‘Eeeeeow! Oh Miss! It stings!… Five,’ she quaked.

Swish!

‘Six! Owww! Oooh, halfway, Miss!’

Swish!

‘Ooooooh! Oooh Miss, please! A moment! Uhhh, seven. Sorry, Miss.’

Miss Felton shifted her stance and the cane rose once more, aiming higher.

Swish!

‘OWWWW! Oh Miss, please, lower! Where I’m plumper, please, Miss Felton! Eight.’

Swish!

‘AAARGH!’ For the first time, a stroke half crossed an existing one. Selina half rose, her knuckles white, before controlling herself. Her panties slipped further down her legs as her feet rattled on the floorboards. She gave an audible sob and it was moments before she could give the count. Relentlessly, the cane rose and fell once more.

Swish! Similarly ear-splitting.

‘Oooooh! Ten, Miss!’ This time the stroke again struck the lower slopes of Selina’s striped behind. There was now just enough space to skillfully fit two strokes onto the unmarked space which was the very lowest curving underside of her bottom. Miss Felton raised the cane.

Swish!

‘Uhhh!’ It was a strangled sound, and Selina jerked and tossed her head. Her panties now slipped entirely down and entangled around her twitching ankles and the straps of her shoes. Her hips wriggled and jerked on the chair back. Miss Felton waited.

‘Oh! Ooh! Ahh! Sorry, Miss. Eleven.’

‘Last one Selina. Well done, you’ve taken this well. You may stand after this one.’ The cane went aloft for the last time, paused, and then flashed down.

Swish!

‘Arrrrgh! Oh Miss! Oh, that was so extra hard! Oh… twelve!’ Selina croaked. She sprang to her feet, her hands flying to her caned rear, massaging the tender stripes that adorned it. She stood, her knees pumping, her skirt still up and her panties in a puddle around her feet. The older woman gave her an admiring glance, put down her cane and shrugged out of her gown. She then sat down for the few minutes required for Selina to get her breath and her composure back, craning over her shoulder to see the damage the cane had wrought. At length, Miss Felton took out a mirror and showed her. Selina gasped when she saw the stripes.

‘Oh Miss! You did lay it on, didn’t you!’

‘Well, I think you’ll agree you deserved it, didn’t you? And you feel better, don’t you, for having faced up to things?’

Shyly, Selina agreed that she did.

‘The only trouble is, I’m afraid you’ll have those marks for at least a week. I know you’re staying in town tonight, but what will your husband think when you get home? What will you tell him?’

Selina stood, her skirt and slip still hoicked around her waist, her long legs sheer in nylon, her bottom red-lined and sore and a proud expression on her face and an uplift in her heart.

‘I shall tell him the truth,’ she said proudly, with a fresh and direct enthusiasm. ‘I’m through with fibs and evasion and soft options. And I shall ask him if we can try all over again. And I shall tell him, if he’s got any reservations about taking up my offer, that I shan’t mind in the least if he decides to buy a cane!’

Selina tossed her head proudly in a new-found freedom, and Miss Felton smiled privately to herself: after all these years, she had completed the job.

An original spanking story by Cyrian Amberlake from Februs 8. You can find more free spanking stories from the pages of Janus and Februs here.

Marilyn met me at the airport with a passionate embrace. She shed a tear, and I suspect I did too. In the twelve long months since we had seen each other I had been travelling far from postal routes, let alone anything resembling a phone.

As soon as we could separate enough to speak, I asked: ‘How are the girls?’

A glum look interrupted Marilyn’s glow of pleasure. ‘It’s not been easy, Howard,’ Marilyn confessed. ‘They can be so thoughtless sometimes. Vicky seems to need so much. And Vanessa doesn’t always co-operate.’

Vicky and Vanessa were the au pairs I had engaged to live with Marilyn during my absence. At least, Vicky was; but even before my departure her elder sister had arrived unexpectedly, in floods of tears. Her husband of a few months had deserted her, and she had been unable to face their parents. Vicky had begged for her to be allowed to stay, and Marilyn had a soft heart.

Both sisters had proved to be inadequately disciplined. Vicky was the messy one, self-indulgent, used to servants to clear up after her. Vanessa’s selfishness took a different form. She became a ghost in the house: moody, withdrawn, contributing nothing, preoccupying her little sister’s already scattered brain. I had had to take a firm line with them, and instructed Marilyn to maintain it while I was away.

