Bouquet of Bamboo

by Sarah Steel

  Miss Inchtipp had miscalculated, leaving herself without a cane, so improvising she started to unbuckle a vicious looking belt.

  ‘Miss Inchtipp, would you be good enough to sit at the piano?’ Virginia requested firmly. ‘Play for us during the slut’s whipping. Something spirited, I think. She is certain to be loud. Jerusalem, fortissimo.’

  The verger’s sister sat at the upright and fingered the bass notes powerfully. As the village hall echoed to the stirring tune, the WI committee rose and approached the terrified barmaid bent across the table. It was an orderly if impatient line as they shouldered their quivering canes and awaited the signal for the chastisement to commence.

  Virginia Emsley snatched up her cane. Thrumming it twice down, practice strokes to test the suppleness of her whippy wood, she remarked almost casually to Alice and the schoolmistress, ‘Hold her tight, girls. Very tight.’

  Alice nodded vigorously, lust flashing in her eyes. The air around the table was heavy with the musk, with the raw scent, of female arousal.

  The cane glinted as it sliced down, and Susie shuddered as her bare bottom received the stripe. ‘There, I’ve opened the scoring. One stroke apiece to redress the dishonour,’ the president instructed the assembly.

  With the piano thundering out Jerusalem, the brigade of cane-wielding matrons and young women stepped up one by one.

  Swish, whack! Swish, whack!

  Pinned and helpless against the table the barmaid begged for mercy, but the piano drowned her pleas beneath its majestic swell of notes.

  Swish, whack! Swish, whack!

  The whippy wood hissed, cane by flashing cane, lashing down to slice the red-striped buttocks below.

  Swish, whack! Swish, whack!

  A fifth, and then a sixth crisp cut kissed the naked cheeks, decorating their round curves with searing stripes; thin red welts that gradually turned a pale purple shade of intense suffering.

  Standing beside the cane-striped buttocks, the president nodded her satisfaction as each member of the committee stepped up to ply the bamboo. The final blow, delivered by Terry’s mortified aunt, caused Susie to scream, a rising A-sharp note that beat Miss Inchtipp’s efforts at the piano.

  After each outraged committee member had administered a stroke apiece across the barmaid’s bare bottom, they stood in a semi-circle, panting slightly and nursing their canes affectionately. Two verses of Jerusalem were sung with gusto, Virginia Emsley joining in.

  ‘No, please do not sit down,’ the president urged. ‘Keep playing, Miss Inchtipp, you are quite splendid at the keyboard.’ She turned and once more knelt at Susie’s bamboo-striped bottom. Lingeringly, her face a warm breath away, she inspected the severely whipped cheeks, then briefly, for a fleeting second, she appeared to lurch forward accidentally and press her stern face into the warmth of those punished cheeks. Then kissing each one openly and mockingly, she stood up. Clapping her hands she attempted to speak, but Miss Inchtipp, in a rapture of her own, ground her heavy buttocks into the leather seat of the piano stool and hammered out Jerusalem until the rafters nearly shook.

  At last an eerie silence settled over the hall, which was broken only by the snuffling sobs of the beaten barmaid.

  Virginia plucked up her thin bamboo cane and tap-tapped the upturned cheeks. ‘Like Langley Parva, I am afraid your efforts with the wood must be bettered, girls. Insufficient stripes scored.’ She flashed her audience a smile, and the committee, as they always did, laughed dutifully. ‘You have, with your canes, avenged the dishonour, but not the defeat.’ All assembled nodded. ‘So now, like our team last Sunday, we are obliged to follow on. Two strokes apiece, please.’

  As before Virginia opened the scoring, delivering two vicious cuts with her cruel cane. Susie grunted, dulling the wood’s sheen with the warmth of her anguish, which had only just begun.

  La Via Inglesa

  Nine centimetre spiked heels. Katie waggled her bare bottom. Perched on the high-heels, her rounded cheeks were thrust out, proud and pert. The heels also straightened the curve of her sinuous spine, drawing her shoulders back and causing her breasts to lift deliciously. She glanced down at their budding warmth. Not much of a cleavage, not yet, but then she was only twenty years old.

