The Denver train pulled in with a screech of iron on iron that jangled the nerves of every cowpoke in town and might have even roused one or two of the residents on Boot Hill. Then with a judder and a hiss it came to a full stop in a great cloud of steam.

In the old days people used to come for miles to greet the train, but that was back in the 70s after the War Between the States; these days few people paid it any mind.

Rachel Bedford had been just a girl back then, not that she would have been allowed to run with the other kids. Her parents thought that such behaviour was too undignified for a daughter of theirs. Well she didn’t feel so dignified now and not so very much older, she had come to realise.

At 25 she had come home, to whatever was left of it anyway. The porter dropped her trunk onto the rough wooden platform and extended his hand for a tip. After a glance at the trunk, perhaps her only worldly goods now, Rachel forced a smile and gave him one of the last coins in her purse and stepped onto the station.

“Oh my God,” someone cursed, “She’s back.”

Rachel cringed. She had entertained a fantasy that she could re-enter the town unnoticed, but the town was too small for that. Two women threw her a look of scorn and whispers passed between them as the hurried away as if from the devil.

“Rachel Bedford is back,” someone behind her took up the cry of the first voice and soon loud-hushed voices and the clatter of chatter, serenaded her as she considered what to do next.

“Best leave that there Mrs Bedford,” a kindly voice said. It was old Mr Martin the station keeper. “Leastways until you know what you want done with it. I’ll send it along.”

She nodded uncomfortably, especially at the implication that she might not be welcome at the ranch. She heaved a sigh that threatened to become a sob, which she hastily supressed.

“Your husband is over at the saloon,” Martin said casually. Then he added quickly, “The Luck Strike, I mean.”

The Lucy Strike was the most respectable of the towns two bars; the other was for ranch hands, single men and widowers. Was the comment meant to be significant? What if it was? Rachel nodded and forced another nervous smile.

“I guess that’s where I’m heading then,” she said in a quiet voice to no one in particular.

*

Over at the Lucky Strike word reached John Bedford without anyone daring to approach him. The news had spread like a prairie fire and the streets were buzzing with it. One or two men at tables near him offered up pitying looks, but most just wore polite masks of curiosity.

I should never have married a woman more than half my age. The thought was a familiar one by now, an old friend he greeted every day.

“What are you going to do Mr Bedford?” The barkeep looked anxious.

“I’ll have another beer,” John drawled without looking up.

Behind him the swing doors clacked and he didn’t need to look to know who it was.

“Hello John,” Rachel said.

The hum around the Lucky Strike that had begun not five minutes before suddenly died and a man could have heard an ant going home for supper.

“You done gallivanting with slick city boys?” John said without looking up from his beer.

“It was only one John… I thought… I thought I loved him, but he… oh John, will you take me back?” Rachel wailed.

“You made a fool of me in front of the whole town,” John savours his beer, his expression sour.

“I… no I…,” Rachel heaves a huge sigh and then she breathed a single word, “Yes.”

“And you expect me to take you back?” John turned to regard his wayward wife as if seeing her for the first time.

“I guess not,” Rachel whispers, her head dropping.

“You even got the train fare out of town?” John asks, a hint of concern touching his voice.

For a moment Rachel dares to hope that he still cared and risked a glance at him, but there is nothing in his eyes to support this. Crushed, she shakes her head.

“There is always work for the likes at you over at the Silver Garter,” someone catcalled.

John draws himself up to his full and not inconsiderable height and glared in the general direction of the unseen heckler.

“What the hell has it got to do with you, any of you?” John lets his bitterness show for the first time since Rachel left him three months before.

“There right though aren’t they John?” Rachel says sadly, “I ain’t anything but a whore.”

“You watch your mouth,” John growls at her, “Afore I tan your hind-end. Come to think of it, that’s what I should have done in the first place.”

John looked away at his reflection in the mirror and took another swig of beer. Who could blame her for wanting a younger man, he thought. The man staring back looked old. Not that many would think so. There wasn’t one man in town that would cross him, not even the sheriff.

“You still could,” Rachel said softly.

“I still could what?” John rounded on her.

“Give me a licking like my Pa used to,” Rachel blushed to say it with so many to hear. “He even suggested it when we got married if you recall?”

John snorted and took another beer and then added, “I do. A wise man your Pa.”

Rachel offered him a sad smile and forgetting his anger for a moment, John laughed.

“If you take me back I’ll mind you like Pa said I was to and take a licking for what I did.” Rachel was blushing furiously, but some things needed to be said.

“If I gave you a licking for what you did, it would take until Christmas and you wouldn’t sit down ‘til the following Easter.”

“I guess not, but I guess if I had it coming,” Rachel said ruefully. “You could always hand it out on an instalment basis like that time you bought the piano from Sears.”

It was a weak joke. They had once argued about her buying fancy goods on tick.

“I’ve half a mind to do it too,” John growled.

“Then you’d take me back?”

There was a deadly hush in the room and one or two of the ladies who had crowded around the saloon door waited with arrested breath.

“You done with gallivanting, fancy talk and your spoilt ways?” John turned to face his wife now, drinking her in and hardly daring to believe that he could have her back.

“The first I can swear to. As to the other two, well I can’t rightly say that I ever meant either so it would be up to you to teach me,” Rachel said boldly.

“You said you’d take a licking?” John asked pointedly.

“Yes,” Rachel gasped, but her eyes were wide and if she had a right to, she would have prayed to God and all the angels not to have the conversation in the middle of the Luck Strike.

“Then call it what it is, I ain’t no wife beater,” John said sternly.

“John? I’m not sure…”

“A licking you said, but what your Ma and Pa call it even when we were courting?”

“I was barely 18…” Rachel gulped and really did wish a host of heaven would carry her away.

“What did they call it? What did they do right up until the day we wed?”

“A spanking, they spanked… and sometimes…”

“How exactly?” John pressed her.

Rachel was puce now and her eyes scanned the room and saw about a hundred eager pairs of eyes witnessing her shame.

“I guess you ain’t changed,” John rasped, turning back to his beer.

“They spanked my bare bottom,” Rachel said hastily, “And if I was real bad then either Pa took a strop to me or Ma would send me out back to cut a switch.”

John nodded with satisfaction and drank the rest of his beer in one go.

“And that’s what I’m gonna do,” John drawled and turned to fix Rachel with a long hard stare.

“Yes John,” Rachel said, blushing.

“Now you get over to the hardware store and buy yourself a spanking brush. A hairbrush will do, as long as you tell the storekeeper that it’s for the other end. And I do mean tell him in a nice clear voice. If he ain’t got one, then get a bath-scrubber or one of those fancy brushes for sweeping down your Sunday best.” John let a smile flicker on his otherwise straight line of a mouth. “I got a room over at the hotel. Meet me there.”

“Yes John,” Rachel said, ducking her head and hurrying away.

As soon as she reached the swing doors to the saloon the crowd began to laugh and the hubbub quickly rattled round town that Rachel Bedford was going to get a spanking.

*

Rachel kept her head down as she crossed the street to the store. With any luck the store would be quiet and she could make a discreet purchase. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the hem of her skirts where she held them an inch or two from the ground. She hoped the grey dress and the matching bonnet made her look like a sober woman, but it was a fool’s dream for a woman whose reputation was already shot. Even from the restricted view of her dipped headwear, which did nothing at all to hide the sunset red of her face, she could see people staring and pointing at her. Her only hope now was that the whole town hadn’t heard about her conversation with John.

“Did you hear?” It was an eager young voice, too shrill to pin on an exact age or gender, “Mrs Bedford is going to get a spanking.”

“Ooh.” The despairing wail escaped Rachel’s lips before her dignity could call it back.

The outburst was met with peels of general laughter and Rachel hurried on until her feet were hard upon the sidewalk outside the store, there she paused.

“Ain’t you gonna go in?” It was another eager voice.

“Oh go to blazes,” she said angrily to more laughter.

Any hopes that the store would be empty were dashed by the small crowd of onlookers who followed her in.

“Mrs Bedford, how nice to see you again,” the storekeeper Harris grinned, “Did you have a good… yes well, nice to see you home. A brush you wanted, I believe.”

Rachel glared at him but couldn’t hold her gaze and retreated back under her bonnet with a spreading blush.

“I have the latest thing from England, a Mason Pearson hairbrush, or would you prefer a good old American standard model,” Harris gushed, “Very sturdy.”

“Then you know what it is for?” Rachel whispered.

“What’s that?” Harris leaned forward.

“You know why I want a brush?” She tried again only a bee’s breath louder.

“I’m sorry Mrs Bedford, there does seem to be a lot of people in here today,” Harris said craning his neck with one hand forming a trumpet to his ear.

“She wants to know if you know that it is for a spanking, if you follow me,” one of the gathered matrons said in a loud disapproving voice.

The sudden onrush of laughter that greeted this caused Harris to start and pull a face.

“You mean it’s not for the head, but is to be applied to the other… eh end, so to speak,” Harris said uncomfortably, “Eh yes, I had heard something to that affect.”

Rachel nodded, unable to speak. She hoped that this humiliation would satisfying John’s instructions.

“The Mason Pearson’s the best choice for that, but a trifle more. Otherwise you would be better off with the long-handled bath brush here, but that might be… well I don’t have a small one ma’am, if you understand me.”

Rachel fumbled for some coins; the Mason Pearson was far beyond what she could pay. She eyed the fearsome bath brush with horror and quailed.

“Mrs Bedford is a lady,” Mrs Bailey, the parson’s wife put in. She had been the only customer in the store before the hoard had descended, although even she had already heard about the conversation in the saloon. “I am sure you can put the hairbrush on Mr Bedford’s account.”

Seeking agreement from Rachel with his eyes, Harris beamed at having made such an extravagant sale.

“Surely,” he said happily.

Rachel hid her embarrassment behind her bonnet as Harris wrapped the brush in brown paper and then made an excruciating departure from the press behind her.

“Make way there, you vultures,” the preacher’s wife chided.

The hotel lobby was little better as far as Rachel was concerned. It seemed that today, everybody in town had business there.

“Mrs Bedford, how nice to see you,” the clerk grinned. “Mr Bedford is already in his room, he is expecting you.”

Rachel stared back at him blankly, too embarrassed to speak.

“Room number six, second right at the top of the stares.” The clerk hid a smirk by running his tongue inside his cheek.

Rachel nodded in acknowledgement and all but ran up the stairs.

*

For a moment Rachel had visions of her fancy eastern school and seeing her old head mistress. She remembered long minutes standing outside a door waiting to be admitted. Mercifully the hotel room door was ajar and she could see John standing at the window smoking a cigar.

Smoothing her dress she took a deep breath and then went in.

“John I…” Rachel paused at the sight of the old razor strop laid out on the bed. It had been her father’s, given to John in half-jest when they first married.

“You got what I sent you for?” John said, chewing on the end of his cigar.

Rachel nodded, her eyes locked onto the strop. Then seeing her husband had turned to look, she added, “Yes Sir.”

The ‘Sir’ came naturally, as it had when addressing her father at such times.

“Make your mind up to it, I intend to pay you out thoroughly,” John said rather pompously.

She took comfort from his tone. He sounded more like the old John. The man she loved even before she her foolish flight, if she had but known it.

“Yes Sir,” Rachel said as she stood up straight. Then she quietly added, “I love you John. I didn’t know it until I ran off, but… do you forgive me?”

John looked back over his shoulder and studied her hard. Then he gave her a curt nod and murmured, “I will in good time.”

Rachel pursed her lips and nodded. It was more than she had expected; certainly more than she deserved. Then she watched as her husband stubbed out his cigar in the tray provided and began to remove his jacket.

Her heart heaved in anticipation and she suddenly felt as if she had too many arms and legs until it was all she could do not shuffle her feet and clutch at herself.

John held out his hand for the brush, regarding her with hard steel-blue eyes.

“I put it on your account,” she said, her voice catching in her suddenly dry throat. “It’s from England they tell me.”

John nodded and took it from her and unwrapped it. He held her gaze for a moment longer to accept her silent consent, then pulled an armless chair from the corner and placed it in the centre of the room. satisfied with its position, he slowly and deliberately sat down.

Rachel worked her mouth to counter the dryness and clamped her hands to her thighs.

“You remember how this is done?” John was stalling a little. He was determined to save his face, but also, he was reluctant to begin.

Rachel nodded. Her mother had always made her strip to her shift, even if father was to do the honours. Then she would have to wait. Her eyes strayed to the corner and then back at John.

He inclined his head. He had forgotten that part, but it would serve her well. Then he watched as she undressed. Revelling strangely in having his wife mind him without question for once and suddenly excited to see his wife, so long absent, unveiling herself before his eyes.

She wore a short shift, he noticed, one of the cheaper kinds. No doubt she had struggled financially for some time before coming home. Under the circumstances he appreciated this. Not only because it suggested that she had been alone soon after leaving. Also the brief garment she had been forced to procure, hid little of her legs and he even fancied he could see a suggestion of her womanhood at the hem where her thighs met.

Rachel blushed under her husband’s gaze and moved her hands to cover herself, but then removed them again. He was only looking on what was his after all.

Then John shook himself and frowned, then shot a sharp look at the corner. He saw that Rachel swallowed in response and turned to obey, the hem of her linen swirling around to reveal a hint of exposed bottom before it settled again. He allowed a small gasp and something tightened in the pit of his stomach even as something else shifted in his pants. He had forgotten how beautiful she was.

She looked meek and a little foolish facing the wall like a young’un and John noted with satisfaction the way the linen of her shift clung to her behind and nestled in the cleft of her buttocks.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” John asked as he remembered.

Rachel sucked in her cheeks and shot an accusing look back over her shoulder, but she had no grounds for complaint and she knew it. So after a pause, she reluctantly lifted her arms and placed them on her head.

At 18, she had worn her shifts long, but the one she was now wearing was a very different beast. So as her arms lifted, so did her hemline and the veil covering her bottom was raised exposing it to his gaze.

John shifted in his chair and had to loosen his collar. Her bottom was as smooth as one of the three graces and white was the snow caps on the Colorado Mountains. Taught and well-defined, her buttocks were set hard on one another, the curve of each a perfect complement for that of her hips.

“H-how long must I…?” Rachel said meekly.

“Hush,” John barked gently like a faithful hound at pups, “You’ll wait on me until I say. Besides, I need another drink first.”

With that he rang a small bell next to his chair to summon some room service.

“John, you wouldn’t,” Rachel squealed.

“That and a lot more before I am through,” he drawled, “Like I said, make your mind up to it.”

“Oh John,” Rachel whimpered, but she didn’t move from position.

*

Time stood on its end and every sound set the hairs on her neck to attention. Then suddenly, despite it being expected, the knock at the door made her jump.

“You wanted something Sir?” The voice from beyond the door was solicitous, but Hollister, the hotel manager, didn’t enter the room.

Rachel remembered him from her wedding; he was one of the town’s great and the good. She couldn’t bear for him to see her so humbled.

“I want a good whiskey, scotch if you have it, and some water for my wife. She might need it later.” John cast an eye of Rachel’s as yet unmarked bottom.

“Right away sir,” Hollister called out.

Maybe John’s request was anticipated, but even to Rachel the follow up knock came too soon.

“Come in,” John yelled after a pause, as if he were considering something.

Rachel cringed and willed herself into the point where the two walls met in front of her nose. She didn’t know if it were Hollister or the maid who entered, but one was nearly as bad as the other given her current position. Whoever it was put down a tray and something was poured into a glass. The only other sounds were the intruder’s breathing and her own heartbeat. Then whoever it was left.

For a long minute Rachel prayed that she hadn’t been noticed, but a chorus of whispers in the hallway beyond the door and one loud voice gleefully calling out, “He’s put in the corner,” put paid to that hope.

Rachel stifled a sob and a single tear rolled down one cheek.

“Perhaps that was cruel of me,” John said hesitantly as if in regret. “But…”

“It’s alright John, I am quite sure I deserve it,” Rachel said, suddenly feeling a little better.

For some reason she was put in mind of the odd satisfaction she got from prodding a sore tooth with her tongue.

“Let’s make a start. I want to be back at the ranch by nightfall.” John’s words broke into her corner-sized world and she was nervous again.

“Come here Rachel,” John said calmly.

Rachel took a deep breath and turned to face him. In the afternoon light that was breaking through the window he looked like a hero from the cover of a dime novel. His chiselled features at one and the same time reminding her of her father and the distinguished man she married; the old John. The one she had respected before the smooth-talking, poetry-spouting travelling salesman who had lured her away.

Tom, she thought bitterly. His easy smile now twisted into that of a crocodile in her mind. I wonder where he is now, she thought idly. But she truly didn’t care.

“Rachel stop dawdling and come here,” John growled.

Rachel sighed and crossed the room.

For a moment they were as strangers and he took her shoulders and turned her about and back again like a youth taking his first kiss. Then like that first kiss, it came to him naturally and she went from upright to tumbled longwise across his lap.

Rachel gasped, her mouth open in surprise, overwhelmed by the pressure of his thighs under his. She could feel his hand at a wisp of her shift and her head whipped around as he turned up the linen to again expose her bottom. Then catching sight of the lude way that her behind jutted up, she looked away again as one might avoid watching the needle find its mark at a physician’s.

John felt his throat go tight and wished he had adjusted his pants better before putting her across his knee. Her bottom was exquisite from this angle and it was like he had never really seen it before. John Bedford you are a fool to let things get so far, he chided himself. Then knowing the die was cast he reached for the hairbrush she had brought from where he had left it on the occasional table that held his whiskey glass.

Rachel felt him lean forward and was pleasantly crushed by his belly pressed into the small of her back. Then before she misconstrued his sudden hug, she heard the scrape of wood on wood and knew that he had merely reached for the Mason Pearson hairbrush.

“John I’m… I’m so sorry,” Rachel said almost wistfully.

“Uh-huh,” he said with a ‘we-will-see’ tone to his voice.

The flat of the brush landed with pistol-shot crack across both crowns of her bottom and despite herself, she squealed. Then seeing a red patch of tight little goosebumps develop there, John placed two more swats either side of the first impact, spreading the stain to encompass a healthy area of her upper curves.