‘Vicky’s got a boyfriend,’ said Marilyn, almost apologetically, as if she thought the sexual imperatives of twenty-year-olds was something she ought to have been able to contain. She put her hand on my thigh.

‘Don’t worry, darling,’ I said, while we drove home. ‘Im back. I’ll take care of them. I’ll take care of all three of you,’ I promised.

Marilyn gave a delicate laugh. ‘Oh dear.’

‘We’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for,’ I said.

She kissed me fondly on the cheek. ‘I knew you’d say that,’ she said, with unbecoming smugness.

The girls appeared as soon as we drew up at the house. Vicky ran to open the car door for me. As I got out, I caught Marilyn’s eye and we smiled. Clearly twelve months’ interruption and the advent of a new male interest had done nothing to dampen the crush Victoria had visibly developed for me. She plainly wanted to hug me, and I let her.

Her sister Vanessa, more restrained, stood smiling at the door, shading her eyes from the sun.

‘Mr Morgan, Mr Morgan!’ cried Vicky. ‘Welcome home!’

Freeing myself with some difficulty from her hug, I said, ‘It’s very nice to see you, Vicky.’

She was casually dressed, in a jumper, skirt and knee socks. I took her by the elbow. ‘Turn around,’ I said.

Readily she did, with a swing of her hair, and an almost provocative look over her shoulder.

I patted her affectionately on the bottom. ‘You’ve put on some weight,’ I observed.

‘Mr Morgan!’ she protested.

‘In all the right places,’ I added, with a gallantry that was perfectly sincere.

Vanessa had approached at a calmer pace. ‘Hello, Mr Morgan,’ she said, her voice quiet and deep. ‘Welcome home.’ She touched my elbow gently in greeting, and accepted a kiss on the cheek.

Her sophistication was complete. Her perfume was cool and floral, her make-up perfect and discreet. Her hair was short, freshly cut in a style that would have turned heads on any street of any city in the world. She was wearing a suit: French navy, striped shiny and matt, with a high-waisted jacket. I suddenly realised Vanessa had dressed up for the special occasion of my return. I was touched.

‘I had forgotten how elegant you are, Vanessa,’ I told her. ‘Quite ravishing.’

Marilyn seemed almost embarrassed. ‘Howard, you mustn’t tease them!’ she exclaimed.

‘I assure you I mean every word I say,’ I replied, absolutely serious. ‘Turn around, Vanessa. Let me have a look at you too.’

Was there a trace of reluctance as Vanessa turned in her high-heeled shoes and permitted me to run a judicious hand across her bottom? ‘Trim as ever,’ I pronounced. ‘I can see you’ve been exercising.’

*   *   *

Over a splendid homecoming dinner Vanessa spoke little, while the questions poured from Vicky. She wanted to know everything that had happened to me since she had seen me last, now, all at once. Marilyn had to suffer herself to be interrupted several times.

Afterwards, before anyone rose, I pushed back my chair, saying: ‘Now then, Vicky, Vanessa –’

The sisters looked at me apprehensively. I could believe they knew what was coming.

I put out my hands and patted theirs across at the table. ‘I want to see each of you now, in the drawing room.’

Vicky coloured. Vanessa, with a small self-conscious smile, touched a hand to her hair and looked down.

‘Who’s going to be first?’ I said.

It was Vicky, to be sure, who said: ‘I am, Mr Morgan!’ She got out of her seat and came round the table to stand ready for me.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Vanessa: perhaps you’d like to come in twenty minutes’ time.’

Vanessa seemed even less animated than she had, I thought, and wouldn’t meet my eyes; but she nodded and said obediently enough, ‘Yes, Mr Morgan.’

I took Vicky into the drawing room and sat myself down on the sofa. Vicky hovered. I was sure if I had permitted it she would have sat on my lap.

‘Stand there, Vicky,’ I said, pointing to a spot on the carpet in front of me. Obediently, she stood there, facing me, her hands at her sides.

‘Now then, Vicky. How have you been getting on?’

‘Very well,’ she said, a bit breathlessly. ‘Very, very well.’

