The wind chose that moment to rise, sending a sudden rushing sound through the surrounding trees silhouetted against a slate-grey sky. It was a transient violence that passed as quickly as it had come so that the graveyard once was again as quiet as before.

Anya paused to listen, her senses acute to the merest sound. She dismissed the short hoot of an owl, which even a mortal would have heard and concentrated instead upon subtle rustle of rats in the undergrowth feasting among the tombs.

Somewhere beyond the cemetery walls the banshee call of a mortal vehicle came close and then fled from her; a police car rushing to mortal aid in the night, she realised. These were new sounds that assailed the world; an alien cacophony that had stolen a march since her mortal days within the light.

Yet she was still young, it having been little more than 30,000 nights since she had been turned.

Night; she sighed at the word, drawing on the comfort of the sound as she glanced for reassurance at the black blanket that shrouded the world, although she fancied that the eastern sky was a little greyer than it had been.

She had fed at sunset at the behest of the Dark Father. Her prey had been a sweet young girl running home late. As ordered, she had not drained the girl, but merely tasted her and then marked her soul for possible later retrieval should it be desired. Anya pursed her cold full lips. If He should allow it she amended. Father kept her on a short leash and she was forbidden to from leaving the cemetery, except for light blood taking during the fresh cover of dark.

Such scattered tastings kept her almost sated for hours. Almost, but not quite, she thought bitterly, for the thirst was always with her. But it was now nearer dawn than dusk and with the dread sun in ascendant, she was again assaulted by her cravings.

Anya eyed the shadow of the crypt through the trees. Her once chestnut irises now like blackened holes in her marble white face. A visage that was an echo of the marble white angels set among the tombs about her.

The crypt was a high ornate affair and fit for a prince. It was also gaudy and Gothic, long out of fashion even when she had been taken. Such a cliché, she allowed herself; a criticism not to be voiced silently or otherwise within the Dark Father’s presence.

Still the graveyard was all but abandoned within the fashionable inner suburb of the metropolis and overgrown; home to owls and rats by night and the very occasional internment by day. With a thriving high street beyond its walls, it provided both a sanctuary and food.

For the Dark Father and her senior kindred, it also provided sport and recreation, but not for her. She was deemed too young to risk mingling with mortals and after feeding she was set to guarding the lair.

Anya eyed the grey eastern sky and cringed. Her skin itched a little as she imagined the sun’s scouring light. It had been more than 80 years since she had walked in its glow and she saw it now, only in her dreams.

Then somewhere across the necropolis came a sound that did not belong. All her senses were sharp now and she focused on the intrusion until it burned within her.

Two sets of mortal feet had landed in quick succession on the gravel path under the far wall. By the sound she adjudged that it was one male and one female. A giggle followed by a masculine growl confirmed it.

She could smell them now. They were both young.

Anya had not the power to fade into shadows and by her kind’s standard she was not that silent. But in the dark she was nimble enough to get closer without being seen.

The young immortal skipped across twisted headstones with an alacrity that would have rendered her but a blur to human eyes and she closed with her unexpected prey in a few beats of a tethered goat’s heart.

They were drunk.

The girl was a little younger than Anya had been when taken, perhaps just 19. She was a pretty thing with straggled shoulder length fair hair and a vulgar short skirt that revealed her thighs to Anya’s sepia vision.

The boy was a little older and perhaps more drunk than his girlfriend.

Anya could take them both easily, but that was not the problem.

She was still considering her next move when the boy looked up and staggered around to look in her direction.

“That creepy angel has black hair,” he slurred.

The girl lay back on the flat top of a grave stone and pointedly forlornly at the sky.

“They can do that now,” she said dreamily, “made from black and white marble I expect.”

Anya realised that the boy had seen her and inclined her head just a nudge.

“Holy shit,” the boy gasped.

He stepped back and tripped on his own left foot and tumbled to the gravel path.

The girl laughed unsympathetically and hugged herself with glee.

“She moved, she fucking moved,” the youth exclaimed as he struggled to get to his feet.

“Shut up,” the girl dismissed him.

Seeing that the girl had not even turned to look, Anya slowly folded her arms.

“Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” the youth gasped backing away his eyes fixed in horror on the animated statute.

Anya tilted her head to the other side as if sizing him up for a meal.

He fled.

The girl sat up and crinkled up her nose. She shifted awkwardly on the grave top and in short stiff movements, pivoted around until she sat looking at Anya.

The immortal woman did not move, but stood watching the girl even as she listened to the boyfriend fleeing.

“You’re beautiful,” the girl whispered in awe, “I never noticed you before.”

Anya said nothing but noted with satisfaction that the youth, still spitting curses, had gained the wall and was scrambling back over it forgetting his companion entirely.

The girl got unsteadily to her feet and came closer.

“He’s right, you do have black hair. How do they do that?” The girl leaned forward and peered at Anya.

“Come back, it’s only a flipping statue,” the girl said in an amused voice and casting a look in the direction of her friend. She was oblivious to the fact that he had already departed.

When she turned back the statue had gone.

“Wah,” she gasped and tumbled back to sit on her previous gravestone.

Suddenly behind her, the black-haired porcelain-faced woman in a grey dress leaned on the headstone and whispered, “Thank you for the compliment.”

The girl whirled around and clasped at her heart. For a moment the dark eyes that regarded her gave her a feeling of dread and then unable to comprehend anything so sinister she replied, “Jesus, you gave me a fright.”

“Oh, I have that effect on a lot of people,” Anya purred.

Then before the girl could say more the strange pale woman leaned forward and kissed her.

“Look I don’t…” the girl muttered once Anya had broken contact, but she felt light-headed and something stirred between her legs more fiercely than the now fleeing Kevin had ever made her feel.

“Shush,” Anya said in a drawn out hushed whispered, “You have beautiful eyes.”

“How… how can you see in this light?” The mundane question put the dazed girl on more solid ground.

“I can see almost as well as you can during the day,” Anya explained and kissed the girl again.

This time she projected her will onto the girl and attempted to hold her with her mind as the Dark Father had taught her. Then certain the girl was at least momentarily in her thrall she transferred her lips to the girl’s neck and kissed her there. Her tongue caressed the soft warm flesh like velvet on silk.

“I-I don’t… don’t understand,” the girl murmured.

“I know,” Anya soothed her.

Then with a firm but gentle flick of her thumbnail she sliced a small incision across the hot vein and tasted the red flowing life force.

Instantly Anya was a goddess, her world becoming Technicolor and more vivid than it had ever been in mortal life. As the two women merged Anya glimpsed the girl’s life; random pictures of a sordid flat and small rusty car. A name, Susie came to her and the she saw the girl yelling silently at an older version of herself. The mother, Anya knew.

Then like a speeded movie of her mortal youth, Anya’s vision scrolled through to the moment and she saw the girl’s desire for her; reinforced by the feeding glamour. Partially sated now, Anya pulled back and with renewed strength imposed her will more strongly on the girl.

“Get undressed,” Anya whispered.

*

Anya sat up revelling in the feel of the rough cold stone on her exposed buttocks. It had been a long time since Anya had found such a release. In her blood youth, she had been a bit wild and had paid the price; just one of the reasons the Dark Father kept her on a short leash. But this stray mortal girl was what her old mortal grandmother would have called a windfall.

The blonde was also still naked and lay stretched out in a decorous stupor on the grave next to her. The curve of her buttocks a smooth white marble that echoed her conqueror and for one faint moment the old-young blood-thralled seductress indulged a fantasy that she could turn her new companion. But such things were for elders and the Dark Father. She was far too young in the blood to be capable of such things and besides, it was forbidden without permission.

The sky to the east was a bright grey now and already the indirect glow began its warning itch upon Anya’s flesh. But it had been a good night and for once she was sated. Well, almost sated, for already a dry tight insistent urge began a gentle pull at her soul; an old friend that she had learned to embrace.

Anya turned her will on the girl and seized her soul until it was as if putty to mould.

“Do not wake until the sun has full risen and then go home,” Anya cooed to the girl. “Remember the mortal girl you met with delight and seek out another.”

The Dark Father had taught her that mortals were best guiled with pleasure rather than fear.

“Forget this place and never return.” It was almost a song.

“Forget this place,” Susie mumbled in her sleep.

“That’s right and oh, dump that cowardly berk Kevin for being frightened of a girl in a cemetery.”

“Dump Kevin,” Susie intoned.

Anya sat back and looked again at the sky.

“It will be day soon,” a cold dark voice said from the cloak of night.

Anya started and whirled around to confront it.

“You handled that rather well,” the same voice said from behind her now.

“Father I…” A soul-quailed Anya swallowed hard.

“Shush,” The Dark Father breathed as he formed in the shadows before her.

His visage was calm and pale with hard noble angles beneath translucent smooth skin. Anya dropped to her knees as he loomed over her, his eyes jet pits under a thick mane of blue-black hair.

“Tell me, what was your plan for the other?” The Dark Father’s voice was calm, almost gentle like velvet draped over iron.

“I-eh I thought his tales of moving statues would not be believed,” Anya ventured.

“Nor will they… once. But remember last time, the rumours of the risen, and the people with moving cameras following the mob?” Father ran a single finger over his tongue as he spoke and then inclined his head with a cold gesture that encompassed the graveyard.

“Yes, but that was…” Anya was about to blame another, but she knew that wasn’t the point. “Yes Father.”

“You revealed yourself for… pleasure and risked exposing our lair,” Father said in a lower tone now, one with more sternness.

“Yes,” Anya whispered, looking all of the twenty-going-on-one-hundred childe that she was.

“Perhaps you missed the Charleston,” the Dark Father mocked her.

Anya did not reply and bowed her head as she bit upon her lower lip.

“Gather your clothes and return with me,” he snarled.

Anya hastened to obey and then still naked ran after her strolling sire back to their lair.

*

The lair was one of the bigger crypts away from the main pathways where it was the most overgrown. It had been chosen with care as a structure that was neither of particular historical merit nor one associated with a still extant family.

It was a temporary haunt for the clan, while a more comfortable abode was found. The only problem was, temporary had a whole different meaning to the immortal and nine of them had slept here for more than five years now.

The Dark Father was waiting for her in the entrance.

“You know you will be punished,” he said.

She thrilled with fear and she felt like a mortal child again. Immortal punishments were a terror to behold. For exposing the lair she might be exposed to the fast approaching day or…

“You are forbidden to feed for one month,” The Dark Father’s words cut into her thoughts. “You will remain in the graveyard until further notice.”

The horror of exposure was lifted with the words, but the bond between them was great and she hadn’t truly thought she faced destruction. However, an interdiction against feeding herself would leave her at the mercy of the clan. She would have to beg and sexually service her fellows for finger drippings and vermin. The latter her sole source of food until the restriction was lifted.

“Please Father I…”

“I have not finished.” The words were a knell of doom and Anya cringed. “In the nights that follow you will gather wild garlic, hawthorn and the like, you know what for.”

He waited until she nodded dumbly in assent.

“If wild garlic is not to be had, then you will crave for it form the others,” he told her, “For I will need much.”

