Sixteen of the Best

by Sarah Veitch

  'Almost done,' he said with genuine regret. Flexing the cane between his hands, he decided to enliven her susceptible underswell. He laid on the rod with moderate force and she yelled and almost overshot the water butt again.

  Putting her over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, he carried her back to the bedroom, laid her across his lap and examined his handiwork.

  'No more,' she said. 'Oh please!'

  'I promised you six of the best, and six you've had,' Darren murmured, kneading her vanquished nates. 'Tomorrow we start filming.'

  'Ah! Ouch! Ow! I promise to be the perfect presenter,' Suzie said.

  'There's also a World Environmental Day special being planned for next June,' Darren added. 'And we haven't chosen a presenter yet. But my cock's so hard that I can't think...'

  'I could help you think,' Suzie whispered on cue, putting her manicured hand on his fly.

  'Well, if you insist, a nice tongue bath always wakes me up,' Darren replied, closing his eyes as she unzipped him. He opened them wide when he felt her mouth closing over his rod. She was kneeling between his legs and sucking avidly at his hardness, her reddened bottom quivering as she moved her head. It was the horniest thing he'd seen for some time, the producer admitted to himself, and he was no stranger to erotic encounters. But there was something special about being fellated by every teenage boy's wet dream. And the fact that he'd just toasted her backside made it extra special, as did the fact that he knew she'd eventually slip up again.

  Oh, the reformed Suzie wanted to go green, and she'd be motivated for as long as she was filming this new series. But, a few weeks from now, she'd forget to recycle her toner cartridge or would be tempted into buying some eco-unfriendly mangoes or an increasingly scarce variety offish. And he'd pop round for a surprise visit and discover her indiscretions and she'd end up, kicking and screaming, over his knee. He knew she'd acquiesce - after all, he held the carrot of that Environmental Day special. She wouldn't want to miss out on such prestigious and high profile work.

  Darren cried out as he came strongly in her mouth, then smiled inwardly as he looked forward to future sessions. He flexed his spanking arm: Suzie might be going green but he was looking forward to thinking pink.

  Rubious - The Colour of Rubies

  Mark Ramsden

  I was a teenage Satanist, a black-eyed bad girl with blood-red teeth.

  In other words I was a shy Goth, a Sylvia Plath fan, a pale brunette sealed in black. Red was my second favourite colour, particularly the shade of soundly smacked bottoms. Cane lines crayoned on white flesh. Red passion flowers. Or perhaps it was the canvas on which they were etched. Artists need a flat easel but those who work on flesh prefer curves. This sort of work should be done as slowly as possible, preferably on chubby buttocks, the sort one must fondle before, during and after a punishment. Just to ascertain whether the skin can take any more reddening, of course. One wouldn't want to besmirch the noble art of chastisement with sexuality. At least not until the receiver has been allowed to rub their bottom, perhaps while pouting defiantly, and after they have spread themselves in whatever position in which they like to receive oral sex. Or something a little more invasive...

  My teenage hobbies were mooching around and deciding how suicidal I was. Usually while reading Sylvia Plath. I would wonder who would miss me after I was gone. How much I could hurt them. How they would rue the day they upset me, the centre of the known universe.

  Perhaps I just needed someone to thrash some sense into me; fortunately I met a wise older woman. Her name was also Sylvia, although, unlike Plath, there was nothing remotely masochistic about her. She taught me the benefits of a sound scourging on a moonlit night. Black clothes, red wine, white moon, scarlet bottoms and shared sighs - we were the cruel sisters, taking it in turns to whip each other into a frenzy. I was fond of my teacher. She whipped me well. She showed me how to make money from my passion, helping me to become a pro-Domme. She even taught me new words to describe a beating, sometimes over her knee, with one spank for each letter.

  'Vapulation' - an obscure word for flogging - how it hurt memorising that one! 'Rubious' was another one of Sylvia's obscure words, one that would drive any Scrabble opponent into a red mist rage. It took fewer smacks to learn that one, perhaps because 'the colour of rubies' was poetic enough to be memorable.

