Crisis

Story from Roue 05.

Crisis

The bedroom was dark, the only light coming through the gap in the door where Debbie had left it ajar on her way downstairs. Jenny lay in her bed, the blankets up over her face so that only her eyes and the top of her head showed, and listened to the distant and repetitive sound of a palm smacking rythmically against what was undoubtedly Debbie's bottom. The regular smacks ceased, and Jenny caught the sound of her sister's voice raised in tearful protest. There were some bumping sounds, and then the smacking started again, the noise somehow different. Sharper. More painful sounding. Debbie's muffled sobs confirmed the analysis.

The bumping would have been Debbie having to kneel up on the chair, having first dragged it to the middle of the room. The crisper sound of the smacks would be the strap, whacking across Debbie's helpless bum. The sobbing was self-explanatory. It really was a dismal thing to have to listen to.

The more so because Jenny was only too well aware that for her it was only an overture. Debbie was getting it now, and by the sound of it she was getting a really good whacking, but Jenny's sympathy for her sister was tempered by the inescapable fact that when the sounds of Debbie's spanking eventually stopped, then it would be her turn.

Jenny snuggled miserably down under the bedclothes. She listened intently, her hands tucking involuntarily between her legs, feeling at the same time the warmth of her body and the pathetically insubstantial material of which her pyjamas were made, a thin mixture of cotton and some man-made stuff. She couldn't help stroking a hand experimentaly around the curve of her bottom as she lay half on her side. She could almost feel the texture of her skin. It reminded her unavoidably of how much she'd feel the strap when it cracked across her bottom. She shivered, and not from cold, and strained her ears to catch any clue which might filter up from the lounge below.

Her heart skipped a beat as she realised that the monotonous rythm of the strap across Debbie's bum had ceased. She heard the lounge door, and the sound of Debbie's crying drifted mournfully up the stairs.

'Jenny?'

That was Aunt Harriet calling from the foot of the staircase. Aunt Harriet called again impatiently. With the utmost reluctance, and forgetting her slippers, Jenny slid out from under the bedclothes and padded apprehensively down the stairs.

Aunt Harriet was standing in front of the crackling fire, her face turned towards the television set which squatted atop a cabinet in one corner of the room. Aunt Mary was clicking away at her knitting and Uncle Tom was pretending to be interested in the television news. Something about a crisis in Suez. Debbie's bare bum looked hot and tender, the same bare and punished bum which Uncle Tom was pretending not to be interested in while the wretched girl gasped strangled sobs and wobbled uncomfortably as she knelt on her hard wooden chair. Her pyjama trousers were bunched around her knees and her bare thighs glowed here and there with a warm crimson hue. The strap was lying across the arm of Aunt Harriet's favorite armchair. Jenny felt herself atremble with panicky anticipation.

Aunt Harriet's cool eyes flicked towards Jenny, who was still hovering awkwardly in the doorway.

'Well shut the door then girl!' she said brusquely, and then she turned her attention back to the television. Apparently as an afterthought she added, 'And get your pyjama pants down!'

Aunt Mary seemed not to have heard, while Uncle Tom made a quiet sighing sound which was a little difficult to interpret. Only Jenny heard it, standing as she was a mere twelve inches from her adopted uncle's elbow. Her tummy twisting into knots, Jenny pushed the door closed and then darted an apprehensive look at her aunt, who didn't seem to be taking notice any more. And then, as she knew she'd have to, she risked a glance at Uncle Tom.

A tiny, friendly smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Her loins seemed to have become liquid and she found that she couldn't look away. The smile made her more certain than ever that he knew about her secret excitement every time she was punished in front of him.

'It's the Prime Minister,' piped up Aunt Mary.

Uncle Tom allowed his attention to be drawn to the flickering grey image on the screen. Her insides a confusion of emotions, panic and the odd thrill that Uncle Tom was there to see her get her bottom tanned again, Jenny hooked her thumb under the elastic waistband of her pyjamas and inched them down. The air on her belly and her bottom felt slightly chill as the pants slipped lower to a point midway down her thighs. She dared not look, but she knew Uncle Tom's eyes were on her.

She let her pants go and straightened up. Her pyjamas slithered to the floor and she hid her flourishing little muff of curly hair behind her hands. Mr. Eden, on the television, seemed not to have noticed, possibly because what he was saying about the business in Suez was rather important. Certainly it held the attention of Aunt Mary and Aunt Harriet. Uncle Tom seemed less absorbed. His hand nudged against Jenny's bare thigh, and then his fingers stroked gently and teasingly up the back of her leg.

'They're sending the troops in then,' said Aunt Harriet to no one in particular, and Uncle Tom's hand disappeared as if by magic.

'Oo-oer,' said Aunt Mary, and clicked her needles vigorously.