Rachel took the second two swats with gritted teeth, conscious as she was of those beyond the door and in the street just below. However, the snap-crack of the impacts could be heard clearly outside so that every one of the townsfolk within hearing had a picture in their mind of Rachel Bedford’s spanking.

“Lordy, I bet she won’t sit down for a month,” someone in the crowd below said in a stage whisper that Rachel could hear all the way up in the room.

John well-knew that the eyes and ears of the town were on him and he had one chance to redeem some honour for himself and his wife. He resolved to give Rachel a spanking that their grandchildren would talk about long after he passed. So warming to his task he set about laying on biting swats that first reddened Rachel’s whole behind and then turned it burgundy from the upper curves to the underside where she sat.

So far for the townsfolk outside, the spanking was only significant as another chapter in the Bedford scandal. The women were for the most part secretly routing for a love reunited. Just as the men nodded sagely in John’s favour and for a man wronged who so easily could have been one of them.

As to the spanking itself, it was no worse than any they had imparted to their wives and daughters on any day of the week and by five minutes in, one or two shook their heads with a chuckle and went about their business.

From Rachel’s end of things it was much harder to be so sanguine. By now her bottom was on fire and any hope of taking her spanking in silence was dashed by an onrush of strained yelps quickly followed by open sobbing.

To John’s immense satisfaction, Rachel clung to him tightly, hugging into his knees and bawling out her contrition. Even the state of her bare bottom did not move him as it might once have done. The heavy swollen red that now defined her behind was temporarily rendered leather-like and here and there it was dashed with white stress marks.

In fact his decision to pause the proceedings was not the soreness of her bottom, but the fact that she no longer appeared to feel it as much.

“Get back to that corner young lady,” he growled, so far satisfied with how it was going and her humble submission.

“Yes Sir,” she wept.

It wasn’t easy getting off John’s lap and he had to help her. Rachel pulled a face as she grasped her bottom with both hands and stood there panting for a moment with her lower lip clamped in her teeth. But it took just one cross look from John and she turned around to face the corner. She cradled her bottom with her hands and took stiff-legged steps to the other side of the room to again put her hands on her head.

“I’ll save the strop for when we get home. That behind could stand a heap of grease before I tan it again, although I could always send you to cut a switch,” John mused aloud as he stared at his wife’s punished hindquarters.

“Yes John,” Rachel said miserably.

A knock at the door broke into his thoughts.

“Who is it?”

“Mrs Bailey, you know the preacher’s wife,” Mrs Bailey called back.

“Come in Mrs Bailey,” John said wearily.

Mrs Bailey was a plain woman, but despite her sober clothes she was barely 30. She had stood about as close to the Bedford’s as any in town and had seen the slow turns and tumbles of their marriage. She had some sympathy for Rachel but was unmoved by the bare-bottomed sinner in the corner and instead turned her attention to John.

“You’ve had a hard time of it,” she said sympathetically.

“I expect they are all out there having a good laugh at my expense,” John said bitterly.

“They were, but I reckon you showed them,” Mrs Bailey threw back. “And what about you young lady, Have you learned your lesson?”

“Yes ma’am,” Rachel said ruefully.

“Well if you say so,” Mrs Bailey snorted. “But I have had sorer behinds from my man for back-chat and pouring coffee on his hard-worked out sermon.”

Rachel blushed and not just at the idea of the preacher’s wife getting a spanking. If it hadn’t been for the humiliation, Rachel would have agreed she got off lightly. But she supposed the shame she was feeling was nothing to what she had put John through.

“I’ll take a strop to her in a day or two, but she’s kind of bruised now I think,” John said defensively, but he really wished the woman would leave. Suddenly he wasn’t surprised the preacher had cause to spank her. “I was gonna send her to cut a switch, but I guess she’s had enough.”

“No John, I deserve it.” Rachel blurted.

John narrowed his eyes and looked to Mrs Bailey for a reaction.

“It could do the girl no harm and I think for both your sakes, the town needs to know you have the upper hand. The spanking so far has played out like a comedy if you want to know the truth.” Mrs Bailey crossed her arms in a righteous stance.

John nodded agreement and stooped to pick up his wife’s dress from the bed. “I had better let her get dressed.”

Mrs Bailey extended a restraining arm and said, “She’s dressed just fine as she is under the circumstances.”

“Well if you think propriety will allow…” John said uncertainly.

“Rachel, turn around and look your husband in the eye and tell him you don’t deserve this,” Mrs Bailey scolded.

“Yes ma’am, I mean no ma’am… I mean, I can’t.”

Mrs Bailey held John’s eyes for a moment until he gave a nod of consent.

*

Stepping out of the hotel room dressed only in a shift that fell to cover a little more than an inch of thigh was the hardest thing Rachel had ever done. From the look on her husband’s face she could tell that one word of protest might have seen her spared such an indignity, but that alone was incentive enough to submit.

For decorum’s sake, Mrs Bailey escorted Rachel out of the hotel by a side door, for all the good it did her. Within minutes word had spread around town that a thoroughly spanked Mrs Bedford was being marched to the church for her contrition.

The church was close to the hotel and it had the only yard in town big enough to support the kind of trees and shrubs that suited their purpose. In one corner stood an apple tree and once the two women reached it, Mrs Bailey handed her temporary charge a pocket knife.

“She’s gonna cut a switch, oh my,” one of the Thompson’s unmarried daughter’s voice carried news of the sentence and made it real.

With tears pricking at her eyes Rachel hesitated, but then she remembered her husband’s pain and the undertaking she had accepted. So after a deep breath, she reached up and began cutting at a length of branch.

Rachel knew at once that raising her arms would lift the short shift off her bare bottom and display the evidence of her spanking to half the town. Strangely she took an odd pride that she had been so humbled, despite the burning shame that coloured her face fit to rival her other end.

However, one gasp of horror from Mrs Bailey, told Rachel that her stark exposure had been an unforeseen consequence and had Rachel not been so mortified she would have found the preacher’s wife’s reaction almost funny.

“Mercy me, let’s get you back inside at once,” Mrs Bailey blustered.

The apple switch now cut, Rachel was only too glad to comply.

“Rachel Bedford’s going to get a switching,” someone muttered in awe.

She certainly is, Rachel thought ruefully, and don’t you all just love it?

Back in the room Rachel handed John the switch and then went back to the corner without being told. As her red bottom came back into view on account of her putting her hands atop of her head Mrs Bailey began to feel out of her depth.

“I’ll… eh, leave you… eh, to it,” she blustered and beat a hasty retreat.

“Goodbye Mrs Bailey and thank you,” John called after her, but she had gone.

“I swear that woman acts before she thinks,” John chuckled.

Rachel managed a smile of her own.

“How did we get here,” John sighed.

“It’s all my fault,” Rachel replied sadly.

“I doubt that,” John countered and sliced the switch he had been given through the air.

“We could always dispense with the next part and just go home,” he suggested.

“And have the town think you’d gone soft,” Rachel chided him, “Besides, the worst is over now.”

“You think?” John’s voice carried an edge.

Rachel remembered the strop and John’s promise to use it at home. Sitting down would be a luxury for weeks to come, she reckoned.

“Put yourself across the bed then and let’s see if you can cut a switch worth a damn.”

Rachel remembered that in her youth, her mother would send back out with a well welted hiney on display for a fresh switch if she didn’t like the first one. It hadn’t even occurred to her to stint this time.

The memory of it served to distract as she stooped in position, only to be torn back to the present by a fierce line of fire across both bottom cheeks.

“Yeech,” Rachel squealed.

John struck again with much the same response from his wife.

In fact in the next five minutes, no amount of determination on Rachel’s part could keep her silent and as biting ridge of pain was added to biting ridge of pain, she began to twist and claw on the bed as she howled.

John watched the purple worms of flesh grow on Rachel’s bottom in fascination and took satisfaction in knowing that now the town knew he was back in charge of his wife.

“Oh John,” Rachel wailed between yelps, her bottom feeling as if it had become one fiery graze.

Finally as Rachel lay sobbing, John cast the switch aside and dropped on the bed beside her.

“Hold me,” she wept.

John pulled her to him and crushed her into his chest.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” she sobbed.

“I know,” he whispered, tears welling up in his own eyes.

“I love you, I…” Her tears were a cascade now.

“Shush,” he said kissing her, “I never stopped loving you.”

“Oh John,” she groaned, the rest of her words ended by his mouth on hers.

*

The sun was low in the sky and the shadows from the store and other buildings opposite the hotel had almost crossed the street. Everything was bathed in a warm red glow that set every shiny surface to a clean copper colour and echoed the stain that touched Rachel’s cheeks; both upper and lower.

Someone had brought a buggy around to the front of the hotel and while John paid the bill, Rachel was left alone on the sidewalk contemplating the hard leather seat for the ride home.

At least the crowd had dispersed now, but Rachel knew that curious diehards were spying on her from the shadows, noting every wince and marking her awkward gait with amusement. It seemed to her that everyone who passed snatched a glance at her bustle area before hurrying on.

Oh my aching derrière, she thought as she resisted the temptation to rub it out there on the street. But her woeful face and every undignified pigeon step she took announced to the world ‘there goes a thoroughly spanked girl.’

Then John stopped onto the sidewalk from the hotel with a spring to his step and a stogie hanging from his mouth and Rachel smiled.

“Come on Mrs Bedford, let’s go home,” he said brightly.

“Mr Bedford, I would be glad to, only…” her eyes darted to the hard buggy seat.

“Never fear, I have a solution,” John chuckled.

“I don’t think a pillow will suffice,” Rachel said in a hushed embarrassed voice, anticipating what he would say.

He laughed and took a drag of his cigar.

“I fear you are right,” he said with a wink. “But I had something else in mind.”

Five minutes later the buggy pulled away with a thoroughly mortified Rachel kneeling on the seat next to her husband and facing backwards with her recently spanked behind jutting forward.

“Oh I’ll never live this down,” she wailed.

But through it all she felt as warm as the afternoon sun inside and could not help offering an embarrassed smile to everyone they passed as they rolled out of town.

It was facing backwards that afforded Rachel a view back at the town she thought she had left behind forever, she could clearly see the yellow wooden sign at the town limits burning gold in the rays of the setting sun and the town’s name in clear, clean letters, ‘Atonement.’

The end.

Due to a small technical error Wishes will be concluded next week. Meanwhile here is a quick two-parter that will be concluded tomorrow. Be warned it is both intense and severe.

*

Perhaps you have never heard of the position of a lady’s companion. These days it is an increasingly rare post and one that might even be considered hedonistic in these dark days of the 20^th century. But in my youth during the dying days of the last century, it was a common profession for a young lady of breeding who had no money of her own. It was especially attractive for one who disdained the authority of serving a great family as a governess.

In short, a ladies companion was a paid friend and professional chaperon to a gentile woman of means who wanted to see something of the world and who wished to travel without the protection of a man.

It was the spring of 1890; I was 24 and very much also wanted to see the world and I could think of no way better than to take such a position.

My employer was a certain Eugenia De Verne, who was at that time only 30-years-old and an entirely different breed of woman. She was considered something of a rebel and a blue stocking and although beautiful, was not at all the type of young woman that a respectable mother would wish to see married to their son.

She had been educated at a number of England’s finest educational establishments, although as far as I could tell, had parted on bad terms with most of them. Indeed the only establishment of this kind that she ever had a good word for was the Caulfield Academy for Young Ladies, a finishing school for women aged 18-22 years of age.

“I was a wild young woman, but Caulfield soon thrashed it out of me. I think in many ways, those four years were the making of me,” she said at our very first meeting.

I was intrigued from the first. Especially when she added in earnest cheerfulness, “If you were but three or four years younger I would commend you to my old alma mater, for I am sincere in the belief that it would be the making of you too. However, since you are perhaps too old for that now, rest assured that I have not forgotten their methods and if you take up my offer to become my companion then you shall come to know them too.”

I was thrilled, although I must confess, somewhat apprehensive, but the prospect of a dark Brontesque adventure was very much to my taste in those days.

My name is Amy Abercrombie and this is my story.

*

It is hard to know where to begin for I have written much in more conventional journals about my tales of empire and the travelling days of my youth. Yet if I were to dwell upon each and every curious encounter, I fear you may become bored. But one must begin somewhere, so my first spanking is, I suppose, as good a place as any.

Three weeks after I had taken up the position as Lady’s Companion I was charged with organising the luggage for a simple trip to Paris. I can’t say that it was a particularly tiresome or challenging job, but nonetheless, I failed at it.

I had not taken care to ask how many cases I had taken charge of, so when the cab driver left one small valise on the pavement at the collection point, neither he nor I missed the item.

“This won’t do Amy, you know that it won’t,” Eugenia told me angrily.

I had to agree, although I was too upset and flustered to say anything. For one thing she did not rage and I was intimidated by her calm easy manner. Also, she was a passionate beautiful woman with a great presence and a head taller than I. I can see her polished brown eyes now, flashing at me.

“You do know that now I have to spank you,” she informed me.

I blushed and thought how grateful I was that she did not shout the words so that the maid or another might overhear, although I was to learn that embarrassing exposure of punishments was very much part of her method.

We were staying in a small suite of rooms at a private hotel awaiting passage to France, so I was very much concerned with being overheard.

“Turn about girl and lean upon the occasional table there,” she ordered me.

No sooner had I done so when she set about my clothing, turning up my skirts and petticoats to my waist. I stood in open-mouthed embarrassment at the exposure, although I have to admit that I was curiously excited at this intimate treatment at the hands of a woman who was as yet a stranger to me.

I quickly realised that she was pinning the hem of my skirts into the small of my back so that my bloomers were exposed behind as if between two curtains. Then even as I struggled to be reconciled to this, she tugged at the drawstring at my waist and pulled my under things quite down to expose my big bottom to her gaze. I was mortified.

“Now for this operation I require a hairbrush, so go and fetch the large flat backed one from my room,” she said in a business-like manner and then added the warning, “The one with the long handle mind.”

I felt so awkward and embarrassed being sent on such an errand with my bottom all bare behind and I prayed that the maid did not come by to turn down the bed or some such.

Although the chore did not take too long, at the same time it seemed to take forever. However, the result was the same and I could scarce meet Eugenia’s gaze as I handed her the requested brush.

I went unresisting across her lap as she sat in an armless chair and then my face scorching to my ears I wriggled as she adjusted me so that my exposed bottom was uppermost.

“I expect you think yourself too big for such a punishment, I know I did when first so handled aged 18,” Eugenia scolded, “But make up your mind to it, I am about to give you a sound spanking upon your bare bottom and any expression of will on your part that does not support contrition will earn you a further punishment. Do you understand?”

“Yes Ma’am,” I whispered, wishing she would get it over with. A wish soon granted and regretted.

The first spank struck with a heavy sting and sounded like a pistol shot. I might have lamented that sound and feared for my exposure, but the bite of it was so great that I very quickly lost the ability for such coherent thought. Certainly as the spanking continued I was quickly reduced to a bawling mess and kicked up heels so much that Eugenia had cause to scold me further.

I know not how long that first spanking lasted but I was warm and then quite hot at both ends long before the spanking ceased.

Then finally it was over and I was sent to the corner for further shaming and a good cry.

I had previously read about such things and had thrilled at tales of dark punishments, but nothing had prepared me for the gamut of emotions that assailed me then. Firstly, even some minutes after the spanking had ceased, the pain was worse than I had imagined. But instead of anger or resentment, I felt a heady mix of regret, excitement and embarrassment, all vying for dominance. It was a strange thing to feel comfort even as my bottom throbbed with stinging pain so as to cause tears.

Also, though it was puzzling to me then, the heat at my head from shame so carefully matched in my hindquarters was not the only bodily pairing. For just as my face was wet with tears, I experienced a queer sort of wetness in the same general area as my behind, although, and here I blush, a little more deeply centred.

“Now young lady you will stand there for an hour or more while I contemplate your cherry tail and consider if I should not spank you again,” Eugenia scolded.

“Yes Ma’am,” I wailed with fresh sprouting tears.

I could have blushed for the Empire.

That first spanking was to set the pattern of our relationship and I was to be spanked twice more in the fortnight that followed; once on the boat some three days later and once again in our hotel in Paris. On the latter occasion I was set in the corner with a penny under my nose and left there while Eugenia went out and took tea. My thumbs having been secured behind my back with a ribbon and it was explained that I should be soundly punished again if the coin should find its way onto the floor in her absence.

So it was in a strange and meditative state that I spent the afternoon in the corner like and errant youngster. I knew then that a new door on my life had opened and Eugenia held the key.

*

The first time Eugenia showed me the cane I was afraid. I begged her frantically to punish me another way, but she said that if she acquiesced, then she would be failing in her duty.

We had been staying in a house just outside Paris and I had been rather amiss at dinner and had taken too much wine. Our hosts, friends of Eugenia, were amused, but she was not. The next day she told me remove my clothing so that my legs and bottom were bare and that she was to cane me. That is when I had pleaded with her for another chance.

To sooth me I think, she told me of her first punishment aged 18 at Caulfield.

“I had been mean to another girl and had made a cutting remark. I was rather arrogant in those days,” she explained. “So much so that a prefect, a girl not two years older than me intervened and told me to apologise. Of course I would not.”

I was agog and for a moment I had forgotten my own imminent chastisement.

“’In that case,’ the prefect told me,” Eugenia said continuing to her story, “I have no choice but to spank you and spank you hard. It seems she wanted to take me to her study where she would bare bottom for a lengthy application of her slipper. I was aghast and believed there was no way I could submit to such a thing.”

Needless to say as Eugenia related her story I was thrilled.

“Instead I took the matter to our headmistress, Miss January. I thought I would get a sympathetic hearing and so blurted out the whole affair to her patient ears,” Eugenia had smiled as she remembered. “Of course, she was less than amused by my petulance and disobedience and informed me that I should be caned.”

Eugenia had smiled and leaned closer to me then and I imagined a fable of old with storytellers set around a fire. This tale was better than Jane Eyre to my ears.

