Executive Encounter

Story from Janus 80.

Executive Encounter
by Richard Watson

GLANCING at his watch, Brent Matthews suddenly realised how drained he was. It was well past six o'clock and there was no certainty that the negotiations would finish that evening. It had been three gruelling days so far, and yesterday alone had involved some twelve hours of talks. On flying over from New York, Brent had estimated it would take two days at the most to wrap up the biggest syndication deal of his career. He had been wrong.

What he hadn't fully considered was his counterpart across the table in the plush boardroom high above the City of London. In Cynthia Ward, Brent had met his match — and then some! She looked to be in her late thirties at the most, but Brent knew she must be over 40 to be Finance Director of a major British multinational. This woman had broken the mould, so he'd been told — and this week he had learned why. The hard way!

Even in her dark smartly-tailored business suit and white silk blouse, Cynthia was stunning. Her shoulder-length auburn hair and creamy complexion, her slender but full-breasted figure and her pert nose and sensual mouth all attracted attention. But it was her sparkling green eyes, which seemed to show such eagerness to engage in corporate combat, that unsettled Brent the most — to such an extent that at first he scarcely noticed the rest of her undoubted physical assets in the thrust and parry of their exchanges.

The bank's London branch had warned him that she would be stubborn and meticulous. Even in fatigue, Brent could only gaze at his opponent with a respect almost bordering on awe. He knew, however, that he could concede no more in the proposal. It was an eight-figure long-term capital financing plan to bring this conglomerate into new Asian markets, ones they clearly desired. Given the prospect of his employer being the lead bank, with all the fees involved and the pure prestige of simply landing this huge corporate fish, Brent saw his personal goal of moving up from Senior Vice President to Executive VP as almost assured — if, of course, he could close this deal. But all his cards had been played; he simply awaited the response and expected a delay.

'I think we have a feasible arrangement now, Mr Matthews,' said Cynthia Ward at last. 'The refinancing clauses look quite suitable to me, and the front-end fees have been reduced to what our projections allowed for. I'm confident now in taking this to our board if you want to revise all the points we've discussed in the draft.'

Brent could feel the relief spread throughout his body at her words. He wanted to savour the moment, yet not show it. Still, he had given up quite a bit; she'd been superb in her persistence. He quickly promised to fine-tune the draft tomorrow and leave a copy on Friday.

Only then, as they walked out of the conference-room, did Brent feel relaxed enough to look at Cynthia as something other than a skilled negotiator. Tall and spare, with a dusting of white in his neat dark hair, Brent knew that he looked distinguished and passably handsome. Since his traumatic divorce two years before, he had had little time or inclination to consider feminine company. Cynthia Ward, however, was in a league of her own. 'Well, with that done,' he ventured, 'can I buy you dinner tonight? To celebrate, of sorts.'

She paused, regarding him shrewdly. 'It's tempting, I'll admit,' she demurred. 'But I have a good two hours of work still to clear off my desk, I'm afraid.'

'At least a drink then, after,' Brent persisted. 'You can't just go straight home after a day like this. My hotel bar would be a good choice.'

She took just a second to seemingly mull it over in her mind. 'Fine,' she said, 'if that suits you, Mr Matthews. But I won't be there till nine at the earliest.' Then she was gone.

Brent felt that one advantage of a five-star West End hotel was an elegant bar which offered a discreet and intimate setting. But it was closer to ten o'clock than nine before Cynthia Ward finally walked in. Watching her approach the table, he suddenly became fully conscious of just how exciting this woman also was from the neck down. Even her executive style of dress could not conceal her voluptuous shape. Cynthia was buxom by nature, but with a rather slim waist — due in part, no doubt, to a disciplined fitness programme. Her long shapely legs flowed into full hips, which swayed most enticingly as she trod towards him on high heels.


She sank gracefully into the chair opposite, taking up the same respective position to him that she had adopted during the past three days. But this was relaxation. Feeling satisfied that the arduous negotations were behind them, Brent hoped to ease the conversation into more personal matters. They quickly settled into a first-name basis. He realised that she fascinated him, perhaps because he had never before seen quite this unique combination of beauty, elegance and determination all embodied in the one woman. Having steered deliberately clear of romantic involvements these past two years, Brent was surprised at the keenness of the curiosity he felt about this poised executive.

He was on his second Scotch, while Cynthia was sipping a Campari and soda, when he chose to enquire why such an attractive lady as she had opted for a rigorous career instead of marriage.

Those green eyes searched his as if to calculate the direction this thrust of his might take them. They seemed to read a great deal about him all at once — a facet of her brilliance he had already noted. 'I tend to seek intensity in life,' she replied. 'I've had some exciting relationships with men and was engaged once, but I ended it when I realised that marriage wouldn't succeed in the long term. And my work has continued to challenge me — more than the recent men in my life.' She looked at him keenly and smiled. 'Though there have been moments.'

Brent became aware that Cynthia's directness extended beyond board-rooms and into personal conversations. It was a revelation about her which he could not have known before and, while normally cautious, he felt that an opportunity had arisen to be bold himself.

'I can't imagine you being the type of person married only to your job,' he challenged. 'Haven't you found excitement and fulfilment in sex, if not lasting love?'

Her smile was both subtle and coy. 'Good sex has been the second most intense experience I've had in my life,' she responded enigmatically.

Brent could only guess at her meaning, but felt that he knew Cynthia Ward well enough by now. 'And the first, I presume,' he declared confidently, 'is closing a hard-fought deal for the corporation.'

'No, that's third.'

For a moment, Brent was nonplussed. Her eyes were still fixed on his, the smile was still there and her chin was tilted a little in challenge. He surmised that Cynthia was leading him into something — something he would be delighted to learn. 'All right then,' he asked, nettled yet intrigued. 'What experience ranks first on your "intensity" scale?'

'Being caned,' she said simply.

Brent thought that he must have misheard. He swallowed some Scotch to cover his surprise and felt sure that her prompt response had definitely not been mere ad lib. 'Well, not exactly what I had expected to hear,' he managed at last. 'I hope you'll expand on that, please.'

She gave a soft laugh and tilted her head to brush back the rich auburn hair from her brow. 'You must have learned by now that I don't deal in the "expected",' she teased. 'Though your look of shock was certainly that. With you being American, I wasn't sure you'd know what a caning is.'

'Well,' Brent rallied, 'I've dealt with Brits long enough to know most of the cultural traditions over here, but...'

Cynthia's smile was amused. 'But I expect that you yourself had one of those soft American upbringings,' she goaded, green eyes sparkling. 'Why, I doubt if you were even spanked.'

'You make me somehow feel ashamed to admit you're right,' said Brent. 'I suppose my youth reflected a "progressive" approach.' He looked guardedly at this magnetically attractive woman who held such power to surprise. It was as if she divined his fascination at the extraordinary images she was inspiring in his normally pragmatic mind. 'But you have to provide some background of sorts,' he prompted.

Cynthia relaxed a little and he suddenly realised how tense she had been up to that point. 'I rather thought you'd want to know more. And that means I'll have a second drink.'

Brent's mind spun with anticipation as the waiter served his guest. He had no idea where all this would lead, but was sure she had more in mind than idle chatter.

'To begin with,' Cynthia said, 'I was an only child. My parents were as loving and giving as possible. My father was a respected teacher in a well-regarded public school. But while I was well cared for, both my parents greatly feared a spoilt daughter. My late teens were in the mid-to-late Sixties, and some parental attitudes were slower to change over here than in your country. So, while my home was very loving, it was also a strict one — and in those days that meant there was a cane on hand. Even though up till the age of eighteen it had never been used on me, and I think I regarded it rather as a bluff. An ultimate sanction that would never be used.'

She paused, but only briefly. Brent's focus was now total. 'Please go on,' he said. 'You know you've got my undivided attention.' He realised that his mouth was open and promptly closed it. 'You were eighteen?'

Cynthia nodded. 'By that age, my independent streak was in full force. And at times my nature was virtually rebellious, especially when it came to curfews and dating restrictions. One night over dinner I argued for an end to such limits — given that, at eighteen, I was an adult. When Mummy stressed again that I was subject to their rules as long as I was living under their roof, I lost control and foolishly used the word "bitch". Quite naturally, Daddy then stepped in and said such disrespect required severe correction in the one way I'd be sure to remember.'

Brent stared, his drink forgotten. 'You mean he was going to cane you? At that age?' She nodded again. 'Why didn't you tell him to go to hell?'

'Judgement had already been passed,' she said simply. 'It would have been even more foolish to argue.'

'That doesn't sound like the Cynthia Ward I know,' he observed.

'Oh, I can assure you she exists.' Cynthia sipped her drink and continued, 'It wasn't only the sting that made the caning so dreadful, and therefore effective. It was the formality, the ritual of sorts. I had to report upstairs to my parents' bedroom after a nail-biting period of waiting. A sturdy wooden stool had been brought in and placed in the centre of the room. The cane was discreetly kept in my mother's wardrobe. My father ordered me to take it out and bring it to him. The shame was all the greater, given my own image of self importance at the time.'

'I can well imagine that,' Brent responded with an unfamiliar feeling of being slightly out of his depth. In the subdued light of the bar her face looked softly radiant, the green eyes glowing with reminiscence. For a moment she looked no older than 18, her auburn hair shining.

'Perhaps the worst part was the loss of dignity,' Cynthia was saying. 'Again, it made the punishment all the more effective. The only concession was that I was already over the stool before Mummy took down my knickers.'

Brent caught his breath. 'You mean you got it on the b-bare...?'

'Bare bottom. Yes, quite right. And I was a big girl, remember. Even so, in those times it wasn't quite the extraordinary event it would be today.'

'It's still hard to imagine,' said Brent, swallowing hard, although his mind was vividly creating just such an image. It made his brain spin.

'Also,' her honeyed English voice purred on, 'when Daddy caned me, he expected a contrite attitude. I always addressed him as "Sir" when being disciplined or reprimanded. That one and only caning was twelve strokes — pure agony I can promise you. But I endured it and all was forgiven. I assure you it was dreadful then; but now, almost 25 years later, the event still comes back to me with a poignancy I cannot ignore.' She looked directly at him. 'Still, I expect it makes little sense to you. Does it?'

Brent gulped more whisky and returned Cynthia's gaze. Frankly, he was unsure how to react to this dynamic businesswoman's extraordinary admission, though the excitement which was rising in him seemed more intoxicating than the spirit itself. 'Why me, and why now?' Brent replied carefully, setting down his glass. 'I somehow get the impression you don't tell this story on a er... daily basis.'

'I'll answer that, I promise.' She sat forward, her bosom straining against the silk blouse. 'But first you need a bit more background. Daddy died some ten years ago of a heart attack. It was only last year that Mummy passed away. At first, I planned to sell the old family house in Hampstead, but then I decided to move into it myself. The house has so many happy memories for me, you see — that caning being a rare exception. Anyway, just a few months ago I was rummaging through the attic, sorting items out, and I came upon... upon that very same cane...'

Cynthia paused, watching him. Gauging his reaction.

'Go on,' said Brent. 'You can't stop now!'

She took a breath, then continued a little more quickly. 'I was surprised at first, but my mother was never very good at throwing old things away. Just holding that cane in my hand brought all the sensations flooding back. It certainly hadn't been used since that last night with me over the stool. Oh, and the stool is still there in the house as well.' Again Cynthia paused, then went on, 'So... how shall I put it? The rediscovery of the cane has led to, shall we say, certain urges. A need of sorts, to re-explore, even relive, the past. Do you understand?'

'I think so,' said Brent as evenly as he could. 'And a certain banker from New York seems to fit into these recent urges?'

She smiled, her green eyes shining. 'A clever deduction! It simply fits! You're discreet, I'm sure of that. And I've come to know you just well enough. You have an air of authority, Brent. You can command a situation, you're principled. All traits much like my father's — and that's a compliment, believe me.'

'I take it as such.' He inclines his head coolly, though his heart was thumping.

'So, Brent,' she pursued, moving astutely in as he had seen her do when firming a deal. 'Are you adventurous — and perhaps a bit theatrical? Or at least able to assume a well-crafted role?'

'I can act,' Brent admitted. 'But this part would seem to call for a script.'

'Indeed it does.' Her smile had gone, she was all business again — but her face was transfigured by an excitement he hadn't seen before. 'Your flight back is on Friday, I know, with tomorrow working out of your hotel room. Assuming I can entice you into visiting Hampstead tomorrow night, you'll be receiving a letter in your room during the course of the day. I'm sure you'll be able to proceed easily enough from there once you've read it carefully through.'

With that she stood up, bestowed a lingering look on him, then walked from the bar. He watched her as she went, and very much liked what he saw.