To crave was to perform the lowest possible service for favours. Never since she was first taken had she been so treated. As for the garlic, it had but one use. A birch withe or wand of barbed hawthorn was used to thrash wayward ones such as her. If dipped in garlic first then the effects of the beating would be keenly felt across her bottom and she would not sit for days as if she were mortal. It was just, she knew, at least…

“But to chasten you still further, I have one more point to make.” They were words lightly spoken and not explained.

No explanation was necessary. In a trice she was turned naked over the Dark Father’s lap so that her bare bottom was uppermost on his knee.

“Oh Father, please not here,” Anya wailed.

The door to the lair was in full view of all of the returning clan. A spanking here would be seen by all. But no more protests were to be heard as the first spank landed with a splat that would have broken a mortal woman.

Anya’s face cracked in dismay as she struggled in shame on the Dark Father’s lap. As the spanking began it was still the embarrassment more than the pain that troubled her. Spankings were much used by her kind upon the female young and even old ones might be so chastised by their sires. It was a mark of the bond between sire and childe. However, beyond the first years of turning it was usually a private affair.

A spanking from the Dark Father was a common thing and to be endured, not resented, but this was too shameful.

“Oh please lord,” Anya wailed and blubbed like a child as the sting overtook her injured pride.

Oh at least it would have if Oliver had not returned.

“What have we here?” The newcomer chuckled and leaned at the doorpost to watch.

“Oooh,” Anya squealed, but to no avail.

The spanking lasted a good while and all the kindred had born witness before the Dark Father brought matters to a close.

“When not asleep this day, you will stand in the corner by the door bellow,” Father growled.

“Yes Sir,” Anya sobbed, as a young one she slept little and she knew she was about to face a long miserable day.

Ends

Nathalie paused at the door and sighed. She had only been back three days and already seemed like she had never been away. Although in truth it had been a long time since she had been home for more than an overnight stay. Home, she frowned. I haven’t lived here for 10 years, she thought, but then she had barely lived anywhere for more than 18 months since then.

The smell of freshly mown grass and this year’s crop of roses assailed her with competing bouquets. She had forgotten that smell. It’s odd, after college I couldn’t wait to get away from the place, she realised. She turned to look at the village spread out along two streets below the house.

The Welsh hills faded into the purple haze in the distance, the border being only a mile beyond the bridge. She remembered that in her childhood many in the village had still had the Welsh accent.

Then youthful voices came near and hurried away again without revealing their owners. She laughed and remembered running the lanes in much the same the way.

Then she turned again and pushed open the door.

The sight that greeted her brought back other memories.

Her half-sister Phoebe was standing in the corner wearing nothing but her pyjama tops and little white ankle socks. Nathalie’s heart leapt into her mouth and she blushed.

Phoebe shifted awkwardly where she stood and her hands strayed from her sides to flutter around her exposed bottom. She hadn’t been spanked yet, that much was obvious.

“Isn’t she a bit old for that?” Nathalie ventured hesitantly.

Phoebe was nearly 19 after all and frankly this sort of thing did not happen to a grown woman any more.

Stan folded down the edge of his newspaper and appraised Nathalie with a disapproving look. He was both girls’ step father, the last in a long line of feckless partner choices by Nathalie and Phoebe’s mother, Mary. But he had least had stuck; the only real father either of them had ever known.

“Not while she lives under this roof,” Stan growled.

Nathalie blushed even more. She remembered that line. In fact the last time she had heard it had been just a few weeks before she had left home. That time it had been her standing in the corner with her bare bottom on display to Stan, her mother, a much younger Phoebe, Stan’s 18-year-old son Pete, his girlfriend and Old Mother Jones from next door. At 22 she had wanted to die from the shame of it, even now she could feel her face melt.

“But…” Whatever she was about to say caught in her throat as he mother gave her a warning look from the kitchen.

“I seem to remember that you weren’t too old at her age,” Stan continued.

Nathalie let her mouth fall open and adopted as neutral an expression as she was able.

“I remember when you were out all night on Binkley Hill,” Stan went on, “Magic mushrooms wasn’t it?”

Nathalie cringed, not that story please, she prayed.

“When I found out, I tanned your arse until your blisters had blisters,” he snorted.

Nathalie remembered. Half the village’s parent’s had been in the room. It seemed that this house had been the convening point for the worried Mums and Dads of Nathalie’s fellow mushroom devotees. She wasn’t the only girl with a sore bottom that night.

“What were you then? Aye, you’d ‘ave been about 19 then an all.”

Nathalie looked at the floor in the vain hope of spotting a trap door. Sadly there was no immediate escape to be found there.

“What did Phoebe do anyway?” Nathalie was desperate to change the subject.

“Out with Davy Thomas for half the night,” Stan said with a shrug, “Weren’t you girl?”

“Yes Da,” Phoebe said sullenly.

“Well it’s only natural, she’s over 18,” Nathalie suggested.

Stan eyed her and then snorted in the direction of Phoebe.

“What until three in the morning and him with a criminal record?” Stan growled.

Phoebe shifted awkwardly, her hands fluttering around her bare bottom again. Any more of that and Stan would make her put her hands on her head, Nathalie knew from bitter experience.

“Besides,” Stan added, “It wasn’t where she said she would be, was it my girl?”

“No Da,” Phoebe managed a big enough pout to be seen from behind.

“No Da,” Stan mimicked, “No, you got a sound spanking coming ain’t you?”

“Yes Da,” Phoebe sighed.

“Might as well get it over with,” Stan said putting his newspaper down “Get over here.”

Nathalie watched as a mortified Phoebe turned around with her hands front and dipped her head. Then as she walked reluctantly forward Stan took the family hairbrush from its place of the mantle above him.

“Silly girl,” Stan growled softly.

Phoebe chewed her lip and then a moment later she was tipped across her stepfather’s knee.

As Nathalie watched she found that her mouth was a little dry, and strange but familiar emotions pulsed through her. From where she was standing she could see the back of Phoebe’s head and as the hair fell in a chestnut cascade and along her sister’s back to the tight neat divide of her white bottom that was facing away from her.

As if to get as far away from the action as she could, Nathalie nervously hugged herself and moved to the other end of the room just as the first crisp spank landed.

“Uh,” Phoebe gasped.

From her new position, albeit further away, Nathalie could now see rounds and lower slopes of Phoebe’s bottom where a sharp red patch had been placed.

Stan’s face tightened as he raised his arm and let another brush-loaded swat fall with some real bite.

“Urm.” Phoebe’s grunt was louder this time, but not as loud as the thwack of wood on skin.

Stan spanked down with three more deliberate whacks, each drawing a distressed wail from Phoebe and then it was as if he remembered he was mad and the pace quickened.

“I told you not to see that lad,” he said angrily, “And why, oh why did you lie, that’s the worst thing.”

Phoebe let go with long drawn out moaning ows that came in waves following each spank and steadily got louder.

“Do you hear me?” Stan barked.

“Da, I’m sorry Da,” Phoebe wailed.

Nathalie could see from the way her shoulders were rising and falling that her sister was crying now.

“Yes well, you will be,” Stan growled.

By now Phoebe’s bottom was bright red with little swathes of goosepimples where the flesh was shocked by the impact of the brush. The area between the spanked and unspanked bottom was marked with a rubbery welt that got more pronounced as the spanking continued.

“Will you see him again, will you?” Stan sang in an angry mantra.

“No Da, no, I’m sorry.” The last word was drawn out and lost in a wail.

“You really had better not,” Stan said in a resigned voice as he brought the spanking to an end. “Now get into that corner with your bottom facing the room so everyone can see. And I do mean in the corner with your nose touching.”

“Yes Da,” Phoebe said miserably.

“You can stay there until we have had our supper and then you can go to bed without yours, do you understand?”

“Yes Da,” Phoebe said in a small voice.

Stan grunted and now satisfied he returned to his newspaper with a loud rustle as he shook it.

For Nathalie, she was suddenly 18 again and where Phoebe stood. Then she saw her mother watching her and knowing she was of the same mind, Nathalie blushed. Her mother smiled and went back to getting their tea.

*

A few nights later, Nathalie and her parents went to the pub leaving Phoebe at home. Her sister was still grounded on account of recent events and for once Nathalie was fairly certain she would not risk ducking out while they were gone.

Nathalie had forgotten how cosy and friendly an English pub could be and within an hour she had forgotten all about Phoebe and immersed herself in a game of darts.

“You keep playing like that and I’ll be buying the next round again,” John Crossman laughed.

They had put a bet on the outcome, but Stan was off his game and Nathalie more than made up for her mother’s shortcomings with the darts.

“Thanks John, I’ll have another vodka and tonic,” Nathalie crowed.

“You haven’t won yet,” John scoffed, pulling down the peak of his cloth cap as if shading his eyes from an imaginary sun would improve his aim.

“Perhaps you have had enough anyway,” Nathalie’s mother chided.

“Oh pish,” Nathalie muttered as she watched John.

The first of his darts went thunk into double top and was accompanied with a cheer.

“Treble top to win,” Stan said excitedly.

“No way, old man Crossman will miss,” Nathalie jeered.

The next dart went thunk into the board just below the treble.

“See, what did I tell you?” Nathalie said in a slurred voice.

Her mother frowned.

“That’s okay John, another double top will finish this,” Stan said ignoring them both.

But John’s last dart clipped the wire and went skidding across the floor.

Nathalie laughed raucously and snorted in a somewhat vulgar manner through her nose so that even Stan glared at her.

Oblivious, Nathalie finished the game in three darts.

“You two are shit,” Nathalie sneered, “So the vodka is on you.”

Nathalie looked at her mother for approval but she just looked embarrassed.

“I think you have had enough,” Stan said quietly.

Nathalie pulled a face and made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

“You’re not too old to go over my knee young lady,” Mary said in a scolding voice.

John covered a laugh, but several of the younger men began to jeer and tease her.

“Oh mother,” Nathalie groaned even as she blushed.

“Well if you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head, if she doesn’t, I will,” Stan warned, “My house, my rules.”

It was a hollow threat but Nathalie was mortified all the same. But despite the mockery and general laughter, she felt oddly dizzy by the thought, as if a lost emotion was half-remembered.

After that her luck changed at the darts and she fell silent and sulky even as she sipped her last drink. Stan had pointedly left her out of the round and she was too embarrassed to comment on it.

The wind picked up as they walked home, spraying drizzle in their faces and helping them to sober up. On nights like this the walk up the hill was never as much fun as the one down it. But Nathalie hardly noticed the weather and all the way home she thought about Phoebe in the corner and Stan’s spanking threat to her own bottom.

*

“You have been such a bitch since you came back to stay, the sooner you get a job the better,” her mother said angrily.

The argument had begun following yet another night in a pub that was fast losing its charms. Nathalie had woken up with a hangover and had not taken kindly to being nagged about getting up late.

“Well there aren’t any flipping jobs, that’s why I came home, duh,” Nathalie threw back.

“Don’t speak to me like that, sometimes I swear…” Mary didn’t finish and turned back to her laundry.

“Why not? Why the hell not? Why did I even come back here? You don’t want me.” Nathalie sounded childish and she knew it.

“Oh, don’t be so stupid, I know it’s hard, but… but can’t you just make the best of it?” Mary sighed.

Sometimes, she thought, it was like having two teenagers in the house.

“Oh Mum,” Nathalie whined, “It’s like… like… being in a prison with no walls. There is nowhere to go but the pub and… oh grrr,” she kicked impotently a laundry basket.