“I was told,” Eugenia continued, “To remove my gown and petticoats and bend across the back of a stuffed chair in her room. I was too terrified to refuse, but in those days my bottom was virgin territory for the assault as she proposed.”

I gasped, both at once thrilled and shocked by her bold words.

“I was caned sharply with eight biting stroked across my poor bare bottom. Then after shaking my mistress’s hand, I retired to my room for a good cry. I have to say that I was enthralled even then by the tight narrow red lines that scored my flesh.” Eugenia had a faraway look in her eyes as she spoke. “It was then that the prefect and the girl whom I had wronged came to me. I still had to take a spanking and now it seemed it was to take place before the victim of my tongue. They were thoroughly amused by my submission and took great pains at my expense to make the vigorous application of the slipper last all afternoon.”

“Oh my,” I said or something like it. For in truth I was speechless.

“So,” Eugenia said, “Unless you want a good long spanking first, then I suggest you give me no more nonsense and prepare yourself for a good caning.”

I had then to obey and it was not only with trepidation that I trembled as I removed the clothing as she had directed and bared my bottom for the rod.

I felt self-conscious and not a little ridiculous as I knelt bent at a prie dieu with my behind sticking out.

“I think you know by now that I will enjoy doing this,” Eugenia said to me, “And although I do not wish to inflict a heavy ordeal upon you, I hope too that you will learn from the experience and and at least rue it a little.”

I was shaking by then and blushing in thrill-touched embarrassment.

The first cutting stroke was an eye-opener, quite literally so and I think my eyes were as wide as saucers with the throbbing shock of it. But I did not have time to dwell on the sting as another tear-making cut was laid well-on bellow its fellow soon after.

I did try to hold my peace and thought for a good long while that Eugenia laid on rapid strokes to be merciful, but after some long minutes of growing agony I sensed that the punishment was yet young and I broke to open sobbing, unable to endure more. Unable that is, but still compelled to.

Eugenia then spoke of my secret heart and another wall that had stood between us fell.

“Your behaviour was shameful last night and I cannot let it stand,” she said, “I know that you delight too much in the spankings I have given you to date, but this one you must feel, am I clear?”

“Yes Ma’am,” I wailed.

I do not know how long I was caned but I was grateful to stand in the corner afterwards, in truth standing was all I could manage for some days to come.

There is an embarrassing and shameful footnote to this episode. As I stood in the corner of Eugenia’s room, a place I had to remain in for the rest of that afternoon, the maid came to enquire about luncheon and saw me at my humiliating post. I think Eugenia was as amused as the maid and I could look none of our hosts or their servants in the eye again after that, for I was sure that all knew of my punishment.

A week later I was grateful to leave.

*

Being spanked over Eugenia’s lap was a regular occurrence in my life after that. In fact in some ways I contributed to my own downfall. I asked her about what she had said about enjoying spanking me and she wasn’t the least put out.

“I know you get a certain satisfaction from it too, believe me I have been where you are now,” she challenged me.

I knew it was true and I was mortified and wished I hadn’t brought the subject up, so as I stood there blushing I twisted her words a little and said something like: “I didn’t get satisfaction from the caning the other day or the maid seeing me.”

“I think you did, well afterwards at any rate,” she said with a disarming smile.

I think my face went cherry red then. It was true. At the time I had been beside myself with the pain and humiliation, but later as I relived the experience on my own, my mind had raced with the melodrama and danger of it all.

“But I can scarce sit down,” I said with a pout.

“Well, when you deserve it I will punish you, but to forestall either of us manufacturing a situation I propose that we institute a regular spanking regime to the satisfaction of us both and to keep you on the straight and narrow.” Eugenia was deadly serious.

I blustered and complained. To accept such a thing was an admission of my perversity and worse in some ways, it was an acceptance of a submission to hers. As a young employee, it was her right to spank me when I was in error, but to accept a ritual submission was decidedly beyond the pale.

I need not have worried, for it was only my pride and fear of having to make my own decisions in in this regard that troubled me so, and that was a matter that Eugenia took entirely out of my hands.

Five minutes after starting the discussion I was again bare-bottomed across her knee being spanked for dear life. With the cane stripes still keen across my behind I felt it beyond all else she had yet inflicted and I was soon howling like a new born as the flat of her brush plied its trade where it is was most needed.

I remember I had not noticed that Eugenia had not shut the door to her rooms and during the proceedings the same maid who had witnessed my humiliating some three days before came to wait in attendance on us.

Through incoherent sobs I tried to dismiss her, but she feigned not to understand, although her English was good, and she waited and watched impassively until Eugenia had quite finished with me.

“Perhaps the young mademoiselle requires ice for her derrière,” she ventured following my release.

“How thoughtful,” Eugenia said pleasantly, “But come back in an hour or… no two. The young mademoiselle needs so time of contemplation in the corner first and I want her derrière to stew a little first.”

“As you wish milady,” the maid executed a quick bob and then added, as if trying to be helpful, “Perhaps the young mademoiselle would like me to conduct her to the servants’ hall for a period of… contemplation as you say. That is where the naughty maids have to stand; we have plenty of spare corners.”

“As this is not a genuine punishment she can forgo that… honour. This time anyway,” Eugenia added pointedly, “But see that this door is left open and inform me at once if her… peu rouge en bas à nu strays from sight of the door.”

“As you wish milady,” the maid said with a barely disguised giggled.

And so the pattern was set, from then onward at every convenient Friday evening or on a day near to it I was soundly spanked and placed in the corner for the evening.

*

After a few months I had thought that my punishments could not get more severe, for in truth they were quite harsh enough. Eugenia rarely spared me any humiliation and half the hotel maids in Europe and a good few bell boys must have seen my cherry stained behind. The humiliation of it was impossible to bear, but bare it I did, if you can excuse a pun.

Not only was I spanked and occasionally caned, but I suffered leather belts, bats, martinets and all manner of brushes. Once after a leisurely session with a bath brush, during which the hotel maid put in several appearances, and even wiping my nose on occasion, I could not sit down for the best part of a week and my bottom held a burgundy hue for near a month.

To my utter chagrin, apart from the weekly spankings over Eugenia’s knee to keep me honest, most of the punishments were deserved.

Only once did I complain about my spanking regime, as she called it, and that was after a being spied under correction by a man. She asked me hand on heart: “Do you think I would punish you more or less if I did not spank you as a matter of course?”

I had to concede her point and was justly and immediately spanked for my argument.

Then one day while visiting a Bavarian count at his schloss, I was to learn of harsher things.

Again it was alcohol that was to be my downfall, for after imbibing too much schnapps and flirting with a guest, Eugenia threatened to whip me in front of the assembled company. Although a strange excitement gripped me at the prospect, I was terrified.

As it happened a public whipping may have been preferable compared with what then transpired.

The next day I was summoned to a rather Spartan room in one of the towers in my night dress. The house keeper and two maids were waiting with Eugenia and I saw at once the bundles of long twigs set in a bucket. I was to be birched.

Then as I wondered in belly-tight awe and my usual terror-touched excitement, I was seized by the maids and stripped. Then half compliant, I was hauled over to a bed in the centre of the room and with two large cushions placed under my hips, my tail end was well elevated.

I was then secured at the ankles and wrists so that my legs were half parted and my arms akimbo. This was a new, and given the witnesses, shameful experience. But then the Bavarian hausfrau said something in German and another bucket with a funnel and a rubber tube was produced.

For a moment I thought I was to be stomach-pumped for the schnapps even though the affects had long since worn off, but then the purpose became clear. I thorough clystering was to be my lot.

“I am told it is necessary given the gravity of the punishment,” Eugenia assured me. “It will be interesting at any rate.”

“Please Eugenia,” I pleaded.

But she hushed me and with a kiss she whispered: “If you can look me in the eye and deny that you deserve it, I’ll let you go.”

Of course I could not.

The birchen rod was laid on like a wand of fire and I yelled out from the first until it felt as if the skin had been stripped from my bottom and I was hoarse from screaming.

“Mine Gott,” one of the women said, adding a string of expletives that included words like, “Nass and aufgeregt.”

“Isn’t she just,” Eugenia observed with a grin, although at the time I had no idea what they were saying and if I had I would have died of shame.

To compensate for my rather fluid distraction, when the first rod was spent one of the women began to scour my raw bottom with a short-haired brush. This was quiet bad enough and near as bad as the birching, but then a fiery styptic was added and I was lost in a sea of pain beyond any I had as then as yet felt.

“I envy you,” Eugenia whispered. “No really. An afternoon spent with my poetry mistress and a bucket of birchen rods is one of my most treasured memories.”

In my madness I understood and knew to my soul that at that moment I existed only for the ordeal to end and the dread of its conclusion.

The second birching was somehow worse than the first and Eugenia nodded her approval. Even though I was incoherent with it all, I felt strangely pleased for her.

All through the styptic brushing that followed I begged. Whether for a cessation or a prolonging I think I will never know, but I am sure that only Eugenia understood my dilemma.

I have been punished many times since and often I have lost count of strokes, but never again I think did I loose count of sets of strokes. For to this day neither Eugenia nor I could tell you how many rods were used for my bitter caresses.

That night I slept like the rock on which the castle stood and the next day I had to stand vigil in the courtyard so that the assembled guests and servants could take pleasure from my misery. Throughout most of my sojourn there my bottom pulsed and rasped as vigorously as any routine spanking and I was given to fresh outbursts of tears. None more expansive than when Eugenia came close and whispered: “Your Friday spanking will be most interesting this week.”

The grazes on my bottom were something to behold and lasted for weeks. I can honestly say that on that occasion I really could not sit down for a week.

To be concluded.

Part one here.

I had been with Eugenia for a year when we first met the Laithwaites. We were in Venice at the time and I have an abiding memory of sunshine and ladies in white lace dresses.

The Laithwaites were a mother and daughter also travelling alone on account of the widowhood of Mrs Laithwaite.

This widow, Elisabeth Laithwaite, was a comely 34 or so, having been introduced to marriage and motherhood while still very young. A state of affairs that about which Eugenia was not slow to express her disapproval.

However, rather than being offended, Elisabeth concurred with Eugenia and openly lamented the situation.

It soon became clear that the lack of a father and a young mother had inclined Lucy Laithwaite, her 18-year-old daughter, towards being an utter brat.

“There is nothing I can do with the girl,” Elisabeth had moaned, “She is so rude and not fit company for polite society.”

“Oh do shut up mother,” Lucy said in an imperious voice that pretended at a wisdom and poise she did not possess.

Even Eugenia was dumbfounded by the outburst and she had seen it all.

“Have you considered a finishing school?” Eugenia suggested.

“Oh please,” Lucy said in a bored voice, “What a completely preposterous idea. Mother, don’t think for one moment that I will entertain such a notion.”

“I am afraid that Lucy has been expelled from a great many schools,” Elisabeth said in a low voice as if afraid her daughter would hear. “I tried to place her in a perfectly lovely school near Geneva last year. It didn’t… end well. Now no one will take her.”

“Oh, I think I know of a school that would take her, Eugenia said casually.

“Oh heavens spare me,” Lucy said, rolling up her eyes. “If you want rid of me, then marry me off why don’t you?”

“Because no man will have you, you…” Elisabeth’s outburst was clearly unusual and hinted at the inner turmoil the woman was suffering.

Lucy, seemingly uncomfortable with her mother’s outburst flounced off and went and stood at the rail overlooking the canal.

I remember her still; a short slender girl with all too knowing eyes and a tumble of white-blonde tresses and big blue eyes. I think that day she wore her hair up and her dress was a blinding white in the sun, but that is not how I think of her now for things were about to change for Lucy and indeed for us all in different ways.

“You see, there is nothing to be done with the girl, I have quite ruined her,” Elisabeth said, suddenly bursting into tears.

The outburst drew my attention back to the conversation.

“Nonsense,” Eugenia soothed her, “I was serious before, I do know a school that would be the making of Lucy. Shall I tell you about it?”

*

“This is absolutely ridiculous, I will not wear it,” Lucy Laithwaite raged.

Eugenia and I watched her petulant outburst dispassionately but her mother Elisabeth sat wringing her hands and looked as if she might give way to her daughter as she always had.

We had come up with a plan, or should I say Eugenia had for it was she who had made all the arrangements and who had talked Elisabeth into a certain course of action. The three of us had descended on the hapless Lucy and while Eugenia instructed the hotel maid to lay out some new clothes. Meanwhile, I had gathered up her old ones until her wardrobes were quite empty. These items were to be placed in a trunk for return to London to eliminate any possibility that Lucy could circumvent our preparations.

Then we waited for Lucy, a rather late riser, to get up.

“Mother, what were you thinking? Can you not see that these people are mad?” Lucy accused in bitter tones.

“Mad are they, well I think I have been mad to let you get away with such behaviour for so long. Your father must be restless in his grave,” Elisabeth returned angry.

It was the most spirited I had yet seen her.

“Your mother has engaged my services as an impromptu governess of sorts,” Eugenia explained, “And it has been decided to send you off to finishing school in England.”

“What?” Lucy exclaimed.

At that moment she looked like a harridan and to complete the impression she seized a hairbrush from her nightstand and hurled at her mother. I was shocked at such behaviour and Elisabeth was clearly shaken.

Lucy followed up her latest outrage with a string of unladylike language and a reassertion of her conviction not to wear the clothing that had been set out for her.

In truth I couldn’t blame her and I remember that I had trouble hiding my amusement. For the clothes set out were childish in nature and more suited to a girl under 16. They consisted of a knee-length skirt in blue with a sailor-style collar that was large and showy beyond the vogue of the time even for older nursery-aged girls. There were also buckled shoes, white lacy petticoats and blue hair ribbons.

“I won’t wear it, I won’t, I won’t,” Lucy continued with her outburst.

However, Eugenia had no sympathy and only sighed.

“I see we will have to take sterner measures,” she said.

Then without another word she picked up the thrown hairbrush, which thankfully had missed its target and advanced on the monstrous brat that was Lucy.

“Wh-what are you going to do?” Lucy said anxiously, now perhaps sensing some peril.

“I am going to do what your mother should have done a long time ago,” Eugenia replied sharply as she pulled the straining Lucy from her bed and struggled with her across her knee.

“Let me go, please, what are you doing?” Lucy shrieked along with other such protests.

Ultimately they were to no avail and Lucy was soon sprawling across Eugenia’s lap like a spitting she-cat. Then Eugenia reached for the base of Lucy’s nightgown and began to roll the linen up the length of the girl’s legs until her smooth firm white thighs heaved into view.

“We must resolve this matter here and now,” Eugenia said as she fixed Elisabeth with a hard stare.

Elisabeth was ashen-faced, but she returned a tiny nod of approval.

Eugenia set her mouth and the last veil of Lucy’s modesty was lifted to reveal the two astonishingly white pert domes of her bare bottom. I gasped.

“Stop it,” Lucy shrieked.

By way of an answer Eugenia brought the brush down with a loud crack, quickly following it with a second and third until sting-filled pink blotches appeared and rapidly began to merge.

I noticed that Elisabeth held a hand to her mouth and looked decidedly pensive, but also I think, Lucy’s violent outburst had been the final straw for her. Given what was to follow I think all concerned can take no issue with the methods employed.

Up to this point Lucy had taken her spanking well and once it was clear she could not prevent it, she had clamped her jaw shut and opted for taking the rest in sullen silence. I think if she had been of better grace this level of acceptance might have been deemed enough for a first spanking, but too much had transpired and I could see that Eugenia was determined to gain a full submission from the girl.

The spanking was fast and hard leaving Lucy’s bare bottom an angry all-over red. However, the only sign that the girl was struggling with it was her moist blinking stares and her increasingly ragged breathing.

“You will not best me young lady,” Eugenia growled as she drew back her arm even further and landed yet more great fluid blows with the flat side of that worthy brush.

Then with a heavy red stained bottom Lucy suddenly began to buck and claw on Eugenia’s lap and all at once a raspberry-like sound escaped her lips. It was followed by a wail and quickly overtaken by chuckling sobs.

“Please Ma’am I’m sorry,” Lucy howled, “I’m so sorry.”

“Are you? Are you?” Eugenia asked angrily over and over punctuating her words with hard spanks.

“Oh yes, oh mercy,” Lucy sobbed.

“You think it is as easy as that?” Eugenia barked at her.

Lucy was given over to a full flood of tears and a song of angry wailing that quickly became hoarse in her throat.

“Please,” she croaked.

“You will learn that spanking is an art,” Eugenia said firmly, perhaps easing the spanks a little now, “And submission and aesthetics are important.”

“Yes Ma’am I’m sorry, I’ve learned my lesson,” Lucy wailed.

“I very much doubt that,” Eugenia snorted, “But if you are truly contrite then we can begin.”

“Oh please,” Lucy groaned.

“I want you to stop this comedy at once and tuck yourself into my legs so that your bottom is elevated for the rest of its punishment,” Eugenia explained.

“Oh please I’m sorry, I’ll wear the dress,” Lucy cried.

Eugenia ignored her and immediately resumed the spanking in earnest. After perhaps 15 or so good hard wallops a bawling Lucy struggled to comply with her instructions.

“You think this is a debate?” Eugenia accused her.

“No Ma’am,” Lucy said frantically.

“You will obey.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Very well, get up and put on your new dress,” Eugenia ordered.

I had to laugh as a very much changed Lucy hastened to comply. In the end I had to assist as Lucy had forgotten the workings of such attire, but finally she stood all smart and girlish and very, very contrite.

“This is suitable attire for a spoilt child,” Eugenia told her. “You will wear this dress and others like it until you are ready to attend the Caulfield Academy for Young Ladies where you will be required to dress like a lady. If your behaviour improves you will retain adult clothing during the holidays, if it doesn’t then you will not.”

“Yes Ma’am, but…” Lucy blinked her big blue wet eyes rapidly and began to wring her hands.

“There are no buts, do you understand?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Good. Now to show that you are truly repentant you will turn around and bend over to lower your under things,” Eugenia said casually.

Lucy gaped at her and even Elisabeth looked somewhat disconcerted.