‘Mrs Morgan tells me there’s a boyfriend now,’ I said.

Vicky went pink, and said there was. He was a medical student, he was from her country. His name was George.

‘She tells me sometimes you misbehave with him,’ I said.

She blushed deeper and looked down at the carpet.

‘Vicky? Is it true?’

She nodded.

‘Do you let him touch your breasts?’ I asked.

‘Sometimes, Mr Morgan,’ she said.

‘And put his hand up your skirt?

‘Sometimes, Mr Morgan.’

‘Have you made love with him?’

She shot me a wounded glance. ‘No, Mr Morgan!’

I believed it was the truth.

‘Lift your skirt, please, Vicky.’ She began. ‘That’s far enough. Hold it there.’

She stood before me, still decent, only her thighs exposed. I sat forward, and laid an experimental hand on her bare thigh. She seemed as resilient there as I remembered.

I told her to drop her skirt hem and sat back. We talked about other things. I found out from Vicky what had been happening with Vanessa. Her sister’s husband had communicated formally with her parents, and she had received a coldly worded letter of displeasure. Vanessa was determined never to go home, but to establish her independence and apply for resident status.

I said: ‘May we have you over now, please?’

The au pair came to me and lay face down across my lap.

I set my hand on her, re-establishing my authority, measuring her bottom with my palm. It seemed ample.

Vicky lay very still. It was the first time I had seen her completely at rest since she had come bounding out of the front door to greet me.

‘When did Mrs Morgan last see to you?’ I asked her.

She did give a twitch then. ‘She smacked our legs this morning.’

‘Both of you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What for?’

‘To remind us to behave ourselves this evening.’

‘And did you?

‘Oh, yes!’ she cried, injured.

‘You didn’t,’ I said. ‘At dinner you constantly interrupted Mrs Morgan.’

To do the girl justice, she didn’t attempt to deny it.

‘When did you last have a proper spanking?’

‘Monday,’ said Vicky.

‘What was that for?’

She hesitated. ‘Oh… um… well…’

I lifted my hand and brought it down hard on the seat of her skirt.

‘Ow!’

‘What was it for, Victoria?’

‘I let George touch me on Sunday,’ she said, in a small voice.

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘In Kentucky Fried Chicken,’ she said.

I smacked her again, harder. ‘Vicky! You know perfectly well what I mean. Where did George touch you?’

‘Where you’re touching me now,’ she said, impertinently.

I lifted my hand, remembering my own courting days. Marilyn’s parents had been very strict. They had not hesitated to punish her in the old-fashioned way for the slightest suspicion of misconduct. I didn’t think it had done us any harm, being made to wait for the pleasures of intimacy.

‘What happens when you forget what a punishment was for?’ I asked.

‘A second helping,’ said Vicky sadly.

Of course, I had already decided to let her off. ‘It’s a good job you remembered, then, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Mr Morgan,’ she said, with a little noise that was almost, but luckily for her not quite, a giggle. I gave her two smacks for it anyway.

‘Tell me more about Monday,’ I said.

‘It was a hand-spanking,’ she said, trying to rub her bottom.

I pushed her hand away. ‘Across the knee?’

‘Yes.’

‘Skirt up?’ I asked.

Vicky misunderstood my words as an instruction. Reaching behind her, she pulled her skirt up at the back.

This time she pulled it all the way up to her waist.

Her knickers were new, midnight blue sateen, as if in unconscious imitation of her sister’s suit. I lay my hand on her scat again.

‘Did these come down,’ I asked, ‘on Monday?’

‘Yes,’ said Vicky. ‘Nearly always, knickers down.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I said.

She made a small, rueful sound.

‘How many did Mrs Morgan give you?’ I asked her.

‘She didn’t make me count,’ she said quickly. ‘Many, many. Really.’

‘And are you ready for some more now?’ I asked quietly.

‘Yes, Mr Morgan,’ said Vicky, with a sigh of resignation.

She wriggled briefly on my lap, getting comfortable.

I peeled the knickers from her bottom.

Sadly I regarded the defenceless white curves; the sweetly shaped cleavage between. What a shame I must punish them. I raised my hand and smacked her twelve times, with some force: one for each month of my absence. The twelfth made her lift her head and cry out.