* * *

Brent lay awake most of the night trying to convince himself that the conversation over drinks had really occurred. He realised that his initial physical attraction to Cynthia Ward had already become something more. Her desire to re-enact a youthful caning had at first seemed strange to him, to say the least. But as he considered it further, the unforgettable intensity of such an experience was perhaps understandable. No matter what, he himself now shared her 'sense of adventure' — and seeing her over that stool with bottom bared would be more than enough reward for any histrionics he might be called upon to indulge in.

The promised letter was delivered to Brent's hotel room early the next day. The very thickness of the envelope made it clear that Cynthia either required very little sleep or else had written it out in advance of telling her story. Even for her, though, the latter seemed unlikely.

Common sense told Brent to finish his writing of a draft memorandum before reading the letter, but temptation won over logic. Opening the envelope, he found a twelve-page missive typed with single spacing. No detail was omitted of what was expected of him. He read it through twice, the second time concentrating fully on each sentence. Each nuance of position, attitude and action was fully explained. To his surprise, Brent felt confident that he could portray the role she sought from him. Indeed, the very thought of it filled him with extraordinary excitement. He was to be, in fantasy, more of a 'father figure' than a re-creation of her father. But her instructions on certain aspects were most explicit:

To be of value, the correction itself simply has to be thorough. Any reluctance on your part to be vigorous with the strokes will only disappoint Thus, do not stint in your full use of the cane. Only if you hear me say 'carrots', as a codeword of sorts, should you let up. But that is highly unlikely.

Brent found it difficult to concentrate on his work throughout the afternoon. The invitation to visit the Hampstead house was for 9pm. Just prior to calling for a taxi, he read the letter carefully through for a third time. Yes, he reaffirmed to himself, he could play the part called for, and indeed had begun to relish it.

Cynthia greeted him warmly at the door and offered him a very dry sherry, which he accepted, in the spacious lounge with its view of the Heath. At first, no mention was made of the evening's theme as they eased into a relaxed conversation. This seeming insouciance, and the allure of her appearance, only added to Brent's anticipation. Her cream-coloured high-neck silk blouse with Wedgwood cameo brooch was both elegant and traditional, her bosom swelling ripely inside it; while her tight fawn skirt erotically emphasised the fullness of the curves below her slim waist. Regardless of the role to which she was shortly to return after such a long hiatus, Cynthia Ward's attire proclaimed that this was indeed a mature and exquisite woman.

Finally, after finishing her second glass of sherry, she looked up and said, with a tight little smile that did not quite reach her eyes, 'Shall we proceed?'

Brent knew from the instructions in her letter that once he entered the master bedroom the scene was to begin. He felt keyed-up, keen and on his mettle and, while not having exactly memorised a set of lines, was confident of his own part in the exhilarating scenario that beckoned.

Cynthia had, of course — as the setting required — gone into the bedroom first. When Brent trod firmly up the stairs and opened the door into the large chamber, he might have stepped back in time almost 25 years. In the centre of the room, with ample space around it, stood a tall wooden stool with a faded padded seat. A short distance away, leaning against a large traditional wardrobe, was the cane itself — some three feet in length, with a crook handle. The flexible, mahogany-brown implement was thin and slightly bent — due, no doubt, to its usage in times gone by. And seated demurely on the pink silk coverlet of the double-bed was a beautiful female whose facial expression very much reflected that of a contrite young woman biting her lip in an agony of apprehension.

'Well, young lady,' he began sternly, following the guidelines of his brief. 'Have you thought matters over?'

'Yes, Sir.' Her voice was low, quavering slightly. Her troubled green eyes blinked unhappily up at his tall, dominating figure, then fixed their gaze on her hands where they twisted anxiously together in her lap.

'And...?'

'I'm very sorry for what I said. I shouldn't have been so disrespectful to Mother. I know better than that, and it was very wrong of me.'

While intent on sticking to his role, Brent was stunned by what he was seeing and hearing. Here was Cynthia Ward, financial whizz of one of Britain's leading multinationals, who for three days had superbly negotiated the most complex financing facility he had ever seen, now fully convincing him that she was an 18-year-old girl who had just earned herself a sound caning. Brent's thoughts quickly reverted back to the text of her letter.

Lecture me firmly. Make me feel I deserve every bit of punishment you intend to administer. Leave no doubt as to your resolve to be severe with me.

Brent looked down at the quailing form on the bed, her beautiful features half-obscured by a tumble of auburn hair. Suddenly a sense of power flowed into him, bracing his spine and squaring his stance.

'You may think you are too old for the cane, Cynthia,' he snapped. 'But you're not. Such outbursts have convinced me that a stinging bottom is the best remedy for your tantrums. You still need parental control, my girl, and I'll not shrink from my duty.' Yes indeed, thought Brent, feeling a build-up of righteous anger tempered with a deep concern akin to love: perhaps the theatre was truly my first calling.

'I'm r-really sorry. I am, Sir.' Her lashes were wet and her eyes wide with entreaty and shining with unshed tears. 'P-please don't cane me, Sir.'

'I'm sorry, Cynthia, you know the penalty. Skirts up and over the stool, please.'

'No! Please not!'

'Over the stool, girl!' Brent thundered. 'At once! Don't you dare contradict me!'

Shivering and sniffling, Cynthia stood up from the bed and approached the stool. Then, with her back turned towards Brent, she raised the close-fitting skirt to waist level, draped her body slowly across the padded top, and braced herself bravely. As Brent's gaze absorbed the magnificent sight now on display, her writing again came strongly to his mind.

I'll be wearing navy blue knickers, or panties to you, which represent the time-period. Naturally, it will be your task to take them down.

The plain and sensible undergarment referred to, stretched thinly and tightly over the full, creamy mounds of her buttocks, added just the retrospective touch that helped Brent feel as though it were indeed a quarter of a century ago. He no longer had any problem in seeing Cynthia as the deserving young recipient of his disciplinary efforts, and found total identification with his part in the proceedings.

'Raise your hips, Cynthia,' he commanded. 'I wish to remove your knickers.'

'N-no...'

'At once!'

She hastily obeyed, easing her hips off the stool whilst he grasped the waistband. He did not rush, noting with pleasure how the dark blue fabric stretched almost to splitting across the plump cushions of her bottom. Hardly daring to breathe, he peeled the panties down, exposing to his rapt gaze the deeply-cleft bareness of those sumptuous buttocks. He slowly pulled the garment down the long graceful legs and dropped it on the bed.

Then Brent stepped back to fully enjoy what now lay bared and yielding before him. Cynthia Ward had a bottom which combined femininity, maturity and fitness. Its curves were ample, yet firm — as befitted a woman whose subtly advancing years only enhanced her physical charms. Yet any thoughts Brent might have had about other ways of enjoying those ripe hind-quarters straining urgently up towards him across the stool were quickly put aside once he glanced at the cane, which still leaned against the wardrobe like the star of the show awaiting its entrance on to the stage.

Brent crossed to it and picked up the weathered implement carefully, as though it were an antique. While it was the first true punishment-cane his American eyes had ever seen, its capacity to correct was obvious. He flexed it springily between his hands as he walked back to take up his position beside the stool — knowing that Cynthia, draped over it with her auburn hair dangling to the carpet and her buttocks bare and ready, was extremely aware of his every measured step.


He paused to wonder about what was going through her mind at that moment and became aware of the tiny keening noises she was making deep in her throat — the sole manifestation of her extreme excitement and apprehension. Brent tapped the cane gently across the smooth, flawless globes which awaited his efforts. Her thighs parted slightly, giving him just a hint of her inner charms, while the pale, silky bottom-cheeks were themselves relaxed, almost placid, as if to show their meek acceptance of the chastisement to come. Again, a passage from her letter flashed through his mind:

Tell me in advance that I'm to receive a dozen and make me count after each one. Maintaining my composure is essential, and don't hesitate to question me during the caning.

'You're to have twelve strokes, Cynthia,' said Brent firmly, taking a strong grip on the cane, 'and I expect you to take them in good form. You are to count the number after each. Is that understood?'

'Yes, Sir,' she sibilantly whispered.

Could he really do it, Brent wondered. Could he bring himself to inflict such pain on a woman he found so appealing? The hesitation was brief — the answer was 'yes'. He raised the rod and let it quiver above his shoulder, then brought it swiftly down across the summits of his inviting target with a resonant crack that made him jump. Under the impact, her bottom-flesh seemed to collapse for an instant then spring back into shape. A white line appeared, quickly turning pink. Cynthia's gasp was loud — an indrawn shriek as she fiercely sucked in air. Then there was a pause and she counted, 'One, Sir.'

Brent watched the muscles of her voluptuous rear twitch and jerk in response to the solid cane-stroke; but, with supreme self-control, her buttocks resumed their relaxed state as if to say that they were ready again. Encouraged by the success of the first stroke he aimed the second a little higher, and the rattan landed almost at the top of the deep separating crevice between the majestic pillows of flesh. The response was the same, with an inward cry and a wild contraction of buttock-muscles followed by, 'Two, Sir,' as her bottom settled again over the stool-top.

Brent warmed to his role. Repositioning his feet in a firmer stance, he pulled back the ancient cane and aimed for the area just above the sulcus — the delightful crease on a woman's body where the undercheek of her bottom merges into the top of her thigh. His aim was accurate. Cynthia's gasp was louder this time as the rod hissed through the air and impacted with an authoritative sssswhack on that tenderest of places. Her grip on the stool's lowest rung was like a vice and Brent saw how her face contorted for just an instant as she internalised the sting before she expelled the words, 'Three, Sir,' in a quavering groan which seemed to indicate that she could scarcely take any more.

Perhaps that was the key, thought Brent. She wanted to be tested to the limit, to prove to herself that she could endure a vigorous physical chastisement. Anything less than a true caning, therefore, would have no meaning for her. It was to be the real thing, or nothing.

Brent resumed his task with even greater firmness of purpose, applying the cane with unflinching force and steadily increasing skill. The fourth well-swung stroke met the upper slopes of her buttocks between the first two glowing lines with an echoing crack that made her shriek out loud. His pace was deliberate. The fifth and sixth strokes were aimed lower, just above the rosy track which marked the third. Cynthia's shrill cries and panting gasps reflected an accumulation of pain as she writhed across the stool with her auburn hair flicking and tossing, legs jerking and kicking and the luscious hummocks of her bottom clenching and bouncing to the cane's lively tattoo, which stained it with hot tramline flushes and sunset streaks. Cynthia was indeed being tested.

Brent paused after six — the halfway mark — and regarded the slumped figure of the dynamic businesswoman. He was puffing slightly as if from a hard-won point at squash. More words from her letter came to him:

A standard caning was always six. But disrespect meant extra strokes. I need to be reminded of that.

Brent strode to the front of her and cupped Cynthia's chin in his hand, tilting her head to look into her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her full lips slack. Her eyes glistened with moisture and seemed scarcely to see him. Had this gone too far? No, he decided, that must be her decision. 'I think, young lady,' he said with curt authority, 'you're learning your lesson. Am I right?' She nodded meekly. 'But we're clearly not finished yet,' he added firmly. 'Six more to go.'

Returning to his position at the left of her bending body, Brent observed with awe the extent to which Cynthia's robustly beautiful buttocks were now showing the effects of the chastisement. Inflamed as it was, her bottom had resumed its relaxed condition over the stool, as if again to signify her determination to absorb the full dosage she had earned by her disgraceful behaviour. Two more crisp strokes, delivered with judicious severity, cracked against the sizzling hemispheres and sprang away, eliciting urgent grunts from Cynthia's throat.

It was after the ninth stroke that she burst into tears — a soft, almost controlled crying, but still quite audible and suggestive of release rather than torment.

Don't be disturbed if I sob at some point. Tears are a catharsis, of course, and the inner sensations I seek will only be enhanced by crying.

As he paused to watch her shaking body, Brent wondered if he himself could have taken what he was inflicting. His respect for this woman, already high, had increased with the stinging hurt of each succeeding whack. He was aware that she could end this at any moment, but knew that she would not. Furthermore, the marks of the chastisement had begun to overlap and her hips jerked up in reflex as he administered the tenth and eleventh resonant strokes of the old family cane on its grown-up daughter's incandescent derriere. The sight of that gorgeous bottom delighted and excited him as it bumped and wriggled frantically over the stool-top.

Make me wait for the last stroke. My nerves will be well stretched by then. And, of course, make it a good one.

Brent selected the ripely-curved crown of Cynthia's buttocks for the finale. The previous eleven strokes had shown that he was a natural, and accurate, wielder of the rod. His aim was precise, the cane swooping eagerly in to bisect the firm, well-sprung flesh with an excruciating thwack.