  The shower next door was turned off. Peeping anxiously over her shoulder in case Charlotte caught her vainly preening before the ornate looking glass, Katie staggered slightly, spreading her arms out to regain her teetering balance. She drew her thighs together, bunching her soft buttocks.

  The sandals were definitely too much, the softest goatskin dyed an outrageous shade of parboiled lobster. And they had cost three hundred pounds. Charlotte had absolutely forbidden the extravagance, but Katie slipped the leash, returned to the exclusive shop in Milan’s Via Montenapoleone and bought them. She could have purchased more sensible silver mules for less than half the price, and she bit her lip now gazing down at the outrageous pink high-heels. She had better hide them until they got back to London. If Charlotte found out about them she would administer a severe spanking that would leave Katie’s bottom rosier than the sandals prompting the punishment.

  She sighed. It was warm and humid. It had rained in Milan for the first three days of their holiday, but here in Naples – Napoli, she corrected herself, frowning, determined to improve her Italian – it was molto amido. She liked the word amido, which meant moist and warm. Bending her right knee and bringing the soft goatskin shoe up to kiss her naked bottom, she reached down and tugged it off. Grasping the supple sole she brought the tip of the slender spiked heel to her pubic nest. Probing delicately, she teased her sticky labia apart. Her shiny flesh was a shade darker than the heel probing it, and she sensed the heat at her damp slit. Amido, molto amido. She closed her violet eyes and imagined the feel of the other spiked heel sliding up between her cheeks. Her buttocks clenched and her anus shrivelled in delicious dread.

  ‘Better try the Museo del Mare this afternoon,’ Charlotte announced, entering the bedroom from the bathroom clutching a large white towel to her wet hair.

  Startled, Katie opened her eyes, which darkened to indigo with fear. Briskly stepping out of her other pink sandal she snatched them together at her bottom and, blushing slightly, turned to face the older woman. Her dominant lover.

  Charlotte, now sitting on the edge of the bed in a black bustier and sheer black denier stockings, angled her elbows and fixed the towel, turban like, on her head. Her large breasts rose, threatening to spill out of the bodice’s constricting cups. As her fingers tucked in the towel she languorously drew her legs together and crossed them. The sheer denier whispered as her slender thighs kissed and caressed each other.

  ‘The Museo del Mare?’ Katie repeated, suppressing her panic.

  Charlotte nodded. The towel threatened to topple, but capable fingers pinned it sternly back into place. She glanced across at the reflection in the ornate looking glass, and her brown eyes narrowed suspiciously as they spotted nervous fingers twisting around pink sandals in the glass… pink sandals pressed up against naked peach-coloured cheeks in a pathetic attempt to conceal them. She stretched her left foot out, arching toes sheathed in glossy black. She studied them carefully, twisting her foot slightly.

  Katie relaxed somewhat. Opening her legs, she planted her feet apart.

  Adjusting her towel again, Charlotte glanced into the looking glass. Her full red lips tightened imperceptibly as she saw the supple soles tap-tapping silently against the naked girl’s widening cleft. ‘It’s going to be hot tomorrow,’ she remarked. ‘Sweltering. We’ll stick to the beach.’ Her tone was casual, almost bored.

  Katie tried to judge how many steps it was to the bathroom. She could temporarily stash the sandals in there out of sight. ‘Hot tomorrow?’ she echoed, feigning interest.

  ‘In July and August,’ Charlotte murmured, thumbing her bustier to ease the bulge of her swelling breasts, ‘the butcher’s sh
ops here in Naples—’

  ‘Gli mascellerias,’ Katie translated to herself automatically.

  ‘Are forbidden by law to sell pork.’

  ‘No chops, then.’

  ‘And every night after sunset the mosquito swarms—’

  ‘Mosquito, zanzara,’ Katie said as she inched towards the open bathroom door.

  ‘Tu parli italiano molto bene,’ Charlotte complimented her.

  ‘Grazie, but,’ Katie simpered, ‘I’ll never be as good as you are.’

  ‘And,’ Charlotte purred dangerously, tossing her towel aside, ‘do you lie well in Italian, too?’

  Katie froze while at her bare bottom the sandals dangled from her anxious fingers.