“It is necessary for you to submit willing to a short punishment to demonstrate your new found demeanour,” Eugenia said brusquely. “Amy, fetch the cane.”

I licked my lips and did as I was told.

“Oh please Ma’am I have been punished enough,” Lucy protested.

“You wish another spanking then? Before we proceed?”

Lucy gasped and responded by awkwardly turning about and fumbling with the hem of her dress.

“You will bend and bare at once,” Eugenia ordered.

It was amusing to watch, but slowly and little-by-little a rather humble Lucy leaned down and lifted the veil of her skirt behind. It took even longer for her bloomers to fall, but fall they did until they formed an untidy puddle at her ankles.

“I received my first caning at your age,” Eugenia explained, “I was much like you in fact. I received eight as will you.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Lucy whispered.

It took a moment longer and some prompting, but finally Lucy was full bent over with her bare blister-bruised bottom thrust backwards.

“Lovely,” Eugenia sighed, “I am no hypocrite, I will enjoy this.”

The cane landed with a satisfying swish-thwack and Lucy jerked. But the girl was at the end brave and took her caning well. Only at the last two did she yell out and bob a little at her station. She managed to save a fresh round of tears until after she had shaken Eugenia by the hand.

“Thank you Ma’am,” she said in a sad voice.

Elisabeth who had been pensive throughout smiled and clapped her hands in petite applause.

“Now with your bottom still bare, you will go and stand in the corner Lucy,” Eugenia said sharply, “And we will take tea.”

For the rest of the day the only sign of rebellion from Lucy was when the maid came with tea and saw the girl still bare-bottomed in the corner. But that was only a fluttered sigh and quickly quelled with a word.

*

I can’t say that Lucy was a changed girl after that, but after a fashion, and with no other option, she cooperated with the new regime. Her attitude was aided in part by the knowledge that in a few weeks she would return to London and her new school where she believed she would at least escape the humiliating condition of enforced girlhood.

It was still amusing to see her out and about in Venice where she was often taken as a much younger girl if she was fortunate and much mocked if she was not. She occasionally railed at her situation and then came close to reverting to her former behaviour, but a public threat of a sound spanking soon had her toeing the line.

In fact Eugenia did not rely on that first spanking to keep Lucy in check and she, like I, was put on a maintenance regime where she was soundly spanked once a week.

Our paths were to cross many times in the years that followed and the Laithwaites became firm friends but there is yet one more aspect to this small family I wish to relate before coming to a close.

Once Lucy had by now gratefully returned to London her mother opted to stay on for a few months longer while Eugenia and I completed our grand tour of Italy. At the time I had wondered what Elisabeth had made of Eugenia’s methods, but I was not to be left puzzling at this for long.

One day on returning from a rare unaccompanied shopping trip, I believe I needed hairpins or some such, I overheard a strange sound coming from within Eugenia’s room. It did not take long before I realised that a spanking was in progress and a pretty sound one at that.

I was agog I have to admit, and not a little jealous. I knew that Lucy had returned to London so I could only think that the maid had crossed her in some way. So, naughty girl that I was, I stayed to listen at the door.

After several minutes the previously muffled groans of the unfortunate recipient of Eugenia’s attentions began to put more force in her cries and final began to yell out. If the miscreant had thought to signal an end she was to be woefully disappointed. If anything the impact of what I knew to be a hairbrush got louder.

“Present that bottom properly or I will begin over with a gentleman’s razor strap,” I heard Eugenia growl.

“Yes Ma’am,” came the distressed reply.

I knew then that I recognised the voice and although I could not immediately place it, I was sure that it was no young maid.

The spanking lasted a good while after that and by the end whoever was being spanked was sobbing hard.

“Amy you may come in now,” Eugenia said from beyond the door.

I blushed and a rash of butterflies took flight in my tummy. I had been caught and would be punished. However, my curiosity was stronger and without so much as a pause I opened the door and entered.

There in the corner in a girlish sailor suit was what I took for a young girl and I thought I must be wrong about the mature voice I had heard. But although the costume was immature, it was clear that the ravage bare bottom displayed to me was anything but. In fact it was perhaps the finest full round bottom I had ever seen.

I was still staring excitedly at the punished rounds when the owner stole a glance at me over her shoulder. It was Elisabeth.

“Keep your nose pressed to the wall,” Eugenia growled.

Elisabeth Laithwaite whirled her flushed face back to the wall in a trice.

“Elisabeth was feeling rather guilty about failing Lucy, especially after she was so readily brought to heel,” Eugenia explained, “So after some discussion, it was agreed that what was sauce for the goose was… well you get the idea.”

I nodded. I was dumfounded.

“In a while I will cane our naughty miss and mark me, it will be no girlish eight for you,” Eugenia scolded. And then to me she continued, “She is to be spanked every day and where the scandal is not too great she will be so attired in public for the rest of the month until she returns to London.”

“I see,” was all I could manage.

“Come now, do not be so shocked, you yourself know how cathartic sound punishment can be. Especially that accompanied with extensive humiliation.” Eugenia had a twinkle in her eye and I suddenly realised what firm friends we had become.

All the same I blushed and averted my eyes.

“In a few days I intend to give her an extensive birching in full Bavarian style, you may remember,” Eugenia said with a fruity lick of her lips.

I blushed again and nodded. Elisabeth shifted uneasily in the corner.

“After that, say in about a week or so, I will give Elisabeth here the choice of a repeat of the operation or a much more public humiliation. It will be a tortuous dilemma I assure you,” Eugenia said with relish, “But our friend here was quite clear at the inception of this little drama, I was to punish her to my utmost and with all my skill and experience.”

I gulped and shot a glance back at Elisabeth’s magnificent posterior.

“Perhaps she was not fully aware of the extent of your… experience in these matters,” I ventured.

“I am quite sure she wasn’t,” Eugenia chuckled. “Now my sweet friend, eavesdropping were you? I think you can disrobe and joining my new charge in the corner. In an hour or so I will cane you both together.”

And so began a very unusual afternoon.

My presence, not to say my proximity while in the corner, seemed to embarrass Elisabeth no end and Eugenia was determined to milk the situation. She had us stand side-by-side for over an hour while she no doubt compared our bottoms. Then hip to hip we had to kneel on the bed with our bottoms in the air and offer our behinds to Eugenia’s cane.

Our mistress dealt out our due in bursts of six, and stingy biting bursts they were too. My eyes were quite watering after just one set and poor Elisabeth could not hold her tongue at all. I have to say that it had been a while since I had had such a cleansing good cry and there was an added delicious piquancy to being thigh to thigh with another woman.

At one point towards the third set of hard biting cuts Eugenia remarked, “Amy, if you could only see, Elisabeth cries at both ends so prettily like you.”

I was mortified and for a moment my face must have rivalled my behind for colour. Thankfully, Elisabeth was lost in writhing sobs and as a novice at the emotions she must have been contending with. I doubt if she then realised what Eugenia had said or what she had revealed about her own secret nature.

However, as with my own experience, I knew that she would later relive her ‘ordeal’ as if it were a spicy novel and perhaps indulge in all that was usually forbidden in that regard.

After our caning we were returned to the corner and Eugenia took such pains at the slightest need to call the maid that within another hour Elisabeth and I were both quivering wrecks from the mortifying exposure. I wondered then what more horrors Elisabeth might face given the heavy baptism she had undergone and I must confess I was thrilled.

*

I did manage to speak to Elisabeth before the rather intense birching episode. I wanted to know if she knew what she was submitting to.

Her reply was surprising and fulsome. She said, “I rather hope not for I do not have great courage, but I do know a little of what Lucy must face. I find it intriguing to say the least and if the experience up to now is anything to go by, also most salutary. How then could ask less of myself?”

I nodded but had to add, “But you do know it will be… difficult?”

“Character building no doubt, but I ask you, will I come to any real harm? Have you?” She was suddenly the older woman and wise. I felt like the young girl I truly was next to her.

“No,” I agreed and together we laughed.

The laughter for Elisabeth was to be short-lived. Eugenia had made no ideal threats and Mrs Laithwaite was daily both soundly spanked and subjected to her humiliating attire, often donned during corner time and in full view of the maid.

The following Sunday we took a landau out to a cottage that Eugenia had bid me find, the precise details of which escape me. But it was small with a large attic and quite remote with a large forest nearby from which to furnish the necessary.

Elisabeth’s humiliation was begun with the instruction to denude herself until she was clad only in her brief bodice and stockings. And apart from the addition of some ugly country shoes, that was how she was led into the wood to collect the instruments of her own chastisement.

I must say that it was no unpleasant thing to watch that magnificent still peony stained bottom bend and bob among the gentle Tuscan woodland and Eugenia and I walked hand in hand without a care in the world as Elisabeth laboured.

“What if someone, a peasant perhaps, should chance by?” Elisabeth was clearly mortified and knew not what to clutch at to obscure from imagined prying eyes.

Eugenia shrugged and said, “I wish now we had brought a maid or two or maybe a rakish lothario to serve as an audience. I think you would weep ere a stroke was laid upon your arse in such dire straits. Then the fulfilment for us all afterwards would all the greater.”

“But the scandal…” Elisabeth was shocked.

“I would take pains that there was none I assure you. Do you not trust me?”

Elisabeth sighed and let her hands fall from her exposed womanhood.

“Truly I do and in my more tranquil thoughts I am content,” she said.

“Not too content I hope,” Eugenia teased.

“Indeed not,” Elisabeth said hastily.

Eugenia’s eyes narrowed and she muttered sharply, “I think a ginger fig and a curry comb with cayenne will be added to this evening’s proceedings.”

My breath was robbed from me at the prospect of such erotic cruelty and Elisabeth quailed and mouthed entreaties until she was urged to trot on ahead of us again.

“You shall administer the first few clysterings,” Eugenia said randomly, “I trust you have the resolve enough for it?”

“I think so,” I managed to say, but my head and heart was spinning.

“So do I, for if you fail me you will get as much as she endures,” Eugenia warned.

“Yes Ma’am,” I agreed hastily.

*

The birching came only after extensive preparation and I had to wonder if I had ever looked so humble. I remembered Bavaria, my worst and at the same time my most treasured memory. If I had ever doubted either Eugenia’s resolve or Elisabeth’s nature, such thoughts were dispelled that day.

Elisabeth was secured in a kneeling foetal position with her bottom obscenely directed at the ceiling. Her eyes had a glazed look and even before the first enema she was wet enough to receive a man in her larger place. Eugenia offered me a wink.

“Plenty of soap mind,” Eugenia urged.

Even I gulped; I knew that could sting a bit. However, we did not wait long and then moved to proceed.

After a good cleansing Elisabeth was climbing walls and didn’t know whether to purr or howl. The carefully fashioned ginger nugget settled the matter.

“Please take it out,” Elisabeth hissed.

“Nonsense, it is still potent and besides I have two or three more for you to enjoy,” Eugenia teased.

Elisabeth could scarce breath and what lungs she had, she used to beg.

Taking full advantage, Eugenia made her kiss and lick the birch withes and actually ask nicely to feel them burning across proffered bottom.

I thrilled at the scene as indeed did Elisabeth I think. For even though real tears poured down her cheeks, her inner thighs were equally wet.

The birching, when it came, was glorious. For the longest time Elisabeth did not know whether to beg or scream, wail or moan. Her bottom pumped and shook like dancer and such a lovely dance she shared.

Her bottom, which was already stained a mottled red, became textured with a lively graze that took on a darker hue as the first of the strokes stung home. Elisabeth hissed and groaned as she twisted in her bonds but she did not really sing a song worthy of the dance until the cayenne unguent was applied after her first course.

“How many rods did we make?” Eugenia asked with such nonchalance that I trembled.

“Perhaps seven, less than 10 certainly, but surely…” I ventured a reply.

“We will see how she fares after five goes around,” Eugenia purred. She was in her element.

*

I swear that Elisabeth did not sit down all that week and for the first three days she walked with a curious pigeon-toed gait. But she glowed like a goddess and I could have fallen in love I think.

“Amy I am envious,” Eugenia whispered to me a day or two after the epic punishment.

She had just spanked Elisabeth as she had promised and soundly too, regardless of her ravaged raw behind. The older woman’s tears had been sweet. I think for once she was grateful to stand in the corner, even if it was for the greater part of the afternoon.

“Amy I am envious,” Eugenia repeated, “I wish I too had a strong one to hound my vulnerable bottom so.”

I thought for a moment that she desired something of me.

“I crave a husband and master like no other to crush me to his will,” she continued.

I felt twinge of jealousy, but I also understood. Not all my thoughts were of her and Amazons like her.

“Perhaps such a man would skin my bottom raw in front of a host of his fellows and make me lick his boots in gratitude ever after,” she mused her eyes focussed on faraway.

I was shocked, you have no idea how much in awe of Eugenia I was.

Sensing my disquiet she shook herself and said, “Don’t worry, I would always find the time to toast your naughty bottom.”

I blushed.

“Speaking of which,” she grinned. “I think it is high time I spanked you.”

I was as lightheaded as I always was.

“You know, I think I would rather like you in one of those sailor outfits, you could carry it off almost as well as Lucy. Maybe when Elisabeth has gone home and we head on to Egypt you should go as my young niece,” she mused.

“Oh please,” I protested, “I would just die.”

So preoccupied was I with her threatened game that I was distracted throughout my spanking and did not offer up the reaction Eugenia had hoped for. As a consequence my bottom was so welted and blistered that I remained unseated for almost as long a dear Elisabeth.

As for Elisabeth, well she had one more fate to suffer on this trip, but that, as they say, is another story.

The end for now.

He entered the room and she buried her face in the pillow. She could not see his face anyway. She had never seen his face.

She felt his hand at her waist as he flipped up her petticoats and then drew down her bloomers to her ankles. Then she felt the tickle of the rod against her exposed flesh but as always before the first blow was struck he was gone.

Eliza Andersen awoke bathed in sweat and kicked back the bed clothes. The chill of the room was refreshing after such a hot close dream, but as always she was touched with a sense of regret of something unfulfilled.

She was now almost 37 and the dreams had been with her all her life; ever since she had left the Potsdam Ladies Academy to become a teacher.

At school the prospect of a thrashing had always terrified her. Even now she could almost feel the sweep of the rods across her bare bottom and her heart raced. It had seemed in those days that whatever she did she could not escape the summons to Frau Heidrich’s room even to the age of 21 when she had graduated.

How happy she had been to escape into her profession and become the wielder of the rod and cane rather than its recipient. Perhaps almost too happy, she mused.

The thought sent her sitting upright with a start and she glanced nervously at her reflection in bedside glass. How ridiculous, she only did what was necessary for the maintenance of order. All the same she thought of her favourite student Francine and her neat round bottom exposed to the cane.

Eliza shook herself and gazed more boldly into the glass; her clear blue eyes accused her bitterly. She was a professional and a leading light at the Lucerne Finishing School for daughters of the nobility of Europe, such introspection was beneath her.

She reached for a hairbrush and began to attack her unruly locks of non-descript dark hair, ignoring the almost invisible intruding grey streaks, deciding they were remnants of the blonde of her youth.

*

Eliza Andersen paused at the corner to count the crocodile of young ladies. She hated such sorties into the town and was certain that like sheep, the girls would scatter into the surrounding streets if they were not closely marshalled.

Then there were the young men who boldly loitered in shop doorways and hung on lampposts to ogle her charges or sometimes indulging in wolf-whistling.

As each girl passed she fixed them with a hard gaze least one of them return a smile or exchange an encouraging glance. There would be consequences for such behaviour.

Eliza did not see the man across the street following the scene over the top of his journal. Although it was not the silly girls of 19 and 20 that he followed, but the more sophisticated charms of Miss Andersen herself.

There is a fortress worthy of storming he thought as he stroked his broad chin in amusement.

Karl von Straus had recently left the army and now being on the retreating side of 40 he was seeking new challenges. He was not yet ready to return to the family estates of Bavaria and had come to Switzerland in search of distraction.

Eliza Andersen cut a fine figure in her smart brown waist-nipped dress and under her severe demeanour he fancied he saw something in her lively blue eyes.

“Don’t dawdle there Katherine,” Eliza barked imperious, “And Francine if I even think you are looking at that boy you will see me later.”

A pretty little blonde blushed and dipped her head at the words.

Karl smiled at her imagined fate should she incur the wrath of Miss Andersen and then his eyes strayed to the latter’s ample seat and his grin broadened. A colleague had recently pointed her out at some town function or other, although he doubted that Miss Andersen would remember. However, if he could organise things in some way it would be enough.

*

Francine stood before Miss Andersen wide-eyed and blinking.

“You were warned Francine,” Eliza intoned.

“Please Miss Andersen I’m ever so sorry,” Francine said wringing her hands.

Eliza sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“You are always sorry Francine,” Eliza said wearily, “And now you will be sorrier still.”

Francine’s mouth became as round as her eyes and for a moment she gangled awkwardly like a rabbit about to flee and shot a glance at the door.

Eliza took up a medium length cane from her desk and pointed with purpose at the back of the chair reserved for such moments.

“You know the position now give me your derrière,” Eliza said crisply.

“Yes Ma’am,” Francine said sorrowfully as she reached under her long skirts and fumbled for her underwear.

Her bloomers fell to meet her shoes even as Francine rolled up the back hem of her skirt in tandem with her petticoats. Then with her small fists bunched over the exposed neat domes of her bottom she turned to face the chair and folded herself forward so that her behind was elevated.

Eliza’s throat became tight as the usual thrill matched her hidden shame and she contemplated the proffered behind. For a moment Eliza considered applying a dozen strokes, but the sin was a small one.

“I think eight this time,” Eliza softly breathed.

“Yes Miss Andersen,” Francine woefully acknowledged.

The first stroke sliced the air and landed with a satisfying thwack, which Francine managed in silence.

Eliza eyed the white line across pale flesh as it pinkened and delayed the next stroke as long as she dared.

Francine grunted softly at the second impact and Eliza waited until both pink lines had darkened and welted up a little. Then she added another stroke.

This time the small bottom shuddered and Francine whimpered a little, her breathing audible now.