'Aaaghh!' was the sound she made — a gasp, grunt and sigh all in one. She exhaled noisily, then sucked in air. Her pause was unusually long, and then she said at last, 'Number twelve, Sir,' and slumped inertly across the stool.

For a moment Brent studied her twitching, utterly vanquished figure with some concern as she lay there — and then her final written instruction flashed through his mind:

Once finished with the caning, leave the bedroom quickly and without comment. Please give me some ten minutes to compose myself, and then return.

Brent quietly left the chamber and clicked the door shut. Down in the lounge again he poured himself a drink and reflected on his feelings. He was exhilarated. Elated. He drank the whisky in one gulp, and wondered at his trembling. The experience had been, quite simply, stupendous and his brain reeled at the wonder of it.

The event had affected him even more than he had anticipated. Cynthia's body was truly stunning, and a part of him had hated causing her such evident pain. Yet, Brent realised, she was right: there had been such a compulsion, an intensity, almost a beauty to the entire proceedings, from the preliminary formal lecture through the solemn disrobement and total yielding-up of all dignity, to the fierce sting of the cane on her naked buttocks. Her fortitude had amazed him. And he knew that he had succeeded in fulfilling the role she had set for him. But what was next, Brent wondered. How was it all going to end? Indeed, was it already finished? Alas, he knew that that was for her to decide.

The ten minutes over, Brent retraced his steps up the stairs and reopened the bedroom door to find the mature, elegant Cynthia Ward now completely nude and recumbent on her large bed. The tall, shapely body appeared flawlessly ideal in shape and proportion as she rested on her stomach, the milky skin of her back and legs now interrupted by the scarlet hues of her plushly plump bottom-cheeks which displayed the dozen angry-looking lines so recently drawn by the ancient family cane.

As Brent stepped across to the bed Cynthia looked up and offered a soft smile. Her warmth towards him was evident. 'I even found some of Mummy's old lotion,' she murmured coyly. 'I told you she never threw anything away. I remember how comforting she was with it, as all was forgiven by the time she came to use it. I'm sure you'll be just as gentle in applying it.'

Brent took the old bottle with the faded label and poured cream into his hand. Then he rubbed the soothing coolness slowly into those sore, so beautiful bottom-cheeks. Even though the softest touch of his fingers on the cane-marks brought a wince from her, Cynthia's sighs and moans and little wriggles made it clear that his efforts at comforting were every bit as good as his new-found skill in punishing.

Brent wanted to know so much more about her. She had given him a peek into her complex and private world, but he knew that it was not yet the right moment to question her more deeply. Even so, his practical curiosity remained — and Brent was, foremost, a practical man.

'How long will these marks last?' he asked. 'It looks to me like it could be ages.'

Cynthia grimaced prettily, picked up a hand-mirror from her bedside table and craned her head round to view her reflected bottom. 'You didn't disappoint me,' she remarked with satisfaction. 'Judging from some of these stripes on the right, I'd say as long as three or four weeks.' She turned towards him, and her smile now had an impish quality. 'That ought to time out just about right for your return to London for the signing of the agreement.' Her green eyes glittered, smouldered. Her lips pursed sulkily, hungrily. A tongue, strawberry pink, played over white, even teeth. 'Oughtn't it?' she murmured.

Brent was taken fully by surprise. But before he could consider an appropriate response, her arms were around him and he found himself being drawn down on to the bed beside her in an embrace of such wonderful warmth that he pulled back his head and gazed at her in astonishment, still not quite sure.

She smiled again. 'Oh, come now, Mr New York banker,' breathed Cynthia Ward. 'Do I have to put everything in writing?'

Brent laughed to himself as she reached over to turn out the light.

The Headmaster's Morning

Story from old Blushes.

The Headmaster's Morning


Leaving the hall after morning assembly, Reggie's mood of optimistic anticipation is given even more of a lift by the sight of Elizabeth Brown, in company with her friend, Chalmers, hurrying along the corridor in the direction of his study to keep their assignations with him, the representatives of the Board of Governors, and the business-end of a cane, in that order. Two short skirts, each plumped out by full hips and – as he knows from experience gained on other occasions – decidedly caneable bottoms, flick to and fro across the backs of bare thighs, beckoning him to follow. He resists the urge to hurry along behind and instead walks sedately towards his study relishing the prospect of beginning the day with two howling prefects to get him off to a good start.

The likely presence of Miss Wilkinson, a member of the Board, at the forthcoming meeting, dismays Reggie not at all. She and he have crossed swords before, and will almost certainly do so again today, but the Major will be there too, and knowing his penchant for the well-caned female bottom, the decision will be a foregone conclusion. 'Thrash 'em, Headmaster, and to Hell with their tears!' Reggie can just hear him saying it now. No – Miss Wilkinson will not be a problem. In fact, she might even prove to have a certain diversionary value of her own.

With a cheerful smile on his face, Reggie shoos the two girls, whom he finds waiting pink-cheeked outside his door, into the committee room adjacent to his study. The girls stand with their hands be hind their backs – comforting their little bums, perhaps, or so Reggie likes to suppose – while with a touch of theatre to make the whole thing just that little bit more amusing, Reggie selects a cane from those hanging conveniently in a cupboard and swooshes it dramatically several times. The girls' faces pale markedly – they both know what canes can do to tender bottoms, and to have to be reminded of it is unnerving to say the least.

Tie twisting in her fingers, Chalmers risks a tiny smile but spoils it by gulping audibly as Reggie smacks the cane down against the palm of his hand.

Reggie's grin widens as he feels the smart biting into his hand. It hurts – perhaps he was a little too boisterous with that stick – but the pleasure of it lies in his ability to transfer the sensation in his palm, in his imagination, to the sensation that harder strokes will shortly be engendering in the naked buttocks of the two frightened girls. He can't resist teasing them both about their imminent canings.

'Couple of the Governors are here this morning – going to decide what we've to do with you both.' The girls' glances wander from his face, to the cane, and back again, all wide-eyed anxiety and jelly-kneed funk. 'Hope you thought to put on clean underwear, girls,' says Reggie as he leaves them in the outer room and goes through to the committee room. He doesn't wait to see the effect that broadest of hints will evince.

Miss Wilkinson, in an amusing imitation of the girls' fascination with the sight of the cane in Reggie's hand, fixes her gaze upon its menacing, quivery length, almost as if it comprised a threat to her own shapely bottom. Seeing that he has the woman's attention – he is obliged to think of her as a woman even though she is barely a couple of years older than some of the girls in the school – Reggie treats her, too, to a demonstration of the cane's suppleness by bending it in two and flicking it through the air with a waspish hum.

'I see you come equipped to uphold your reputation as a disciplinarian,' says Miss Wilkinson – rather cuttingly, it seems to Reggie.

'A good caning never did any girl I've ever met any harm,' he says, resting his gaze upon what he can see of Miss Wilkinson's hips as she sits on her chair.

The meeting, when it starts, goes very much against Miss Wilkinson and equally as much in favour of Reggie and the Major. Miss Wilkinson's flushed face as the decision is taken to cane both the waiting girls – 'on the bare, Reggie, on the bare', as the Major insists – might be annoyance, or it might be embarrassment. Reggie rather hopes that it is the later. Anyway, he means to make something of a production out of the performance he has been called upon, democratically, to give, and if the silly woman doesn't like it, well then, she shouldn't have made a point of insisting on the matter of Brown and Chalmers' indiscretions to the editor of the local paper being made the responsibility of the Board, instead of leaving it to the Headmaster to deal with in his own way.

Brown, when she is summoned into the committee room, has the good manners to look decently apprehensive at the likely outcome of her appearance before the little assembly. In fact she manages to look scared stiff, a frame of mind which is not helped by Miss Wilkinson's brave attempt to minimise the punishment the girl is about to receive by bringing up the matter of 'The Rules'.

'Headmaster, may I point out that the rules state that no more than six strokes of the cane may be administered by you to any girl in your charge? I trust you will abide by that ruling, despite the Major's bandying about of the words 'a good, round dozen.'

Perched on the very edge of her seat, Elizabeth obliges Reggie and the like-minded Major by omitting a little squeak of fear at all this talk of 'strokes' and 'round dozens'. Ignored, even by Miss Wilkinson who is riffling through her copy of the rules, the girl shoves her hands down between her thighs with a delightfully childish pout on her pretty face. Failing to overcome the temptation to smile indulgently at the rash Miss Wilkinson, Reggie draws himself up to his full height and, having taken a breath in order to maximise his enjoyment of one more moment of triumph, informs the young lady of her mistake.

'I think you will find, Miss Wilkinson, that in the case of a decision by the Board of Governors – we three are representing that Board here today – that a girl is to be chastised by the application of a cane to her bottom' – the word 'bottom' rolls out in a deliberately sensuous way and brings another blush to Miss Wilkinson's cheeks, ' – the maximum number of strokes permitted is twelve, not six.'

With a flutter of pages Miss Wilkinson looks for the pertinent rule. Finding it, she, like Elizabeth, looks most disconcerted, but she cannot argue.

'So, twelve strokes it will be.' Reggie raises his eyebrows, 'agreed?'

'Good round dozen, Headmaster,' declares the Major. 'To hell with the tears – let her know she's been thrashed, that's what I say!'

Reggie, who finds the Major's enthusiasm a little daunting himself at times, turns to the girl who is the subject of this discussion, and finds her close to tears already and most reluctant to get to her feet when told to do so.

'We'll have your knickers down, if you please, Brown.'

The tiniest 'Oooh' escapes the girl's lips, but she knows well enough that there is nothing for it but to 'get 'e, down' as the Major unhelpfully interpolates. The necessary lifting of her skirt treats the men to a tempting foretaste of bare thighs, and then the girl's navy knickers put in an appearance as she slips them down below buttock level, just as she has done on other, more private occasions.

The poignancy of the moment is added to for Reggie when he glances up from Elizabeth's attempts to undress herself without having to appear too undressed, and sees that the other girl, waiting outside yet well able to see and probably to hear all that has gone on, is clutching her hand to her mouth and standing in such a way as to give reason to suppose that she might be about to wet her knickers with fright. For the sake of Miss Wilkinson's already injured pride, Reggie hopes that the girl manages not to disgrace her sex by doing any such thing, either now or later, when he has her across the committee table in her turn.

Prompted by the Major, Elizabeth now hoists her skirt to her waist despite Miss Wilkinson's protest at the Major's rather direct way of insisting that they should be allowed to 'have a look at you, girlie', and then, gestured towards the table by a flick of Reggie's cane, Elizabeth approaches it with some trepidation and not a little hesitancy, which Reggie puts a stop to by the expedient of a none-too-gentle nudge in the small of the back. Landing bottom-up across the edge of the table, the girl emits a gasp as she arrives rather precipitately, and then, without pause for more than the briefest survey of the bottom he is about to cane – he has, after all, seen this saucy little bum before, which is why he has been looking forward to gaining access to it again – Reggie lays the cane across the two impertinently up-thrust cheeks, taps them once, twice, measuring and, in truth, delighting in their bouncy resilience, then without any further preliminaries, he brings the cane down with a crack that would satisfy even the Major's appetite for soundness in the matter of caning.

* * *

Waiting unhappily just outside the door, Marion Chalmers watched her friend fumbling up under her skirt for that token of schoolgirlishness, her navy blue knickers, and felt her heart sink. What Elizabeth got, she would get in her turn, since the people seated round that table would see no reason to punish either of the girls less severely than the other. Elizabeth's bum, now bared for the cane, was positioned across the edge of the table. Several hands reached out to clasp those of the ashen-faced girl, less to comfort than to restrain, no doubt, and the Headmaster's cane delivered its first, heart-stopping 'thwack!'

Watching Liz's hips wriggle against the table, Marion's panic-stricken brain groped for anything that might yet rescue her from the caning she herself was about to get in something like a dozen strokes time. Desperate, and not thinking at all clearly, she thought of the only thing that might save her. That's what she would do! She'd tell them about the Headmaster! In fact, she'd tell them about everything –

-----------

'I take it, Chalmers, that you would prefer it if I did not cane your disobedient bottom for you, hmm?'

Stretched out across the desk in his study, her knickers clinging to the tops of her thighs and that awful, helpless feeling of naked vulnerability like a halo round her bum, Marion had stuttered that yes, she really would prefer not to be caned, sir, if that could possibly be managed, only when she'd said it, it had sounded more like 'Ooogh!' as hope had mingled with despair and the cane, patting her plumped-out buttocks, had intimated that it, at least, would be quite happy not to have the arrangements changed at this last minute. She had pulled her wits together and made herself understandable – just.