“Careful,” Mary scolded her.

“You don’t understand,” Nathalie said sulkily.

“I understand that you are being a brat. A prison indeed, you come and go as you want. You can see who you want. You can even get drunk it seems. Something will turn up.”

Nathalie raged inside and could do nothing but pout.

“That’s what I mean I think, there is nothing to hold me back, nothing to push against. All I get to do is wait around,” Nathalie moaned and plucked at some clean laundry awaiting the iron.

“Will you leave my washing alone, if you’re bored you could always help,” Mary snapped.

“That’s what I mean, you don’t get it,” Nathalie whined, “I’m 32 and I have nothing.”

She wasn’t bored exactly, but she was restless.

“If you don’t buck your ideas up I’ll put you across my knee,” her mother scolded.

“Maybe you should,” Nathalie said as she flounced off.

*

Days had passed and nothing happened to make Nathalie any less frustrated and her mood hadn’t improved when she snarled at her mother one morning.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I have had enough of it,” Stan growled from over the top of his newspaper.

Phoebe also looked up from her place at the breakfast table. She was blinking hard and chewing her lip. If she had answered mother back like that she would be across Stan’s knee before she could say ‘corner time.’

“You’ve had enough, I have had enough,” Nathalie shot back.

“All I said was maybe you could help me with the shopping today. I have so much laundry to do…” Mary ventured. She was acutely aware that Stan’s dander was up. Having a papa lion and a young lioness going at one another was not what she needed right now.

“You are always doing flipping bloody laundry,” Nathalie, “Why do you put up with it? Why can’t Phoebe and Stan do their own bloody fucking laundry?”

Phoebe might have pointed out that for the most part she did, but she was too busy gaping.

Stan dropped his newspaper into his lap and just stared at his stepdaughter, his mouth working soundlessly as he searched for an adequate response. For a moment he wondered if Nathalie didn’t have a point and looked at his wife aghast.

Mary shook her head and turned away with a shrug. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the girl,” she muttered.

“I bring the bloody money into this house,” Stan said in a pained voice, but his eyes darted over the great pile of laundry all the same. “What do you do?”

“Anything I bloody want apparently,” Nathalie gave him a scornful look and then got up from the table to leave.

“You come back here, I won’t have… I won’t have that language in my house, apologise to your mother.”

“Let it go Stan,” Mary sighed, “I don’t know what’s going on with her.”

“Yeah, let it go Stan,” Nathalie sneered.

“Why you little… I ought to…” Stan spluttered.

Phoebe glanced at the door and considered running for the hills. Stan was going to be in a spanking mood after this and her own copybook was far from clean.

“Listen you little madam, I have a good mind to put you across my knee and spank you until Tuesday,” Mary said sharply.

“Oh not that old bullshit again, put another record on,” Nathalie yawned.

“If you were 10 years younger…” Stan was fuming.

“Ten years, ha, what’s stopping you hey? You… oh just leave me alone,” Nathalie was lost now.

“Do you know what,” Stan said calmly, “There is absolutely nothing.”

Then to Mary and Phoebe’s disbelief he stood up and grabbed Nathalie by the arm.

“Phoebe, fetch the hairbrush,” he said in a commanding voice.

“You’re not… you can’t be serious, I mean… come on now.” Nathalie fluttered like a caged bird and started to back away.

“Oh no you don’t,” Stan barked as he sat down again and took his elder stepdaughter with him.

“Mum, please, you can’t let him,” Nathalie wailed.

“You know, I think I can,” Mary said in a steely voice, “I think you are long overdue.”

“But I’m too old for this, I… Stan!” The last word was squealed as her stepfather hooked his thumb under her skirt and yanked down her knickers.

Phoebe smirked as she handed Stan the hairbrush and then sat back to enjoy the show.

“Now young lady I am going to give you the spanking of your life,” Stan rumbled as he adjusted his position and lined up the flat side of the brush.

The first spank landed with a good solid thwack right where Nathalie sat and she shrieked.

“Okay, okay, I get it… yah,” she yelped again as she took another spank.

“You’re gonna get it alright,” Stan growled.

The next spank took her breath away and she squirmed wildly across Stan’s lap.

“Please, I’ll be good,” Nathalie wailed.

She sounded babyish and Phoebe giggled.

“Oh you’ll be more than good, you will be like a little church mouse for the rest of the week and guess what you are going to be doing all the laundry,” Stan snapped.

“Yes, okay,” Nathalie squealed.

“Oh I know it’s okay,” Stan bellowed as he spanked in harder.

“Ooh, please I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” that was the mantra she sang for the next several minutes.

But Stan was taking no prisoners and didn’t let up until Nathalie’s bottom had a strong burgundy hue and she was bawling with real tears.

“Golly, I wouldn’t want to have to sit on that any time soon,” Phoebe teased.

“Oh she won’t be, even if she can, which I doubt. Once she comes out of the corner she’s going to working her little bottom off for her Mum,” Stan replied.

“I will, I will,” Nathalie wailed.

“Okay then, now get into the corner… leave them down,” Stan growled. “You’ll stay there all morning and if I get a peep out of you…”

“Yes Stan,” Nathalie sniffed.

As Nathalie reluctantly limped towards the corner the doorbell rang.

“Is that Mrs Welbeck already?” Mary said anxiously.

“It might be just Clare and Pam,” Phoebe said casually, “We going into town.”

Nathalie let out a small wail.

“Oh and I think Michael, Clare’s new boyfriend will be with them,” Phoebe added with relish.

“Oh you can’t let them in,” Nathalie said pleadingly.

“Be quiet you,” Stan growled and then added, “You had better put the kettle on, we have company.”

From the corner wild emotions raged through Nathalie’s mind, but strangely she felt more a peace than she had for weeks. Finally she felt home.

Ends

Maureen O’Sullivan swimming nude in the 1934 movie Tarzan and His Mate

Dolores del Rio swimming nude in the 1934 movie Bird of Paradise

Maureen O’Sullivan nearly nude in Tarzan and His Mate from 1934

The Hays Code, an odious instrument of cultural censorship that plagued America between 1930 and 1968 may have been a blessing disguise for the spanking community.

The Code, which was not universally adopted and enforced until 1934 prohibited a whole range of on-screen activities that we today would view as ridiculous as chopping of the penises of marble statues and calling chair legs chair limbs so as not to be sexually provocative.

Just to give an idea of how relatively radical movies were before 1934, the pictures above were taken from mainstream films made just before the Code came into force. One is Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane from Tarzan and His Mate and the other is a very similar scene from a film called Birds of Paradise starring Joel McCrae and Dolores del Rio.

In the latter film, audiences were shocked by the fact that Dolores not only didn’t wear a bra, but that she openly professed a liking for rough sex, which back then was a euphemism for  BDSM or spanking.

Miss del Rio was to get her wish when she was later spanked in the 1933 movie, Flying Down to Rio. It was not getting spanked in this film that angered the Hays Code people, because spanking was one of the things that the Code did not ban. However, references to sex and two unmarried spending the night on a beach together did.

Spanking featured relatively heavily in movies before the Code was introduced, but afterwards it had to stand in for all the sex and nudity that films could no longer show.

In the 1931 movie the Cowcatcher’s Daughter, Marjorie Beebe’s spanking would have been celebrated by the censors as a just comeuppance for her character’s lude behaviour, for instance the animated image (found on Let’s Misbehave) shows her sneaking back from skinny-dipping hidden only by a fence which she turns into an on-scree burlesque act.

Ironically after the Code such a spanking scene were continued to be played for laughs in order to hide the erotic nature of it in plain sight.  And that is the point. Maybe if it hadn’t been for the Has Code, emergence of women’s rights from the 1940s might have meant that such spanking scenes would have fallen out of fashion all the sooner, where as it is, they continued on in mainstream movies right up to the 1960s with movies such as McKlintock! and beyond.

Don’t you just hate ad breaks?

The other day I was discussing how much more advertising there is on cable TV compared with old-fashioned terrestrial television.

I was told that US TV is much much worse with up to 20 or even 25 minutes out of an hour. At least that explained why an hour in 24 only lasted 40 minutes on the BBC. I’ll never complain about the license fee again.

Thankfully on blogs advertising is rare. However, before tomorrow’s story here is an advert.

I know, it’s a pain.

Barely back in my stride to write and so I have not been on top of the blogosphere this week.

This can’t be said for Rollin who has released a short story collection called the Scarlett Society. You can read more details over at Disciplinary Tales.

He is not the only one who has been busy. Bonnie’s My Bottom Smarts has a new list of a fresh crop of spanking blogs. Looks like some good ones there. I wonder how many will survive the year. Most of them I hope.

Brushstrokes at The Spanking Spot has just announced another spanking award winner. Yesterday it was the turn of the best new spankee.

The pictures above were taken from Devlin O’Neil, Cutie Pie and the Cherry Red Report.

Where did this story begin?

Was it the day that Sylvia Burns decided that she would never marry unless it was for money? Was it before that, when Gerald Peters made his first million? Or is this a story that is as old as time, where a young woman of a certain outlook, shall we say, seeks out an older wealthier man? Who can say for sure? Who even cares? Sylvia Burns certainly didn’t. Not after she had become Sylvia Peters anyway.

In any case, Gerald didn’t have too much to do with his wife and that was the way Sylvia liked it. Although to put this into some kind of perspective: Gerald had three houses, a castle, seven cars, a private plane, two mistresses and one trophy wife; namely Sylvia.

The only trouble was Sylvia was bored. She had been on three long holidays that year already and when she had asked for her allowance to be doubled, Gerald had merely signed the cheque without a word.

“I only asked, because I wanted an argument,” she said forlornly to her maid.

Tatiana shrugged; she had other things on her mind.

“Are you in trouble with Lady Granger again?” Sylvia asked in a bored voice when she saw Tatiana wasn’t listening.

Lady Granger was what the household, including Sylvia, called Mary Granger the housekeeper behind her back. It was on account of this woman that Sylvia has long since given up on the illusion that she had any say in running the house. That had been made perfectly clear to her on her very first day when she had asked for the rust red curtains at the front of the house to be changed for blue ones.

“Blue ones,” Granger had said slowly as if addressing a child, “I hardly think so.”

And that had been an end to the matter.

The other peculiarity concerning Mary Granger and how she ran the house was her predilection for corporal punishment. The entire female staff lived in acceptance, if not fear of the woman, who viewed their bottoms as a casual target for her wrath.

Sylvia, who thought she had seen it all, was so perturbed to be living in what to her lights could only be described as a BDSM nut house, that month before the wedding she had complained to Gerald.

“Oh I don’t concern myself with such things as much as I once did, but it is rather fun don’t you think?” he had told her dismissively. “If you like I’ll have Mary Granger take you in hand. Perhaps even if you don’t like, if you really want cause any further fuss about it.”

“I was only saying,” she had said hastily.

After all she had been given a million for just getting married. The subsequent financial nuptial arrangements were worth considerably more. It wasn’t even worth her while seeking a divorce, well not for 10 years or so anyway.

Back in the present she realised that Tatiana was ignoring her, which was the most interesting thing that had happened to her all day. She was about to ask again while the girl was so distracted when she noticed the maid bend over to turn down her bed.