I will have tears by seven, Eliza bet with herself in the event Francine gave a wet wail of “ooh” at six; the last two strokes extracting more fulsome cries.

Eliza would have loved to put the girl in the corner but her offence really was a trifle and some penalties needed to be held in reserve. After all she was in no doubt that Francine would be back again.

*

Time past as much as they ever did and Eliza continued to dream. She filled her life with days carefully shaped to hide the longing for something which she could barely acknowledge. Deportment got taught, essays got marked and bottoms got caned. The latter, the only real joy Eliza felt, although she knew not why and it troubled her far too much to consider.

Then one day she found the time to visit a coffee house in one of the better parts of town. It was in the Viennese style and was becoming quite the fashion among the well-to-do. The windows were large and grand to pour light upon tasteful furnishings and elegant waiters running hither and thither. In one corner was a brass trolley bearing gateaux and numerous confectionaries, guarded judiciously by a young lady wearing a white lacy apron.

The best thing however was the smell which pervaded all with its blend of coffee, spice and unnameable flavourings used in the preparation of the proffered delicacies.

Eliza tried to appear as cool as the cumber savouries and inclined her head modestly as she gazed around the room, but the truth was she was in a world on the very edge of her class and the experience was a treat beyond her daily means. In some ways she felt as wide-eyed and innocent as Francine about to be justly thrashed on a wet Wednesday afternoon.

She had been sitting for quite some time when she noticed a man of military bearing watching her from the other side of the salon.

At first she tried to ignore him and fixed her eyes on her gateaux plate, but once he had seen her recognition of him, he seemed all the more encouraged.

Finally a waiter appeared and offered her a slice of cherry gateaux compliments of Oberst Baron Karl von Straus.

“This is… well really not done,” Eliza spluttered, “We have not been introduced.”

The waiter bowed low and briskly crossed the room to where the man of military bearing sat. Again he bowed low and for a few moments the two men exchanged words. Then all at once the man stood and marched towards her.

He had no sooner closed on her position as he might as if she were a fortification when he stopped and bowed with a click of his heels.

“Allow me to present myself madam,” he said crisply and with a warm smile, “I am Karl von Straus, late of His Majesties Bavarian Guard.”

“Why I am… flattered, but surely a person of breeding would not… I mean to say if one of my girls were to act so forwardly I would spank her soundly.”

The words were out of her mouth beyond recall before she could stop them and she flushed.

“Madam, I merely offered you cake, surely not an act that invites such insult,” Karl frowned, “Perhaps it is you that deserves a spanking.”

“My apologies I… I… oh dear,” Eliza stuttered.

Karl did not miss the reaction and his eyes narrowed. For a moment he considered pressing home the advantage but he had yet to marshal his forces and decided to wait until he was on firmer ground. So instead he again clicked his heels and said, “Please enjoy the gateaux.”

Then to the waiter he said, “More coffee for madam and put her bill on my account.”

Then with a final bow he was gone.

*

Eliza was in a whirl for days afterwards. Even her dreams changed. For once the stern punisher had a face and whenever she was presented with a bottom to thrash her thoughts ran to the idea of being in the errant student’s place with the strangely fierce baron wielding the rod.

It was all she could do to wait for another day of leisure so that she could return to the coffee house in the hopes of another encounter.

So lost in her thoughts did she become that she feared that others might notice so when she was summoned to the Directress’s office she wondered if she was to be reprimanded.

The Directress, Frau Munchheimer, had a suite at the far end of the west wing, which suited her rather laissez-faire approach to running the school and was largely why Eliza was left to decide upon and administer punishments to the girls; an arrangement that suited them both.

The Directress’s quarters were at the end of a long panelled passage overlooking the orangery and with every step Eliza formulated excuses and promises regarding her inattentiveness that past week. But all too soon the heavy oak door loomed and Eliza stood before it with her mouth dry.

Time stood still at her mouse-scratch knock and as she waited all her carefully crafted arguments emptied from her mind like sands from a glass.

“Miss Andersen, please come in,” Frau Munchheimer finally called from within.

Eliza strode in with more confidence than she felt only to freeze at the sight that greeted her.

Manfully posed by the fireplace, stood Karl and he looked, for anyone who cared to see, as though he was home in his castle and totally at ease with the smiling Directress.

Eliza was about to blurt out in recognition, but Karl cut her off saying, “Is this the young lady who I have heard so much about?”

“Quite,” Frau Munchheimer beamed, “May I present Miss Eliza Andersen who is my right hand. Miss Andersen, Baron von Straus.”

Eliza swallowed back her confusion and managed to remember her curtsy.

“Delighted,” she said unevenly.

“The baron is considering making a generous donation to our little establishment, but being a military man he is concerned that our approach to discipline may be too… modern,” Frau Munchheimer continued. “I have explained that for the most part you are responsible for such matters and I have suggested that you show him around.”

“Capital idea,” Karl said enthusiastically.

“Well… yes… I would be delighted,” Eliza said quickly.

*

They were no sooner out of the room when Eliza rounded on him.

“How dare you come to my place of employment? Who do you think you are?” She raged in a harsh whisper.

“I am Baron von Straus and now we have been introduced,” Karl smiled, “I am here to make a financial donation. Why else?”

Eliza glared at him.

“Would you prefer that we return to Frau Munchheimer and tell her we are already acquainted and that you object to my presence?”

Eliza pursed her lips and said nothing.

“Quite so,” Karl said sharply, indicating that she should proceed with the tour. “Perhaps you should show me your study first. That is where you deal with errant young ladies is it not?”

Eliza sucked in her cheeks and brusquely walked ahead.

Once they arrived at Eliza’s room Karl once again took his ease and presented himself as if he were the host.

“Wh-what is it you wish to know?” Eliza began once she saw he was in no hurry.

“Discipline,” he said curtly, “I trust you do not trifle with lines or impositions or any such nonsense?”

“Occasionally, but…” Eliza licked her lips and thought the best way to tackle such an indelicate subject was to pick up a cane and hand it to him.

“It looks effective enough, better than a childish slipper applied to the behind anyway,” Karl said feigning interest, “How is it applied?”

“With vigour, I assure you,” Eliza said indignantly.

“I mean, to which end and so forth,” Karl grinned.

“To the place that God provided for the purposes,” Eliza blushed, “After… after suitable adjustments.”

“You mean young ladies present their behinds as God made them?” Karl suggested mischievously.

“Quite so,” Eliza shifted uneasily where she stood.

“I prefer the birch,” Karl said, giving the cane a flick through the air. “Any experience of it?”

“Eh… it is occasionally employed for… eh… that is to say… serious matters, but…”

“Your demeanour suggests more than an occasional encounter,” Karl challenged her.

Eliza blushed to her ears.

“It was much more commonly used in recent times was it not? The birch I mean,” Karl offered, “Perhaps you were on the receiving end as a girl?”

“It was not unknown,” Eliza whispered.

“Good,” Karl said with an emphatic nod, “I would see its return to supplement this device. That would be conditional on my contribution.”

“I see,” Eliza licked her lips.

“You have no objection?”

“None, I…”

Karl removed his jacket and then again took up the cane.

“What are you doing? This is most…” Eliza spluttered.

“We have unfinished business I believe,” Karl replied casually.

“W-what do you mean?”

“Tell me, what would you do if a girl was rude to her betters? Rude yet, to one who is a patron of the school?” Karl said ignoring her.

“I-I think you know,” Eliza whispered not taking her eyes from the rod in his hand.

“I think I do,” Karl agreed. “Tell me, your students are not children, they are young women, are they not?”

Eliza nodded.

“None too old for a sound thrashing?”

Eliza shook her head.

“From time to time, with Frau Munchheimer’s permission of course, I shall visit and monitor your… progress,” Karl explained. “On another occasion I will birch you soundly as you deserve. As you have agreed is appropriate. But for now this will suffice for your transgression.”

“If you think…” Eliza was wide-eyed and took a step backwards.

“I will have your bottom bare please,” Karl said firmly.

“Baron please… I… this is… this highly…” Eliza swallowed. “I will not have you exploiting my girls in this manner.”

“The girls I wish not to see,” Karl said, “That is your province. But I will have your pretty bare bottom bent over that chair.”

“You are a cad Sir and you have no right,” Eliza gasped, but her heart and mind were racing.

“Since I intend to marry you, I have every right, you insulted me,” Karl growled.

“Marry…?” Eliza gasped.

“Indeed, in pursuit of that intention I will be ruthless. So unless you wish me to take up our former acquaintanceship with the Frau Directress, I suggest you submit.”

Eliza could scarce draw breath and stood panting in the centre of the rug.

Karl loosened his cravat and flexed the cane like sword as he watched.

“Please Baron, this is too… sudden. I…”

He sighed and appeared to consider her words.

“You questioned my breeding did you not?” He said calmly.

She nodded and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“So by your lights this is deserved?”

She nodded, adding, “But…”

“My overtures are too sudden you say, so here is my proposition,” he said sternly, “Accept your correction and I will court you formerly for a year as well as support this school. Then I will make a more… conventional proposal. If not, I will deposit 10,000 francs with Frau Munchheimer and you will never see me again.”

“Why me? I am not such a catch. Surely there are…”

“Shush,” he soothed gently, “Do not impugn my honour by impugning yours or there will be further consequences.”

Eliza considered this for a moment and then nodded.

“My lord baron I am sorry and I deserve chastisement,” Eliza muttered somewhat shyly, “If you will undertake my correction I will give you permission to call on me.”

Karl nodded then barked, “Well!?”

“Sir?” Eliza started, suddenly puzzled.

“Place your bare bottom over that chair at once,” Karl ordered.

*

It had been a long time since Eliza had been in the supplicant position and never had she been seen even this partially naked by a man. The idea thrilled her even as she trembled. The indignity of presenting her not inconsiderable bare bottom to him as she lay over the back of the chair was primeval. And yet the tingle she felt was more intense than that felt when she had Francine at her mercy. It was almost as if that experience was but a shadow or a foretaste of the one she now shared with Karl.

“How many strokes would you award a student for insulting a patron of the school as you did?” Karl asked pointedly.

Eliza shuddered as she felt a touch of the rattan on her chilled naked flesh.

“I will not ask you again,” Karl growled, “The next time you prevaricated you will find my response harsh I promise you.”

Eliza thought about it and realised the truth. Such a girl may expect a public birching, but at the very least she would get a sound dozen.

“Perhaps 12,” Eliza whispered, “Perhaps more.”

“I’ll take that as a guide,” Karl said sharply, “You will receive two dozen as you should have known better.”

Karl felt a pulse in his head and he had to pause to adjust his trousers before he was comfortable in a punisher’s stance. But Eliza saw none of this. Her head fizzed as she threatened to faint, whether from her inverted head, the situation or the threat of a double drubbing she knew not.

Her small hands clutched at the antimacassar lace that had fallen into the seat of the chair prior to her taking position. The soft fabric felt reassuring in her hands and for a moment it held all her attention like she had never seen it before.

Then a slice of pain crossed her exposed bottom and she lurched up bucking with an angry growl.

“No complaining now, you richly deserve this,” Karl warned.

He immediately added to the vivid rose welt cutting her cheeks and watched her buttocks churn and roll in position.

“Ah,” Eliza squealed, hating herself for carrying worse than a new girl under her first chastisement.

Karl felt the power in his hands and lined himself up rapier style to deliver three more cuts and watched her dance.

“Oh my lord,” Eliza gasped.

“Oh, I do hope you address me or I shall add strokes for blasphemy,” Karl threatened.

“Yes Sir,” Eliza lied, taking a moment to rock her hips back and forth like a dog with a bone.

Within a minute Karl had doubled her bill so that her bottom was scored red with angry lines from crown to under-bum and her breathing was heavily laboured.

Eliza was transported to the dark place she inhabited between dreams and awakening with only the burning throb sawing at her behind pinning her to reality. Then as two more strokes seared into her she heard someone close by begin to cry. A stranger to her now and someone she was leaving behind.

“You may well cry,” Karl chided her, “But to serve you well, I will pay you out with 30 at out next encounter, impeccable behaviour or no.”

“Yes Sir,” Eliza consented, but she was sobbing heavily now and cursing herself she had not the stoicism or dignity to forebear in silence.

Over the next minute Karl lay-on six further strokes as Eliza bucked and howled. She scarce had time to recover from each biting cut before its fellow sang into her.

“Have you ever been so cruel?” Karl demanded; his blood now up.

Yes, she thought, knowing it was true.

“Are you not mastered?” Karl pressed her.

“Yes,” Eliza wailed.

Karl regretted his mercy and wished he had promised more. All the same he enjoyed his power as he sliced in the final six with a fencer’s skill.

At the final cut, Eliza collapsed into the chair and bawled like her merest student, revelling in her utter surrender to the pain.

“You will furnish birch rods for our next encounter and then pray I do not use them,” Karl said, picturing judicial bundles as he spoke, although he suspected that he would have to settle for a governess birch.

Harsher measures would require more training before Eliza would submit.

The surge of power rivalled his last cavalry charge and his nostrils flared as he again adjusted his breeches.

“Will you see me again?” He finally managed to ask her.

“Yes,” she sniffed as she too adjusted her limbs lest he see her shame.

*

It was days later and even with careful steps Eliza’s bottom flared with every step. She took delight in the fact that she could no more sit down than fly to the moon, although she had resolved to find a coffee house with good hard chairs once it was imaginable so that she could revel in her secret discomfort in public. A curious idea, she knew, and yet it thrilled her.

Thrice she had caned girls far beyond the normal penalties without the hint of remorse only to slip away to her room to make comparisons with their marks and hers. She found her own efforts wanting; a sin she would have to report to her secret fiancé as soon as he again called upon her.

Nevertheless today was a sad day as her favourite student was graduating, her family having found her suitable husband had taken out of school.

Eliza took a hidden thrill from receiving Francine in an upright position, amused by the fact that the girl would never know that her teacher carried a healthy crop of welts where she had ambitions to one day sit again.

“Oh Miss Andersen,” Francine gushed, “I just had to say goodbye before I left.”

“Why thank you dear, that is only polite,” Eliza said pleasantly, “But I doubt much if you will miss me.”

“Oh, I did not mind that so very much,” Francine blushed, her hand stealing to her behind as she said ‘that.’ “No I had to tell you that you are my very favourite teacher and I will miss you.”

Eliza blushed.

“I might even miss ‘that’ occasionally,” Francine added shyly.

“Well perhaps your new husband will take a firm line with you,” Eliza offered, although she was still blushing. “I understand that some husbands are so inclined in such matters.”

“Oh do you really think so?” Francine said eagerly.

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll write to your man and suggest it,” Eliza teased.

“Oh would you,” Francine gushed, missing the jest.

Eliza hid her expression as she turned her gaze fell upon the new delivery of birch rods in the corner waiting to be made up. She knew for certain that the new intake of students would be in for a warm time of it. But also, she pondered, she wondered how many of those rods she would feel across her own behind.

Ends.

The picture above is a re-draft of a famous vulgar poster. By modern standards it rather innocent and it is certainly less pornographic than the original Roubille art. Even so, you would be hard pressed to see such a controlling husband today and it certainly wouldn’t have been something your great grandmother would have ever seen in reality.

The guy is certainly displaying a no-nonsense attitude and is almost daring the viewer to contradict him. The woman certainly looks embarrassed, but is not as horrified as she might be. She even seems mischievous, if not out and out impressed. The sound spanking she received before they ventured out has certainly put her in a submissive frame of mind. Or maybe not.

Following on from yesterday’s theme here are a couple of pictures I have had for a while. I thought they were unusual in that they are genuine spanking pictures and not just run of the mill erotica from the era that merely draws upon spanking to titillate.

LSF have published another story of mine. This time it is the novella first published in five parts as the Bannerman Saga and includes the stories The Life and Times of Rachel Kent, The Wise Fools and The Last Days of Eden.

It is an eclectic western adventure about a spoilt girl from ‘back east’ tamed by the strong-willed cowboy and of frontier life at home and at school spanning two generations of cousins.

For those who want it for their kindle or just to keep it is available from Amazon or LSF direct.

The man in the painting had clear blue eyes set under a manly brow that gave his gaze a stern countenance. Unlike many such mid-Victorian pictures his eyes did not look at her, nor follow her around the room. Instead they were set upon something of great importance just over her shoulder and a long way away.

Victoria shuddered. If only he would look at her; could look at her, she sighed.

“I was born into the wrong age,” she groaned.

“It’s a portrait of Lord Harlech,” Emily Bronson said brightly.

Victoria started; she had not known her host was there.

“Oh sorry, I was miles away,” she said clutching her heart.

“He’s magnificent isn’t he?” Emily continued. “An ancestor who held the house oh… back in the 30s and 40s I think. He would have been about 35 then I suppose; shortly after inheriting.”

There was undisguised adoration in her eyes and Victoria blushed as she realised her own face must reflect much the same the look.

“The 1830s of course,” Emily continued as if it wasn’t obvious.

She was a sensible looking woman in a country tweed skirt with non-descript dark blonde hair tied back with pins. At only 28 herself, Victoria thought of Emily as old, although she was probably barely 50 and the romantic fantasies that lit up Emily’s eyes suggested that the two women had more in common than Victoria had previously thought.

“How are you related?” Victoria said quickly to fill an awkward silence.

“Oh, we’re not,” Emily frowned. “I mean when I say he’s an ancestor, I mean one of my husband’s. It’s funny how even today one becomes part of one’s husband in that way isn’t?”

It was a profound statement devoid of self-awareness Victoria realised. In Emily’s case, the transformation was complete and her words were just idle conversation. She too would have been more at home in Lord Harlech’s time, Victoria realised.

“He’s a great uncle three or four times removed I think,” Emily continued. “The line jumped sideways after this Lord Harlech’s time. To Richard’s great, great grandfather… or was it great, great, great… oh heavens; it is so confusing isn’t it?”

Both women continued to stare at the man with his eyes fixed on a future that did not include either of them; perhaps secretly hoping he would notice them.