'No – no – um – that is, yes sir – er – er –'.

'I think I take your drift, Chalmers.' Pat – pat. 'But you do have to be punished, of course.' A trifling re-arrangement of her knickers; the hint of the tip of a finger.

'Yes sir –'. A little involuntary squirm of the hips, guiltily suppressed. A slow dawning of understanding through a mist of aprehension, then, with nothing to be lost even by rash imodesty, a slower, deliberate wriggle, the cane's arrival across her upturned bottom expected at any second to chastise her provocativeness, inept though it may have been yet all the more appealing for its evident inexperience.

He flicked the cane up under one cheek, but not hard enough to sting – well, not much. Marion's answering wriggle had been only a little exaggerated – just noticeably so.

'I see you understand – er – the necessity of punishment that is.'

'Yes sir.' Still as a mouse, waiting for the cat to pounce. Had she guessed right? Or was he simply playing?

'Very well, Chalmers. I shall spank you instead.' His hand under one bum-cheek – the finger-tip hint again. 'Ah – you will come to my house this evening, at seven.'

'Yes sir.' A little too quick, but how she hated that cane. Any sacrifice was worth not having to suffer the wretchedness of one of his canings.

'Er – come as before, Chalmers –.'

'Exactly, sir?' That had been embarrassing!

'Yes, Chalmers,' with a harder flick of the cane to remind her not to forget.

There were secrets, and big secrets. Big secrets were things like telling your friends you had to go home for the weekend – 'Lucky cow!' they'd said – and catching the bus at the gate and getting off at the station and waiting out of sight until the Rover nosed into the car park. Coming back on Sunday night and saying how good it had been to be away from the place, and blushing if you met the Headmaster in the corridor on Monday morning. And then, some time that next week, the summons, upon some pretext, to his study. The brisk, no nonsense interview; knickers down, back across the desk for the caning you thought you'd wangled out of the week before. Good and hard so that you didn't get any silly ideas – good and hard, if you but knew it, to remind you so that you were just as anxious next time to wriggle out of another caning the same way as before, even though you were beginning to guess that it was really only a caning deferred, but even that, though, was a comfort when you were across that desk with the stick teasing your bum and the old Man winding up to give you half a dozen real stingers. At sixteen and a half you didn't have the nerve to plump for a caning there and then instead of the next week.

Things like that were big secrets – going to the Headmaster's house after supper was a little secret, though getting caught sneaking across the field with just your mac over nothing but naked you would still take some explaining. A girl could die of embarrassment, turning up at the front door of the Old Man's house like that – not that it got better, of course, once you were in there, with a smacked bottom to come and him keeping you waiting for it without even a pair of knickers on that were going to need taking down!

'I take it, Chalmers, that you would prefer it if I did not cane your disobedient bottom for you, Hmm?'

'Yes, sir. You may take it. In fact, sir you can take anything whatsoever you happen to fancy taking sir, only please don't cane my admitedly disobedient and to be absolutely honest, awfully helpless-feeling bottom!'

-----------

And bed-time bum-smackings – that was another thing. Alright, if a girl deserved a spanking, then may be she ought to be spanked. But spanked in front of her room-mate, and then both made to strip off stark naked before being allowed into their pyjamas, while the Old Man just stood there and watched? Surely that wasn't in the rules, was it? What if she told the governors that! Half panicking at the sight of Elizabeth's bottom jerking as the last stroke swooshed across it, yet half indignant that that old letcher should get away with what he did get away with, Marion's sense of the injustice of it all urged her to throw caution to the winds!

She would tell them! The lot! She was quite determined that she would!

* * *

The ensuing few minutes are difficult to describe with mere words. The startling vigor with which Elizabeth's agile young body reacts to the cane's vicious stimulus takes even Reggie, who prides himself on having seen it all before, quite by surprise. One can only suppose that all that talk of 'caning' and 'dozens', and the presence of both the Major and Miss Wilkinson, has heightened the girl's sensibilities to the point where sheer panic magnifies the effects of the cane's application out of all proportion to reality. The cacophonous sounds of cane on bare bottom, of screams, squeals and full-throated yells, together with Miss Wilkinson's complaints at being enlisted, under protest, by Reggie to assist the Major in holding the girl down whilst he gives her the prescribed twelve strokes, and one extra which he sneaks in on the chance that Miss Wilkinson won't have managed to keep count – well, it would have to be witnessed to be believed!

At length, and after determined efforts on the part of young Elizabeth to frustrate the best efforts of all three of them to send her back to her class with the well-caned bottom she does, in truth, thoroughly deserve, the weeping, bottom-clutching girl is allowed to scoot from the committee room, still howling at the top of her voice.

* * *

'Chalmers!' The Headmaster's voice chilled Marion's hot-blooded determination to shop him, but she struggled to keep the intention alive in her breast. As upright as she could walk she went into the room.

'Chalmers – ' The Major was speaking to her, his eyes somewhere about the level of the hem of her skirt, ' – we see no reason to differentiate between the foolishness which you displayed in the matter of the flag-pole and its incineration, and that of your friend, Brown.'

'Sir – um – excuse me sir, but –'

'Take your knickers down, Chalmers.'

'Um – but, sir –'

'Two extra strokes, I think, Headmaster. Now then – knickers down please Chalmers.'

'Oooh – but, please sir –'

'Four, I think, Headmaster.'

'Oh dear –' Marion's skirt inched up her legs as she groped for the waistband of her pants. The cane rattled against the table as the Headmaster picked it up. Marion's knickers slid down to her knees. Did she dare risk one last try?

'Sir – please sir –'

'Six extra strokes, Headmaster.'

Knickers down, bum beginning to tweak at the threatening whistle of the cane as it was swished experimentally several times, Marion's little bout of defiance was over. In due course, to the embarrassment of the Major's secretary, but to no one else's discomfiture save her own, she got her twelve strokes – plus six for being slow about doing as she was told – and between them, she and her bottom afforded a pleasant second half to the morning's business for the assembled worthies of the Board of Governors.

The Library

Story from Roue 08.

The Library

Jill was an obstinate little spitfire, and she was determined not to give Miss Crawford the satisfaction of a victory that afternoon, even though her bottom was still warm with the spanking her superior had just given her. Jill's buttocks ached and throbbed as she bent over to adjust the untidy bottom shelf of the Geography section.

The books and atlases on her allotted shelves were probably the largest and heaviest in the library. She knew Miss Crawford had picked on her that morning just to weaken her into sneaking off early and risk another spanking the next day. But this time Jill was going to stick it out, till the bitter end – just to show that old fuss pot. But, ooow! Jill was suffering! Her cheeks were sore and those tight little knickers didn't help. It wasn't too bad when she was upright and could stand still for a while, but bending over was agony and crouching was out of the question.

Luckily Diane wasn't using the trolley, so Jill loaded it with the returned books from the desk and saved herself several journeys with the heavy volumes to be replaced in their appropriate places.

Miss Crawford was taking careful note of Jill's intelligent way of working that afternoon, unaware of the girl's real intentions.

It was one of Miss Crawford's few faults, that she would always take the credit for other peoples good points but was never responsible for their bad ones. She was convinced that Jill had learned an important lesson that lunch time and that the girl would certainly strive to improve her untidiness in the future. It had not occurred to Miss Crawford that Jill was scheming up ways to ease her pain that afternoon by using the trolley while Miss Crawford had put it down to intelligent thinking and a more methodical way of working.

Diane the younger of the two girls, was quietly smug about the whole affair. She was busy in the children's section and pretending not to notice the atmosphere between Miss Crawford and Jill. She had been aware of Jill's awkward and slow movements since lunch, but couldn't be absolutely sure that she had had a spanking till Jill got to the atlases on the bottom shelves. As she bent over, Diane caught a quick glimpse of Jill's rosy red thighs and knew for certain Miss Crawford had been up to her old tricks!

Diane had never been sure up till then that Miss Crawford had ever punished the other girls. She only knew the sting her own bottom had suffered at the hands of the Librarian in the past. As this had been Diane's first job, and even then only getting the position as a Junior Library Assistant because her uncle was something on the council, she had suffered greatly for her inexperience and lack of alphabetical knowledge during her first few months.

Jill walked cautiously behind the checking-in desk to relieve Miss Crawford for the teabreak. Her cheeks shuddered fearfully when Miss Crawford passed behind her, then relaxed again when the terrible presence disappeared towards the staff room.

It was uncomfortable to stand still for too long, so Jill busied herself with slow, easy movements, stacking and tidying the books ready for their places back on the shelves. The afternoon seemed extra long that day especially as she was making sure she kept well away from the terrifying Miss Crawford.

Suddenly Miss Crawford was shaken from the peaceful undisturbed atmosphere of the staff room by the most shattering crash from the Library next door. She shot out in her usual abrupt sedate manner, to be faced with the sight of a dozen or so schoolgirls arguing noisily with Diane, who was very red faced and angry.

As Miss Crawford approached the Children's Section she saw a mound of fallen books strewn untidily across the floor.

"You did it – so you pick them up". Diane had her hands on her hips and while not actually shouting, was creating quite a stir in the usually hushed room. Miss Crawford stood back to assess the situation before taking over in her haughty superior way.

As luck would have it, the girls' teacher was there, and appeared from behind one of the shelves, so Miss Crawford made herself scarce and observed the teacher taking charge of the argument. Soon all was quiet again and Miss Crawford retreated back to the Staff Room without having to intervene in the unfortunate situation.

It didn't take her long, however, to realise that this was a good time to give Diane another lesson in discipline and self control. Miss Crawford had suddenly got the urge to punish Diane severely for her unnecessary outburst instead of being mature enough to get her superior to deal with the problem.

Jill had been sensible enough to stay out of the way while Diane was making a fool of herself, but had not missed the appearance of Miss Crawford observing the height of the argument.

"She's not going to let Diane get away with that." She whispered to herself with a smile. "The crafty cow wasn't going to back the poor kid up when she was having a bad time of it, but she'll certainly let her have it on the bum for making such a mess of it" she thought with a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness I wasn't involved."

The teacher marched the girls out with an embarrassed smile towards Jill as she left. Jill smiled back innocently, and beckoned Diane over as soon as the room was empty again.

"Better go and explain to Madam" Jill said smugly.

"Why should I? She doesn't have to know." Diane was still shaking with anger.

"Hmm, that's all you know. I'd go now if I were you." Jill smiled knowingly.

"Well you would know, wouldn't you" the sweat on Diane's forehead was making her fringe quite wet, and a tear trickled out of her eye and rested under her lower eyelid. Jill realised how frightened and upset she was.

"Look, Di, she saw it all, honestly. I wouldn't lie to you. Do yourself a favour and go now."

Diane was trembling. She covered her mouth with her hand and looked very sad.

"Don't cry, not now. You were really very good, but I couldn't get involved. I'm sorry but you really have got to see her, before she gets a chance to cook something up. You know what she's like?"

"Right." She took a deep breath, gave Jill a brave smile and turned towards the Staff Room. "Here goes!"

* * *

Miss Crawford was not at all understanding. Jill's spanking earlier that afternoon had given her a taste for Diane's inevitable punishment. Her fat little bottom was asking to be spanked and Diane could offer no resistance after the upsetting experience she had just had.

Jill soon realised that Diane's prolonged absence meant Miss Crawford was handing out another punishment that day. At least she would be left alone a little longer! When no one was looking, she slipped out to the staff room and peeped through the frosted glass panel to confirm her suspicions that the room was empty. Yes, there was not a sign of any movement inside. That meant they were in the locked store room out the back – and Diane was getting walloped!

And Diane was certainly getting walloped! Her rounded young hips were bent over the chair while Miss Crawford stood over her, blistering the trembling cheeks with powerful, stinging strokes. The cane in the woman's hand shrieked as it swung through the air to land accurately across Diane's frightened naked cheeks. Stripes, red and painful, appeared in regular succession as Miss Crawford's fluent arm action continued the punishing blows. Diane yelped and blubbered endlessly. The whining and moaning irritated Miss Crawford, but she said nothing, hoping the girl would keep quiet and still.

"Oooo – no – no."

SLASH!

The cane struck sharply on the bared flesh and Diane jumped up violently. The cracking cane on her soft chubby buttocks was unbearably stinging and painful. But the fearful anticipation of the whistling as it shot out of the woman's hand before it actually reached her bum was frightening to poor Diane and she reached a point of uncontrollable terror.

Miss Crawford, as yet not wholly satisfied with the incomplete punishment, released her grasp on the girl and laid the cane back on a shelf quietly.