As Tatiana’s short skirt lifted up behind, Sylvia could see two smooth red ovals staining her neat pert and very bare bottom.

“Oh heavens, whatever did you do?” she asked the maid.

“Oh this? This is nothing,” Tatiana said as she rolled her eyes and jerked her head towards her behind. “I have to report to Lady Granger later on for some ‘further reprimanding.’”

“I see,” Sylvia gaped, now transfixed by the view her maid was affording her, “How does she…? I mean what does she use to make it so red?”

“For this, she put me across her knee for about 15 minute’s application of the sole,” Tatiana said ruefully, then seeing the puzzled look on Sylvia’s face, she added, “It is a shoe-sized stiff piece of leather with a coarsened striking surface.”

“Don’t you mind?” Sylvia gasped.

“Of course I mind, that is the whole point, but it’s better than…” Tatiana sighed, “You don’t know about me then?”

Sylvia shook her head. Despite being Gerald’s wife for almost three years, she realised now that she didn’t know much about his household.

“My Father is a big man back in Russia; I mean oil, gas and mineral rights rich. But he is rather old school,” Tatiana sighed.

“So what are you doing here?” Sylvia asked.

“Growing up I got everything, I mean everything. I had a lambo at 16 and private flying lessons and my own plane at 18. By the time I was 21 I was… let’s say, in something of an experimental phase. Boys, girls, drugs… you get the idea,” Tatiana’s accent suddenly thickened somewhat. “Daddy not like it one bit.”

“I can imagine,” Sylvia mumbled, not wishing to break the girl’s confiding streak by talking too loudly.

“One day there was I, two oligarch daughters, a former KGB general and a tiger… don’t ask, on a yacht in the black sea. The police became involved and one of the girls ended up in hospital. One of daddy’s deals went screwy and he ended up owing a lot of money, not to say some big favours to the Russian Mafia,” Tatiana continued.

“Shit,” Sylvia whispered.

“Shit, this is a good word for it,” Tatiana rolled her eyes up, “Another is total fuck-up, well that is two words, but you get the picture I paint.”

Sylvia nodded.

“Well after daddy whip my behind good, which was much too late in the day if you ask me, he gave me a choice. I either have to go to Siberia and work as this guy’s total bitch for a few years or marry some man I hate, but who our family owed favours to.”

“So how…?”

“I not like either choice, so I run away to London.” Tatiana shrugged. “Daddy caught me of course, but by then he had met Mr Peters. That’s when he came up with another way to teach me some respect for work and money and I don’t have to put out, if you get me?”

“Oh I get you?” Sylvia gaped at her maid, wide-eyed that such things could still happen.

“Mr Peters promised two things, a safe place away from the oligarch crap and a sound spanking when I needed it. He said ‘a good spanking never hurt a bad girl.’ He kept both promises and I a very bad girl.”

Tatiana was grinning now. Sylvia smiled back.

“I not bored now,” Tatiana said conspiratorially. “Not like you I think.”

The smile was wiped from Sylvia’s face.

*

Tatiana’s story and her personal observation afterwards played on Sylvia’s mind for days after that and she wandered about the house looking at it in an entirely new light.

Sylvia took particular note of Tatiana, who to her certain knowledge had stood at the foot of the servants’ stairs with her bare bottom displayed for well over an hour; nor had that been the extent of the girl’s discomfort. From the look of the welts and marks on her exposed bottom, it was evident that Lady Granger had applied herself to punishing the girl for some considerable time after they had spoken.

Several times, Sylvia made a pass of the pantry office in the bowels of the house beyond the kitchen. It was a part of the house she had never concerned herself with before, but now she realised that a Mary Granger saw a succession of maids and other female staff there on a regular basis. And from the sound of it, a reprimand from Lady Granger always constituted a sound spanking if the mournful faces and rubbing of bottoms departing her office was anything to go by.

Finally Sylvia was so intrigued that she went and knocked on Mary Granger’s door.

“Is there anything I can do to… I don’t know… help maybe?” Sylvia asked.

Mary Granger sat back at her desk and looked her nominal mistress up and down with an appraising eye. The housekeeper had short sensible hair, that by the look of it had never been coloured and was instead a non-descript dark brown. But despite cultivating a severe look, Mary was rather pretty, Sylvia realised, at least as pretty as herself, but, she had to admit, rather less obvious.

“I don’t know. Is there anything you can do? I can always use another hand to mop floors or scrub out the stable blocks,” Mary said wearily.

“I was rather thinking…” Sylvia didn’t really know.

“Too good for you eh, I thought we had been through all this before, haven’t you got to go on holiday or to a party or something?”

“Tatiana said…” Sylvia began.

“She thought she was too good for it too, but I soon taught her differently,” Mary said with a tone of finality as if she wanted Sylvia to go.

“Does my husband ever…?”

“It’s been known, but usually he leaves that to me,” Mary cocked her head to one side as her mouth formed a perfect line.

“I see, but…” Sylvia looked at the floor.

If she left this conversation now, she would never be able to pursue it again.

“How does it all work? I mean, why… why wasn’t I…? I’m just curious that’s all,” Sylvia continued.

“He has a vanilla face to show his business friends and he needs a vanilla wife to go with it I suppose,” Mary shrugged.

A pained expression crossed Sylvia’s face and she sensed that Mary’s words said more about Sylvia’s true value than anything she had in the bank. She felt her world recede to a single point of nothingness.

“Please I…” they were small words heavy with despair.

“You are free to whatever you like,” Mary said with a newfound sympathy, “You could just take the money and run.”

“Yes but…”

An awkward silence fell between them.

To break it Mary said in an exasperated voice, “Very well, come here.”

As she spoke she opened a draw in her desk and removed something.

“Wh-what?” Sylvia was taken aback by Mary’s change of tone.

“I know how to handle girls like you,” Mary said as she stood up and patted the palm of her hand with the short piece of leather. “This is called a sole. A moderate application of this will put you in a receptive frame of mind and then we will discuss how you might be able to help, if that’s what you really want.”

“No look, I didn’t mean…” Sylvia was transfixed by an emotion somewhere between shock and curiosity, a hesitation long enough to ensure she was bundled into place across Mary’s knee.

“Let me go, you can’t do this,” Sylvia wailed, but she was unable to find the will to truly resist.

“What are you wearing here?” Mary chided as she rolled up the back of Sylvia’s skirt and tugged at the virtual thong-like undergarments. “These are hardly worth the effort.”

“What are you doing?” Sylvia cried indignantly.

“Shush,” Mary snapped as she dragged the woman’s knickers down and right off her legs.

The sole was applied crisply and efficiently to Sylvia’s bare bottom with a stinging effect far beyond anything she had before experienced.

“Yah, omigod,” Sylvia gasped.

“Oh such a nice colour,” Mary teased as she spanked at a steady pace.

Sylvia kicked and rocked on the housekeeper’s lap, but years of experience kept her firmly in her place.

“Okay, Okay,” Sylvia’s voice was shrill as the sting became a burn that quickly overwhelmed her pampered behind. Then between gasps and heavy panting she rasped, “You can stop now, I get it.”

“You get it, you say, well I don’t think so. I am going to spank this prissy miss perfect behind of yours until you do get it. A spanking, once begun, doesn’t end until I say it does. Is that what you get?” Mary said sharply, not missing a beat in the rapid assault on Sylvia’s bottom.

“Yes,” Sylvia yipped through clenched teeth.

“When I am done with you, you are going to do exactly as you are told. Do you get that?” Mary scolded.

“Yes,” Sylvia growled as she tried to bear the assault in silence.

“Yes what?” Mary barked.

“Yes I get it,” Sylvia moaned, the eyes bugging out in her head.

“Yes I get it, what?” Mary persisted sharply.

“I get it, I get it,” the young wife wailed.

“I get it, Ma’am,” Mary yelled, whacking a spank down hard for emphasis and then again, “yes Ma’am, do you get that?”

With each ‘Ma’am’ she spanked harder than the other swats so that Sylvia bucked and kicked out her legs.

“Yes Ma’am,” Sylvia gasped, “Yes Ma’am.”

Mary responded by really putting it to her until her employers wife made some quite definite grunts and groans. Finally the hapless Sylvia’s disjointed squeals broke to proper crying and she seemed to sag a little under the onslaught of the sole.

“That’s it, let it all out,” Mary soothed.

“Yes Ma’am,” Sylvia sobbed.

Still the spanking continued for a while longer.

“I am going to put you in your place once and for all, do you hear me?” Mary was a little breathless by now.

“Yes Ma’am,” Sylvia said miserably.

“Alright, before I find a nice little task for you, I want you to go up the hall and stand at the bottom of the servant’s staircase where everyone can see you. And I mean everyone. I want you dainty little dress here lifted at the back to display your behind and your cute, currently wet little nose pressed to the wall. Do you get that?”

“Yes Ma’am,” Sylvia hiccoughed a sob.

“Good,” Mary said with some satisfaction, “And Mrs Peters, please, please, imagine you can defy me. I would love to teach you differently,” she added in a drawl.

“No Ma’am, I mean yes Ma’am, I mean… oh, oh,” Sylvia did a little hop on the spot as she was released and then seeing Mary’s expression she fled down the hall with her skirts held up behind and did exactly as she was told.

To be continued…

Times have certainly changed, but this depicts a prevailing sentiment of the 1950s and 1960s. The fact that the strip refers to a grown married woman as a child rather says it all. Still it is a fun blast from the past and one for all those 1950s household fans.

As ever this picture was sent in by TipTopper, so many thanks to him.

Despite another busy week I have had time to work, write, shave and check out the blogosphere. I must be getting better organised.

Let’s begin with the pictures.

The drawing is from Chicago Spanking and is another in the series flagged up last week. There is an interesting article accompanying the picture which like last week’s offering is unusual in that it features a 1950s bare bottom spanking.

The Spanking Spot also ran the rather comely picture of Pandora from Dreams of Spanking.

The other sporty picture is from All Things Spanking.

Speaking of pictures, Chross has updated his vintage section with some old favourites culled from around the web and Blossom and Thorn have a useful round-up of all those St Patrick’s Day pictures.

London was full of leprechauns and funny green hats at the weekend; the pubs made a killing. I saw the inside of one or two myself.

I asked one guy in a green hat if he was Irish (well duh), but he said no. But he did say he thought his great, great grandfather took a boat ride there once. On that basis I would be a Russian, but I think it may count in New York.

Apparently in some places in the US you can pinch someone who isn’t wearing green on St Paddy’s Day. It’s probably a law or something, but I wouldn’t try it in London though. They have some rather rougher customs for people who pinch them. And that’s just the girls.

Now if only there was a spanking custom…

Meanwhile back in Spankville on Tuesday Bonnie published a list of new spanking blogs on My Bottom Smarts.

In other news Sometimes a Girl Needs a Spanking is full. It seems too many people have been spanked and their revelations have used up the forum capacity. Comments can still be made but previous entries might get archived.

Have no fear, One Hand has a plan. Watch this space of Sometimes a Girl II.

The Russell Corner is a 70,000-odd word novel that was first published in 2009. All things considered it has sold rather well for a micro-publication and I know many of you bought and I am gratified by that.

Generally the book was well-received and many of those those used to my narrative style have said some very complimentary things indeed. However the production values were not as high as they might be and it has to be said that it was written at a very early stage in my journey as a creative writer of erotic fiction.

