Cream of the Crop

by Josephine Scott

  Green bamboo.

  And I can assure all you S/M people, unless you’ve been thrashed with green bamboo you don’t know what it’s all about. It is flexible in a way only something recently living can be, it beats a Malacca or rattan cane every time, and cuts like nothing else.

  But it dried out and became useless, he said. Not enough sting, not enough punishment. And a garden cane isn’t flexible.

  So, I asked.

  ‘A riding crop,’ she answered. ‘Safe to buy and to carry about if you have to.’

  Another confession comes up here. I hate horses. I hate the largeness of them, their teeth, their great hooves, their legs, their -

  The fact is I know nothing about them, or their harness and their other accessories.

  I bought a riding crop in a local shop. I bought what I thought was a riding crop. And for a horse no doubt it is. What I got was not what I now see on C.P. videos, a leather thing with a small square of leather on the end, an item that punishes without cutting.

  What I got was a length of fibreglass bound with nylon and with a tiny loop on the end which he cut off.

  What I got was a vicious weapon indeed.

  My friend had visitors when I went back, carrying this long thin thing wrapped in brown paper. She asked me later how I felt, walking in with my riding whip, hoping no-one would notice. I said I felt stupid. But also very excited, but I never told her that.

  It was time to move out, to leave my friend, to depart for a new life. I had intruded on their home and hospitality long enough. I went to share a flat with someone I met at work, a startling blonde with dazzling looks and an ice cold heart. Newly divorced, she preferred to keep men at arm’s length. Me, I’d welcome anyone in.

  We tried the crop a few times, a few light smacks, nothing serious. We didn’t try it seriously until I offended him one day and he ordered me to bend over the back of the kitchen chair. Then he whacked me three times with it, causing pain so deep I could hardly breathe. And bruises, which out-shone any others I’d had. It was truly vicious.

  And he said ‘I have a plan.’

  Which I’ll tell you about later.

  Before the thing I have to tell you we went through strange and terrible times. He seemed to go off me at times, we almost broke up. One night he sat calmly and quietly in our lounge and destroyed me completely. He told me I had no looks, no personality, no dress sense, no ambition, I wasn’t clean enough or sexy enough or anything that suited him. I was completely and utterly shattered. After he did it, he walked out and left me there. Alone.

  This hurts. This telling hurts. But I have to, because Freezeframe is to be an honest account of my time with him. I am using you as a psychiatrist’s chair, I’m unburdening myself of things which have troubled me for so long. Perhaps putting it down on paper I can rid myself of the guilt, the recrimination, the self hate I have nurtured over it all. What I do know is that this story could not be told anywhere else but in England. Only an English reader will understand. The American publishers, to whom I have promised a new book, will have to have something different something not particularly English, something that transcends borders and cultures. Much of what I’ve written here they would never understand.

  The story continues, it gets worse.

  Three long lonely weeks later he came around as if nothing had happened and demanded I go with him to my friend’s house. He told me he had been having an affair with her as well as me, that he wanted to confront her with it in front of her husband, and that I had to be there to back him up. He said if I didn’t, he’d never speak to me again. In all the circumstances, I wish I hadn’t agreed. God, how I wish I hadn’t agreed! It would have been worth the pain of his leaving me not to live with the pain that came later!

  Hindsight is a valuable asset, isn’t it?

  I was to confirm that he had told me (which he hadn’t) that my friend had a long stretch mark in which you could put a finger. The fact he told me that told me he had slept with her.

  We duly arrived, we duly argued, and I confirmed him.

  And 1 heard my friend say ‘After we gave her a home too.’

  That, more than anything, broke me for weeks.

  You are the first people to know this. It’s a betrayal I have kept close to my heart for years. For twenty-three years. I’ve regretted it time out of mind, I’ve wished to turn back the clock and refuse him. I’ve wished –

  But love, that blind, all-encompassing obsessive love which drives all reason out before it, does not allow you to think straight.

  And I loved him with that kind of total obsessive love that doesn’t allow any thinking at all.