“He is connected in some way to the woman on the other wall, but no one knows who she is,” Emily whispered, but she was frowning again as if the mention of the other woman bothered her somehow. “Some say he married her, but no one is sure. Isn’t that strange?”

Victoria darted her eyes to the right and took in the painting of a young woman around her own age. But there the resemblance ended. Victoria was as almost in awe of the woman’s dress as she was of Lord Harlech. Compared to her own loose black and white palm leaf summer dress, the woman’s was magnificent.

Victoria compared too, the woman’s high piled dark curls that hung in elegant trains to her shoulders. Her own tumble of reddish untamed hair was a fright. And where Victoria’s own eyes were a mottled brown-blue so as to appear green, the woman’s were coal black and shone like inverted stars.

“If only I could have lived in those days,” Victoria sighed.

“Yes,” Emily agreed in a hushed voice.

*

That night Victoria awoke, or thought she did, for ever afterwards she could never be certain. She was assailed with a strange feeling. In her mind’s eye she could see the portrait of Lord Harlech only now from where he hung, his eyes could see through the floor above him and on into her room where she lay. Then all at once she felt another pair of eyes upon her. Standing now, she turned to see the woman in the portrait watching her with coal black unblinking eyes.

Somehow she now stood upon the half-landing over the hall and the painting appeared as a window with the woman just framed beyond it as large as life watching her. As Victoria approached the frame grew until it confronted her like a door, one side sepia and dripped in shadow, the other bright and vibrant like an Old Master oil canvas.

“There is no danger,” a friendly voice said.

It was enough to quell her hesitance and boldly with one step, Victoria crossed over.

*

Lost in a sea of blinding white linen; Victoria open one eye to face the morning. What a dream she had had? She yawned.

“Miss Victoria, it is time to get up,” an unfamiliar voice called her from somewhere beyond the brilliant shroud.

Victoria sat-up to a whole new room.

The voice belonged to a maid in a Victorian costume, a woman of about her own age, but one she had not seen before. The Bronson’s, the current holders of the Harlech title, had no servants that she knew of, not the live-in sort anyway and anyway, why was she in a different room?

“Who… I mean… where’s Lady Emily?”  Victoria ventured.

“Who Miss?” the woman said in a puzzled voice.

“I mean Lady Harlech,” Victoria amended with the correct address lest this was a game of sorts.

“She is not due to return until the season is over as well you know Miss Victoria,” the maid chided, “You know the climate here does the old lady no good at all.”

“Old lady?” Victoria replied quizzically, then remembering that Emily’s mother-in-law was also known as Lady Harlech she said, “No I don’t mean Lord Harlech’s mother, I mean…”

“Enough of this nonsense young lady, you are in enough trouble as it is,” the maid scolded, “Your governess is waiting. You should have been in the school room half an hour ago.”

“My governess, the school room, what are you… who are you exactly? What is going on?” Victoria demanded.

“Any more of these games Miss Victoria and I will spank you myself so come along with you,” the maid said angrily.

Victoria gaped at the woman and scrambled to her feet to confront her. It was then that she had a good look at the room and the through the window she could see the world beyond. The dream of course, she had gone back to… to where? Perhaps when, was a more pertinent question, as despite the changes, she was clearly still in the same old house.

She hurried excitedly over to the mirror to gaze at her reflection in a full length mirror. It was still her right enough; but dressed in a long flannel nightgown.

“Who am I today… eh… sorry I have forgotten your name,” Victoria asked.

The maid gave her a mighty crack across her behind and said, “Miss Victoria Kittredge, if you don’t get dressed at once I’ll… I will give you that spanking. You know perfectly well you are Lord Harlech’s ward and that I am Annie. It is no wonder that his lordship doesn’t let you come out. I do declare… all these childish games.”

Victoria blushed as she rubbed at her bottom, but before complying she glanced back at the mirror. How old did they think she was? She might look young for her age, certainly by Victorian standards, but how could she pass for under 21? And who or where was the real Victoria?

She was given no time to ponder further as in short order she was pulled and prodded into some far from comfortable clothes.

*

Despite the discomfort, Victoria was quite pleased with the look as she studied her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was piled up, with only a little left trailing at the back “as was befitting a girl who had not yet come out,” she was told.

The nipped-in waist was dramatic, if a little stifling and the colour, a pleasant radiant cream with hints of yellow silk, had Victoria grinning.

“You won’t be smiling long Miss, least ways if you don’t hurry,” Annie said impatiently.

“How long have you known me now?” Victoria said conversationally.

“I have been here three years Miss, as well you know, now cut along,” Annie urged.

As she hastened along after the pensive maid, Victoria could not help but dawdle. The rest of the house was so full of art and knick-knacks that she knew now that most modern Victorian enthusiasts probably played down the look for modern tastes. How did they keep it so clean? Victoria mused, the brass alone…

But her pondering was cut short by their arrival at a heavy panelled door at the end of the hall, which Annie wrapped upon before pushing ajar.

“Miss Victoria Ma’am,” Annie said to someone inside in quite another demeanour from the one she had used with Victoria and she even dipped her knees to bob as she spoke.

Victoria paused, she was suddenly nervous, but Annie gave her a sharp nod that brooked no discussion. So Victoria sighed and taking a deep breath managed a period glide into the room.

The woman inside was her old friend from the portrait next to Lord Harlech. She was rather less grandly attired, but imposing nonetheless.

“You join us at last,” the woman said in a crisp clean voice.

“Yes,” Victoria shrugged, wasn’t it obvious, she thought.

“Tardiness and impertinence,” the woman said in a bored voice.

“Sorry, I just overslept,” Victoria said pleasantly.

It was amazing; she was actually talking to a real Victorian.

“Stop gawping girl and stand up straight, what do you mean by coming here in this manner?” the woman barked. She seemed at a loss as she continued in some consternation, “Speak properly and what do you mean over slept?”

“I… I am not sure what you mean. Didn’t you want to see me?” Victoria asked.

“Diction girl and where did you learn such speech?” the woman gasped. “And such impertinence.”

“I… can’t we start again? I mean firstly, I assume you know me, but I am not sure how,” Victoria began, “Do I look like someone or have I been incorporated here somehow. No that’s not it… you have my name wrong, my surname… I must have taken her…”

The look of horror that passed across the woman’s face did nothing to mar her beauty

“Silence,” she barked. “I will have no more of these comedies young lady, or my name is not Ophelia Grey.”

Victoria was quite taken aback and even went so far as to gulp. Maybe she should play the part better, but how? How did 18-year-old Victorian girls behave with their governesses?

“I am sorry… how do I address you? Ophelia or… or Miss Grey or…” Victoria pulled an unladylike face and wrung at her hands and squeaked tentatively, “Ma’am?”

“This time you have gone too far, much too far. I know these games you play are some form of rebellion for your guardian’s refusal to allow you to come out but I really will not have it,” Ophelia snapped.

Victoria was about to apologise again when she was seized by the back of the neck and propelled forward and across the room.

“Lord Harlech will hear of this.” Ophelia was incandescent.

Victoria was marched awkwardly at speed through the door and back down the hall to the top of the stairs.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming, alright I get it, you don’t have to…” Victoria protested.

“Stop this theatrical urchin… speechifying at once,” Ophelia spluttered.

I guess my vowels aren’t round enough for her, Victoria consoled herself mockingly, but she was suddenly becoming apprehensive. Time travel was never like this in books. How the hell did she end up as someone’s ward for God’s sake?

*

Victoria was marched into a room downstairs where she was prodded to stand up straight and wait. Then Ophelia left her alone.

Looking about her Victoria realised she was in a small library or a study. There was a small desk in one corner under the window that had a scratched green leather writing surface. On it was a pen and ink well as well as several small bundles of letters and a set of keys.

Across the way and at right angles to the small desk was a larger more ornate one set under the direct light from the other window. The only other real furniture in the room were the chairs; one each at the desks and another two against the wall. Bu the thing that drew Victoria’s attention the most was the smell. It was strong for a house, although not musty. There was leather and old wood with an odour she could not place, a bitter rich smell that wriggled at her nose.

Just then there was a movement at the door and Ophelia returned in the wake of large man dressed in brown who swept into the room like a soldier assaulting a fortress. Victoria knew at once that it was Lord Harlech from the portrait and her heart skipped a beat.

“Victoria,” Lord Harlech growled, “What is this about games and pranks? And why were you late for your lessons?”

The man was hard with authority, which sat well on him despite his relative youth, around 32 at most, Victoria judged. His eyes fixed on her with the same intensity of those in the painting, only this time they most definitely had her in focus.

“I-I’m sorry Sir, I…” she remembered the telling’s off she had had at school and how to most swiftly bring them to a close. So she demurely dipped her head and said, “Sorry Sir, I have no excuse.”

“No excuse, I should think not. I tell you girl, until you learn to behave like a lady you will stay under your governess’s tutelage…” he blustered angrily as if the words were overused and worn out. “What did I tell you would happen next time I had occasion to speak to you about this?”

Victoria looked up then, her mouth hanging open as if they had forgotten what words to form.

“Yes young lady, I see you remember,” Lord Harlech said more kindly.

Of course Victoria didn’t, she had no idea. But he seemed less angry now and she adjudged it over.

“I’m sorry,” she said fairly meekly. Then to change the subject, she asked, “Why two desks? There are two desks in here, I am curious.”

Ophelia looked as if she was going to choke and stood gaping at her young charge, as she saw her at least.

Lord Harlech was more relaxed.

“You think I was making idle threats don’t you?” he chuckled indulgently. Then he pointed at the smaller desk and said, “Estate manager’s desk,” and then at the other, “My desk.”

“Oh,” Victoria said, disappointed that the answer wasn’t more interesting.

“He has another office at the lodge, but I like to be on hand when he pays the staff and anyway it is good for me to oversee his management from time to time,” Lord Harlech said warming to his subject. “I’m glad you begin to take an interest in the estate here.”

Ophelia coughed and gave her master an old fashioned looked that in Victoria’s time could have been translated merely as ‘men.’

“Oh, oh yes,” Lord Harlech said more sharply, and then in an exasperated voice he added, “Victoria, Victoria, Victoria…”

“Yes Sir,” she replied more brightly. She was beginning to get the feel for her role now.

“I think it is time that you learned your place. You are a young woman now, but that means less games and more responsibility. Too often you get your own way. So reluctantly I am going to do something that I should have done a long time ago.” As Lord Harlech spoke he removed his jacket and began to roll up his sleeves.

“Sir?” Victoria raised her eyebrows, something tickling at the back of her mind in recognition of what might happen.

Then in one quick move Victoria was seized and turned about. At the same time the young Lord dropped onto the armless chair by the door and pulled the astonished woman across his lap.

“I think I should…” he muttered, looking at Ophelia as he plucked hesitantly at Victoria’s skirts.

Ophelia nodded curtly and pursed her lips.

Lord Harlech then struggled for a few moments as layer by layer he unveiled the bemused Victoria’s stockinged legs and drawers. He arrived at her cotton-encased full round bottom at the same moment Victoria realised what was happening.

“You can’t,” she wailed.

Lord Harlech smacked her sharply across both buttocks and extracted an angry squeal. Then in less than two beats he struck her again more soundly.

“Look I am not who you… eeeh,” she yipped as she was spanked again.

“What that girl needs is a damn good thrashing with a good old fashioned birch rod,” Ophelia offered.

“If she doesn’t learn then you have my full permission to do that,” Lord Harlech agreed.

These words and the next swat garnered a hearty gasp from Victoria who squirmed helplessly across her temporary guardian’s lap.

“The birch is generally applied to a bare bottom,” Ophelia said in a stern voice, “So I suggest we start as we mean to continue.”

With these words she advanced on the prone Victoria and tugged at the draw string on her undergarments then with a series of short tugs she drew them down to first expose Victoria broad white upper cheeks and then the by now red under curves of her bottom.

“Omigod,” Victoria squealed as she was denuded.

“You foul-mouthed brat,” Lord Harlech scolded her as he set to spanking her in a short fast volley.

By now Victoria’s drawers were well down at her calves, exposing a full red bottom set on two firm thighs that pumped vigorously in a vain attempt to gain their liberty.

“I’m sorry,” she squealed, “I’ll be good.”

“Yes-you-will,” Lord Harlech growled punctuating each word with a spank.

The spanking continued for some time before an exchange of glances between his lordship and Ophelia agreed it was over.

“Now my girl, since you wish to play these games and act the brat, you can go and stand in the corner there with your hands on your head. And don’t you even think about pulling up your under things,” Lord Harlech growled.

To augment this arrangement, Ophelia took Victoria by the arm and marched her to the corner so that she faced the wall with her bare bottom turned outward. To make sure Victoria stayed that way, she rolled up the skirts and petticoats behind and affixed them with pins.

“I’ll be good, I’ll be good,” Victoria protested.

“Oh I know you will,” Ophelia warned, “For if you are not, I’ll march you outside just as you are to cut birch twigs for a rod which I will apply to your bare bottom. Now stay there until you are dismissed.”

Lord Harlech stared imperiously at his ward’s submission and then nodded in satisfaction.

“For the rest of this week and next, she will eat in the nursery. And if you get any more trouble from her for the rest of this month you may birch her soundly without further reference to me,” he snapped.

“Yes my lord,” Ophelia said demurely as a smile played about her lips.

“Do you hear me Victoria?” Lord Harlech growled.

“Yes Sir,” she squeaked.

Her mind raced even as her bottom cooled. Never had she been so embarrassed, yet the sharp simplicity of the situation made her feel clean and untroubled somehow. Neither could she ignore the surge in her heart or the thrilling sense of being alive that the situation afforded her. This was after all another world and no word of this would ever reach her 21^st century life. It was oddly liberating.

*

Corner time had lasted through lunch and well into the afternoon. At one point the estate manager had tried to come in but mercifully Ophelia had headed him off. But Lord Harlech and at least one maid had cause to come and go and with each intrusion on her shame she had blushed to a melt and prayed that she would sink through the floor.

The over boiled vegetables and disgusting milk pudding served at the childish table in the nursery had been almost as bad as her earlier punishment, but Ophelia who had remained to supervise her meal, had threatened her with another spanking if she didn’t eat it all up. the meal had taken forever and by the time it was done it was cold and even more unpleasant. But somehow Victoria knew a spanking from her would far more embarrassing even than Lord Harlech’s correction of her and so had not offered the least rebellion.

After her grim supper she was put to bed while it was still light and lay there with the rasp of raw cotton against her tender bottom, which she could not resist augmenting by doing little shimmies. The later having the side effect of stimulating her other side as she imagined herself back over Lord Harlech’s knee. What followed was most unladylike.

She awoke from her daze sometime before midnight and wondered how long her visit to the past would last. Strangely, she realised, she was not yet keen to go, so she slid from the bed and crossed the room to the mirror.

Turning with her back to the glass she rolled the back of the night dress up like a curtain to inspect her rear for any damage. There was still some mottled stains, grey against white in the moonlight, but these tender spots were still sore to the touch.

There was a narcissistic pleasure in standing before a 19^th century mirror with glow-white skin in the moonlight and never had the curves of her bottom been so… so… she sighed. Why was she here? How was she here? Such was the turmoil of her day that this had been the first moment she had had time to even think on that. But despite this, half-naked as she was before the glass, it was all she could do not return to bed and relive her ‘ordeal’ again.

So instead she drew on a gown and slipped into the hall.

The wooden floor was cold on her bare feet and the house was in darkness. Somewhere an owl called to her from the grounds, to be answered by a stranger cry she could not place. Heedless of this warning she ran on tiptoes down the hall to the stairs and drawn by she knew not what she found herself outside Lord Harlech’s study.

There was a light on from within and she knew that he had not yet retired.

With my 21^st century wiles I know I can seduce this man, she made bold claims to herself, after all, why else was she here? Then she heard voices inside.

Damn. Getting a chair she moved it to the skylight and stood on it so that she could peer in.

Lord Harlech sat in the same chair he had spanked her on. He was dressed much as he had been then with his jacket discarded and his sleeves still rolled to expose his manly ruddy-fleshed arms. The girl on his lap wore only her shift and she was giggling like a milk maid as she cuddled into him.

Double Damn. Victoria considered returning to her room but something held her. Then she saw the girl on his lap was Ophelia.

“Now my fine young baggage,” he chided the governess, “Didn’t you enjoy me spanking that little minx?”

Ophelia giggled.

“And why is it that you cannot control the girl? I should not have to deal with her, that is your job,” he scolded.

“She is such a handful,” Ophelia said lightly.

“Perhaps it is you who needs a spanking,” he rumbled as he tickled her chin.

Ophelia giggled again and tucked her head into his.

Victoria licked her lips and felt a surge within. Oh God, she thought, this is like a movie.

“Come here my girl,” Lord Harlech said sternly to Ophelia, ignoring that she was already about as close as she could get.

As Victoria watched, Ophelia was draped unresisting across his lap and so that he could smooth the cloth to her fine curves. Then reaching down he took a pinch of cotton and began to raise the Ophelia’s hem.

Victoria could see the governess’s eyes widen and her mouth gape with wonder as the cotton nightgown slid over the curve of her bottom to expose it to his gaze.

“I would birch you as you threatened to birch my ward,” he said in a thick voice.

“I… I will make another rod if the need ever arises,” Ophelia promised, “I am yours.”

He spanked her sharply then right across both cheeks and she gasped.

“When Victoria comes out I will pack her off to an aunt of mine in London and then you and I…” he spanked her again, “…I’ll find a house nearby, I might even marry you if we are…” and again, “Discreet.”

“Yes, oh yes,” Ophelia cooed.

Lord Harlech spanked her again and again in short sharp slaps so that she kicked and squirmed as if she were truly punished, and indeed from her face and hard bitten lower lip, it was hard to tell.

“I will discipline you in earnest whenever you need it,” he chided her even as he spanked ever harder.

“Yes my lord,” she gasped, struggling now, her breathing ragged.

Suddenly Victoria felt out of place, like an intruder. It was time to let the other Victoria have her life back so that she too could move on and free the lovers. They want her gone so she must be every bit of the brat they say she is, Victoria mused.