  Now I'm on my fourth twenty-ninth birthday I still persevere with men. Heaven knows why, as they're mostly useless. But I much prefer spanking women. And the most recent jewel in my crown was Svetlana, a Russian mafia princess.

  She came into my life when I was looking for someone to kill my ex-husband. Too much information? Well, it was only a passing phase. I'd rather have him alive these days. That way he'd suffer much longer.

  Geezer Hardnut, my boyfriend, when I can prise him away from the Playstation, arranged for me to meet Svetlana. She was a genuine female assassin. So he said. He might be a liar but he's killed more people than I have so I have to go with it. Particularly as I spent at least a year wanting my ex-husband killed. I admit I may have lost a little perspective when they took my children away from me. Actually, I never got as far as discussing my husband's disposal with Svetlana. Some film noir heroine I would have made.

  Svetlana was my scarlet woman. You could use 'rubious' to describe her crimson lipstick and the broken veins in her bloodshot eyes. It was also the colour of her pert little bum once I had finished paddling it. Svetlana was thin, chic, adorably scatty and most probably insane. Her skin was as white as the paper I write on, her bruises as black as my ink. Like my teenage self, Svetlana wore only black and red. Black boots, red leather mini-skirt. Her conversation also had one theme: what she wanted next. Apart from her blonde hair this was going to be like spanking my teenage self.

  'You talk too much! Beat me! I want to be flogged. Flogged hard!'

  Typical Svetlana. She can't even be bothered to wait for a proper introduction. I can hear her husky voice, too loud from vodka and smoky from too many cigarettes. 'Linear narrative? Is for pussies! Pull my knickers down and smack my bottom! Hard!'

  Well. If you insist.

  We had a few quick drinks, the quickest I had ever had. Then I knew I wasn't hiring her as a hit-woman. You can't trust chronic alcoholics. Especially not when they have a bad cold in mid-summer and a need to visit the bathroom every ten minutes. But you can still seduce them. As soon as we were back at my place we kissed till our lips hurt. I dragged her over my knee. One of her hands found the floor while the other grasped my foot tightly. She started to kiss my ankles. I slowly eased her white lace panties down. I was sopping wet just from the sight of her firm, chubby rump.

  'Lay still, my girl,' I told her. 'You're going to get the spanking of a lifetime.'

  She had no more hope of laying still than a landed fish gasping for air. I smacked her hard as she wriggled and sighed. I caressed her, fingering her openings, patting her firm, fleshy cheeks. As the heat built up she moaned loudly but she wasn't going to beg for mercy.

  They don't spare the rod in Russia. She was probably used to having her pretty little bottom striped hard. And she was drunk enough to take a lot of pain. After a while my hand was hurting too much.

  Her bottom was red and glowing, yet still ripe for more punishment. Despite the pain she still managed to stick it out and up. Before continuing I took a moment to contemplate the seat of pain and pleasure, the site of pride and shame. It was the finest specimen I had ever had at my disposal. Much too good to rush.

  'I keep this heart-shaped paddle for those I love,' I said, picking up my favourite implement. I watched her closely, looking to see if the word love terrified her. It often does. Because who needs another needy stalker? After a certain age the fiction of a mystic other or perfect lover can no longer sustain us. Luckily our needs and desires remain as fierce as ever, perhaps even more so with the realisation that there is less time in which to indulge our desires.

  'Who cares who you love?' she gasped. 'Hit me!'
r />   It was the right answer I suppose. Certainly the one to get her bottom smacked as quickly as possible. I unleashed a quick flurry of spanks. Which gave her something to think about. And then I told myself off for losing control.

  I usually ask a receiver to kiss the paddle before and after use. Sometimes I douse the surface with water because it makes an already tender bottom much more sensitive to the smacking leather impact. And because moist reddening cheeks look even more enticing. I asked her to kiss the paddle, already slightly warm from contact with her hot bottom. Then I laid it to one side and picked my tawse up.