Diane sobbed. She didn't actually get up, but eased herself from the chair, and knelt helplessly on the floor. Her trembling naked cheeks were streaked with the criss-cross of the fiery red cane marks. She regained her senses and wiped the tears from her eyes, still shaking and frightened.

Miss Crawford sat on the chair still warm with the heat from Diane's hot little body which was now trembling quietly next to Miss Crawford's legs. She beckoned coldly towards the girl who obeyed meekly, and laid her soft young body over the woman's lap. Her silky plump cheeks glowed with the marks of the cracking cane and Diane relaxed as Miss Crawford stroked her bottom soothingly.

Her hand caressed the soft fullness of those naked buttocks, glowing and warm, and inviting. She traced out the grooves on the shiny flesh as Diane winced with the shooting pain across her bottom.

The girl's thighs were quite cool in comparison with the heat radiating from the fiery red buttocks, and her skin was very smooth and tempting.

"Whack!"

Miss Crawford slapped her thighs with a sharp cracking blow. Diane jumped, but did not make a sound.

Another Crack! and another. Miss Crawford slapped the firm thighs with supreme satisfaction. A soft rosy glow began showing through the silky pink flesh and they bounced and bobbed on her hand with the regular strokes. The gentle young flesh cracked crisply under the woman's firm palm. Miss Crawford sat upright with the girl's warm body jumping to and fro across her steady legs.

Diane's sweet little bottom throbbed, with the naked cheeks glowing brilliantly. Tears filled her eyes as the pain grew throughout the lower part of her body. Miss Crawford's hand struck harder and harder on the girl's fiery thighs then a hard, loud wallop landed squarely on her right buttock, stinging the sore cane marks. Two or three thundering whacks startled the sobbing girl.

"OOW! Oh!"

SPANK!

"No! No! P-p-please."

"Yes, Miss. You've had your punishment. Get up!"

Diane attempted to move away quickly, but was prevented from jumping away from that punishing hand by the soreness in her throbbing, frightened bottom. Still she managed to slip away quite swiftly and into the Staff Room, while Miss Crawford remained in the Store Room until Diane had returned to the Library after allowing her enough time to have a wash and brush up.

The other girls tried not to notice Diane's return, but couldn't resist smiling at each other when she walked back to the Children's Section with such obvious agony.

Miss Crawford came back with a pile of books in her arms.

"Jill." She called. "Get Renee to take over the desk for a while – I've got a job for you."

Jill smiled at the woman as if nothing had happened, and took the books from her, ready for further instructions.

"I want some of these mysteries back on the shelves – there's been a rush on them lately. I expect that new series on the television has got something to do with it."

Jill's spine went cold with the mention of sharing the Stock Room with Miss Crawford again. Her knees felt like jelly and her hot little bottom began throbbing quicker and quite painfully.

"Y-yes M-Miss Crawford."

She put the pile of books on the trolley and followed Miss Crawford towards the dreaded room. She stood at the door waiting, remembering her hasty exit some two hours earlier. She felt quite shaky at the memory and her tight knickers sunk into her quivering fat cheeks.

A big lump grew in her throat! She tried to be brave and stood upright in the doorway, while inside there were butterflies fluttering in her tummy.

Miss Crawford's footsteps echoed eerily on the bare wooden floorboards and Jill shuddered at the thought of her yelps and screams echoing through the half empty room that lunchtime.

"Come on girl" Miss Crawford snapped "Get the trolley – there's a good couple of hours work here."

"Right Oh!" She breathed a sigh of relief.

As Jill walked back into the Library for the trolley, the other girls looked up in surprise. They had congregated round the desk, with Diane in the centre describing her recent painful ordeal.

They dispersed quickly back to their places, just in case Miss Crawford appeared unexpectedly.

Jill smirked at them, 'Hmm' she thought 'they thought I was lured into the store room under false pretences!' That indignant feeling returned as she wheeled the trolley briskly towards the room.

Her quick movements didn't do her smarting bottom a lot of good and she was forced to slow her pace down considerably by the time she reached the Staff Room.

Miss Crawford was standing threateningly in the doorway, but Jill tried to stay brave. A sharp slap cracked across her swollen buttocks as she neared the woman.

"There's a good girl" Miss Crawford pointed towards the two back shelves "Just sort them and get them out the front. Before five please."

Miss Crawford hesitated for a second, giving the girl an uncomfortable feeling in her soft frightened bottom, and then left her with the bitter sweet memories of that fateful room.

The Fresh Lieutenant

Story from Janus 45.

The Fresh Lieutenant
by Andrew Grantham

THE HALF-DOZEN CLERKS in the Company's HQ office could hardly believe their eyes. They stood rigidly to attention as Major Sounders introduced their new officer to them, twirling one end of his red moustache as he did so.

'This is Lieutenant Ashcroft,' he intoned. 'I'm sure you didn't expect a WRAC officer taking over, however...'

Lance Corporal Neil Weston didn't listen to what the Major was saying. He stood behind his desk, soaking up the sight of the very delectable lieutenant who had just been posted in. To think that he had been on the point of applying for a discharge. Not now. He'd stay with the colours for at least a little while longer.

Lieutenant Ashcroft stood at ease, smiling at the men who were to be under her command. She was on the tall side, not slim but with just the right amount of flesh on what seemed to be a perfect bone structure. Long, smooth legs disappeared under her green skirt. Tightly encased breasts pushed provocatively at the tunic of her uniform. Her eyes were blue and alert. Shining blonde hair was tucked neatly into her service cap.

'I'm very pleased to meet you. I'm sure we'll all get on well together,' the WRAC officer said when the Major at last finished his long-winded introduction. The whole time he had been speaking he had been tapping his leg with his swagger stick. It had made Neil smile to himself. Very adept at swinging a stick was the Major.

Lieutenant Ashcroft settled herself in and to the young soldier clerks she became a goddess.

'I'll bet all the officers in the Mess are sniffing round after her,' the Corporal remarked to Neil.

'No doubt,' sighed Neil. 'The gorgeous Lieutenant is obviously out of our league.' He smiled. 'Still. There's always good old Rosie in the NAAFI.'

Rosie was a very obliging girl and she could take a bit of stick. Indeed, she very much enjoyed taking a bit of stick. And Neil enjoyed giving it to her!

Halfway through the first week the WRAC officer, in shirt-sleeve order, came out into the general office and asked for a batch of new pay books.

Eager to please, Neil shot to his feet and opened the doors of a big metal cupboard. Too late, he realised! The inside of the door bore his collection of colour pages taken from his favourite CP magazine. There, in all their naked glory were excellent striped bottoms, wealed bums and blazing backsides.

'Oh... er... s-sorry ma'am,' stammered Neil, quickly closing the door with a resounding clang. 'I'll take them down,' he offered.

The young officer cleared her throat and licked her lips. She looked at Neil and their eyes flashed messages to each other. 'It doesn't matter,' she said softly. 'Don't mind me.'

She turned on her heel and went back to her office. Neil watched how her arse shifted from side to side with each step she took. He was unaware of the ribbing from his colleagues as he stroked his chin and pondered. Was she a submissive? What a mind-boggling, mind-blowing thought. He sighed wistfully. Even if she was, there was no way a lowly Lance Corporal was going to get at her arse. Major Saunders had probably slapped an 'out of bounds to junior ranks' label on it already!

That same night, Neil was doing a stint as Duty Clerk when into the office came none other than the Lieutenant herself. He started to get to his feet but she motioned him to stay seated. To his surprise, she sat on the edge of his desk. Neil found her close proximity sensual and stimulating. But what was she up to?

'It's about those photos in the cupboard,' she began.

Neil gazed into her blue eyes, completely besotted by the young woman. 'If they offend you, I'll remove them right away,' he offered, starting to get up.

'No. It's all right.' Her soft, warm hand closed around his and the touch of her sent a tremor through his body.

She looked around her to make sure they were on their own. 'Are you into that kind of thing?' she asked huskily. 'Canings and spankings and things like that?'

'Yes. I am actually,' he smiled. 'It isn't against Queen's Regulations, is it?'

She smiled and her teeth were a crescent of white against the red of her lips. 'I don't honestly know,' she admitted.

Her smile faded and her beautiful face became serious. Neil's eyes narrowed. He had noted the rise and fall of her bosom and the slight flaring of her nostrils.

'If I tell you something in confidence,' she said in a half whisper, 'will you keep it to yourself?'

'I've signed the Official Secrets Act,' smiled Neil, his heart thumping. He somehow knew what that confidence was going to be.

Her shapely legs began to swing gently and she kept her head down, avoiding his gaze as she continued speaking.

'I'm into it myself,' she revealed.

Neil's heart performed a somersault.

Lieutenant Ashcroft smoothed out imaginary creases in her uniform skirt. 'Receiving it that is, rather than giving it,' she added softly. She raised her head and looked directly at him. 'Would you be... er... willing to perform the honours for me some time?' she smiled shyly.

Would he? Neil thought for a moment that he must be dreaming and that he would wake up – probably in the guardroom or in the glasshouse!

'You... you... mean...?' he stammered, unable to complete the sentence.

The officer raised her eyebrows. 'Just because I have pips on my shoulders,' she grinned, pointing to her badges of rank, 'doesn't mean I don't like getting strips on my bottom! Officers are only human, you know.'

Neil was on the point of saying that he knew some who weren't, the Major for instance, but he wisely refrained.

'I'm trained to take orders,' he replied instead.

She slid gracefully off the desk. Neil's eyes were naturally drawn to the contours of her behind. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever imagined that anyone so gorgeous could possibly offer her bottom to him. The euphoria melted however, when a new thought crowded into his head.

'Hang on a minute ma'am,' he said, wanting to reach out and touch her, yet finding the caste barrier holding him back. After all, she was an officer. 'I share a room with a couple of other blokes and there's no way I can get into the Officers' Mess.'

She flashed him a smile that caused his knees to tremble. 'Don't worry about that,' she assured him. 'I'm moving out of the Mess on Friday. I've rented a house in the village.'

'That's okay then,' Neil heard himself saying.

She wrote down the address on a piece of paper. Still in somewhat of a daze, he took it from her, their hands touching momentarily. Again, the electric shock went through him.

After she had gone, Neil stared at the piece of paper for ages. She had even written down the time she wanted him to call – Saturday, eight o'clock.

Gradually Neil began to come to. He was in high spirits, despite his stint of extra duty. He smiled as he imagined the reaction of the Major if he ever found out that the Office Commander was getting her arse 'seen to' by a humble Lance Corporal subordinate!

Lieutenant Ashcroft totally ignored Neil the following day, save for one incident when she criticised a minor detail of his work in front of others. Nobody could ever have guessed what the unlikely couple had planned for eight o'clock on the Saturday night.

The last chime of the village church clock was fading away as Neil somewhat nervously 'pinged' the bell of a small stone house which still had a 'To Let' sign in the garden. He had a lingering fear that the Major himself would open the door and give him a dressing-down about fraternising with the officers or something.

He needn't have worried. Lieutenant Ashcroft herself opened the door and with a gleaming smile bade him welcome.

She was wearing a short-sleeved, gossamy dress which clung to all the promises beneath. Her lightly tanned legs were bare and her feet were neatly tucked into red leather high-heeled shoes. Bra-less nipples jiggled about beneath the filmy covering of the dress.

She turned around and Neil followed the sweetly-bottomed creature into the living room.

'Call me Susan please, Neil,' she asked him, pointing towards the settee. 'At least, while I'm not in uniform.'

The young soldier sank down into the settee. Susan parked her lovely bottom on the padded arm and crossed one elegant leg over the other.

'You haven't got to rush away, have you?' she asked.

'No,' he said, swallowing hard. 'I'm at your service for as long as you want.'

'Super,' she sighed. 'We can take our time. I must say, it's awfully good of you to give up your Saturday night for me.'

Neil politely told her to think nothing of it.

They had a few drinks and got to know each other a lot better. Susan's father had been a regular soldier which meant that she had attended a number of boarding schools both at home and abroad. It was probably in those establishments that she had become addicted to corporal punishment.

'I was quite naughty when I was younger,' she confessed with an enchanting giggle.

It relaxed Neil and he felt as though the invisible barrier between them had been lifted.

'I was forever getting the cane,' she recalled. 'Of course I hated it at first, but once I sort of transcended the pain threshold, I got to like it.' Her fine, golden eyebrows lifted. 'Then I used to make sure I always got whacked by the male teachers,' she added with a grin.

Neil ran a hand over the soft down on her arm. She liked it. Susan Ashcroft was a very sensual creature. It was also clear to Neil that she was still somewhat lonely in her new posting.

'I didn't bring a cane with me,' the soldier said after a while. 'Have you got one?'