So it was with some surprise that at a time when my original publisher was considering retiring the book, LSF approached me with a view to republishing it.

After some extensive re-edits and adding some 2,000 words, I am happy to announce that this story has now been reissued and it is now available direct from LSF or on Amazon as an e-book in various formats.

The publishers’ description can be read on my bookshop page. However, also back in 2009 and preview copy was reviewed by David Roman and his short article was included as a forward for the book.

He wrote:

The Russell Corner is an exploration of erotic discipline. At its core is love and the unconditional love of various submissive women for their dominants.

Women are very much at the heart of the story. Indeed the only man to be more than cursorily treated is the nominal hero.

Richard Russell is a patriarch who loves his wife and daughters and genuinely values his friend and faithful secretary. While his secretary can only envy the severe punishment he hands out to his two eldest daughters at his office. It is her obsession with the corner in his office that gives the story its name.

But the true narrative of the story is carried by Catherine Raven and her relationship with her stepdaughter Eleanor. Although she secretly yearns for the submission of her former married life, widowhood has forced her into the role of dominant. She is on a mission to complete her late husbands will to mould Eleanor into her father’s worthy successor.

Eleanor herself is an intelligent independent woman who clearly need not submit to her stepmother’s tyranny, but at heart must because it is the only way that she can address her submissive needs. Again it is really love and a desire to gain Catherine’s respect that motivates her scheming.

For most of the women in the story it is necessary to pretend to be reluctant submissives, even to themselves, or else their world will be exposed as a game and come crashing down.

The story is set around Easter 1990. This removes it in time while still allowing it a contemporary feel. This not only serves to provide it with sense of unreality but is a world before mobile phones and the Internet, which could otherwise inhibit the plot.

The plot itself is not a detailed one. It often merely serves as a hook on which to hang various punishment scenarios. But more importantly it allows for characters to be developed through an exploration of their motivations.

The Russell Corner stands as a metaphor for each of the submissives in the story and their quest to be loved and protected for the price of submission.

In the wake of the college spanking post I heard from Linda. She is in her 30s and now married. She sent in this personal account.

In her own words she says: “time might have polished my memory of these events and better shaped them for style. And some events may have happened out of sequence, but essentially this is a true story. I have been a reader for some time and particularly like your stories. Oddly enough I was motivated to write after I read about (and read) Lizzie Baines, but it was the Zen thing and then the college accounts that finally pushed me into doing so.”

*

I think it is relevant to say I am adopted. I was a late adoptee (almost 13) and for a long time I never felt I was really theirs. For the record my parents were and are great and I owe them so much but it wasn’t until I met Ben and his mother and sister that I really understood family or appreciated my own. Not that this is a story of normal family life, anything but, I would say, and I definitely wouldn’t champion or evangelise this as a lifestyle. But it all worked out for me.

I was not yet 20 when I met Ben at college and I didn’t meet his mother and sister until Christmas of my second year. But things didn’t really get interesting until Easter.

Ben was 22 by then and his sister Tamsin is my age give or take. His father had died four years before and I gather things had been pretty difficult, which was why Ben was still at college.

Helen, Ben’s mother, is witty and when I first met her I thought she was too young and glamorous to be a mum. In fact I was fairly intimidated by all of them, they seemed so together. Tamsin in particular was very mature and made me feel quite gauche.

To start with, it seemed that Tamsin could do what she liked and always came home late having been drinking without the least raised eyebrow from Helen. My own mother would have done her nut if I had just done half the stuff Tamsin was doing. But then, as I said, Tamsin was very mature and always seemed sensible.

The weekend after Easter Helen was put out on Sunday morning because Tamsin hadn’t come home the night before after borrowing the car. It was the first time I noticed the least displeasure displayed by Helen towards her daughter.

Even then Tamsin had phoned to explain the night before.

It turned out that Tamsin had drunk too much and could not drive home, which was sensible and at first pleased Helen. But later that day after Helen came home they talked again and then Helen had asked how Tamsin had got the car back so early that morning.

The atmosphere changed immediately. The usually bright and confident Tamsin became closed-mouth and evasive until Helen showed her hard side.

My first hint that something was going to happen was when Ben said, “Uh-oh its crazy time.”

He looked really uncomfortable, embarrassed even.

It turned out that Tamsin had driven more than 10 miles from wherever she had been before deciding she was too drunk to drive.

Helen gave out a huge sigh of disappointment and folded her arms. I remember her body language was scary.

Then she said, “Young lady, you know what happens now.”

Tamsin suddenly looked her age and went red in the face and squirmed about on the settee. Up until then she had been really kind and friendly towards me, but now she was looking at me with irritation like I was unwelcome or an intruder even.

“I’m sorry Mum, look can’t we…” she started to mumble and kept looking at me.

Helen said in a cross but reasonable voice, “But we talked about this. We agreed didn’t we? Don’t make it worse for yourself,” that kind of thing. Then she said, “Go on, I’ll be up in a minute.”

Tamsin glared at me and got a bit stroppy. Then she got up and stormed out of the room and up the stairs to her room.

I looked at Ben who looked really uptight.

He said, “Oh don’t worry about it, it’s just something Mum and Tam worked out after Dad died. I told you things were crazy back then.”

I waited until Helen followed Tamsin up the stairs and then curiosity got the better of me and I went after her. She saw me on the stairs, but didn’t say anything and went into Tamsin’s room.

In the house is a sort of open area at the top of the stairs that has two soft seats and bookshelves. It wasn’t unusual for me to sit there reading while I waited to use the bathroom or just to put some distance between me and the family. I guess I thought I was being casual, but I grabbed a book and sat down.

In her room Tamsin was obviously being told off and it didn’t sound like she was answering back much. Then there was dull clap sound followed by another. It took me a moment to get what was happening and by then Tamsin had started yelling.

I couldn’t believe that Tamsin was getting a spanking, but at the same time I realised that part of me had already guessed. I was shocked, embarrassed and sort of excited.

The slap-cracking sound went on for ages. I remember thinking it would stop any moment, but it didn’t. The swats were regular and quite fast, maybe one every second or two. No slower than that. Tamsin didn’t yell all the way through, but sometimes she made muffled groaning sounds like she was trying to keep quite. Then after a while she started apologising and I could tell she was crying.

Once it stopped I could hear Helen talking in a quiet voice for little while. When the door finally opened Helen came out with a man’s slipper in her hand, but didn’t come out with it. She tossed back inside before leaving. I remember thinking that it must be kept there for that purpose and how did Tamsin feel about that.

Helen looked at me and sort of smiled, but didn’t say anything before she went back down stairs.

I pretended to read a book while I listened to Tamsin crying. I don’t know what I expected, but I wanted to be a part of it somehow.  I wanted to know more. I wanted to ask Tamsin about it.

Tamsin cried for a while and then it went quiet and then a bit later the door opened and Tamsin came out. I remember she was wearing a really short stripy shirt that she usually wore to bed. Only normally she would wear some baggy shorts with it. Maybe she didn’t expect to see me there or maybe she was past caring. But as she came out she glared at me and then went passed me into the bathroom.

I could see the tops of her thighs and lower part of her bottom as she disappeared and they were very red and swollen.

When she came out she said “Go away” and something that might have been swearing.

I didn’t hear but instead of taking the hint I asked what she had said.

She screamed at me, “Get lost can’t you,” but in a really angry way.

Helen came up the stairs in a hurry and went straight back into Tamsin’s room.

There was a short burst of spanking and Helen said something under her breath in an angry voice. Then Tamsin was practically frog-marched on to the landing.

“Sorry,” she said in a really miserable voice so that Helen smacked her on the bum.

So in a slightly softer voice she said sorry again.

Then Helen clamped her by the back of the neck and turned her about so that she was facing the wall outside her room, then she left her there.

I could see Tamsin’s red bottom under shirt and I knew that she was really embarrassed, but I wanted to make sense of it all so I stayed there pretending to read.

Tamsin cried for a bit and then seemed to settle down. She was there for ages. So long that she kept adjusting the weight on her hip and leaning against the wall. Eventually I went to watch some TV, but the atmosphere was a bit frosty and I went to bed shortly after Tamsin was allowed to.

The next day Tamsin came to see me.

She was really friendly and apologised for her attitude saying she understood why I was curious and that I must think they are crazy. We chatted for ages and although Tamsin was reluctant to say much, she told me that spanking was something that she and Helen had worked out between them in recent years to clear the air.

I was still dying to know more about it and listened out for every hint or clue about it, but Helen just smiled at me when I asked and said maybe she would explain one day.

Ben was no help. All he could say was that it was how his Mum had been brought up and it had never happened while his Dad was alive. He called it the craziness and said he stayed out of the way.

I was there a lot after that, every holiday and some weekends. I don’t think Tamsin was spanked very much, although occasionally I got a sense that she may have been just before I arrived. That I know of, during the rest of her time I went to visit she was spanked at total of three more times.

Once I stayed downstairs and another time I came back from shopping and went to show Tamsin what I had bought only to find her teary-eyed and in her night clothes on her bed. She even showed me her sore bottom, but I got the idea she didn’t want me to stick around.

There was one other time when Ben was out that I went to listen outside the door and found it ajar. I noticed that I could watch most of the spanking through the crack in the door jam. Although all I saw really was that Tamsin’s bottom was bare and over Helen’s lap and she was indeed spanked with a slipper. I couldn’t see either of their faces.

I was embarrassed when Helen came out and caught me watching, but like before she just gave a half smile and shrugged.

The only other fact I gleaned from Tamsin at the time was that she sometimes had to stand and face the wall after a spanking like the first time I saw her, only she did it downstairs.

As I said that was pretty much all there was to it as far as Tamsin was concerned until much later. But it didn’t stop my interest in what had happened and I spent a lot of time looking up spanking at the library and the internet for any references. As you can imagine I found a lot.

About 18 months later Ben and I were pretty much a definite item and started talking about getting married. He had a job and I went to live with his Mum and sister, both of whom I really got on with by then.

I think it was a big strain for Helen sometimes to have another adult daughter in the house, especially as Tamsin was usually away with her boyfriend for days at a time. And I was not really used to that kind of home life either.

After a couple of rows Helen and I had a talk about things. That’s when I saw an opportunity to ask about the spanking.

Helen told me that after a really tough time when Tamsin had really gone into melt down and done stuff which Helen wouldn’t tell me about, Tamsin had asked for some sort of help. The subject of Helen’s own upbringing had been raised and somehow the spanking agreement had come from that. Although Helen admitted that the first time had been more spontaneous and done out of frustration. But afterwards Tamsin said it had helped and she felt better.

I remember squirming and blushing my head off but I asked Helen if she thought it would help me.

Helen laughed and said she bet it would. But she thought I was joking.

“Maybe you should, spank me I mean,” I said, God it was awful.

Helen said, “I think Ben finds the whole thing a bit uncomfortable. I am not sure it is such a good idea.”

I said that she had already admitted that it would do me good and pointed out that it had worked well for her and Tamsin. She only said she would think about it.

It might have ended at that as there was no way I would ever find the courage to ask about it again, but about three weeks later I went to a party with some friends.