  ‘I saw you in Milan in the trattoria by the railway station. She had scarlet nails and was old enough to be your—’

  ‘No, that was nothing,’ Katie protested. ‘I swear!’ And it had come to nothing. The beautiful red-nailed matron in the yellow dress had simply crushed a brown sugar cube into Katie’s milky espresso. No words had passed between them, only a mutual longing.

  ‘She gave you a little present, hmm?’ Charlotte, thoroughly enjoying herself, teased sadistically. ‘Gloves, perhaps? No, let me see… a handbag, perhaps?’

  ‘We didn’t speak,’ Katie whispered. ‘I swear, we—’

  Three smart taps at the double doors silenced her. They opened slightly and a musical female voice enquired, ‘Permesso?’

  ‘Avanti,’ Charlotte drawled.

  A deliciously lovely maid uniformed in the lemon-and-cream tunic and apron of the Hotel Amalfi staff entered the room, and paused to adjust the little white cap perched precariously on a riot of dark, glossy curls. Then she went perfectly still when she saw Katie standing before the bed utterly naked. ‘Mi scusi, signorina,’ she gasped, crushing the fresh white towels against her bosom.

  ‘Avanti, avanti,’ Charlotte beckoned.

  Still clutching the pink sandals behind her in a desperate bid to conceal them, Katie could not modestly cover her breasts or pubic mound, and the maid eyed them both appreciatively as she walked deeper into the room. Disappearing into the bathroom she deposited the fresh towels, collected used ones from the rush basket, and curtsied briefly before departing.

  ‘Stay exactly where you are,’ Charlotte said sternly, detaining Katie’s surreptitious progress to the bathroom, ‘where I can keep an eye on you. You need watching, my girl.’

  Katie twisted around, the sandals still pressed up against her bare bottom.

  ‘No,’ Charlotte said more loudly, ‘she would not give you a handbag. It would, I think, have been a more sentimental gift, like a pair of shoes.’

  ‘No, believe me, she—’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlotte nodded decisively, ‘an extravagant present, like those impossible pink sandals I forbade you to buy when we were window shopping along the Via Montenapoleone.’

  Katie bowed her head, blushing. Shuffling forward, she knelt at the black nylon-clad feet of her stern mistress and reluctantly produced the pink heels, offering them up in submissive surrender. ‘I bought them,’ she murmured. ‘I swear I bought them. I can show you the receipt.’

  ‘You bought them, you say?’ Charlotte luxuriated in the delicious drama of dominance and contrition about to be enacted, pausing to savour the power she wielded over the submissive naked girl at her feet. ‘You bought them?’

  The blonde head nodded twice.

  ‘In spite of my strict instruction not to do so?’

  Katie shivered apprehensively.

  ‘And you can prove it? You can provide me with a receipt?’

  Katie nodded again, carefully avoiding Charlotte’s penetrating stare.

  ‘Fetch my hairbrush and my hand cream, bitch.’

  Katie attempted to rise.

  ‘On your knees and crawl,’ Charlotte whispered venomously. ‘I said crawl.’ The brown eyes, flecked with cruel golden lights, followed the soft buttocks as Katie set the shoes down and crawled on all fours across the carpet towards the antique wooden dressing table. She collected her mistress’s large hairbrush, along with a tube of expensive unscented hand cream, and then crawled back towards the bed. It was a short but painful journey. Gripping the brush between her teeth, she hobbled back on two knees and one hand, her left clutching the tube of cream. She slipped once, crushing her breasts and grazing her nipples against the carpet. At the bed again at last she lowered her head and placed the hairbrush at the feet of her dominant lover.

  ‘It would have been the strap, bitch,’ Charlotte remarked briskly as she scooped up the brush and vigorously tackled her damp hair with it. ‘The strap,’ she hissed, ‘if that red-nailed whore in Milan had so much as touched you.’

  ‘No, no, it was perfectly innocent,’ Katie whimpered.

  ‘Innocent?’ the older woman repeated harshly. ‘Nothing is ever innocent with you, my girl. Quite a little string of innocent infidelities behind you already, haven’t you? I thought we had left all that flirting behind us in London. No, as I say,’ she continued suavely, ‘it would have been the strap for you, but as you merely ignored my instruction not to buy the pink sandals, we will be quite content with a severe spanking.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Across my knee, bitch. You have a painful lesson to learn and I am perfectly prepared to teach you.’