Neil knew that practically every garden and greenhouse in the village could supply a cane if need be so he was sure he could always obtain one by stealth if necessary. He didn't have to, however – Susan produced a thin cane from a drawer in a Welsh dresser.

'This is one of my favourites,' she told him proudly, handing it over. 'It stings like mad.'

Neil took it from her, wondering just who had used it before on her willing backside. The feel of the cane in his hands gave him a sensation of power over the girl – a complete reversal in fact of their normal everyday roles in life. And the reality, coming after so much fantasy, thrilled him to a quite fantastic degree.

'We'd better get started then,' he said to her, making himself sound nonchalant and swishing the cane through the air to get the feel of it.

Susan lowered her head and with noticeably trembling fingers she began to unfasten the thin button-through dress.

Neil closed the heavy velvet curtains and switched on all the lights. Then he dragged a small-backed dining chair across the carpet into the centre of the room.

The blonde stepped out of her dress, a vision of loveliness as she stood to attention proudly thrusting forward her lemon-shaped breasts.

Neil walked slowly around her fresh, young body like a Sergeant Major inspecting his squad, with the cane tucked under his arm. The girl was surely a gift from heaven.

'I'll let your hair down,' he said softly. Then he reached up and took out the clips. Her golden hair cascaded down over her shoulders.

The young soldier continued his inspection of the upper half of her body. Her breasts were unbelievably delicate with shadowy blue veins barely visible beneath the pale flesh. Of course, he couldn't resist touching them. Susan closed her eyes and ran the tip of her tongue across her upper lip as her nipples rigidified under his touch.

Not a word passed between the young couple as Susan stood to attention whilst Neil continued with the inspection of the delectable young woman who was completely at his disposal.

Her skimpy, silken panties slid down her legs as Neil gently eased the elastic away from her flesh. The tiny scrap of material became entangled in her feet. Neil permitted his hand to touch her bushy groin before walking around her to observe his target area.

Susan's apple-round bottom was perfection itself – resilient, deep-clefted and just inviting the attention of anyone who delighted in using a cane or a strap or whatever. Its beauty was simply breathtaking.

Although she didn't say anything, it was obvious from the change in Susan's breathing and the way she rocked on her feet that she was both aroused by this preliminary and desperately anxious for him to start work on her. Neil kept her waiting as he circled her several times. Her body twitched as he ran the length of the cane over her breasts, across her waist and over the very smooth silky skin of her bottom. He was very much in command of the situation. Susan would not move until she got his order.

Eventually, he gave it in a crisp, clear, authoritative tone. 'Lean over the back of the chair, Susan. Your hands on the seat and your bottom well up in the air!'

Her superb form seemed to float across the carpet until she came to the chair. She took a deep breath, bent forward and positioned herself perfectly. The young officer was obviously well used to having her backside scored and scorched. She had admitted to him that it had become a craving.

Neil himself took a deep breath before he raised the cane in the air. Laying into Rosie's backside wouldn't be the same again.

Down swept the lithe rod and it seemed to be glued to the centre of her buttocks before it sprang back. Neil would not have liked to be on the receiving end of that himself!

'Aaaaaahh!' The sound from Susan's lips wasn't a sound of agony. It was a sound of pleasure.

The cane left its bright red mark behind. Neil aimed so that the next stripe would be about half an inch below it. It was. Susan's body jerked and quivered. Her well-moulded legs parted slightly.

'You're good,' breathed the blonde. 'You're hurting me already.'

'It's the way you want it, isn't it?' asked Neil softly.

'Oh yes please,' she sighed. 'Just keep on hurting me.'

The rod swished down again – lower this time to land with a crack just above the top of the finest pair of thighs Neil had ever seen.

'Oooh!' responded Susan. She was now coming alive with the impact of the cane. The blood in her veins had been replaced by a liquid fire that was being pumped from the cauldron of her bottom.

As far as Neil was concerned, it was a sheer delight to punish her. For Susan it was pleasure and not punishment as her pain-drenched body continued to soak up everything that Neil could give it.

The soldier didn't spare her. Every stroke was powerful, well-delivered and carefully placed.

Susan's bottom was hungry and it rose up to greet each stroke before devouring it greedily.

'Aaaagh!' she groaned.

'Oh!oh!oh!' she panted.

'EEEEkkkk!' she squealed, shaking her head from side to side so that her silky golden hair swayed in a constant movement.

The sting of the light, whippy cane she herself had chosen sent nerve-tingling sensations thorough every fibre of her body.

Each high-pitched swish of the cane resulted in a cry and a wriggle whilst her feet beat a tattoo on the patterned carpet.

Neil began to perspire with his exertions. Susan's buttocks became a complete mass of fiery, criss-crossing weals. 'Perhaps you've had enough now?' he suggested.

The girl's answer was an emphatic shake of her golden head. She parted her legs even more and poked her bum even higher to display herself quite lewdly.

Neil smiled. She was a girl in a million and he was the luckiest man in the whole of the British Army.

Her bottom winced in anguished anticipation as Neil prepared for the next stroke. Inevitably, it whipped across earlier scarlet weals. Susan's cry was hoarse and her knees sagged to hit the back of the chair.

'I'm only going to give you one more,' he told her. He had given about all he could.

The well-used wand bit into her ravaged arse for the last time. Its mark was immediately lost amongst all the others.

'Oh... ee... oh... agh!' she yelled out as she jerked upright. Her body shuddered and she sank slowly to her knees with her face resting on the back of the chair.

Neil, his mouth and lips bone dry, put down the cane and went to her.

'I'm okay,' she panted. 'Just give me half a minute.'

It was less than 30 seconds however before she got up.

'Gosh!' she breathed. 'You can certainly give it to a girl.'

Susan pressed herself to him. Her nipples were erect and hard like pencil erasers and her mouth was wet and warm.

Afterwards they lay beside each other listening to each other's heart-beats. Her long lashes rested on her cheeks when her eyes were closed.

Susan moved and her warm, soft, lovely body demanded his attention again.

'I wonder if we can be court-martialled for what we're going?' she giggled.

* * *

Susan did not betray the fact of their close relationship when normal duties resumed after the weekend. Neil wonder when the next session would take place. The sooner the better of course, but he knew that her stripes would take some time to mend. Nobody looking at the smart, exceptionally attractive young WRAC officer would ever guess what state her bottom was in.

The young soldier never imagined for one moment that Lieutenant Ashcroft would order him to take part in an exercise! One of the 'perks' of being a military clerk was being able to 'wangle' oneself out of irksome and demanding chores. He marched in to see her to complain,

He knew it was a mistake right away. Susan Ashcroft had been his plaything at the weekend but now Lieutenant Ashcroft was very much the army officer. 'There's much more to being a soldier than pushing a pen, Lance Corporal Weston,' she said icily.

The only thing that cheered him up as he crouched in his foxhole eating his 'K' rations was the thought that he might once again savour the delights of his officer's magnificent posteriors.

To make matters worse Major Saunders started to throw his weight around, presumably trying to impress his new Lieutenant. One of his targets was Neil and the soldier clerk had to bite his tongue several times, not wishing to be put on a charge for insolence.

About ten days after the sound thrashing he had administered, Neil invited himself back to Susan's rented house.

'Come in,' she said cheerfully, looking deliciously attractive in a baggy grey sweater and tight faded blue jeans. Her hair was loose though well-brushed, and it swung as she walked.

On his only previous visit to her house, Susan had been crying out for the cane. This time was different however. Over a couple of drinks she politely made it clear that her bottom was out of bounds to him. Maybe next time.

Neil was not so easily put off. He had already had a few beers in the village pub and the whisky on top of what he had previously drunk made him throw caution to the winds.

'I'm going to smack your bottom Susan, you naughty girl,' he grinned, advancing to sit beside her on the settee. 'I'm going to get my own back for that exercise!'

'No. Please don't!' begged Susan, sensing the force of his intention.

'I'm not taking no for an answer,' he said sternly. 'Come here.'

With that he made a grab for the blonde and despite her protestations, he soon had her across his knee. Her shapely legs, which completely filled out the denim of her jeans, flailed wildly until he trapped them between his own legs.

Susan continually pleaded with him to let her go, but Neil was determined to scorch her pretty bottom with the palm of his hand. He worked his fingers round to the front of her jeans, undid the button and lowered the zipper with a harsh, rasping noise. He tugged away the denim jeans and her cotton panties both together as the girl, resigned to the inevitable, ceased her struggling.

Neil was totally unprepared for what he saw.

'Good God!' he exclaimed.

Ridged weals desecrated her splendid backside and it was obvious they hadn't been there all that long.

'No wonder you weren't keen to show off your arse,' he said grimly.

He traced his forefinger along all the convex ridges causing Susan to wince. 'Those aren't self-inflicted,' he remarked. 'I'll bet I know who did it. Was it the Major?'

'Yes,' Susan replied weakly.

'Damn the man!' exclaimed Neil. 'I'm beginning to hate him. I had Rosie's arse all to myself until he found out. Now he's got you as well!'

Susan twisted her head to look at the soldier and she brushed some stray hair away from one eye.

'Be fair, Neil,' she implored. 'I didn't give you sole caning rights, you know.'

Neil's lips set in a grim line. Susan's backside belonged to her right enough and she could let whoever she liked loose on it. All the same he was very upset that he was sharing the honours with someone else. The fact that it was the Major made it even worse.

'I can't very well smack your bottom in the state it's in,' he told her, his lips curling into a grin. 'I'll just have to be satisfied with your thighs instead.'

Susan's mouth opened but no sound came from it – not until Neil slapped his open hand against the side of her thigh.

SERLAPP!

His hand cracked down onto the back of the other thigh.

'Ooh!' gasped Susan. She looked at him. Her blue eyes, cloudy before, were now wide and shining as she soaked up slap after slap.

Soon the backs of both thighs were a burning red. She gasped as her flesh stung and then smouldered.

'I've never taken as much as this in one day before,' she breathed harshly.

Neil's arm began to tire and the rain of blows slowly petered out. The coup de grace however was a full-blooded smack across the already beaten crown of her bottom.

'Yeeeeech!'

The blonde seemed to rise up in the air with the effect of the final slap. Her head thrashed from side to side and her body went rigid as the white heat of fierce pain engulfed her. The flame reached its peak, died down and her body became limp.

* * *

It was a couple of weeks later before Neil got the chance to visit Susan again. She submitted to his visual and physical inspection and obediently bent her graceful body over the back of the chair.

Neil took careful aim at the masterpiece of sculpting that was her backside.

Whirr!

THWACK!

Susan uttered an orgasmic-like groan as the pain began to spread. It took a dozen strokes to make her cry out however.

Neil smiled as he lifted the agony-laden rod and watched her body indulging in a writhing dance.

He had Susan all to himself. Major Sounders had left for the Falklands that very morning. He had left without knowing that his application for a posting to the South Atlantic outpost had been filled in by Neil. It had been so easy. After all, he had forged the Major's signature on the multitude of forms on which the Army thrived when the senior officer had been too occupied otherwise to do so himself. Battalion headquarters liked nothing better than a volunteer and the application was speedily processed.

Neil's favourite officer inhaled urgently, placed her feet further apart and volunteered her bottom for more. Much more!

The Medical Room

Story from old Blushes.

The Medical Room

It is getting chilly in the corridor, now that the sun has gone down, and the four girls waiting outside the medical room are not dressed so much for warmth as for — to be frank — accessibility. They are in their night clothes — the clock on the bell tower across the quadrangle is creeping towards nine o'clock and bed-time during the week is nine-thirty — and whoever it was who decided that the girls' nightwear should be so skimpy, plainly had other considerations in his mind beside thermal insulation or modesty. Each girl wears a top which is actually a short sleeved tunic — so short that it doesn't reach quite to her waist, nor to the top of her 'bottoms', which are themselves cut no more generously that the average pair of school knickers, and are made less conducive to decency by the little slits which run up the outer seams for two inches or so at the thigh. The whole being made of cotton, and lightweight material at that, there is little underneath each thin pair of pants that doesn't lend every detail of its form to the exterior appearance of what are really very brief 'shorts'. So far as the girls 'tops' are concerned, breasts are less concealed than emphasised, and in the chill air in the corridor there isn't a nipple amongst them that isn't doing it's erect, impudent little best to draw attention to itself by thrusting at the thin cotton from underneath.

The girls' quiet chatter ceases at the approach of a portly figure, balding and in his late fifties, who rounds the angle of the long passageway and walks with a faintly rolling gait towards the silent group.

"Good evening, girls" says the newcomer, intoning the words with a hint of bored dutifulness that is belied by the twinkle in the gentleman's eyes and the rather intimate glance which flits undisguisedly across bottoms and breasts as the girls are ushered through the door into the antiseptic-smelling ante-room.