As she returned to her bed she found herself hoping that the real girl she had replaced would be soundly birched at least once before she was allowed to grow-up, maybe twice. Victoria giggled; perhaps I’ll come back and arrange it.

This time bed felt good and within minutes Victoria was asleep.

*

The smell that awoke her to the cold hard light of the 21^st century was coffee and bacon.

Naked, Victoria padded over to the mirror, a smaller cousin of the one she had had, and turned to inspect her bare bottom. The spanking had faded somewhat, but there was no doubt that it had been real, as the residual tenderness attested.

Then scrambling for her easy to put-on clothes, she tumbled down the stairs to the dining room.

“Good morning,” she said as she entered.

It was then that she noticed the small portrait over the buffet table.

“Who is that?” she asked.

Emily looked up quizzically.

“Oh that, that’s Victoria something or other, you know she was the ward of the Lord Harlech in the painting we spoke of.”

“What became of her?” Victoria asked as she studied the portrait.

The girl looked nothing like her, although she was pretty. So subjectively in the past that was who they had seen when they looked at her, Victoria decided.

“She married Lord Harlech’s brother and later inherited,” Emily said. “She’s my husband’s great, great grandmother, or was it great, great, great…?”

Victoria was no longer listening. She was already looking at another portrait.

This time the 18^th century man had a cruel mouth and he was looking right at her.

“Oh that’s another Lord Harlech, grandfather of the other one… or was it great grandfather… anyway they say he used to beat his wife and servants. You know, birch rods and whips… the whole lot…”

“Really…” Victoria mused. “How very interesting…”

The end.

Not the run of the mill offerings.

These historical themed drawings were sent in by TipTopper.

There was a random email from Clare (thanks Clare). She dropped a very brief line to say ‘spanking and corner time are good even when they are bad. I was once put in the corner at work with a colleague by our boss because we wouldn’t stop arguing. It was soooo embarrassing. Love the blog, keep up the good work.’

Let’s hope she gets back in touch in comments with the rest of that story. She is not the only one. I have it on good authority that Bunny girls were sometimes put in the corner at work.

The pictures above are from a range of sources and not the usual re-treads you sometimes see. Clare provided a hook and an excuse to run them out.

The housekeeper looked at Sophie with a mix of pity and incredulity. Then her employer’s wife caught her eye and they both blushed.

“It is quite alright Mrs Blanchester;” Sophie whispered meekly, “My husband is well within his rights.”

Mrs Blanchester, as far as anyone knew had never been married, but it was the custom to address housekeepers as Mrs, it gave them more authority. Not that Caroline Blanchester needed any help, as a young woman in her mid-30s, she was much older than both the maids and 10 years the senior of Sophie Grainger.

At first glance they might have been taken for sisters. Both women had a similar look, neither being above five feet four and both having long thick chestnut hair piled upon their heads as was the fashion that year. But where Mrs Blanchester’s grey dress fell elegantly from her hips in one smooth descending sweep in a narrow bell-shape, Sophie was not wearing a dress at all.

In fact she was currently wearing little more than her shift and bloomers. The former of these was cut short and stylishly to her waist so that it blended at the curve of her hips with the knee-length leg coverings that ended in lace at her knees.

Seeing the fall of the housekeeper’s gaze Sophie again blushed and tried to make light of it.

“At least I am wearing bloomers. As a girl we wore those dreadful draws that opened at the back,” she said with a faux brightness.

Caroline Blanchester blushed peony as she remembered the type of garment. She had not been much younger than Sophie when she too had worn them under similar circumstances. That is, drawn apart as she faced the wall to await the rod.

“Do you think I should…?” Sophie pointed at the drawing room wall to her left.

“I was told to wait with you, nothing else,” Caroline said uncomfortably, “What did Mr Grainger… suggest Madam?”

Mr Grainger rarely suggested anything, Sophie thought ruefully, he just gave orders; but then that was how she liked it, if she were honest. She ran through what he had told her.

“You will spend no little time in the corner by the time I am done with you,” he had chided her.

But he had not said to actually… she shrugged, she would anticipate his wishes. After all she was in error and thoroughly deserved her punishment. So with a sigh and another blush she turned to the face the wall as she might have done under the direction of a governess and placed her hands upon her head.

It crossed Caroline’s mind that accepting a spanking from one’s lawful husband was one thing, but to be embarrassed so before one’s own servants was a little rich. But who was she deceiving, at least the woman had a husband and when it came to Mr Grainger, Caroline would have done anything she was told.

The housekeeper had sent the younger maid on a long errand out of the house and given Kathy, the older girl, extensive duties in the scullery and lower house so neither would venture here even by chance. But both knew what was afoot. Caroline only hoped they wouldn’t gossip in the village.

With Sophie facing the wall all conversation ceased and both women stood in an uncomfortable silence. This is awkward, Caroline thought and wondered if she should sit down. She was still deliberating when the door opened and Mr Grainger entered.

He was a tall man, a little above 40. But he had none of the portliness of men of his age and to further the youthful look, wore an elegant dark suit that was currently the vogue.

As he came into the room he glanced at his pocket watch and then at his wife. He nodded in satisfaction, she was a good girl. Then he turned to Mrs Blanchester.

“Did my wife fetch her hairbrush from her room?” he asked her.

Caroline swallowed and then stepped forward and took the brush from the arm of the padded chair under the window.

William Grainger took it and hefted it in his hand.

“Not as stout as the hall brush, but less oppressive I suppose,” he said sharply.

Caroline’s eyes widened a little, as Sophie’s must have. The hall brush was near a foot long and made of mahogany. It hung on a hook in the hall for the purposes of dusting down street wear. It would have been a formidable spanking tool and the housekeeper’s bottom clenched in future anticipation of such an event.

As these thoughts ran through her mind Mr Grainger took hold of the Windsor chair against the other wall and set it down in the middle of the room.

“You may leave us,” he told his housekeeper.

Caroline felt both relieved and disappointed all at once. But his will in this was entirely appropriate.

“Yes Sir,” she agreed with a tilt of the head.

She tended to avoid full curtsies on account of her position, but heaven help the maids if they slacked on this account.

William waited until his housekeeper had left before he summoned Sophie from the wall.

“You know why you must suffer this?” he said sternly.

“Yes Sir,” Sophie said meekly.

Her husband waited.

“I made the misjudgement of spending my allowance of fripperies Sir,” she said at last.

She hoped that by parroting back his earlier words he would be pleased.

“Misjudgement implies that you have any judgement to miss in the first place,” he scolded her.

“Yes Sir, sorry Sir,” she said quickly. “I only meant…”

“Tell me, when you took the five pound note from my dresser,” he stressed the word ‘my,’ “Did you know it was wrong?”

Sophie blushed to her ears and looked down with a nod.

“How did you expect to contrive to get away with such a thing?” he sighed.

She shrugged. She genuinely had no idea, it had been an impulse.

“You are a foolish girl aren’t you?” he sighed again, “Perhaps I should strip you for the rod.”

“Yes Sir,” she whispered, but her heart began to race and she had to bite her lip to prevent a protest.

“Your attitude is sound anyway,” he growled, “Sounder than your judgement. Come here.”

Sophie skipped across the room like a mountain goat or ballerina and flopped into his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry William,” she whispered. “Please give me the spanking I deserve.”

It was not a mantra he demanded, but it felt right.

He wasted no more time and pulled her down across his lap so that her head was dipped towards the floor and her cotton-clad bottom was elevated on his knee.

“I mean to spank you harshly and then you will return to the corner for the remainder of the afternoon,” he chided her.

“Yes Sir,” she trilled.

“And don’t think I will have the maids skulk away below stairs just to suit your dignity,” he snapped.

“No Sir,” she blushed.

This last passive act on her part was as much because of his hand working her bloomers down as the revelation that her shame would be displayed to the household.

Once her full round bottom was bare to his gaze he patted it with the flat side of the brush and watched snow white patches melt against the smooth ivory of her skin. Blanche à la Blanche, he thought wistfully, knowing that rouge en rouge would soon be her shade. He brought the brush down with a pistol crack and marvelled at the shock of white that quickly flooded with pink.

“Eiee,” she squealed and kicked her bloomer-bound ankles.

He spanked her again harder and then thrice more.

She yelped gracefully at each impact rocking her bottom back and forth on his lap as she squirmed. She tried to anchor herself with her elbows under his thighs but four spanks in she swept the left arm back to hug at his waist.

“I will stop your allowance for a month for your folly and if you ever do such a thing…” he barked as he spanked her hard, “…again, then you will feel the rod, if not the strap as well.”

“Yes Sir,” she gasped.

“Do you… do you… do you hear what I say?” he rasped, the brush spanking down with real bite at each repetition.

“Yes Sir,” she screeched, her voice now strained.

By now her bottom was a bright poppy red across its whole surface and little mottles of mauve raggedly stained her right curve. Satisfied with the aesthetics, he let the brush fall on the under curves of her bottom right where she sat, an action that extracted earnest soulful wails from his lady wife as she kicked her legs ever more frantically.

Tears pooled at her red-rimmed eyes and her moist protests were accompanied by laboured breathing at the rise and fall of his arm.

“Please Sir, oh Sir…” and then with a shriek, “William… I am so sorry,” she wailed.

“Are you? Are you indeed?” he said in a scolding voice, but not letting up one jot with his arm.

In fact the spanking lasted a good five minutes more before William was satisfied. By then Sophie was a tearful mess hugging into her husband in true contrition.

“Now madam, you can retire to the corner and think on your wilful behaviour,” he said gently after taking a moment to hug her back.

“Yes Sir,” she sobbed.

And then reluctantly she limped to the wall and took up position facing it with her hands on her head and her bloomers still wrapped firmly at her ankles like hobbles.

“You may put your hands in the small of your back,” he said kindly, “But leave your bloomers down. You are going to be there for quite some considerable time.”

“Yes Sir,” she said miserably.

Without the least display of surprise William suddenly went to the door and opened it on Caroline who was standing there suddenly flustered.

“You may see to in here now and Mrs Blanchester… do leave this door open, both the room and Mrs Grainger would benefit from an airing.”

“Yes Sir,” Caroline said with a nervous blush.

“I will take my tea here,” he chuckled as he shot a glance back at his wife’s sore and exposed bottom.

“Yes Sir,” Caroline said breathily, following his gaze.

She would bring some herself directly.

Ends.

Recently an article on birching from this blog was republished over at Well Red Weekly. So in my quest for recovering lost material from my hard drive it seemed possible that some unused original source material was to be found.

This threw up two separate, mysterious and yet interesting snippets. The first was a reference to the birching of maids on the Isle of Wight. Curious, a search revealed the picture above from the Branding Wax Works Museum on that island. The naked maid getting into bed has definitely been thrashed. Now there is an exhibit some of us would want to see.

The other find was this standalone passage in a single text file that may be from one of my aborted stories. It really is impossible to remember. It was on the partially recovered hard drive in a file from 2006.

-

Emily risked a peek over her shoulder at the birch rod waiting for her. It lay long and menacing on the table, the result of many hours of labour on her part. It was well made and stout and if it hadn’t been destined for a prolonged application across her exposed behind, she would have been a little proud of it.

A sound in the hall beyond the door encouraged her to snap her head back around so that her nose was back in the corner. It was mortifying to stand thus with only a thin blouse and bloomers to cover her. And the bloomers were now down at her ankles where cook had put them so that her neat prominent bottom was bared to the gaze of any who would chance by.

At least the Mr Graham the butler had some decorum and usually absented himself to his parlour at such times. But Herbert and Tom the pot boy would take every chance to enter servant hall while she awaited her chastisement. Emily only hoped that Susan the House maid could keep them at bay. A task she undertook not so much out of sympathy, but out of self-preservation as she herself was not immune from such treatment.

It was bad enough to have to fetch the makings dressed only in one’s underwear. She had heard them sniggering in the bushes. She blushed for the shame of it.

Emily sighed. It had been hour since she had completed the rod and had been sent to the corner. Now there was a light chill around her exposed nethers even as her face continued to burn with shame.

Then finally the door opened and Mr Charles entered.

Emily sucked in a breath, knowing s she did that he could see her bare bottom. But it wasn’t the first time.

“Well my girl, what have you to say for yourself?” he chided her.

Emily was tongue-tied.

Mr Charles gave a heavy sigh and took up the birch.

“Very well, let’s get this over with,” he sounded disappointed. “Come on girl, bend over the table.”

Emily clapped her hands to her naked forward parts and with a strawberry red face scampered across the room in a crouch and bent over.

“Get your bottom out a bit more,” he growled.

It was so embarrassing, but she quickly obeyed, parting her thighs a little for a more secure posture. The table was a little shorter than her legs so that her bottom was well elevated for the coming rod.

“You’ll take three dozen this time and you had better not get out of position,” he told her.

“Yes Sir,” she squeaked.

Mr Charles inspected the target for a moment and then gave a little cough of embarrassment at what she had revealed.

“Legs together a little more,” he said gently.

Emily gaped in horror and quickly closed her legs, an action that elevated her bottom even more.

Satisfied Mr Charles tapped the exposed backside thrice and then brought the rod down with a vengeance.

“One thank you Sir,” she shrieked.

The passage of the rod across her arse left a trail of pain like a million bees. The second stroke was no kinder.

“Two thank you Sir,” she grunted.

It took four more strokes for the first of the tears to come and by then her breathing was ragged and she gently shook her bottom as if to throw off the pain.

“When I am done with you here you spend the rest of the day in that corner, do you hear me,” Mr Charles said in a dark voice.

Then he struck in hard again.

“Yes Sir,” she wailed, “Seven thank you Sir… ooh.”

“Feeling it now I’ll be bound, looks like you are,” he observed.

“Yes Sir,” she sniffed, a tear strolling down her face and off the end of her nose.

The eighth, ninth and tenth strokes really hit home and Emily broke to sobbing.

“I trust you are sorry girl,” he scolded her.

“Ooh, yes Sir,” she wept and then as he struck again she announced, “Eleven thank you Sir.”

Just a third of the way through and she was already broken. Emily doubted that she would ever sit down again.

-

It seems more than a little rough in places; I hope I have come on a little since then. I wonder what else I will find.

Steampunk is very much back in vogue these days, although many of you might be forgiven for never having heard of it. The label ‘Steampunk’ was not coined until 1987 and even then it was merely mooted as a possible collective term for a sub-genre of science fiction writing. And some say it was wholly intended as a spoof on cyberpunk.

This last point maybe true as far as coining a phrase was concerned and the confusion with the use of the term punk has put many off. But the traditions themselves are not only older, but a long way removed from the anarchic aspirations of punk and cyberpunk. For one thing Steampunk is smart and savvy and hankers for a return to order of a sort, albeit a sort of stylish Victorian New Order.

For those who do not know, this sub-genre usually deals in alternative history and what-if scenarios. Most especially these stories are set either during the Victorian era or in a 20^th century where 19^th century values and key technologies did not perish and technology and society took another path.

The common characteristics of these stories are often clockwork, airships and of course steam power.

The movies The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with Sean Connery, and Wild West with Will Smith and Kenneth Branagh based on the 1960s TV show of the same name, gives one a feel for the sort of retro science that embodies Steampunk. Indeed could be said to be wholly within this sub-culture.

It is this particular genre that first attracted me as far back as the late 1970s, almost a decade before the name was even invented and the inspiration for this literary tradition can be traced back even further to novels as from the mid-19^th and early 20^th century such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne and a whole swathe of books by HG Wells such as the War in the Air, the Time Machine and even War of the Worlds.

The mechanical legged Martians and clockwork time machine are staples of what is now regarded as Steampunk, where frock-coated and top-hatted heroes abound.

Apart from Wells, it was the novels of Michael Moorcock that was to be my first taste of retro-sci-fi and which is now known as Steampunk. His books presumed a world where the British Empire had not fallen and great mechanical steam or clockwork driven leviathans crossed continents bring destruction to mankind.

His alternative histories included works such as the Ice Schooner, the Land Leviathan, Warlord of the Air and the Steel Tsar. All of which had most of the classic features we now associate with Steampunk.

To complete the picture a whole raft of new authors such as Scott Westerfield, William Gibson and Cherie Priest have emerged sometimes confidently writing under the Steampunk banner.

Today influences can be seen far beyond traditional Steampunk and hints can even be seen in Dr Who (whose frockcoat predates even Moorcock) and many other contemporary imaginative fiction.

So it has been very much with this literary tradition in mind that I have viewed the growing emergence of the Steampunk sub-culture, where Victoriana meets sci-fi in brass and clockwork, and top hats with goggles that has even spawned a music culture.

So what has this got do with spanking and TTTWD?

My first encounter with real life Steampunks was at the LAM some years ago and then again during a London Fetish Fair where real embodiments of characters straight out of a Steampunk novel down to the hat, goggles and the whip in their hands walked the aisles. While on stalls parallels with corsetry and other fetish gear could clearly be seen.

Incidentally, returning to Michael Moorcock for a moment, before the old hippy engaged in a campaign to restrict spanking books to the top shelf on the grounds that no woman really wants to be spanked (well his heart is in the right place and to be fair some of the books he cites are rather misogynist) he did write a few books of his own that touched upon the matter in hand. The time travelling adventures The Life and Times of Jerry Cornelius and The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century were not adverse to a bit of S&M, as it was quaintly called in those days. None of these books are strictly Steampunk, but the author certainly has such credentials.

So given an opportunity it has been an emerging ambition of mine to explore two merging interests. No, I am not buying a top hat and goggles, but I have written a short Steampunk spanking story which you can read here tomorrow.

Here is a selection of vintage photographs that either have spanking or a hint of spanking in them.

My favourite is of the two girls hiding their faces as if indulging in some kind of 1930s Face Book style prank. The spanking undertones are undeniable.

Another interesting photo is the very grainy one that has real signs of marks on her bottom. This is unusual for this genre and suggests a possibility of some authenticity maybe.

The naughty ‘school girl’ who accidentally reveals her bottom is a staple and this is from a famous often seen set. But this actual shot is not commonly seen.