I paused, rubbing her gently. My own hand stung. How unfamiliar, yet familiar that sensation seemed.

‘Very good, Vicky,’ I said.

She took a deep, gulping breath. ‘Mr Morgan?’

‘Yes, Vicky?’

I started spanking her again, with care, reacquainting myself with her bottom. I tested it, exploring its surfaces with the impact of my palm. Vicky bucked and gave a groan. Convulsively she grabbed one of the cushions, burying her face, just as she always used to.

‘I hear Mrs Morgan has had to take a hairbrush to you,’ I remarked, spanking her continuously.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, her voice muffled by the cushion.

I started to spank harder. ‘In this country it’s not thought very polite,’ I said, ‘to speak to your host with a cushion over your face.’

‘No, Mr Morgan!’ she said, squirming out from under the cushion, tossing her long brown hair. ‘Sorry, Mr Morgan! Ow!’

I continued my offensive. Her bottom was starting to glow merrily with a profusion of prints of my palm. ‘Why do you need the hairbrush, Vicky?’ I asked her.

‘Because Mrs Morgan’s – hand gets – tired,’ she panted.

I started to spank her harder still. ‘I’m sure that’s not the main reason, Vicky,’ I said sternly.

‘No, Mr Morgan!’ she cried. ‘Sorry, Mr Morgan!’

‘I’m sure you have the hairbrush because you deserve it, Vicky!’

‘Yes, Mr Morgan! Ow –!’

‘I wonder if you ought to fetch that hairbrush now, Vicky.’

She flung her head up. ‘No, Mr Morgan! Please, Mr Morgan – it’s twenty minutes!’

Surprised, I looked at the drawing room clock. Vicky was right. Her time was officially up. It scarcely seemed possible.

‘Vanessa’s turn now,’ she said.

Was there the slightest trace of complacency in her voice? That would not do.

‘Vanessa will just have to wait a little longer,’ I said. ‘I want to get you done properly.’

‘The hairbrush?’ exclaimed Vicky in dread.

‘No, not today,’ I said.

‘Thank you, Mr Morgan!’

‘Tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Yes, Mr Morgan…’

‘For now I’ll just ask you to open your legs, please, Vicky.’

‘Oh, Mr Morgan!’

I found ample room to extend her punishment into areas where I thought it would remain with her for a little while.

When her cries began to sound truly penitent, I stopped and let her up. She put her arms around me, her head on my shoulder while I rubbed her flaming flesh for her. Nothing had changed.

‘Sometimes I think this is the only part of the proceedings you take any notice of,’ I remarked.

‘No, Mr Morgan,’ she breathed, very near my ear.

I sent her to stand in the corner, where I could look at her now and then. She wiggled her hips as she went. I took no notice.

I stretched, easing my shoulders, and examined the palm of my hand. It was red; almost as red as Vicky’s bottom. It had been a long time since I had exercised it so much.

I tidied the cushions on the sofa and sat back.

There was a moment of silence; a restful pause.

Then came the knock at the door.

‘Come in, Vanessa,’ I said.

In she came, and closed the door. She couldn’t help giving a quick glance at her sister in the corner with her hands on her head. I knew she had been listening outside, if only for the last couple of minutes. All well and good. I hoped what she had heard of Vicky’s punishment had put her in a properly receptive frame of mind.

I stood to welcome her, embraced her and helped her off with her jacket.

She was tense.

‘Your sister tells me you both had your legs smacked this morning,’ I said.

‘Yes, Mr Morgan.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘And what did you think about that?’

Vicky’s elder sister stood up straight and tall in her white blouse and high heels. ‘It wasn’t really necessary,’ she said sulkily.

‘I think we’ll let Mrs Morgan be the judge of that, shall we?’ I said, not without sharpness. I eased the wristband of my watch. ‘Come here, Vanessa, please,’ I said. ‘Sit here, beside me.’

She sat down gracefully, her knees together and angled slightly towards me. Her legs were beautiful in sheer black nylon. The effect of the handful of years between her and her sister were manifest.

‘How are you getting on with the Home Office?’ I asked.

Vanessa shrugged. ‘Civil servants,’ she said, dismissively.