  And he knew it.

  But an added factor was that 1 was working for him, part time, serving papers, tracing people when I could, making visits to take statements from witnesses, in short, earning money which was much needed. A secretary didn’t really earn enough to support a car, half an expensive flat with a spendthrift flatmate, and have something over to live on.

  But that isn’t a good enough reason, and I know it.

  And I’m so, so sorry.

  Remove that oh so heavy cassette with its oh so heavy burden of misery and guilt, and let’s have some ‘M’ Factor to lighten the proceedings. In the next section I’ll tell you about the magazines I had, the caning I got, and finally - no, I’ll save that for later, I think.

  An M Factor section to lighten the mood.

  The pianist gave up after that last lot; he went out for some heavy drinking. All too much for him.

  This time we’ll have some light pop music, I think. Just by way of a change. You don’t like pop music? Just whose story is this, anyway? Pop music this time. I said so. We might get around to the music I really love later. My Master isn’t happy with the last slave letter I sent him, it didn’t fulfil all his requirements, there were no details of my imagined fantasy. My Master says ‘Could do better’ and to impress the lesson he has brought along a hairbrush to add to my misery.

  My Master stands no nonsense. I go across his lap as always, dressed, letting him have the pleasure of revealing what is beneath the clothes. A large well-rounded bottom, charming enough for any discerning Master. I believe. Or so I have been told. I am modest, after all.

  A spanking follows and my Master as always surprises me, for his hands look soft, they look as if they would not hurt, but when applied to a bare bottom, they do hurt! I am wriggling and squirming and pleading, but to no avail And then, horror of horrors, a hairbrush comes smacking down on tenderised flesh! Screams of dismay follow, but the hairbrush comes down again and again and again. Hard wood on soft flesh. Pleasing for a Master - hell for a slave.

  I am allowed ten minutes in the corner, hands on my head, before the cane is administered. Six stinging cuts.

  I will Do Better next time.

  My Master says so.

  The piano man got well and truly drunk last time (do you blame him?) so I got in a blues band instead. Not much. A four piece, guitar, bass, drums, vocalist who is also capable of handling a superb tin sandwich (or gob iron, or simply harmonica to the uninitiated). Since the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, I’ve been searching for a blues sound that is cool enough to chill the heart, the soul, and bring tears tumbling as I –

  I’ll settle for the band I have here for now. I have forgiven the piano man, by the way, he’ll be back next time. I still need his gentle touch -

  You’ve got the original guilt-laden cassette in the machine?

  Press PLAY. Let’s take the story forward.

  I moved out of the flat. My flatmate was - in all probability still is - a raving beauty. Blonde, elegant, chic to the point of perfection. But cold; ice cold. Her husband divorced her because he said it felt like rape every time, she was so unresponsive, so cold, so hard. She was obsessed with money, spent it
as if it was going out of fashion, lied, stole and cheated to get it. I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence, but knowing with surety that she won’t read it anyway, she isn’t into this scene. And that isn’t my name up there by the way!! That’s the only part which isn’t true. Everything else in the main story cassette is absolutely one hundred and ten per cent true. I think you’d realised that, anyway, no-one could invent what I’m writing here. And I feel much better for telling you. Some of this is being told for the first time ever. Some has been mentioned in correspondence with people I trust and care for, but the whole story from beginning to end has never been told before. You get it first!

  Where was I? Proof? You want proof? Letters daily with shop names on the back, callers, a convenient bonfire of something that looked remarkably like files...

  I moved out of luxury, my own room, a nice lounge, tiniest bathroom ever invented but it was clean and there for the use of, into a tiny caravan. Lounge with bed that came down from the wall (damp), coal fire (not very efficient), tiny kitchen (cold), bedroom (cold), outside loo. I owed some money to the taxman for the earnings I’d made with the investigation business. I owed money for the car. My lover took the finances in hand, divided up my resources, paid the rent, took 15/- (75p) a week for his wife to cook me a meal every day, left me 12/6d (62p) to live on. And then removed my car keys from me one day and refused to let me leave his house until I’d showered.