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ Katie blurted. ‘I will obey you from now on. I’ll do everything you say, I promise!’

  ‘Promises made under the threat of pain and punishment are easily made, bitch. I intend to make sure you keep them.’

  ‘I will, I swear, please believe—’

  ‘I believe in discipline.’

  ‘I won’t spend another lira, not a single lira, I swear.’

  ‘You will certainly have to exercise more discipline, as must I. On your feet.’

  Brushing aside the abandoned pink sandals, Katie inched closer to the bed, her naked breasts bouncing softly. A black shiny foot flashed out, arresting her progress. The toes whitened within the dark stockings as they pressed into Katie’s left breast, the sole of the foot pushing dominantly and flattening the bulging flesh. The kneeling girl gasped as the foot ground into her suffering orb, rasping the nipple painfully.

  ‘Knees apart,’ came the crisp command, and the bed squeaked softly as the woman sitting on it shifted her weight.

  Watching the smooth back of the hairbrush tap-tapping the open palm of her punisher, Katie obeyed, inching her thighs wider, and then wider still. Her labia peeled apart and she felt her clitoral hood stretch.

  ‘Funny how you’re prompt to obey when your bottom is bare,’ Charlotte chuckled darkly, tossing the hairbrush down on the bed and squirting some hand cream onto her palm as she brought her toes down to rest in the blonde fluff of Katie’s pubic bush. The shiny black nylon crackled slightly as it nuzzled the girl’s fuzz and slid between her parted thighs. ‘No,’ she warned as Katie inched her thighs together in an effort to trap and tame the instep at her slit. ‘Open up, bitch.’

  ‘Please, Charlotte, don’t,’ she whimpered, and began to cry.

  ‘Save your tears until they’re needed, and they will be shortly, I can promise you that.’

  She snuffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘You must be disciplined, my girl. In a little while I am going to put you over my knee and spank your bare bottom with the hairbrush, understand?’

  Katie’s tear-spangled eyelashes brushed her cheeks and her sulky mouth kept a sullen silence.

  ‘Do you understand?’ Charlotte demanded quietly.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘It’s high time you were severely punished, Katie.’

  The naked blonde flickered her sorrowful gaze up to meet her chastiser’s stern regard.

  ‘Flirting like that in Milan. How many times must y
ou be told? If you want to belong to me, my girl, it’s time you began to tow the line.’ She raised her foot slightly, studying the wet sheen on her stocking. ‘Why, I do believe my sweet little bitch,’ she murmured approvingly, bending down to briefly finger the damp patch, ‘that you are almost as pleased by the prospect of your punishment as I am.’

  Katie, closing her eyes, moaned a soft denial.

  ‘Up with you, come along, I want you across my knee.’

  Slowly, with awkward reluctance, the girl rose and obediently bent over the waiting black nylon-clad thighs. A firm hand, the fingers still slightly sticky from the hand cream, alighted at the nape of her neck. She squirmed, snuggling down across the soft warmth of her mistress’s legs.

  ‘Over a little more.’ The controlling hand at the nape of her pinioned neck propelled Katie the required angle across her lap, and she sighed as her breasts spilled down and Charlotte’s free hand came to rest, the knuckles turned inwards, upon her buttocks. Then the velvety palm moist with hand cream turned to cup and squeeze each ripe, upturned cheek with a sure grip. Her captive flesh suffering sweetly, Katie cried out softly as a dominant thumb tip ravaged her yawning cleft.

  Two polite taps sounded at the double doors again.

  The thumb tip tapped three times in sharp succession at Katie’s tight little sphincter.

  The double doors opened a fraction, as did the anal rosebud, in response to Charlotte’s, ‘Avanti!’

  ‘Mi scusi,’ the pretty little maid said breathlessly, her eyes widening in shock even as they glimmered with delight.

  ‘Avanti,’ Charlotte beckoned imperiously. ‘Put it down there, per favore.’

  Blushing as she stumbled in a dizzy confusion of voyeuristic pleasure at the sight of the bare-bottomed girl bent across the knees of the stern English signorina, the young maid carefully deposited a silver tray bearing two glasses and an uncorked bottle of Chianti on a nearby table.