I held her eye. ‘You do understand that as long as you live here under my roof,’ I said, ‘you will continue to receive whatever discipline I think appropriate, Vanessa. When I’m away, you will receive it from Mrs Morgan.’

She made a small moue. Her eyes flicked towards her sister and back to me. They were inseparable. It was understood.

‘When was your last thorough spanking?’ I asked.

‘The week before last week,’ Vanessa said.

‘And what was that for?’

‘Arguing with Vicky,’ she said. She glanced again at her sister, listening in the corner. I felt sure Marilyn had upheld my policy of making the girls witness each other’s confessions and punishments occasionally.

‘I suppose that meant a spanking for Vicky too,’ I said.

Vanessa gave a brief shake of her head. ‘Mrs Morgan said it was my fault.’

‘And was it?’

‘I suppose so.’ She seemed dispirited, as though her own behaviour was a mystery to her, the source of many defeats.

‘Did she use a hairbrush on you?’

‘It was the slipper,’ said Vanessa, colouring.

Mentally I complimented Marilyn on her decision. I could imagine how it must humiliate this lovely young woman to have to take such a childish punishment.

‘Stand up, Vanessa, please.’

She rose. She radiated tension. My heart went out to her.

‘Would you like to lift your skirt for me, please? All the way.’

Beneath her blouse Vanessa’s bosom rose as she took a breath. She raised her skirt to show me white panties, with a matching suspender belt. Her legs were as I remembered, quite beautiful.

I got to my feet. ‘Would you like to take the skirt off, Vanessa?’ I suggested. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to get it creased.’

Her face impassive, she removed the skirt, and when I asked for it, gave it to me.

As I lay it carefully across the arm of a chair, I remarked: ‘Mrs Morgan tells me you aren’t always this co-operative.’

Her voice was low. ‘Sometimes I am so angry.’

‘With Mrs Morgan?’ I asked.

‘It’s not her fault,’ she said.

I felt she needed me to be stern, to brace her. ‘Whose fault is it, Vanessa?’

Her composure almost broke. I thought for an instant she would burst into tears. ‘Mine, Mr Morgan!’

To my surprise, her arms came up beseechingly. Vanessa, too, needed me to hug her. This was not something that had ever happened before; and rather unexpected.

I let her hold me tight. She clung to me as if I had come home to save her from something. Perhaps I had.

I held her as long as I decently could before detaching her. ‘Let’s see if you can still touch your toes,’ I said.

She could.

I put my hand on her bottom. How sad her life had become. I was sure she wished only for perfection, as in a romantic novel.

I made up my mind to ask her then what I had refrained from asking her the previous year.

‘I don’t want to bring back unhappy memories, Vanessa, but I think I must ask you now about your husband.’

‘Yes.’ Her head was down, her voice barely audible.

‘What did he use on you?’

‘He didn’t use,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said; though naturally I rather thought I was beginning to at last.

‘He chose not,’ she said stiffly.

‘And you didn’t remind him of his duty,’ I said.

Vanessa did not reply.

Much was now clear, including what must happen next.

‘It’s over, Vanessa,’ I said. ‘You must learn to accept that.’

Her silence was obedience. The curve of her back was consent.

I stroked the young woman’s taut bottom, and traced the line of a suspender with the tip of my finger. ‘Remind me, Vanessa. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-six, Mr Morgan.’

‘You’re young. You made a mistake. It’s over.’

‘Yes, Mr Morgan.’

I made a calculation. ‘I assume you’ve become acquainted with the strap while I was away.’

Her reply was the merest, briefest whisper. ‘No…’

‘No?’

‘No,’ she repeated.

‘Not yet?’ I said, ruminating.

‘Not – yet,’ echoed Vanessa. She was starting to sound frightened.

Worse and worse. Through the silky fabric of her panties I felt the warmth and suppleness of her young flesh.

I came to a decision. ‘Vicky,’ I said. ‘Would you go and ask Mrs Morgan to come in, please!’

Vicky started out of her corner, pulling up her knickers and straightening her skirt.

‘If she has nothing for you to do, you can go to bed,’ I told her.

She had to pass me on her way to the door. She swayed, brushing me with her hips.

I caught her by the arm, detaining her. I paused a moment until she knew what to expect; then I lifted her skirt and gave her one more smack, a hard one.