A moment or two later Uncle Tom's hand brushed Jenny's thigh again, then tapped insistently. Jenny tried to read the shapes of the words his lips were silently forming, darting quick, fearful glances at Aunt Harriet every few seconds. She couldn't understand what he wanted to say, but his bright eyes on her modestly covering hands and his furtive sideways nods helped her to guess. The thrill of her vulnerability flickered tantalisingly in her tummy as she hesitantly, almost submissively, unfolded her shielding hands and put them behind her back.

Mr. Eden faded from the screen. Aunt Harriet brought her attention back to the matter in hand and Debbie's weeping subsided to a few sniffles every now and then.

'Right! You –' Debbie's tender bottom bounced to the 'Smack!' of a smarting spank, '– get yourself out to the kitchen and put the kettle on.'

Debbie squealed in a rather muted way and scrambled down off her chair. She scurried out of the door, dragging her pants up as she went.

'And you –' Aunt Harriet's finger beckoned, '– across the back of this chair!'

Jenny stooped to retrieve her pyjama pants and she hoisted them up enough to allow her to walk. She shuffled to the chair and stood behind it, about to bend over its high back.

'Kneel up on it stupid!'

'Ooh – s-sorry.'

Her knees felt uncomfortable on the hard wooden seat, and her bum felt very naked and defenceless as she leaned forward over the chair-back and grasped the legs. She seemed to be very precariously balanced, as though any sudden move would have her toppling over. She looked sideways out of the corner of her eye and found Uncle Tom's gaze resting eagerly on her bare, elevated bottom.

The strap dangled impatiently in her aunt's hand while the girl arranged herself, then –

'Now then, keep still –'

Thwack!!

The leather snapped stingingly around the curve of Jenny's young bottom and then snaked sinuously back ready for the next stroke. Jenny bit her lip and screwed up her eyes as the sting spread across her bum.

Whack!!

'Oooh – oow – !!'

Crack!!

'Oooooow –'

She couldn't help it. The stifled cries sneaked between her lips and her bum-cheeks trembled as she tried ever so hard not to wriggle her hips. 'Keep still' meant just that – or else!

Thwack!!

Jenny felt the sobs come bubbling up in her throat.

'Ooooh – ooh – hoo – !'

Whack!

'Oooooo – ooogh!'

'D'you think this will fit, dear?'

'Pardon?' said Uncle Tom, attention elsewhere.

'Debbie. Do you think this jumper will fit her?' repeated Aunt Mary.

Whack!!

'OOOW – OOO!'

'I should think, so,' said Aunt Harriet.

Smack!

'OOH – OOO – HOOOO!'

It was quite ridiculous, and so off-hand that it was utterly humiliating for the wriggling girl up on the chair.

The next stroke hissed smartly across the backs of her bare thighs.

'AHHH – AAA –'

Aunt Mary held up the half-knitted jumper and Aunt Harriet took it, considered it, and pulled a wry face.

'Could be wrong though,' she said, and held it up a little higher.

'I suppose we ought to try it up against her and see.' said Aunt Mary.

'I suppose so,' said Aunt Harriet, and promptly took herself and Aunt Mary out to the kitchen to accost Debbie with the unfinished birthday present.

Jenny was left to weep her tears, still poised over the chair-back, and the tears rolling heavily down her flushed cheeks blinded her to the fact that her uncle had left his chair. Warm, soothing fingers comforting her stinging bottom took Jenny completely unawares.

'There, there –'

The smarting sensation in her bum fused suddenly with that same, yearning feeling which she'd had in her tummy before. The hands grew bolder, more intimate, brushing gently between her legs teasingly. Jenny gasped great gulps of air between her sobs and found herself squirming back onto the insulting fingers. The thrill in her loins bubbled closer and closer to that magic sensation which she had hitherto only known snugly tucked up alone in her warm bed – the thing that happened when she thought of Uncle Tom's eyes on her the last time she'd been punished in front of him – while her own guilty fingers had tormented her to that beautiful, heavenly release.

'Never mind Jenny,' coaxed a faraway voice, 'When you come to stay with us, I'll never smack your bottom without making it really nice afterwards – alright?'

'P-pardon? S-stay with – ?'

'Us. Me and Aunt Mary. Next week, and until Aunt Harriet gets back from Canada next year.'

'I-I didn't know she was going –'

The touch lingered, teased, and suddenly it happened. She almost collapsed with the frantic pleasure of her coming. And then Uncle Tom was back in his chair, Aunt Harriet was saying, 'Keep your behind up child!' and the strap was flicking waspishly across her well-strapped bottom again and again.

Jenny wriggled and blubbered obligingly – not that she could help it anyway – and yet all at once it actually seemed bearable. When at last the two tender-bottomed girls were sent scampering upstairs to bed, to Jenny the future, like their two punished bums, seemed rosy indeed.