The gentleman, vaguely 'man-of-the-cloth' in his manner and his dress, opens an inner door and then unlocks a medicine cabinet high on one wall. He takes down a jar labelled 'vitamins' and places it on a table. He looks up at the first girl in the line and gestures her into the room with a smile that, though broad enough is not altogether convincing.

The girl closes the door behind her and the gentleman takes a file card from a drawer and writes the first 'patient's' name upon it. "Annabel". He has no need to ask her name — she and her three companions have been nightly visitors to this room for the last month, since term began.

"Scales, please," says the man.

At a generous estimate, the girl's night clothes would weigh somewhere between six and eight ounces, and would be inconsequential in the matter of ascertaining her body-weight. Nevertheless — and she does it without being told to, as though it's what she always does — she slips off first the little pants and then the top before stepped up onto the scales, barefoot. Her cheeks are a pink flush of embarrassment, and her eyes do not look at the gentleman as he leans close behind her to peer over her shoulder at the dial on the machine. The firmness of her bottom, cupped in a hand, is alive to the touch. She draws her breath a little as inquisitive, insensitive fingers trace around the undercurves of her bottom, close-grouped cane weals still faintly warm to the fingertips, the chaplain's voice next to her ear:

"Still feel it, eh? Bottom still tender, is it?"

"S-sir — yes, sir." The slight droop of her head and the soft pout of her lip as she answers are endearing if not downright arousing.

Aroused, the chaplain coaxes further confessions from the shamed girl, his voice sibilant and teasing.

"Hurt, did it? Sting your little bottom, eh?"

"Yes sir." Her voice a whisper.

"You cried, you know. I suppose you remember crying, don't you, hmm?"

"Yes sir" Barely audible.

"And you wriggled. The headmaster made you wriggle this time, didn't he, eh?"

She nods mutely, embarrassed, nervous of the hand that loiters around the cheekiness of her buttocks and slaps lightly but inconsiderately and awakens a vague tingling where the cane had been busy that afternoon. A tear rolls down a cheek, others follow, as she wonders ruefully what she could have done to deserve so many punishments — seven canings, and she's been at the school only four weeks — and every one of them for trifling mistakes, reported to the Headmaster by this dreadful man, and each caning witnessed by him too, as though it were a conspiracy of some kind between them. She, and the girls waiting outside, have had more punishments than any other girls in the school, far more — the recollection of this afternoon's caning, the humiliation of being stretched out over that desk, knickers round her knees, squirming on her belly, blubbering for it to stop, please, please — the memory of it brings the tears faster, hot on her cheeks, running down her face. If there were someone at home she could write to, who would lend a sympathetic ear — but there's no-one, only her guardian, and he doesn't give a damn about her.

The chaplain pats Annabel's bottom and goes to the table, where he notes her weight on the file card. Eight stones and three pounds; a healthy weight for a girl of her height and age. She remains on the scales, naked, bottom and cane-marks unavoidably on display, and she no longer tries to work it out, because it is totally beyond her.

The sound of a jar being opened.

"Come here, Annabel."

Breasts bobbing, hands hiding the triangle of hair at the base of her belly, face flushed with shame at being seen like this by this man, night after night, she goes to stand by the table and waits to be given her "vitamin" pill.

Why she has to take vitamins is something else that Annabel cannot understand. She, and the other three girls, are the only ones in the school said to be 'in need of building up.' The meticulous ritual of taking their pills is as odd as the mere fact that any of them should be thought to need them. Four healthier, more well-proportioned sixteen and seventeen year olds it would be hard to find.

Annabel opens her mouth and a small, pink tablet is popped in. She swallows it, then is made to open her mouth again to demonstrate that it has indeed gone where it was intended to go. A note is made on her file card.

"Get dressed."

It takes but a moment to slip into the skimpy pyjamas. Tits swelling under the top, pants tight around her hips, Annabel waits to be dismissed.

The chaplain looks directly into her face so that she has to glance away. The blush creeps back into her cheeks and she shuffles her feet nervously.

"I understand from the choirmaster that you were two minutes late for practise at lunchtime. Is that correct?"

She stumbles over her protest that she couldn't help it — that she'd had to wait behind in Mr Flood's class —

"I can't help that. Headmaster's report tomorrow, afternoon break. Understood?"

"S-sir — please sir —"

She subsides hopelessly, and nods to say that she understands.

"Very well, you may go."

With the room to himself, the chaplain checks back through the days and weeks on the file card. A month and five days. He grins slowly, thinking of Annabel and her poor, punished bottom, and how much she seems to loathe her canings. Another week of 'vitamins' and they should all be 'safe'. He wonders how Annabel will take it when she finds that, for the first time, she has an alternative — get her knickers down and get over the Headmaster's desk, or simply get her knickers down. He's pretty sure which option she'll plump for. He decides that tomorrow's caning will have to be a little bit special, just to make certain. The Old Man will be happy to oblige, of course. He smiles one of his self-satisfied smiles, and opens the door to the girl next in line for her 'vitamins'.

Further Education

Story from Februs 25.

Further Education
by Darren Young


Ben looked around the room, a full house tonight. He enjoyed this weekly evening class, or should that he appreciated? Verbs, verbs, everywhere but never the right one. OK, 'Contemporary Literature and Society' was a pretentious title but the tutor, a 'serious' novelist, had a light touch and an amusing style of presentation.

His fellow students were the usual mixed bunch. Would-be writers in the main, anxiously analysing the work of already published authors, concentrating assiduously, taking things very seriously.

Others were more laid back, simply glad of a break from the kids or a chance to make new friends. They'd nothing to prove, future Booker prize juries could relax.

And which category do I fall in? mused Ben. Piles of books around his flat revealed a genuine interest in the subject but if he was honest – one of his better traits – he wouldn't be adverse to a brief encounter either.

For some reason the only other two males in the class had dropped out in the early stages, leaving Ben the sole remaining representative of his gender. Anxious not to dominate conversation, he'd opted for a low profile. I'm a newish man after all, he'd reasoned.

A couple of female students flashed smiles. Social interaction had progressed to the friendly chat in the canteen stage; polite opinions swopped, jokes benignly smiled at. Could this week's subject: Sex in Modern Writing – Erotica or Pornography? possibly be why so many souls had turned out on a wet April night? True, romantic fiction had also got a good crowd but he'd a feeling his cynicism was well founded.

'Hi Ben,' a warm familiar voice jolted him from his reverie and a smiling young woman drew up an adjacent chair. Ben beamed backed a greeting but had no time to talk before the lecture began.

As the tutor launched into a brief preamble, read a couple of college notices, distributed a booklist, Ben stole a series of furtive glances at his immediate companion; just to practise the character sketch techniques they'd learned last term.

Nicola was her name. Quiet, but certainly not shy. Friendly, if a little guarded. A responder rather than an initiator. Green eyes, red hair, mid-twenties, around five foot four with a slim, shapely figure. Face it, he fancied her.

Her voice jolted the daydream believer back to reality. 'It's warm in here,' she whispered shrugging off her blouson jacket. The jumper beneath emphasised a slender waist and small, high breasts.

Flicking back her shoulder-length curls, suddenly aware of Ben's gaze, she smiled affectionately then rummaged in her bag for a pair of round, steel-framed spectacles: 'I'd better put these on, don't want to miss anything.' Ben was still absorbing the implications of that remark when the tutor introduced the guest speaker.

Louise Lasalle was in her early forties, extremely good looking, confident and clearly well-educated. Resembling a successful business woman rather than any stereotype of a writer she was elegantly and expensively dressed.

She began her discourse with some historical examples of erotic writing – Chaucer, Shakespeare, the Decameron, before moving on to practical tips: how to handle commissioning editors, which of the various permutations of acceptable subject matter an aspirant author might consider. The first half of the session passed both quickly and divertingly, ending with a promise from Louise to throw the forum open for questions and discussion after the break.

'There's nothing new under the sun,' said Ben to Nicola as he fetched her a coffee. Without intending to he'd reached the canteen first where, to his surprise and pleasure, she'd made a beeline across the room to join him. 'They certainly weren't short of inhibitions in the past,' she agreed, 'but it's the second half, the more contemporary stuff, I'm looking forward to, I think we'll find things get a bit more controversial.'

Her guess proved correct. Louise was explaining the increase in erotic stories for women – on sale in a high street near you – when the argument started.

With a mixture of cowardice and prudence Ben, as token male, kept his head down and his own counsel while barbed words flew about his ears.

An especially tetchy teacher named Angela Dwight took the line that such paperbacks were just another way for men to make money from women.

'As a writer and a woman,' Louise pointed out gently, 'I feel far from exploited.'

'We shouldn't be allowing them on the bookshelves,' cut in Angela, who despite her education clearly hadn't absorbed the difference between aggression and assertion, 'erotica, pornography it makes no difference, people must be protected.'

'And look what strange bedfellows you end up with,' replied Louise sagely. 'Religious fanatics, right-wing bigots, anti-abortionists, people that love to proscribe. You say you're a feminist Angela,' she continued, 'did it ever occur to you that the self-appointed moralists you seen so anxious to court are the same people that want to deny women any choices at all?'

'That's true,' said a nearby voice arid Ben turned around to see Nicola on her feet. 'I've bought and enjoyed some of these books, I don't need your protection.'

'Like Louise's spanking stories I suppose,' sneered Angela sarcastically. 'Women being beaten or bound, what a wonderful use of our new found freedom of expression.' Nicola reddened but stood her ground. However it was Louise, still calm and in authority, who answered:

'You're twisting the argument again, Angela. You just can't seem to appreciate the difference between fantasy and reality. A lot of my readers are every bit as professionally and personally powerful and successful as you. If they want to act out a submissive fantasy with a trusted partner it doesn't make then servile, subjugated or second class. Simply it's a matter of being honest about one's sexuality. By writing our own erotica we make our own choices.'

The controversy was still raging when the session finally overran.

Ben was intrigued, and not just by the debate, although it'd been instructive to see women arguing in favour of one of his favourite fantasies. He'd also gained an insight as to where Nicola was coming from, and it was somewhere he'd very much like to go. Now or never, he thought as they filed out of the building.

Nicola stood in the corridor, chatting to Louise. 'Fancy a drink?' he asked. He'd intended the question for her alone but 15 minutes later the three of them were ensconced in the saloon bar of the Swan.

'Did you enjoy reading my books?' Louise enquired innocently. Her enquiry had been directed at Nicola. 'Yes,' they unintentionally answered at the same time, then giggled self-consciously at the revelation.

'Well, my stories usually feature a good deal of CP', Louise began; 'And sex,' Nicola interrupted. 'Of course,' Louise continued with a twinkle, 'but I'm interested in means as well as ends. Tell me,' she continued, 'is your interest in spanking purely literary, or have you ever indulged?'

The two younger people exchanged glances. 'No, not yet,' replied Nicola, 'but the idea sends shivers down my spine, in the right situation with the right person, I believe I would.' Impressed by the courage of this intimate disclosure Ben decided to follow suit. Somehow it felt easier to reveal such a long-held desire to a woman: 'I'd love to have a relationship in which I could be masterful, of course we'd be equal in every other respect,' he added hastily, 'if I could just find a submissive partner.'

'If you'll forgive me flaunting my age and experience I suggest you've found each other,' replied Louise. Ben suddenly became aware that Nicola was now sitting very close to him; unprompted she held his hand.

"Let's not prevaricate,' continued Louise, smiling at this overt conformation of her intuition. 'You must both come to dinner this Saturday; perhaps we can provide food for thought as well. A personal tutorial for two special students.'

'A masterclass,' responded Ben with a grin. 'Exactly,' confirmed Louise, 'between then and now I suggest you both read some of my stories, absorb the mood, study the characters and dress for the occasion. Oh, and you might like to bring some decent wine; Italian white would be good.'

'We'll be there,' said Nicola earnestly and Ben realised that she'd made the decision for them both.

* * *

Three days later the dinner party was going marvellously. Ben felt calm and at case. He'd an anxious moment earlier in the evening when Nicola had been nearly 15 minutes late at the station. Finally she'd arrived, in no apparent rush and looking ravishing, to greet him with a far from sisterly kiss.

Louise and Phil, her partner, owned a large Victorian house in a pleasant north London suburb, decorated inside with taste, flair and an eclectic selection of art.

Ben quickly observed a difference in Louise's demeanour, noticeably more subdued than at their previous meeting. Phil cooked while she welcomed and entertained yet, despite this apparent role reversal, within these walls a man was clearly in charge.