‘I meant to smack your legs,’ I said.

‘Goodnight, Mr Morgan!’ said Vicky, and she left the room in untidy haste.

I left Vanessa where she was, bending, and went to the window. I lifted the curtain. Outside, the indifferent town consoled itself with streetlights and television.

*   *   *

‘Howard?’ Marilyn barely glanced at Vanessa as she came in. She was anxious. They all were. They needed reminding, and reassuring. ‘What is it?’ asked my wife. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m surprised to hear you haven’t started Vanessa on the strap yet, my love,’ I said.

‘Recently we’ve been using the slipper, mostly,’ she said.

‘And the hairbrush, presumably?’ I said.

‘Dear me, let me think,’ she said, and she put her hand to her throat.

‘Not since you went away, I don’t think, have you, Vanessa?’

‘No, Mrs Morgan,’ said Vanessa.

I raised my eyebrows, and had the satisfaction of seeing Marilyn flush slightly.

‘So since I left this twenty-six year-old woman has been smacked and slippered, and that’s all,’ I said.

‘Yes, Howard. I think that’s right.’

I knew why, obviously. Marilyn had been feeling sorry for Vanessa, as any woman would.

‘That does seem extraordinarily lenient,’ I said. ‘I presume she’s told you her husband – what was his name again?’

‘Pascal,’ murmured Marilyn, in some unease. ‘Their parents left it to him to decide – you know – well, whether he should.’

‘And he failed to divine his responsibility,’ I said coolly.

Vanessa started to tremble. Up till now she had been maintaining her position, legs straight, fingers on toes, with the perfect poise and balance of a gymnast. I stroked her bottom once more, calming her.

‘I presume the cupboard’s still locked, is it?’

It was, of course. To her credit, Marilyn had the key to hand.

There they all were, just I had left them: the disciplinary implements Marilyn’s father had handed on to me at our wedding. I remembered how keen he had been to instruct me in their use; the weekly practice sessions he had selflessly supervised until he was convinced I was proficient with the whole set. I was sure Marilyn remembered those sessions too.

I lifted down the lightest of the straps, a supple length of leather two inches wide, and flexed it between my hands. A reassuring aroma of Neat’s foot oil rose from it.

‘I’m glad to see you have been looking after them, at least,’ I said.

‘Yes – well – I didn’t like to use them, Howard,’ my wife confessed in a low voice. ‘They are yours.’

I was touched by the sentiment; by her loyalty. Nevertheless, I had to correct her. ‘Ours, darling,’ I said.

Rebuked, Marilyn clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head.

I ran the strap through my fingers, reacquainting myself with the capable heft of it.

‘Panties down, please, Vanessa.’

Our guest reached behind her and lowered her white panties.

She had been trained well, to do exactly what she was told and no more. When she returned her fingertips to her toes, her panties remained at mid-thigh. Her legs were slightly parted. Her display was, frankly, breathtaking.

How could any man have withheld his hand? The fool had obviously been unworthy of her. Our nation would provide someone better than Pascal for her, I was sure.

It is not unusual for a young woman’s first encounter with the strap to be immediately effective. As soon as Vanessa felt the leather smack down across her bare bottom, she began to call out. It was the sound of frustration, loneliness and guilt, held too long inside. ‘Let it out, Vanessa,’ I said, encouraging her with the strap.

Rhythmically, I raised her bottom to a cheering glow, her cries to a wail.

It continued as I stood back to listen. I tested her temperature with the back of my hand. I looked at Marilyn, who was watching keenly, her anxiety still evident. ‘Not much more,’ I said, for her sake as much as Vanessa’s.

I delivered another stroke, and another. On the third Vanessa’s hands flew back to protect herself. I was sure it was something she would never have done except in extremity. Tears were falling from her eyes; and I decided her punishment was over.

I raised her up and embraced her briefly, formally, before passing her to my wife, on whose shoulder she wept out the rest of her woes.

‘Say thank you to Mr Morgan,’ said Marilyn.

‘Thank you… Mr Morgan,’ said Vanessa, sniffling.

‘Everything will be all right,’ I told her, while Marilyn helped her gather up her clothes. ‘We’ll have a talk in a couple of days, about the Home Office.’