  It wasn’t easy living in that place. The calor gas ran out in the middle of meals, I carried bags of coal to the caravan myself, the car got snowed in once and the owner of the park had to pull me out with a tractor, I was commuting to London from Essex, and life was overall tough. I had a job which lasted six weeks, the woman was a newly made up partner, had b-all to do, and I got bored out of my skull. A new secretary started, spent the entire morning typing out the standard form for the letters as this firm wanted them done, walked out at lunch time and never came back. I walked out after six weeks and never went back. I had my skills as legal secretary to market and I marketed them. I found a job setting up a practice for two young solicitors, right there in Temple, in Chambers! Slowly the debts got paid off, I was clear of everything and had some money for myself.

  And I bought C.P. magazines. American ones, with delightful photographs and outrageous stories.

  And my lover used to visit. He would look at the magazines too, sometimes if he was in a good mood I’d be caned with bamboo garden cane. I remember once he caned me twelve times and wondered why I’d not cried out, flinched, moved or anything. I confessed the thick pleated skirt I wore absorbed it all, so he removed the skirt, caned me three times really hard and left me crying. More often than not he would get up and walk out, saying he didn’t feel well enough to cope with making love to me. ‘Sorry, I know how worked up you get over the magazines’ and leave me frustrated angry and tormented.

  Sadism at its most unpleasant.

  At this time I was experiencing hardly any C.P. at all. The longing was unbelievable!

  Contact magazines gave me fantasies, and ideas, but he wouldn’t allow me to answer any ads. so I never did. Life was cold, hard, and still very unpleasant. That’s why I wanted the blues band in. It’s the only music that fits that time. I was working with two young men who were great fun, but married, I went home to an empty lonely caravan, where I would type my letters and get on with the fund raising (We were both involved in Leukaemia research, raised a lot of money).

  And then, out of the blue, he raised the idea of the game. The crop was not used, it was gathering dust somewhere in my caravan, he wanted to use it.

  And that’s for later, too.

  In the meantime, have some more M Factor.

  Have you decided yet whether the M Factors are true or not?

  PLAY!

  An orchestra, sweeping strings, with just the hint of the piano overlaid or underlaid depending on your point of view. Autumn. Autumn verging on winter, a sharp chill in the air, trees dripping dead leaves and moisture. Underneath a thick carpet of dampness, moss, leaves, grasses turned brown by frost and rain. My Master is muffled in a thick warm coat. I have a light summer dress and raincoat, all I have been allowed. Underneath that, just as the leaves and mosses are beneath our feet, I am wearing a black bra, black suspender belt and black stockings, seamed, of course. Heels are inappropriate, but he has insisted.

  He finds a large tree stump and sits down. I have no need of orders, I know what I must do. Remove raincoat and dress, stand before him in bra and suspender belt. They are brief, so brief they will get in the way of nothing. Shivering, both with cold and apprehension. For in his pocket is a martinet, the thongs long and eager. Also in his pocket is a plastic ruler. I have just paid for that, walked into a shop, approached a young man, asked for a ruler and then asked – as ordered - whether it will stand up to a spanking, he grinned, looked embarrassed, looked away, then back at me again. He said ‘Yes’ so I bought it, and pray it will. I also pray my Master saw the man, because I will be in double trouble if he does not believe I carried out his orders.

  He stands up, slowly, carefully, removing the martinet from his pocket and swinging the thongs.

  ‘Hands on head.’

  I obey, and wait. He walks around and around me, I am being systematically whipped from neck to knees, front and back, the thongs bite, they bite over and over, the warmth builds.

  ‘Over.’

  Over his knees for a spanking with the slipper I was ordered to bring with me, a spanking which leaves me writhing and shivering still. Then the ruler: thank God it didn’t break! - and finally...

  Caned. Twelve times. A lady wrote to a C.P. magazine and said caning a woman six times was enough - if properly laid on. I wish someone would tell my Master that.