Ben and Tamsin weren’t around and I got carried away. I spent most of the next morning throwing up in the bathroom while Helen phoned the various credit card people for me because I had lost my bag.

That afternoon Helen came to my room and said, “You know maybe what we talked about would help. I am pretty mad with you and you’re still moping up here. Maybe it would clear the air a bit.”

I was all tingling and felt sick like I was before my finals.

“Maybe,” I said.

“It’s not an easy thing and once I start I’ll go through with it,” she said.

I nodded and she told me to get ready for bed.

I put on one of Ben’s t-shirts and waited until Helen came. I saw at once that she had the slipper in her hand, although as it turned out it was the left one from under the stairs. Tamsin had the right one in her room as a reminder and Helen wanted to leave it there. But I didn’t know this at the time, not until afterwards.

Helen gave me an expert telling-off and I was pretty close tears and genuinely sorry when she was done. I think this really helped put me in the right frame of mind.

It was strange and awkward going over Helen’s lap and I was really more embarrassed than I thought I would be when she pulled up the back of my t-shirt. Not that it covered much as I was also to find out.

The first spank was much harder than I expected and I started struggling and making a noise almost at once, but as promised Helen didn’t stop.

I have to say that it always seemed like such a long time when I heard Tamsin’s spankings, but to be on the receiving end myself was far worse and it felt like hours went by.

I was a sobbing mess by the time Helen stopped.

Then Helen said, “Now I am going to handle you as I was handled, I think you need it more than Tamsin does. I know Ben’s not here so it won’t matter but if Tamsin comes home I don’t want any fuss.”

I didn’t know what she meant but I didn’t argue.

Helen then made me come down stairs just as I was and stand and face the lounge wall with my hands on my head. With my bum showing and having been thoroughly spanked I was as meek as mush. I stood there for most of the evening, although I was eventually allowed to put my arms down. Then I was sent to bed like a kid.

I looked at my bum in the mirror and it was still very red with mauve splotches on the underside. I also saw that Helen had left the slipper on the floor as a future warning. I put it on my dressing table where I could see it. It only prompted a very brief comment from Ben about me “starting with that craziness.”

Tamsin thought it was really cool so when Helen asked me if we should resolve stuff that way I said we should and thanked her.

Between then and until about a year after we married when Ben and I got our own place I was spanked about a dozen times. Ben was only there once, which wasn’t an accident I think, but Tamsin saw me spanked and my time facing the wall about half of those times.

The main difference between my spankings and Tamsin’s was that I always had to come down stairs and face the wall for a good while. But in any case Tamsin must have only been spanked two or three times while I was living there anyway.

Ben has never asked much about it and although he knows I look at spanking blogs he doesn’t get involved much beyond the occasional spanking for fun thing. I have only been spanked once by Helen since we moved out and that was really soon afterwards.

It would be way too embarrassing now and I don’t think Helen would anyway. But I often think about it. Anyway, sorry to go on but I just wanted to ‘clear the air’ as Helen would say.

Somehow she knew before she did it that she shouldn’t. But it had ever been a battle between them. He would say ‘you can’t,’ ‘you mustn’t,’ and ‘don’t.’ And she would say, “I know” while thinking ‘only if you catch me.’ Well he had caught her red handed and it had happened again.

Now her world was all pins and needles and nervous nausea churning in her tummy. Almost worse was the zing of the bee-sting fire he had lit in her now exposed bottom. It was so hard not to rub and dance around the room while bawling like a kid. Well she had done enough of that today already with worse to come once the visitors had gone home.

Visitors, the worst word in any language, they would be here at any minute and why today?

“Please Sir, please, please, please, I’ll be good,” she had pleaded once she had got her breath back. “Spank me again, anything but that.”

“Oh I will,” he said in his stern baritone, “Later. But right now you get that cherry red behind of yours in that corner and stay there.”

“But… Kathy, Mark… don’t let them see me like this… please,” she begged.

This was another contest for them; ding-ding round three. She had lost the first two rounds already. Sometimes if she cried, if she promised, then he would relent, but only if she conceived of a very imaginative alternative and begged him for it. It was a funny sort of victory, but right now she would have taken it.

“Cane me, cane me hard. Make me do a thousand lines and cane me for every mistake, give me two thousand,” she wheedled, “Make me do it every week for a month and, and… ground me. Ground me with… with two hours corner time every night.”

This last promise could rebound too. What if they had visitors again? It was hard to imagine that they wouldn’t, not for a whole month. But that was her all over, she never thought ahead.

“Get your bottom in that corner where I can see it and don’t move until I tell you to,” he barked at her, “Or I will accept your suggestions and more on top.”

So round three had been dud too, she miserably thought – three falls and a submission. Now she was out for the count; red hair, red bottom and in the red corner.

A car pulled up outside and she jerked back to the present. Oh God, please, please, please let it not be them, please let them cancel. It was a long two minutes, but no doorbell rang.

Perhaps if they were late he would relent.

She thought about round two. The spanking had been bad, that is to say good. Well he would say so. “A good sound spanking,” he would say, but what was so good about it, she thought ruefully.

The evidence from round one had been irrefutable. There on the table had been exhibits one, two and three. The coat, the hat and the credit card statement: busted.

Ding-ding round two; “you wouldn’t dare.”

What a dumb thing to say, she could almost admit she deserved the spanking that followed.

He had given her that ‘look,’ the one that said, “Really?”

In return, and this was good, like she wasn’t in enough trouble, she rolled her eyes at him.

“Would you be so kind as to fetch your hairbrush?” Only it wasn’t a question.

“Oh come on,” she wailed, “Kathy and Mark will be here soon.”

“Better hurry then.” He had folded his arms.

She had refused. She had stamped her foot and refused. Well after she was out of earshot, she did.

“I won’t do it,” she said and repeated it all the way back before handing him the hairbrush.

“What was that?” he said sharply.

“Nothing,” she muttered, her eyes downcast, but then she quickly added, “Nothing Sir.”

Then it was over his knee and with her trousers and little cotton pants down. “Look I’m sorry,” she had said.

He let the hairbrush make his reply, loudly and fast so that the spanks sang back at her in an echo even as he spanked her again.

The gritting of the teeth stage was quickly overtaken by the ankle crossing and panting like a Labrador on a beach stage. Dogs didn’t sweat, was the idle thought that crossed her mind as she realised that she was. Then it was on to the barking stage. This was accompanied by the bucking and clawing at the crosspiece of the seat stage as the barking became more of a howl.

“I’ll be good, so good, please Sir, please,” the begging stage already, he must be pissed off with her.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she honked, her tears had real moisture in them, a veritable cascade of great rolling rivulets of water that ran with make-up down her face.

The prospect of the corner had seemed like a good thing then. Corner time and a good old rub and I’ll never be a naughty girl again. And so it went on, the same old same old.

But the corner wasn’t a good thing, especially when he hadn’t let her rub. She sniffed and risked a tiny probe around her backside with her fingers. But if he were to see… her hands were quickly snapped away.

The car outside seemed louder than the one before and she felt a fresh wave of tummy tingles. Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe… long minutes passed and she tried to let go of the apprehension, there was still time. Then the doorbell rang.

Ding-ding, round four was going to be hellish.

End

This is a work of fiction suggested by real events.

At 18 I had two close encounters with the cane; both of them in my last term of Sixth Form College. I was generally a good girl and had for the most part escaped any run-ins with either Mrs B the head of year or the deputy head who handled discipline. But during my last days things were to go rather awry.

My first encounter was a close call. I had recently acquired a boyfriend, always a distraction at that age and as a result had overslept causing me to miss a mock exam. Mrs B who would usually have handled it was preoccupied with the rest of the exam preparations and I was referred to the Deputy Head.

Although I was certain I would get no more than a bollocking and perhaps a detention, my tummy did flip-flops all the way up the usually forbidden main staircase and all the way to the waiting area outside the DH’s office.

It was one of those early summer days when everything was fresh and the sun poured through big old windows setting the dark wooden floors to glow in a taunting way that served to emphasise that there was definitely somewhere you would rather be.

Outside I could even hear of kids calling out as they played football, or my game back then, netball. I was rather keen and not to mention good at it.

So I arrived at the DH’s room rather in a funk. Well-founded in my view as no sooner had I got there I saw another girl already waiting. About my age, she looked as white as a sheet and totally fixated on chewing her nails.

Just then the door opened and a furious looking DH strode out of his office to glare at us both. He was a big man with wild unkempt hair and given to wearing tweed. He looked terrifying.

“Who are you?” he barked at me.

I told him, adding that Mrs B had sent me.

“Ah yes, the skiver,” he drawled, “Skipped out on the mocks wasn’t it?”

“Just one sir,” I blurted, “And I only overslept, I didn’t mean to.” I probably sounded a bit whiney.

He grunted and turned to the other girl. I don’t remember her name now, but he seemed very familiar with it and judging from the reluctantly way she stood up and followed him into his room I guessed she was just as acquainted with him.

Now although he closed the door behind him as he followed her in, it swung open a bit and he didn’t seem to notice. So hoping for some clue to my fate I sat on the corner seat where from that position I could hear and see somewhat into the room.

“This is the third time this term,” he scolded the girl before launching into her complete verbal destruction.

I don’t exactly recall her crimes now, but there were a lot I think. He terrified the life out of me anyway, so you can image how she was feeling. Then he said something like, “Okay girl, you know the drill.”

As I watched she turned around and lifted up her skirt. Then he moved behind her and yanked her knickers up tight so that her bum was just about bare. I hadn’t seen the stick at that point and just gaped.

It all happened so fast. First there was swishing sound as he lined up the cane noisily and then he brought down across her bottom really hard. A white line appeared on her pale exposed bottom and she jerked, but that was all. Then he caned her several times more at about four second intervals. I forgot to count, but there may have been six or eight strokes. By the last two or three she made moaning grunt sounds and had trouble holding position.

Her bum was amazing. The white lines quickly turned pink and kind of stood up in little long bumps. Then it was over and she stood up and dropped her skirt.

She was crying when she came out and hurried past me without looking my way. Then it was my turn and I thought I was going to be sick.

As I entered the cane was still on the desk and the DH had a face like thunder. I barely heard a word he said as I got my bollocking and it wasn’t until he set me an imposition and told me to get out that I realised that my bottom was safe. For the rest of the day I felt as if I had fallen from a great height and was still falling.

*

Later the following term discipline all got a bit lax with the usual demob happy soon-to-be-ex-students getting into various unsavoury hi-jinks. I guess I got carried away.

A group of us girls dared each other to remove our kickers and tease the boys with them. Of course we had on long skirts, not like today and carried along with the mood was like being drunk. Some of the girls did a moony into a classroom, although I wasn’t up for that and if my knickers hadn’t of been snatched and thrown over a fence I would have put them back on.

To make up for cowardice and lack of adventure I took a dare to burst into a classroom and shout ‘you mugs are all slaves to the system.’

Unfortunately what I took to be a normal class of one of the lower years turned out to be an exam in progress.

As I sat outside the Deputy Head’s office my stomach was in knots and all I could think about was my last near-miss with the cane. Surely I reasoned I was beyond such things, but even I felt I had gone too far.

Worse still I had been apprehended straightway and had not had chance to sort out my underwear deficit. I mean what could I say that wasn’t going to make the situation worse? I had never been so self-conscious.