‘I’m sure you can help her, can’t you, Howard?’ said Marilyn.

A handkerchief pressed to her face, Vanessa hurried gasping up to bed.

Marilyn came to me. I took her in my arms, but did not hold her long. There was more yet to be done. ‘Will you go up and get ready now?’ I asked her. She nodded, almost as tense as Vanessa had been before. ‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ I said.

I sat alone in the drawing room and drank a glass of Glenmorangie. The smell of home surrounded me, as if the very furniture was congratulating and welcoming me. I thought, if I felt proud and pleased with my homecoming, I had every reason.

I rinsed out my glass and stood it to drain. I checked the doors were all locked and the lights turned off. Then I went up to say goodnight to the girls.

Vanessa was tucked up in bed. Her eyes were still red, but her face seemed calm now and relaxed. She looked up at me with something resembling gratitude.

‘What do you think of the strap?’ I asked.

She gave a pout. ‘It hurts,’ she said.

I put my hand on the duvet. ‘May I see?’ I asked.

Vanessa hesitated the merest instant, then pulled the quilt aside. I had not realised she would be naked beneath it. Her body was slender and pale. The shadowy triangle beneath her belly was a promise of bliss for some future fortunate man.

At my bidding she turned over and lifted her bottom for me to look. I adjusted the shade of the bedside lamp. The marks of the strap were red and angry.

‘The pain is not all,’ she said.

Vanessa gave me permission to soothe her with some lotion from her dressing table. She did not object when my hand lingered over the task, frankly enjoying the feel of her flesh. I covered her up and left her to dream of a happier future.

Vicky was already asleep. As I stood there looking down at her tousled hair I wondered which had needed the punishment more, she or her sister. No doubt the amount of discipline they earned or avoided might be another cause of rivalry between them. I felt sure we could give them both the best, before they went home.

Softly I touched Vicky’s foot through the covers, smiling as I thought of her hero-worship. ‘Hairbrush tomorrow,’ I promised, quietly, then turned and left the room.

*   *   *

Marilyn was kneeling on our bed. She was naked. Her beautiful bottom was turned towards me. The bedroom was perfumed with desire.

I went to her and caressed her.

‘I wish we had had someone to take care of you for me, my love,’ I said, ‘while I was gone.’

‘I didn’t mind waiting, Howard,’ she said, not turning round. ‘Howard?’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘Is it the cane?’

‘I’m afraid it must be,’ I said.

‘I don’t mind,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s been very hard –’

Thoughtfully I went back downstairs and took the length of yellow wood from the cupboard. I would use it now, then not again on Marilyn for another year, perhaps. Our two young houseguests knew about it, though neither of them had tasted it yet. Marilyn’s father had taught us it is always a good idea to keep something in reserve, for grievous offences and very special occasions.

Marilyn had not moved. I took my position, behind her and to the left, the fingertips of my left hand resting on her spine. She was not trembling, not even slightly.

‘I love you, darling,’ she said.

The cane sliced into her.

‘Oh!’ she cried.

Now she trembled.

I watched the tracks burn across the white hills of her cheeks. Perhaps I should have woken Vanessa and Vicky, to watch this and learn what the future might hold. I raised the cane again, and took a breath, and brought it down.

It was the swiftest of canings. She had been waiting too long already. I striped her bottom with a classic six, then flung the rod aside and pulled off my own clothes. Seizing Marilyn by the hips, I thrust. Gasping already, she reached back and guided me in. We rocked and swayed together for a timeless time. I climbed up on the bed, in front of her now. She swam backwards across the mattress, pushing, pushing back at me. Our tongues found one another.

Thus we moved, back and forth, this way and that, until Marilyn raised her legs to me and put them on my shoulders. She lifted her bottom as if in pride, showing me the stripes I had engraved there; and the next instant we extinguished in each other the loneliness and longing of a thousand days.

Afterwards Marilyn cuddled up to me, pressing against my chest. She could not bear to be so much as an inch away, it seemed. She kissed me consummately, and taking hold of my hands, pulled them onto her bottom, rubbing herself with them, as if only the hand that had marked her could soothe her.

She murmured in her most satisfied tone, and kissed my neck. ‘I’m so very glad you’re home, darling.’