  This'll make you tingle, you hard-arsed bitch. I gave her three quick, hard whacks. She screamed and begged me to stop. Finally! I was getting somewhere. She reached a hand behind her to block my access but, like any mother since time immemorial I merely grabbed the hand and jammed it further up her back. I raised my left thigh to position her more temptingly. She rewarded my efforts by sprawling lewdly, showing me her shaven pout and releasing more of the scent that drives me wild: freshly spanked, horny young woman. I never tire of it.

  I dangled the tawse between her legs, rubbing it back and forth as she opened further for me. I smacked her bottom harder. I used the tip of my middle finger right on her puckered little anus and shoved two of my fingers in her mouth. She sucked on them greedily, eager to show me she would now do anything. Her bottom was red hot to the touch.

  'Had enough darling?'

  'You call this pain? In Russia we birch each other.'

  Bloody cheek! This is sometimes called bratting. Behaving as a bratt to provoke punishment. Some find it cute. I find it annoying but a pretty bottom excuses a multitude of sins.

  'Really?' I said. 'I wonder if you have sampled a birch made out of rattan. Lasts much longer than the real thing. Even on an impudent rump such as yours.'

  I showed her the birch, tied in a red bow. She was a little frightened now, but trying not to show it. I prefer the birch because canes are harder to control, however experienced you are. It's quite easy to miss and give someone an extremely painful swipe just where they don't need it... in the middle of their thigh, for instance. No erotic benefit and a sting like sulphuric acid. An exaggeration perhaps but it's a sensation you won't forget in a hurry. As it was, the birch caught her right on the sweet spot. With a few more whacks, just to keep her yelping for more, I picked her up and took her to my bed. It was high time she played with me, selfish little baggage.

  We spent the next few hours making each other come, rubbing our faces in each other's bodies, snuffling up our mingled earth and sea scents. Needless to say this sweet ecstasy wasn't enough for her. She needed coke and cigarettes more than anything else.

  As the bedroom filled with smoke time and time again I decided that what she needed was a proper caning. I hate smoke!

  'Time for you to bend over properly,' I told her. I didn't have to fake the aggression or the cold hatred. She had been boring me with coke babble and a little nicotine breath in your face goes a very long way.

  'Come on. Stand up, bend over and grasp your ankles. You need six stripes across your backside, young lady.'

  Her eyes glazed over as she stepped into the world I was creating. She staggered to her feet, wobbled a little, wiped her nose yet again, snorted down some coke-drenched snot, glared defiantly and then bent over. I got up and picked out my thickest rattan.

  'Grasp your ankles and hold the position.'

  She managed it somehow. Now it was impossible to hold back. Her back was arched, her peach was ready and I could resist no longer.

  I tried spacing out the strokes, for maximum pain, but the sound of her cries was just too exciting. All too soon I had given her five beauties. She was panting but I still hadn't broken her.

  I drew the cane back as far as possible and landed it with maximum force. She jumped up squealing, hopping around the room holding her bottom. She calmed down enough to kiss the cane and then we feasted on each other.

  I will always remember that day, long after the stink of cigarettes evaporated. The frenzied love. The talk. The laughter. But the instant she ran out of Marlborough she vanished for good.

  Maybe she found a rich Englishman. Maybe she annoyed the wrong person. She could have drunk herself to death or got into heroin.

  I think of her often, my Russian ruby. But it's a relief she's gone. I'm old enough to know she would have been a disaster if she had hung around. With age comes wisdom. Or perhaps the fires of madness flicker a little softer.

  I was a teenage Satanist. Now I'm twice as old as the little girl who courted darkness. Whenever possible, I seek the light. My skin's still white, my hair is black, but in summer I wear light colours. I still like smacking bottoms of course, all the shades of red my hand can conjure. From the prettiest pink to the deepest vermilion. Suicide now looks like a cop out and as for Sylvia Plath? Thank God for Prozac...

  Come Here

  Katharine Tyler Brooks

  SHE had not turned the lights on when it began to grow dark, choosing instead to huddle in the shadows, curled up in the corner of the sofa, her knees drawn up to her chin. There in the reflected light of the freshly set sun, she waited for him. Her heart seemed to beat twice as fast as usual. Even the sound of the cat padding softly behind her to find its dinner in the kitchen jolted her heightened nerves.