  And I wish I could tell whether the dampness I feel is the day, or me.

  Insert Cassette, press PLAY and sit back.

  This is the part you’ve been waiting for, if you followed the hints I’ve dropped as we’ve gone through Freezeframe - well, all is about to be revealed -I hope it’s been worth waiting for.

  We planned a game.

  Remember I told you the riding crop was fibreglass covered in nylon and was a particularly vicious thing?

  O.K. The Accumulator Game, as he named it, is this.

  Fully dressed, I was to bend over the back of a chair and take six with the crop.

  If I got up at any time during that six, I was to remove a layer of clothing and take another six, plus whatever amount was left from the first. And if I moved again, another layer would be removed, another six would be inflicted, plus the accumulated totals of the first two, and ever onward.

  For three weeks we planned and talked, for three weeks I lived in an agony of anticipation and desire, of apprehension and downright fear, for I remembered (just) what the crop could inflict.

  But - it is a known fact that women cannot remember pain.

  We go back for more each time because we can’t remember what it was like when it’s over.

  I didn’t remember it clearly enough to say no to the game.

  Summer time. A hot summer and that isn’t just in my memory. The day we played the game the house was empty, was stinking hot. I went wearing minimum clothing because to do anything else, tweeds, thermal knickers, etc., would have aroused suspicion. And he wouldn’t have accepted it anyway, for with that layer of clothing on I would have been able to take all six. So I went wearing a summer dress, slip and panties and not much else.

  Where’s the piano man? I need him now. I need him to tinkle his fingers gently over the keys as we sit and talk and I see the crop lying casually on the hearthrug.

  Thank you, that’s just what I need.

  ‘Right,’ and my heart and stomach flip over in tune with one another. Synchronicity going on here.

  Remove g
lasses, put them carefully to one side. Move to the back of the chair and lean over, gripping the arms with fingers that are knuckle white.

  ‘Start. One.’ and the crop comes down with shocking, piercing speed and impact.

  ‘Two,’ and it is all I can do to hold on.

  ‘Three,’ and I’m backing away, holding my bottom in both hands, tears beginning. God, it hurts!

  ‘You agreed. Dress off.’ and I take it off and fold it and put it to one side and I lie over the settee arm and take another four (I’ll never know how) and jump up. He is immovable. ‘Slip off.’

  And I do it, flooding the settee with tears, but there are another five still due and I cannot take them.

  I run for the door, run upstairs, throw myself in the bedroom. He pursues me, holds me over the bed and beats me until I am screaming.

  Only the noise I am making stops him.

  Later I creep downstairs to recover my clothing, to find him sitting with a beer and a satisfied smile.

  ‘I calculate you had nineteen in all.’ It’s hard to walk properly, the pain is intense, I am in agony.

  ‘Go home.’ Going home means driving, it means sitting, moving my legs and feet, but I do it somehow. I dare not look in the mirror, I crawl into my bed and cry.

  The next morning I am yellow and black and sore.

  And sexy. I drive back to his house and find him alone.

  ‘I want you.’

  ‘You’re addicted to pain.’

  ‘I want to play the game again, but with the cane this time.’

  He breaks the crop to pieces in front of me.

  ‘It isn’t healthy. I shan’t beat you ever again.’

  He isn’t listening, never has listened. The beating has left me frustrated and unhappy, I need satisfying, which never happens.

  There are those who object to the word ‘beating ‘ preferring any other word instead. That was a beating. It was a whipping with a cruel implement designed – as my friend put it - to hurt a horse, which has a much thicker hide than I have. I marked easily then, I still do. A five minute spanking leaves me with bruises which last a week. It was a beating. But I would have given anything to have repeated the game. Only, finished off with sex, as every game should be. If not immediately then the next day, when the pain has settled and all you have left is the vivid and overwhelming memory of the erotic feelings which were there, underneath the pain. If they weren’t underneath the pain you had no right being there in the first place.