This time there was no one waiting and the DH came from up the hall as if called away from something important and breezed past me. At his door he yelled, “come along we haven’t all day,” my only signal that I should follow him into his office.

He smiled sternly over the rim of his glasses as he suggested I was too old for such pranks. Then he said he understood about it being the end of my school days and said that he remembered his. He even asked what I was going to do next and what college I was going on to.

I was more than a little self-conscious knowing I had no knickers on and was disproportionately embarrassed. But for a while it didn’t seem so bad. It wasn’t until I relaxed a bit that he got a little fierce and pointed out how thoughtless I had been. I wholeheartedly agreed and blushed to my ears. But nevertheless I thought I had dodged a bullet again. After all I was 18 now and about to leave.

Then he said, “You seem to have a bit of a track record around messing up exams don’t you?”

I was about to protest, but I remembered why I had been to see him before.

“Yes Sir,” I said in a miserable voice.

“As you recall I let you see the consequence of such behaviour last time. It seems that you didn’t take the hint,” he said in a casual semi-breezy semi-stern way.

It was then that I began to suspect my fate and wasn’t entirely surprised when he said, “I think you know the drill don’t you?”

I felt as if the floor had come up to meet me and I entertained the idea of faking a faint.

“Bend over girl and lift up your skirt,” he snapped.

I couldn’t get the words out and he was truly terrifying so when he barked out the order again I just jumped to it.

“Good God,” he gasped, “More bloody pranks.”

“Yes Sir, sorry Sir,” I squeaked and made to rise. I could have died.

Then he said, “Stay where you are. Don’t think I haven’t seen it all before.”

I heard him pick up the cane. I heard it rattle on his desk. But I was still mortified and more concerned about showing the man my bare bum than anything else.

“You will take three extras for this little display and any fuss and I’ll double it,” he barked.

The swishy crack seemed to come from a long way away but the line of fire across my bare bottom was indescribable. I jerked upright and grabbed at my bum. I remember thinking I shouldn’t let my skirt drop.

“Down,” he bellowed, caning me again hard as I obeyed.

I sucked air in and out as I made little blowing sounds, this as two lines of burning pain sawed into my backside. I felt hot tears brimming behind my eyes and it was almost impossible to stay bent over.

I think maybe the caning took less than a minute but to me each stroke was spaced out by an age. By five or six (one’s ability to count is compromised I promise you) I was crying openly and my bottom felt like I had sat on a grill.

At one point I thought it would never end and panicked as I remember what he had threatened about doubling it. But after what I later counted as nine the punishment was over.

He let me sob it out for a minute or two and then he offered me a hanky before shaking my hand.

“Thank you Sir, sorry Sir,” I said. It was the way in those days, but I don’t remember I how I knew that.

Later I inspected the nine hard dark reddish-purple lines that stood out in ridges on my bottom. I was absolute riveted by the sight and feel of them. It was three days before I could sit easy again and they took about 10 days to go completely. For the last five of those they were just yellow-brown streaks that ached when I prodded them.

I was actually disappointed when they finally faded and have been fascinated by corporal punishment and spankings ever since. I think if I hadn’t left that term I would have been back somehow.

LSF are running a publishing story presumably aimed at the 60p ($1) market for mobile phone downloads. For around this sum you can download the single story Ghost of Chance by yours truly.

The publishing blurb runs: Julia decides to investigate why her late uncle’s house will not sell and in the process she uncovers a spooky story of punishment, betrayal and heartache. As a distant relative to Lady Chance it seems that only she can put the ghosts to rest and only by submitting to the punishment Sir Rodney intended for his errant wife all those years ago. So she bravely faces the ghostly Sir Rodney and endures the taste of strap, birch and cane, and her life will never be quite the same again…

You can get it here.

Here is a Saturday quickie. This a poster from the 1957 movie Sorority Girl. Despite the poster there is only one off screen paddle sequence (the one in the poster) and that is depicted as a bullying. Although the girl takes it in good part and there is a suggestion that she deserved it, but the other girls think that our evil heroine shouldn’t have done it.

It is an interesting curio and well worth a look when it next does the late-night rounds but not one to seek out I think as the poster is more interesting from a spanking point of view than the film.

Once bucolic countryside had taken on a sinister aspect and where green trees had been charming they now looked gnarled, like ancient trolls, where glades had shone in dappled sunshine, the feeble yellow grass now looked garish. She was gone.

Adam threw the car around the bend as if it and he had no value and almost clipped a tree. He didn’t care really, she was gone. A sob threatened to overwhelm him and his hands gripped the wheel as if to let go would be his end too.

“You bloody fool,” he raged at the space between him and the windscreen, not seeing it.

Yes she has gone, over a year now, he sighed now pulling himself together.

“You’ll be alright,” she had said kindly, her eyes sparkling as she drank the very remains of him. Those had been her last words in the hospital. He had still been answering her when she slipped away.

“I am 58, Brenda, what the hell do you think I will do without you,” he screamed at his dead wife as in his mind he lost her again.

There were days like these, days when memories and the present merged and he rambled on to a ghost. Those were the better days. All the rest drifted by in a haze, one rolling into the next.

The car skidded at the bend and for a brief moment he thought it would all end and he would follow her, but his driving skill held up and the car steadied.

“I am driving like a fool,” he chided himself and slowed.

Brenda would not have been impressed and nor would he if he were to involve someone in a crash. More than once he had spanked Brenda for such recklessness and years before his daughter at the great age of 23 had suffered the same indignity. But that had been a life time ago and another era, the world had moved on without him. Without them, he added, on the cusp of renewed despair.

“You old fool,” he sniffed tears he had not noticed and wiped his eye.

At the next bend he almost ran into the back of a dawdling tractor, his heart lurched. Not a minute before his driving style would have ended him here and the irony raked him.

“You’ll be alright,” Brenda said. Startled he made a half turn to where she had once sat beside him, but of course she was gone now.

A glance to his mirror threw up another car closing fast and he slowed further. The Range Rover looked far too large for its driver and for a moment Adam did a double-take, convinced that the car was empty. Then with a roar it surged past him and he saw the small blonde woman perched behind the wheel.

“You stupid little girl,” he yelled, although she would not hear him.

He thought of his daughter, this girl was older still and should have known better, but the woman made it and left the old man shaking his head as her tail end disappeared up the lane.

The tractor delayed him for another minute or two before he too made a pass, but at least by then he could see the road ahead.

“Brenda, Brenda, Brenda old girl, this world is too fast for me, I’m getting old,” he said with a chuckle. The first time he had laughed in days, an omen his wife would have called it.

*

The Range Rover was side on in the ditch and Adam was genuinely relieved to see the young blonde woman standing upright and angry nearby rather than slumped behind the wheel. At least her reckless turn at the bend had not met with another tractor, he thought as he slowed and pulled up.

The blonde was around 30 as near as Adam could tell, although she could easily be five years either way of that, he had trouble working it out these days. But she wasn’t exactly an innocent judging from the stream of vile abuse she hurled at the car. It was as if the Range Rover had a mind of its own that could carry the blame.

“I know what I would do if you were one of mine,” Adam growled as he got out of his car and shook his head with maximum disapproval.

The girl wheeled on him as if she would swear but instead on seeing him she blushed and dipped her head.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

She nodded.

“The bloody car,” she sighed.

“It looks okay to me,” Adam said reassuringly.

“Yeah, but I’ll need a tow,” she replied dejectedly letting out a long slow ragged breath.

“Live far?” he asked glancing at his watch as if he had to hurry.

Hurry where, to the empty house and a frozen meal in front of one of those clever panel shows?

“Nah,” the girl shrugged and gestured up the lane. “’Bout two miles, I guess I can walk.”

She looked unsettled and shifted uncomfortably as if too embarrassed to meet his gaze. Her blonde hair would have been long but she wore it braided Germanic-style close to her head so that he couldn’t help notice her faultless model-like skin that emphasised her full pout lips and large blue-pools for eyes. Adam guessed that she was in her early 30s and that her small statue and juvenile dress only suggested youth; that and her poor driving.

“You in a hurry?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“You made a rather reckless pass just now,” he suggested.

She shrugged and blushed again.

“Come on, I’ll give you a lift home, you could probably do with a drink or something, it’s just shock,” he said kindly.

“No I am fine,” she blurted.

“Come on,” he said firmly and after a show of fluttery protests she nodded.

*

The cottage was small and ill-kept. A renter she told him hastily when she saw his expression. Adam glanced at the jungle where presumably a garden had once been and absently made improvements in his mind.

“Thanks for the lift, I guess…” she was embarrassed again and looked like she wanted him to go.

He gave her a wave and turned away.

“Coffee, tea…?” she said tentatively.

He made to refuse and crinkled his face in readiness but suddenly she looked lost and he thought of his daughter.

“You’ll be alright,” Brenda said brightly and he startled. Of course she wasn’t really there.

“Um… sure just a quick tea would be great… thanks,” he said casually.

The girl looked relieved.

“Stacy,” she said, holding out a hand.

“Adam Stone,” he answered and took it with a quick firm shake.

The interior of the house was clean enough but none too tidy. Adam guessed that Stacy was single and he appraised the room beyond the hall much as he had once done his daughter’s room. He smiled as he thought of Brenda chivvying her as a teenager. Both gone now, he realised and he almost cried.

“Do you take sugar Mr Stone?” she asked once they were inside.

If she noticed his sadness it didn’t show, in fact she looked rather distracted herself Adam thought. Shock maybe?

“Not for me,” he replied as he inspected the kitchen, he had seen worse.

They stood in silence for what seemed an age, she stirring her tea, and him sipping politely as he glanced at idle messages pinned to the fridge door and the array of magnets stuck there.

“What did you mean before?” she said quietly.

He frowned. She wasn’t looking at him and held her head at a tilt and gazing into the middle distance.

“When?” he didn’t know what she meant.

“When you first got out of your car? You know, about what you would do if I were one of yours,” she didn’t look up and sipped at her tea with her head still dipped and her eyes rolling up coyly as if she had only now noticed the ceiling.

“You know perfectly well what I meant,” he said in a tone of stern indulgence. But he let a small smile touch his lips to reassure her.

Stacy blushed and shifted nervously where she stood.

“Not really,” she lied and bit at her lip.

“If my wife or daughter had driven as recklessly as you, let alone run off the road like that I would I have given them a good sound spanking,” Adam informed her.

Stacy gasped and looked up at him horrified.

He didn’t care if that shocked her, she was playing games with him anyway.

“I suppose I should go,” he shrugged and put down his cup.

“Ah…” she interjected and extended a tentative arm. “You wouldn’t really would you? I mean it’s just an expression isn’t it?”

“No, no it isn’t and I yes I would and did,” he chuckled, “My daughter was 23 when had words about a situation similar to yours and my wife and I…”

He sudden closed his mouth to a tight line and swallowed. That was our life, why am I telling this girl?

“Twenty-three, you spanked her when she was 23?” Stacy gasped, her eyes were fixed on Adam now and darted back and forth in her head.

“Oh she deserved it,” Adam said emphatically.

“I suppose she did, but that was the olden days for you, I guess,” Stacy said ruefully.

Adam bristled. “Not so long ago; I’m not that old. She certainly wasn’t too old for a spanking.”