  The sound of tires crunching on the gravel driveway made her jump and pull herself more tightly inward. Time was gone. He was home now. There was no escape.

  He would pack his things and leave her, just for now, of course, for this was his house. He would leave for a few days while she made other arrangements, moved in with a girl friend or waited for the family to fetch her. It didn't matter. He would be gone from her forever, and that would be like death. It was death.

  The key turned in the lock. He kept his house key separate from the others so his key never made a sound except the snap of the lock opening. He stood silhouetted in the doorway, the porch light glowing around his edges.

  'I see you, you know,' he said calmly. 'You can't hide.'

  She blinked when he flicked on the light. She did not move. She felt him looking down at her from across the room. She could not raise her eyes to meet his. He came all the way into the room and stood above her.

  'Look at me,' he said with a calm more frightening than anger.

  Hesitantly she lifted her head. His face showed no emotion.

  'Come here.'

  She knew she could not move of her own will, but his words moved her body for her. With no sense of how she came to be there, she stood before him, looking into his blue-grey eyes, shivering as if the floor were made of ice.

  'I told you never to lie to me. I told you it was the one unforgivable thing you could do.'

  'Yes.'

  'Speak up.'

  'Yes.'

  'Then why?'

  She tried to look away, but his hand gently brought her eyes back to his.

  'I was so... jealous. Her voice on the message was so sexy. I thought she... I know there have been others, maybe still are. I erased the message. Then I told you there had been none.'

  For a long, terrifying moment he only looked at her, his hand still gently cupping her chin.

  'It's about trust, Karen. If we don't have that, all we are to one another means nothing.' He dropped his hand from her chin, squinted, and turned his head away. Suddenly afraid he was about to leave, she reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his wool suit.

  'I trust, Alan, please. I trust you. I do. I - it's me. I'm so insecure, so unsure. Sometimes... I'm so sorry.' She could feel and hear the tears in her own throat, but none would come to her eyes. He softly removed her hand from his sleeve.

  'You nearly cost me my best client. I'd have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if she hadn't called the office today, I would never have known why.'

  'But it's all right now,' she said. She searched his face for her answer.

  'Yes. At the office, it's all
right. We even had a good laugh over how the answering machine must have eaten her message...'

  'But,' she thought. There will be a 'but.'

  'There's no harm done, Alan, and I am so very sorry. I promise I'll never do any such thing again.'

  His look grew colder, his eyes narrowing slightly. She couldn't help backing up a step.

  'How can you say that? There's no harm done at the office, but what about us? The breach of trust, I don't know if I can get past that. A relationship like ours can't exist in a climate of mistrust.'

  She felt her soul crumble. It seemed her body itself was falling apart, imploding slowly, cell by cell.

  'I had a moment, one weak, childish moment when I doubted myself, but not you, my love, never you.'

  'I wish I could be sure of that, Karen, but you've just proved to me otherwise.'

  There was a long silence in which neither could take their eyes from the other. Finally, she could take no more.

  'Shall I go, then? Do you hate me now?'

  Words and arms seemed to reach her simultaneously. 'No, of course not,' he said as he embraced her, caressing her hair as he held her to his chest. 'I could never hate you.'

  For a long, long moment, they stood embracing. When he finally released her, his face was calm, resolved. He took her gently by the hand.

  'Come here,' he said.

  She knew where he led her. She had been there many times before, but never for punishment, only for the games they played that heightened their sex life. Her heart lurched at the thought of what he might do, yet she didn't dare to hesitate. Long ago, she had agreed to be punished as he saw fit. Though she had never thought the time would come, she knew that whatever he had in mind for her was far better than being left.

  The room was not the 'dungeon' some might call it. It was neither dark nor austere, merely an extra bedroom fitted with the necessary tools and fixtures for their particular sexual sport. The four-poster bed was somewhat smaller than the bed they slept in at night so that her body was easier to reach from all angles and her arms and legs would not be overstretched. Padded benches and chairs of all sorts were scattered about the room and numerous rings and other bondage tools stood about or were mounted to walls.