Just as Louise's appearance belied her occupation so too did Phil's. Tall and solidly-built with a Yorkshire accent and that county's celebrated directness he turned out to be an English professor at a nearby University. Adept at getting his initially somewhat over-awed guests to talk freely he proved an informed and witty host, able, without apparent effort or command, to subtly direct the evening's events.

The meat concluded Ben noticed Louise sitting silently, hands in her lap, eyes following the flow of conversation but making no comment. An electric tension began to suffuse the atmosphere of what might otherwise have been taken for an ordinary dinner party.

'Always an enjoyable part of the proceedings,' observed Phil expansively, 'the anticipation of things to come. I gather Louise has promised you two novices some instruction in our ways,' he continued. 'Well, Saturday evenings here are set aside for Louise to account and atone for her sins and for me to dispense discipline as I see fit.

If you, Nicola, and you, Ben, would care to join us we'd be delighted to share our knowledge and experience.'

'I'm willing,' replied Nicola decisively.

'Me too,' confirmed Ben experiencing an agreeable thrill of adrenalin-fuelled expectation as he spoke the words.

'Splendid,' Phil smiled. 'Now, you'll no doubt have noticed Louise has been looking a tad apprehensive this last half hour or so; well she might. Her conduct over the last week – I won't bore you with the details – has earned her a traditional three-part punishment which I now intend to commence. If you two would be so good as to follow us through to the next room we can begin.'

The lounge was large and warm, atmospherically lit with uplighters and furnished with comfortable antiques.

'Proper punishments begin with a spanking,' Phil pronounced, 'only a bloody barbarian goes straight for a rod or switch. Build up gradually and be surprised how far you can go.'

Ignoring a suitable-looking upright wooden chair he sat instead on a well-padded sofa. Catching Ben's quizzical expression Phil explained: 'I know in the magazines the unfortunate damsel touches the floor with hands and toes but if you're intending to keep her there for more than five minutes it's hellish hard on the back.'

Taking Louise by the hand he drew her to attention beside him.

She wore an elegant wool suit, silk blouse and black high heels. 'Lift your skirt woman,' he ordered. Louise glanced around, as if only now aware of the expectant looks on the faces of her invited audience. Nervously she ran her tongue across her red lips before obeying. From just above the knee she gradually inched the material up bare legs, teasingly revealing taut thighs and buttocks until at last it bunched around her waist.


Unhurriedly, Phil turned Louise in a circle running his hands over her silky-smooth, lightly suntanned flanks. A few strands of dark hair strayed from the front of a pair of black lace-edged knickers, barely containing a full firm backside.

Every inch a sensual, sexual woman thought Ben feeling the front of his trousers tighten involuntarily. Next to him Nicola put on her glasses. On the sofa Louise now languished across Phil's lap.

Slap, slap, slap, Phil applied his right hand to the rounded, pale checks. Elbows resting on the sofa cushions, chin in her cupped hands Louise stared into the middle-distance as if entranced. Some 50 or more smacks later Phil halted and instead tugged her knickers tightly into the furrow that separated the two reddening globes. Louise jerked her hips agitatedly, the sudden switch from pain to pleasure occasioning her first audible response. Sighing contentedly she turned to observe her partner's ministrations.

'Quite sufficient a gradual warm-up,' said Phil by way of reply. 'High time you had a proper spanking.' Slap, slap, slap. Nicola sat on the upright chair, leaning forward to gazed with rapt concentration as this live CP scenario unfolded. Ben noticed her wince in sympathy as noticeably harder smacks echoed like pistol shots around the room. Her skirt had ridden up revealingly and he watched in fascination as she unconsciously clenched and unclenched her thighs.

The effect on Louise was clearly less erotic. Little yelps and moans now escaped her lips as she tried vainly to twist her body from Phil's tight, waist-encircling grip.

Another pause, Louise groaning in pleasure as Phil's hand again soothed the hot mounds and his finger explored hidden depths. Told to raise her hips she instantly obeyed allowing Phil to slip the black scanties to her knees.

Smack, smack, smack, Phil redoubled his efforts. Protesting loudly now Louise wriggled fiercely on his lap earning a dozen scalding slaps to her thighs for her trouble. 'Women who struggle must pay the price,' announced Phil steadfastly. Ben stole another glance at Nicola who remained fixated by the sight before her, one hand twirling her red hair, the other beneath her skirt.

Phil's hard hand descended six more times to conclude the first stage of his wife's ordeal. Tugged to her feet, she stood hair awry and dishevelled, in marked contrast to the manicured, self-possessed woman of 15 minutes previously.

Instinctively her hands flew to rub her burning bottom, now a uniform ruby red. 'Oh, no you don't,' Phil's directive was punctuated with a sharp slap to the front of each thigh, drawing a wail of complaint. 'Hands on head and into the corner, now.' Fettered by her tangled knickers Louise hobbled across the room to stand facing the wall her dark glistening thatch just visible to three pairs of admiring eyes.

'Your turn, I think, Ben,' said Phil mildly, returning to his seat, 'I'm sure you can find an excuse to punish that pretty young person next to you.'

Ben was equal to the moment. 'I'm not sure I need one,' he replied in an assured voice, 'there again,' he added after a piquant pause, 'I certainly do not like to be kept waiting by a date.'

Nicola's reaction to this new authoritative tone was not quite as he'd imagined. He'd expected to be treated to an expression of fey shock, contrarily she merely poked out her tongue. With one stride Ben covered the distance between them. Grasping her wrists he'd pulled the miscreant to her feet and, before she knew it, seated himself on the chair and pushed her over his lap. Drawing up her short pleated skirt with his right hand he reached with the left to deftly remove her glasses.

'Bravo old chap,' said Phil taking them from Ben while the latter surveyed his prize. Ignoring Nicola's token protestations he allowed his hands to glide over a pair of damson coloured briefs. Similar coloured suspenders were fastened to once-again fashionable tan stockings.

'Now hang on a min...' Nicola's last ditch plea for clemency died on her lips as Ben swung down his arm. Resisting the temptation to spank too hard too soon he followed Phil's example and built up the tempo slowly, working skillfully to both chastise and arouse. Painted finger nails scrabbled at the rug, painted toe nails in high strappy sandals kicked in the air.

Ten minutes later, knickers round her ankles, bare bottom an angry pink, Nicola stood next to Louise sneaking a glance over her shoulder to watch the men sip their wine in companionable, contemplative silence.

Phil's plan for the next stage of this practical introduction to the not so gentle art of CP proved ingenious. Plump cushions were placed at the two ends of a long oak dining table and the women bent over them to lie face to face. He instructed each to grasp the other's wrists before personally taking on the onerous task of removing knickers and spreading legs.

Walking over to a cupboard in the corner Phil took out two tawses which, judging from their appearance, had given sterling service over many years. He handed the lighter of the two to Ben with the words, 'I'll go first, then you follow suit.' Taking his place Ben noticed the older couple were standing in front of a full-length mirror. He watched carefully as Phil raised the burnished two-tailed leather strap to shoulder height before bringing it down across the crown of his wife's upturned hindquarters.


Louise cried out, sliding forward on the polished table top. The twin hillocks of her cheeks flattened with the impact before springing back into their former spherical shape. Ben followed suit but was disappointed to deliver a rather feeble sounding swat. Phil's turn again and a satisfying crack of leather on skin drew another shout from Louise who, were it not for Nicola's firm grasp, would no doubt have shot bolt upright.

Ben tried again but still had not mastered the technique. Nicola's cry was one of genuine anguish and, as her feet performed an agonised tap dance, he was horrified to see an angry red weal form on her right thigh. He swallowed the urge to apologise as Phil blithely advised, 'A little too far to the right, don't let the tails curl round or you miss the proper target'.

Fortunately Ben hit his stride with stroke number three, going on to deliver five crisp, blazing stripes, one after another, each accompanied by increasing cries of woe.

'Very good,' observed Phil. 'You're quite getting into the swing of things.' He ran his hands reflectively across Louise's now blotchy, blaming buttocks. 'Another four should fit the bill nicely – tell you what, let's try to synchronise them.'

It was an image Ben hoped he'd never forget: a pair of tawses concurrently swishing down to punish two already very sore bottoms whose owners, self-possession rapidly deserting them, yelled and twisted in unison, tightly grasping each other's hands for support and succour. Taking his cue from the reflection in the mirror, Ben ensured his final cuts lashed low into that supremely sensitive area where buttocks and thighs merge, forcing the recipient up onto her toes. Louise's lip trembled, her face flushed but, although breathing rapidly, she maintained her composure.

Less cushioned to resist the searing impacts by the tenth stroke Nicola's mascara was running in rivulets down each cheek, her high heels drumming on the polished parquet. She looked absolutely gorgeous, thought Ben, at once proud, vulnerable and thoroughly dominated. His erection neared critical mass as he floated on the biggest high of his life.

'Feel free to rub,' said Phil expansively as, a thorough tawsing completed, the two women stood stiffly, tentatively reaching behind to gently knead their ravished nether regions.

'And finally,' he added returning to the mysterious corner cupboard, 'the cane.' Again his choice of implement was rather heavier than Ben's. 'I suggest half a dozen for Nicky as it's her first time, but for Louise, who seems determined to be stubborn, the full dozen.

Right woman, centre of the room. You know the drill.'

Head held high, Louise did his bidding. Shedding her blouse and skirt en route she stood erect in just heels and a Wonderbra, revealing that nature had allocated equally generous curves to the upper half of her body. Taking a deep breath she gracefully bent forward to grasp her ankles, feet half a metre apart.

Phil delivered half a dozen hard, unhurried strokes spaced at roughly ten second intervals and leaving a legacy of neatly spaced parallel lines that would decorate her derriere for several days. Between each whack Louise struggled to maintain her stance but, despite the all too obvious pain searing through every nerve ending, failed to shed a tear.

'Very impressive my dear,' said Phil affectionately as she stood to once again rub the target area 'but you're the architect of your own misfortune. Bend again please, knees together, legs straight, and this time push that bottom right out.'

'The trick,' be addressed this remark to no one in particular but spoke with the voice of one uttering a universal truth, 'is to know and respect your partner's limits, but each time take them just a fraction further. Louise has demonstrated self-control, I shall now exercise complete control.'

Ben and Nicola stared speechless, this was a scenario far beyond their dreams. Chastened and humiliated, nevertheless Louise was visibly sopping wet. 'Do you accept this final chastisement?' asked Phil quietly. 'I do darling,' came the unhesitating reply.

This time the strokes fell rapidly, one after another, each criss-crossing those applied earlier. Squirming in pain Louise had tears in her eyes by the second and to Ben's amazement, was both smiling and sobbing by the sixth.

Having kept position throughout Louise straightened as if released of a burden to address the remaining participants: 'If you'll forgive us we've some pressing business in the bedroom...' she paused wincing as she massaged the corrugated globes, 'please take your own time to finish and make full use of the facilities.' Another pause, Phil strong and silent stood behind gently cupping her breasts in his large hands.

'I'm pleased to confirm you've both excelled at this first lesson,' he added with mock severity, 'next month we're holding an advanced class, I look forward to your attendance.'

Their hosts departed. Nicola walked gingerly over to Phil, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him long and hard, moulding her body to his as she did so.

'Just you wait your turn,' responded Ben firmly, as he led her unprotesting to the well-upholstered arm of the sofa. Off came the pleated skirt, the T-shirt followed. Two diminutive but prominent breasts, each nipple erect, were proffered. 'Not yet,' said Ben his voice barely a whisper but suddenly possessed by a confidence and authority he'd only previously imagined.

Having bent Nicola face down over the sofa's broad cushioned arm, legs straight and slightly apart, he stopped for a moment to survey his handiwork. Her glorious pert little bottom positively radiated heat. Angry red stripes embroidered the centre and a livid crimson hue gradually faded as it spread to her flanks and thighs.

Ben left a long interval between each of the subsequent six strokes of the cane, allowing the full stinging effect to warm its way towards the glistening treasure awaiting him in the valley below. Her beautiful, bare, blush-red arse bore marks that would stay for several days, yet he'd not thrashed her hard. There'd been no need.

And she knew. 'Now you've beaten me, what's next?' she enquired rhetorically, replacing the proffered spectacles. A visible tremor of desire ran through her lithe body. 'Please Ben. I need you, inside me, now.' By way of reply he loosened his belt and grasped her hips.

One step to heaven. Once more Nicola bent forward then once again went up onto her toes, the heat from her beaten bottom firing her loins and suffusing his as her new lover thrust deep and hard inside her.

Three months later, Nicola's first erotic novel was published to wide critical acclaim, even gaining plaudits from mainstream book reviewers. It was dedicated to: 'My two oldest friends, Louise and Phil, and my new mentor, Ben.'