“I bet you think I am not old too,” Stacy said biting her lip and blushing yet again.

“I know you’re not,” Adam said with a friendly snort.

Stacy nodded as she kissed the air and looked off to the side as if considering something. “H-how, how did you do it?” she asked in the voice of a mouse.

Adam pushed out his lower lip and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You know,” Stacy shrugged, “Did you just grab her and slap her bum or were you mad…?”

“I was always calm and I never just grabbed her,” Adam said wistfully remembering.

“Tell me,” Stacy whispered. For emphasis she stood up straight and moved to the kitchen table and sat down. “More tea?” she asked.

Adam dropped into the chair opposite and held up his cup to the tea spout.

“Well… first we would talk it over and when I was sure, I would tell her to get ready,” Adam began. “She would…” he became uncomfortable, he had never thought about this before, it had all been organic, something that had been silently agreed between them once Brenda had relinquished the discipline side of things. It had only happened two or three times after she turned 18 anyway.

“She would remove whatever she was wearing below, you know… take off her trousers or skirt, whatever, and her pants too,” he added pointedly, “And then she would stand and face the wall in our dining room with her hands on her head.”

Stacy sucked in her teeth as if she was bored, but Adam sensed something intense going on.

“I would leave her to her own devices for a while; until I was thoroughly calm at least,” he continued, “Perhaps half an hour. Then I would sit in a chair and take her across my knee.”

The kitchen clock seemed very loud and Adam realised that it was the only sound in the room.

“Did you use your hand?” Stacy asked after a moment. She sounded both muted and eager all at once.

“Sometimes yes, I would spank her bare bottom that way, but often I would use a sailing shoe, a bit like a tennis pump, I bought a pair and never wore them.” Adam wondered if he sounded cruel. Why did that matter?

“How long… how hard, did you spank her I mean?” Stacy couldn’t breathe.

Adam shrugged. “Until she was good and sorry, until her bottom was dark red and couldn’t take any more and then usually a touch on top of that to make my point. That last time when she was 23 I was mad at her and she knew better. I added a bit until she looked quite raw and was bawling her head off.”

Stacy shuddered and hugged herself.

“After that I usually resisted the temptation to cuddle her, although I wanted too of course. I made her go back to face the wall until she had calmed down.” Adam added. He leaned in to try and gauge Stacy’s reaction. There was more going on than he understood, so he continued, “Brenda usually got her and made her get dressed. I… I don’t know, there was a kind of peace between us when she was standing there, I don’t think either of us wanted it to end.”

“Did you hug her then?” Stacy asked.

“Oh yes, big hugs,” Adam chuckled, “She usually cried again and said over and over how sorry she was.”

Stacy was smiling and nodded vigorously.

“Was that how it was with your father?” Adam said gently, his mouth a tight sympathetic line.

“I never knew my father, but I have always wished I had had one like you,” Stacy said shyly.

Adam shifted uneasily, embarrassed at the statement. “Oh well, I suppose I should go,” he muttered.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

Adam frowned.

“You are right, I deserve a spanking,” adding a “yeah,” as if courting his agreement. Stacy could scarcely get the words out, “Just like your daughter got.” She was blushing just as his daughter had done when confronted with the inevitable.

“I don’t think…” Adam swallowed.

Stacy held his gaze now and pleaded with her eyes.

“You’ll be alright,” Brenda seemed to say.

“Alright then,” Adam said in a stern voice he hadn’t found in years.  He stood up. “I saw the way you overtook that tractor and what speed were going at that bend, words fail me,” he scolded.

Stacy dipped her head and chewed at her lower lip.

“You are a damn sight older than my daughter was and you should damn well know better. So this is what we are going to do. I am going to find something appropriate and you little girl are going to get your things down and face that wall in there,” he barked as he pointed to the lounge. “If you aren’t bare-arsed and waiting when I come in, then I’ll just go. If you are ready then we will do this. But I warn you…”

“I know, I need this, you know yeah, for real,” Stacy said gently.

Adam nodded.

The kitchen yielded nothing that would serve as a paddle and the brush hanging in the hall looked too heavy for a novice. Then he noticed an embossed leather mat on the hall table. It looked like something one might stand a row of teacups on to protect good furniture, but it was over a foot long and as wide as a man’s hand. He picked it up and hefted it like a short paddle. It was springy enough and a slap of his palm promised quite a sting.

“Okay then Stacy, Contrition City Arizona,” he muttered something from his youth.

When he entered the room Stacy was facing the wall in just a T-shirt. Her long bare legs were tapered and pale as they extended from the floor and on upwards towards her naked hips. She had a good pert bottom that jutted out behind like a shelf, each buttock smooth and tightly separated and as white as a porcelain statue.

But this was his ‘daughter’ not his wife and only a sense of justice stirred within him. Maybe if he taught this girl a real lesson he would save her life one day and this would be more than some bored woman’s little adventure.

Stacy shifted uneasily as she heard him come in and the blush came back with a vengeance; strong enough to dominate her face and neck when seen from behind. Just like Karen, he thought, allowing himself his lost daughter’s name for the first time since…

Adam gave the girl’s back a grim smile and dropped into an easy chair nearby. He would let her stew for a bit. Maybe she would bail and ask him to leave, a lesson by itself. If not, then he had a purpose for the first time since Brenda had died.

*

Stacy was a fidget. Not in a big way, not in a way that would get her in his bad books. But she twitched and shuffled a little. He hadn’t told her to put her hands on her head and occasionally she would steal a stroke of her bare bottom as if contemplating its fate. Well that was the point and one well-made in his book. Adam smiled.

She had faced the wall for 40 minutes or so and had showed no sign that her resolve to go through with it had waned. Well good for her, he thought.

Finally he stood up and hefted the impromptu paddle-strap he had found. There was no suitable chair in the room so he headed to the kitchen to get one. As he moved away Stacy moaned as if her expectations had been lifted and dashed. The psychology of corner time was ever thus, he thought with a shrug. Not that he kept her waiting long.

Placing the chair on the carpet nearby, he sat down and finally spoke to her.

“Now young lady, come here and get across my knee,” he said in a scolding voice.

Stacy jogged on the spot nervously and turned around with a grimace. Her hands fluttered nervously in front of her sex and he averted his eyes. Karen had been better at that and he became uncomfortable again.

But in the event the girl was as eager as him to get it over with and she flopped heavily across his knees without preamble and wriggled until her bare bottom was sticking up helpfully and her head hung down.

“Okay then,” he sighed, “You asked for it.”

He slapped her hard with his hand leaving an immediate red patch and she hissed. Then matching it across both cheeks he spanked her for a minute as she squirmed and groaned until he had her measure. It is funny how you never forget, he thought, just like riding a bicycle.

The next part of the spanking was rapid and hard. Stacy made little noises in her throat as she bucked and kicked, but safe to say she offered no real resistance.

“I don’t think you are going to go playing racing cars around country lanes again are you?” he snarled.

“No Sir,” she yipped.

“Or anywhere else for that matter, will you?” he barked at her as he spanked with a will.

“No Mr Stone,” she said breathlessly.

“You know we haven’t even got started don’t you?” he continued.

“Yes Mr Stone,” she panted, pain dripping off her voice like bad medicine from a spoon.

Her small but prominent behind was quite red by then, but she would mock him surely if he ended it now. In any case he had resolved, as she had demanded, that he should handle her soundly.

The length of leather was nearby and he took it now and lined it up with her bottom. The first swat cracked loudly and Stacy’s reaction was a shrill one.

“Handy little thing this,” he observed with a chuckle.

This was as much fun as when he had spanked his wife and yet with the drama and justification of those otherwise grim occasions with Karen. Adam was suddenly alive and in his element.

He spanked Stacy heavily and hard several dozen times as she kicked and bucked. Her voice was a guttural growl and more than a little wet now. Indeed there were tears like sheet down her face and her nose was running. Hardly surprising when you considered the state of her bottom: now a very dark red and textured like old leather, so that both buttocks were capped with welty pads that had formed rubbery ridges where the burgundy stain met the white flesh.

Adam noticed too that her bottom had a chalky white dusting from the serious application of the leather. All-in-all, her generous little bum had become quite raw.

Stacy expressed her appreciation of this happenstance by bawling vigorously and hiccoughing spluttered sobs as her angry outburst slipped away into miserable resignation.

“I’m sorry,” she wailed, adding more shrilly at a shriek “I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Are you really,” Adam said firmly, “You agree then that this is deserved?”

He could have sworn that she was mooing like a cow and in a thick strained voice she wailed an incoherent “yes.”

“Have you learned your lesson then?” he asked sharply, not stopping his spanking arm for a moment.

“Oh God yes Sir, please Mr Stone, I’ll be a good girl,” she blubbed earnestly.

“In truth, sorry is where it starts,” Adam said calmly, “I mean you might have been killed, you might have killed someone. If you were my daughter and more used to this I would give you a very firm lesson indeed…”

Stacy’s peony-soaked face gurned into space. She was in a state of accepting horror as she contemplated further blistering.

“Please Mr Stone, pleeeese,” she wailed.

Adam stopped the spanking and let her draw a breath.

“You want to give up on this little punitive adventure do you?” He waited.

Stacy’s breath was laboured and her shoulders heaved up and down for an age. Then with a small motion she shook her head.

Adam was surprised and almost continued her ordeal. But she was spent now and even Karen or Brenda would have been.

“Alright,” he sighed, “You know what happens next?”

Stacy got up painfully, struggling to stop her crying, but she nodded. He had never seen anyone look so miserable. But with strange staggered steps Stacy turned and went to face the wall and half-leaned against it. Then she broke again and great gouts of sobs began over.

*

Adam waited until five or 10 minutes after she had completely calmed down and then he spoke.

“If it were down to me I would leave you there for another hour” he chuckled, half expecting Brenda to lead her away and help her put on her jeans and knickers.

“It is up to you,” Stacy said breathily.

Adam blinked, it was, wasn’t it?

“Have you learned your lesson?” he asked.

“Oh yes Sir, thank you Mr Stone,” she said with an exaggerated gratitude.

“Call me Adam,” he said.

“I’d rather not,” she said with a shrug.

He nodded. “Well… I would give you a hug but…”

She nodded, it would have been wrong this time.

“How long do I have to stand here, I mean if it were up to you?” Stacy asked making a half turn and chewing her lower lip nervously.

“You’re feeling better then?” Adam chuckled.

“Yes thank you Sir,” she agreed.

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll go home and phone you. Assuming no one else calls you first then you can sit down then, that’ll be in about 35 minutes I suppose,” he told her.

“I doubt if I’ll sit down, but yes, thank you,” she said ruefully, “So you live quite close then?”

He nodded, but she had already turned back to face the wall so he eyed her bottom and marvelled at how sore it looked. “Eh… yes,” he answered.

“Will I see you again?” she said casually.

Silence fell and only the clock filled it.

“I’m a bit… bit old for you don’t you think?” he said sounding regretful.

“You could be my daddy… to begin with anyway, couldn’t you?” she said hopefully.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, but his mood had strangely lifted.

“Mr Stone,” she said. She was looking over her shoulder with her face set with an adult demeanour. “I have been waiting for someone like you all my life.”

Adam could have sworn that Brenda patted him on the shoulder and then gently slipped away.