All of these had automatic emergency file names, a consequence of being hastily backed up by my old hard drive, so these could have come from anywhere and have been in my collection since at least 2007 and probably much longer.

On Tuesday there is a brief article about war time spanking photography and its role in morale fro the troops at the front.

Some time ago I came across a little piece of military history regarding the home front and the use of photography for keeping up the morale of men off fighting. Certainly by the time of both the Crimean War and the American Civil War photography was available to the officer classes among the British, French and Union Army.

It is by no means clear how widespread this practice was, but there is a suggestion that some young wives and sweethearts of serving officers (and some men) had risqué portraits taken of themselves (much like the themed one above) in order to keep their men’s spirits up.

One can well imagine that these women kept this naughtiness from their families and many a Victorian father would have been outraged and all that that promised. Remember this was the age of the birch and strap which were not spared when it came to a young woman’s bottom. Remember too that the same young ladies may well have been required to lodge with older relatives, sister’s, or even their imperious mother-in-laws.

One can speculate too what their husbands would say (or do) on returning for war to confront the butter-wouldn’t-melt demeanour of demure women who had dared all.

I couldn’t find more of substance on this. A selection letters from the First World War had these two little snippets.

Dear Bell,

Thanks for the items you sent, especially the socks and the other thing. That certainly was a surprise. Now I really am looking forward to when I can come back home.

And this…

Some of the men have been sent pictures of their girls got up in bathing suits and sometimes even less. I would hate to think of you getting up to such antics and if you ever did you and I would have words when I got home. The respectable portrait of you that you had made last summer is more than enough for me.

Pictures from the First War are relatively common and abound on vintage erotica sites, but many from earlier times were printed on glass and would have been lucky to survive the post in the first place and are now mostly lost or are in private collections.

The old schoolhouse, as it was known, stood bellow the rise above the stream almost three miles from the Stepford Ranch House. Louise Stepford snorted at the very idea, as far as she knew it was less than 30 years old, having been built by the first generation of settlers in these parts. But then that was typical. The so-called first-comers invested everything with more gravitas than it deserved, especially themselves. Like this schoolmaster of theirs, who did he think he was? Louise was furious.

It was bad enough that she didn’t have a man of her own, John Stepford having passed away on the journey out from Boston. But that was no excuse for uppity westerners to take advantage of a poor widow and her daughter.

The word stuck in her heart. A widow again at 36, it seemed so unfair, Louise sighed. Her first husband had not returned from the war, leaving her with a daughter at just 18-years-old. John Stepford had been her only real recourse. Now he too was dead. It wasn’t that she missed him exactly. She had never really loved him. But now Ellie was 18 too and they both had to make a living on a ranch with no man and precious little of anything else. Louise sighed again. Boston was never like this. Then she remembered the uppity schoolmaster and his outrage. No Boston was never ever like this.

Now that the schoolhouse was in sight Louise pulled her shawl about her shoulders and took a moment of tuck a stray strand of raven hair into her bonnet. The wind was picking up and kicked at her skirts. Damn the man, bringing her all this way out here. Didn’t she have better things to do?

Louise didn’t bother to knock, wasn’t this a public building after all? She would be damned if… any other thoughts were wiped from her mind as she swept into the little school house and saw Ellie and what had been done to her.

“Oh my God, you barbarian,” Louise gasped.

She didn’t even look at the man who perpetrated such an outrage, so she didn’t see his look of angry disapproval as he glanced up at her from his desk over the rims of his spectacles. He was big man in a once grand black suit that had seen better days. If she had taken the trouble to look she would have seen the darker outline of a star on his lapel where once a sheriff’s badge had been pinned.

But instead Louise’s eyes were drawn to Ellie’s shameful predicament. The petite raven-haired younger copy of Louise was stood in the corner with her hands planted firmly on her head with her skirts had been tucked neatly into the small of her back. Most shameful of all was the sight of the girl’s cream linen draws in a puddle at her ankles that had left the full young curves of her womanish hips and… and bottom completely nude. Louise was still taking in the hard shine of red that marked both hind cheeks when she blurted…

“That’s Ellie’s bare bottom.” It came out as pure indignant Bostonian. Great Aunt Aggie would have been proud.

“That’s customary ma’am when someone gets a good sound spanking,” Jonathon T Redmond drawled from his place at his desk.

“But… but she’s 18 now, surely she is too old for a…” Louise swallowed down her indignation to allow her to pronounce the shameful word, “Spanking.”

Remembering his manners, even if his guest didn’t, Redmond got slowly to his feet.

“Ellie doesn’t graduate for another month ma’am,” he drawled, “Until then she gets the same treatment as everyone else in my class.”

“But this is… it’s…” Louise spluttered, “Why back in Boston a man would never… why Ellie’s practically a woman now.”

“Then she really ought to know better hadn’t she ma’am,” Redmond said sharply and pointing out that, “Besides, we are not in Boston.”

“That, you unspeakable man, has never been so clear to me,” Louise all but screeched.

“Now ma’am, I don’t know what brought you here to my school, but Ellie here has to serve another 35 minutes in the corner and then I will release her. So if you would kindly…”

Louise did not believe what she was hearing.

“You expect me to allow…” she gaped, “I’ll tell you what brought me here Mr…”

“Redmond, Jonathon P Redmond ma’am,” his eyes tightened at the corners and he fixed her with a hard stare as if daring her to question his methods.

Louise knew his name well enough. There were few enough names out here to learn.

“Mr Redmond, I don’t know what you consider normal where you come from, but gentlemen certainly do not… Ellie repair your dress at once and come out of that corner.”

“Don’t you move a step Miss Stepford or wale your behind again only this time with a switch,” Redmond’s voice brooked not a hint of compromise.

Suffice to say Ellie did not even twitch.

“When Arthur Peagreen, dreadful boy, came by my ranch saying that Ellie would be home late on account of getting a ‘whooping’ as he called it, well I just had to…” Louise told him, the words tumbling over each over in their haste to leave her mouth, “But I never imagined…”

“No one ever took your draws down and gave you a sound spanking on your bare bottom Mrs Stepford?” Redmond asked Louise casually.

The heat rose in Louise’s face and it wasn’t all anger now. She spluttered silently before turning to Ellie and saying, “Ellie, we are leaving. Come out of that corner at once and… pull up your draws.”

Ellie shuffled uncomfortably and then without turning her head wailed, “Oh Ma, it’s alright, just go home.” Her foot stamped in frustration as she spoke.

At this rate the whole town would come by and see her in disgrace. So far Louise had not bothered to ask what had prompted such action on Mr Redmond’s part. Ellie fervently hoped that she wouldn’t.

“Damn you woman, you are even more spoiled than Ellie,” Redmond sighed. “Life is hard out here, what in God’s name did you want me to do when your daughter shoves another student’s head down the outhouse?”

Louise gaped and shot a wild look of disbelief at Ellie.

Her daughter was biting her lip now and casting a desperate look over her shoulder.

“Ma, Rachel Bingham called me a bitch and a whore and said…”

“That language and the other thing is what got you a good spanking in the first place young lady,” Redmond told her sharply.

“Well that’s what she said,” Ellie muttered.

Throughout this exchange Louise stood open-mouthed not knowing who was the most barbaric, this Redmond or her own daughter.

“Ellie, you can come out of the corner now,” Redmond said gently, “Go home, your mother and I need to talk.”

Ellie didn’t need telling once as far as her dignity went and she was halfway out the door with her bare bottom still hanging in the breeze before her draws finally covered her tail. Then she was gone with a slam of the door.

“That is a girl that needs to be taken in hand,” Redmond said sadly with a shake of his head.

Meanwhile Louise, overcome with shock and a sense of failure, was building herself up to an old-fashioned paddy. She stood in the middle of the floor shaking with rage with her face exploring every shade of red God had given her.

“You…” she spat, “You unspeakable man, you did this…”

“I assure you I didn’t ma’am. It was definitely Ellie who pushed Miss Bingham’s…”

“And for why?” Louise screamed, “Her language, her… she’s a hellion. I should never have let her come to this school.”

“You would prefer the other one?” he cocked one eyebrow in gentle mockery.

“You bastard,” she hissed.

“I assure you, curse words are not on the curriculum, in fact I strongly discourage such utterances as you may now gather,” he offered gently, “You came out here on the wagon train didn’t you? Tough times, I know. Here a young woman… grows up fast. She just needs some guidance is all.”

How dare this man blame her for her daughter’s decent into hooliganism? She seethed for a moment longer and then stepping forward she slapped Redmond hard across the face.

He blinked twice and staggered back a step. The woman was small, but she packed a big punch.

“You utter, utter bastard,” her eyes flashed and her face took on a look that suggested that it had been her face shoved down the outhouse.

“I can see that it is not only Ellie who needs a lesson,” Redmond sighed and began to remove his jacket.

In truth Louise no longer heard him and let out a long hard sigh of disappointment at this latest twist in her life. She didn’t know who she was anymore. She certainly didn’t know Ellie. In a moment of insight she realised that she could never return to Boston now. Ellie for one did not belong there. John’s death and the long hard trail had burned it out of them and left something alien in its place.

Redmond put his jacket over the back of his chair and began to roll up his sleeves to reveal his powerful forearms. Then sitting on an armless chair used by an older student he sat down and crooked his finger at Louise.

“Mrs Stepford, please come here,” he said quietly.

“What?” Louise murmured as remembered he was still there.

“Mrs Stepford, you will come here or when I am through with you I will send you out back to cut a switch too.” Redmond’s voice was diamond hard now. The kind of voice he used only on very difficult students now, but it had been hard-learned on town toughs and gun-toting punks.

“What?” Louise shook her head.

And then as if returning from a long trip she suddenly took in the small schoolhouse room and realised what he was about to do.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she challenged him, but the scorn had an uncertain edge.

Redmond was not a man who made idle threats and he knew this woman was in serious danger of biting off more than she could chew with him. If that happened it would put a wall between them forever. If he wanted to build on the changing rapport between them, and he did, then he had to be decisive. So instead of waiting for the quiet obedience that her daughter already offered him, he reached out his long powerful arm and seized her by hers.

“Oh no, no, no, no you don’t,” she offered the words, but even to her own ears there was some half-heartedness to her protest.

Redmond pulled her easily towards him and across his lap where she floundered and kicked up her heels like a vaudeville cliché. But he had been married once and her heavy grey cotton skirts and lighter white underskirts were no mystery to him. He piled them easily into the small of her back to expose the knee-length dainty lace bloomers.

“Oh come on now,” she said in a tight voice as if being asked for a reluctant dance. “You really can’t…”

Redmond considered sparing her modesty for just a beat, but then remembered his only defence with Ellie was quite rightly that this was how it was done. So after a heartbeat longer her tugged at the string at her waist and let the snowy draws tumble like an avalanche of cotton down the woman’s pale thighs.

Louise’s hips were full and round, not like the alabaster statues he had seen in a museum once, but despite the hint of blemishes that any real woman had, they had nobility not found on a dancehall girl or one of the women who occupied Kathy William’s upstairs room. To complement her heroic figure Louise’s bottom hung in two tight lobes that filled out the space between hip and thigh in epic proportions.

“Mr Redmond,” Louise screeched, respectfully marking his name for the first time that evening.

“Mrs Stepford,” he acknowledged, and when she merely gulped and squirmed he told her, “I am going to give you the sound spanking that you have been needing for a long, long time.”

“You… you wouldn’t…” her eyes darted back in her head like a wild pony as she added, “Dare.”

Redmond brought his arm down in one great sweep that landed with a hard splat on her exposed bottom. His palm left a quickly developing handprint on her right hind so he added another to the left.

“Ooh, Mr Redmond,” Louise squealed.

Undeterred, Redmond spanked her bare bottom as hard as ever spanked a woman and as soon as she took to curses he wondered if the switch might not be needed after all.

“You can’t, you can’t, this is too much,” she protested, but her voice was pained and she clawed at her hips as she tried to pry them apart.

“I believe I can,” he barked back at her, spanking in hard again and again.

“Nooo please, Mr Redmond,” she shrieked.

Louise pounded on the legs of the chair with both hands and kicked her legs as if she had been seized by Indians. But none of this deterred him in the least and he spanked her bare bottom over and over until it resembled a ripe strawberry.

“Mr Redmond, Sir, please, please stop, someone might come in,” she wailed, “I’m sorry I slapped you,” she added, “I was… upset.”

He spanked her extra hard so that her babble ended in a squeak and her face became lost in sequential comedies. Then as she helplessly bucked on his lap she reached out for the crosspiece of the chair as it would aid her to ride out the mortifying storm.

“Mrs Stepford I do not appreciate being told how to do my job. I do not appreciate being slapped in my own classroom. I do not appreciate you barging in while I am punishing a student…” Redmond scolded her as he spanked her with an effort drawn from the heart.

“Oh please,” she wailed, “I’m so sorry, I won’t do it again, please.”

There was summer rain in her voice, like a dampness you could smell before the downpour. The bottom spanks rang out like pistol shots as strong as ever, but her protests had grown weak, her chuckle-like spluttering descending into sobs.

“Ooh,” she wailed, rolling her lower lip down as a prelude to a defeat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Then finally she broke to tears and in tones not unlike Ellie earlier began to sob in earnest.

“Now Mrs Stepford, when I am through here you are going to go stand in the corner like a good girl or will send you for a switch if I have to spank you again to get you to mind me. Even if, and mark my words well ma’am, we have to do this all night.”

“Yes Sir,” Louise sobbed miserably and in utter surrender.

Redmond blasted down with his arm so that his palms stung almost as much as her bottom must as he continued the spanking for a good few minutes to finally make his point.

“Now, the corner, just as Ellie was,” he ordered her.

Louise jumped up and danced around the room with her hands clamped to her still bare bottom and the last of her best Boston reserve streaming down her face.

“The corner, Mrs Stepford, or I will send you for a switch,” Redmond said sharply.

Half pulled together but with her hands still kneading her bottom, Louise gaped at the man, but then seeing his eyes she averted her own. Her face was as hot as hell as she sucked on her tongue, that is to say half as hot as her behind. She couldn’t, she just couldn’t, her mind screamed as she looked daggers at the corner. Would he really make her cut a switch? Would she even do that? What if someone saw?

“Just as Ellie did, you say?” she managed to say after a swallowing. Some Boston dignity was back in her voice, but it was forced, like the time she had been made to walk with a book on her head in an attempt to improve her posture.

“Just as you saw Ellie standing in the corner, exactly so,” Redmond suppressed a smirk.

Louise’s bottom flared with pain as she took a step towards the dreaded corner and she winced.

“I have seen such prevarications before Miss,” he said deliberately using the diminutive, “Believe me.”

“This is too much Sir,” Louise said haughtily, attempting a tone one used with equals.

“Mrs Stepford, go stand in the corner,” he barked at her.

She scurried there quickly and after the longest pause reluctantly took her hands from her scorched-red bare bottom and placed them on her head.

*

The hour following her spanking had been the longest of Louise’s life. She was thoroughly mortified and silently raged at the man, at Ellie, at her late husband John and finally the world in general. But the truth was Louise Jane Stepford was the only one at fault. I have been lamenting the Boston life for far too long, she decided. So what if Ellie got a ‘whooping’ at school, why did she have to stick her nose in as usual? Ellie had it coming.

The implications of the last decision did nothing to ease her inner turmoil. This is so shameful, she realised and then it really sunk in, he can see my bare behind. The sting had abated and now transferred to her face where her blushes redoubled.

“Please Mr Redmond, I have learned my lesson, please may I go now,” she said with exaggerated politeness.

Redmond reached into his pocket and took out his watch.

“Another five minutes I think Mrs Stepford, after all that is what I require of Ellie,” he let his eye run across her handsome bottom and adjust his posture.

Louise sighed heavily, but there was nothing she could do. Please, please, please don’t let anyone come in, she prayed.

Finally Redmond stood up and put on his jacket.

“It is dark, I will walk you home,” he said.

Louise snatched the hands from atop of her head and dropped her skirts like a curtain. She did not bother to put her bloomers back on, that indignity was too much. So she kicked them off and hastily scooped them up and hid them in her skirts. But he knew, damn the man, he knew. Her blushes reached new levels.

“I can see myself home thank you very much,” she said tartly as she went for the door.

“Mrs Stepford, aren’t you forgetting something?”

Louise stopped and glared at him. Surely he didn’t mean her bloomers.

“After correction, it is customary to offer one’s thanks,” he said.

Louise took a deep breath and then crossed the room towards him. She extended her hand as if at a social function and with one curt nod and a shake she said, “Thank you Sir.”

“Thank you ma’am,” Redmond agreed as he tried not to smile.

Then blushing furiously she left with almost as much haste as Ellie had earlier. But at the door he coughed and she paused.

“Mrs Stepford, might I have the pleasure of your company this Sunday?” he inquired.

Louise rounded on him and gaped.

“I could call around six,” he suggested.

“If you do, I’ll greet you with a shotgun,” she said with an attempt at bitterness.

“Six then,” he grinned.

Louise sniffed and walked out.

The stars were sharp and clear and went on forever. Each one seemed to point the way to a new future for her, but the only star that interested her just then was the one Jonathon Redmond used to wear on his broad chest. Now he is a man with a story, she pondered, I wonder if Mr Redmond likes chicken. And then as soon as she was certain she was a distance from the old schoolhouse she began to laugh.

Ends

Given the ‘vintage’ fiction this week, I thought we might close the theme for now with these. One of the above is an old favourite but the others I had not seen before they ended up in my archive. You can decide which is which, you may have seen them all anyway.

If you look closely the older woman in the first, third and last photograph looks remarkably similar.

Incidentally, I also stumbled across a very realistic dawn of photography classroom set, but the quality was appalling.

It seems to me that realism in vintage spanking erotica is rare.

But the two pictures above are to my mind so realistic that they have the look and feel of a real spanking in action.

Although this is highly unlikely, it does suggest that the photographer, if not the actors, were into their art and not merely going through the motions for a bit of commercial ‘flage.’

Or should that be reds? Here is a rare little Edwardian gem depicting vintage lesbian spanking and close-up of the action.