by Penny Birch
I had a godfather whom I had never met, despite having received the obligatory cards every birthday right up to my eighteenth. He was called Henry Gresham and had been at university with my dad. Knowing that I was about to leave school, he had called and suggested that I might like to work on his farm for the summer. My father had snapped up the offer like a shot, more than happy to get me out of the house and away from the enticements of London. The farm was in Hertfordshire, and that’s where I was packed off to the following day. I had been banished.
Actually it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. I’d expected early mornings, porridge for breakfast, boiled mutton for dinner and church on Sundays. The truth was very different. Henry Gresham proved to be a large man with a red face and a permanently jolly manner. He knew I’d been kicked out of school and thought it was hilarious. He seldom got out of bed before ten o’clock and didn’t expect me to, either, having a maid bring me tea and toast in bed. As for porridge and boiled mutton, Henry was a fanatical gourmet and every meal was a work of art.
His money had come from some astute racehorse dealing back in the seventies, and his farm was now given over to keeping rare breeds. All of this was handled by a manager, and Henry simply looked over it with a fatherly eye. He lived in the original farmhouse – a big red-brick construction set in a cluster of small fields and copses well away from the new buildings. I was even allowed to choose my room, selecting one that overlooked the woods.
I passed a happy two weeks exploring the area and basically mucking about, Henry never once demanding that I did anything other than by choice. The second weekend after my arrival, however, brought a cold front and rain; really dismal weather for July. Unable to continue my exploration of the local woods and streams, I retired to his library, spending the Saturday morning browsing through his huge collection of musty, leather-clad volumes.
The weather was no better after lunch, and so I returned to the library. Most of the books were technical tomes, many dating back to the eighteenth century. These were interesting enough, but didn’t really fire my imagination. What did make me curious was a selection of tall albums on the highest shelves. They were bound in a distinctive dark green – which I knew was a favourite colour of Henry’s — and they looked personal. One of the covers even had an embossed picture that looked like a naked girl doing something with a snake. This fascinated me. Yet I hesitated, having no wish to make a breach of Henry’s hospitality by looking through his private things. Besides, to get at them I would need to stand on a chair, and during the morning he had twice wandered in to fetch things from his writing desk.
On the other hand, he made a habit of taking a nap every afternoon and there was a good chance that I would be undisturbed. Feeling distinctly naughty, I wheeled one of the heavy armchairs across the room and climbed up on the seat, reaching for the books. Too late I realised that the fine layer of dust along their tops meant that my interest was unlikely to go undetected. Deciding the damage was done anyway, I pulled out the one with the girl on the spine, holding it up to get a better look at the picture.
She wasn’t playing with a snake; she was tied to a tree. I opened the cover to find a title page with the legend: Pony-Carting – Rushdean 1972. I was immediately disappointed, remembering that one of Henry’s interests had been pony-trap racing. I turned the next page anyway, expecting pictures of horses and buggies.
There were buggies all right, but they weren’t pulled by horses. The first two pages had four pictures, each showing a lightweight trap with an elegantly dressed man either sitting in it or standing proudly by the side. It wasn’t the men who had me open-mouthed and wide-eyed though, it was how the traps were being drawn. In all four cases a naked girl was harnessed between the shafts, wrists and waists attached to the traps, and reins leading from complicated leather bridles. Coloured feathers, polished brass ornaments, numbered plaques and, in one case, a scarlet rosette, added a subtle and humiliating touch to their bondage.
I turned the page with trembling fingers, scarcely able to believe what I was seeing. The album continued in the same manner, with picture after picture. Some showed racing, others some sort of show, yet others more complex sports, the details of which were not at all obvious. The only thing that unified them was that it was always the girls who were stripped and harnessed while the men, and a scattering of other women, remained fully, and immaculately, clad.
The whole thing was incredibly erotic, and I quickly found myself imagining what it would be like to have Ginny or Susan naked except for a few leather straps to keep them under control. Pony-girls, they were called: young women put in the role of horses for the amusement of their partners, and themselves. Their smiles and looks proved that. Coy or proud, decorous or mischievous, not one pony-girl looked hurt or angry.
Most of the men and dressed women carried whips and, as the album proceeded, it became clear that these weren’t just for show. More than one girl had marks on her bottom. In one racing photo I could actually see the point where a whip was in contact with a soft, female bum-cheek. The camera had captured a small wave of flesh where she was being smacked; just the way Ellen Campbell’s bottom had bounced when I took the switch to her.
The album was evidently the record of some sort of event, each photo being carefully annotated in handwriting that looked suspiciously like Henry’s. Towards the end there were photos of some sort of ceremony, showing winning girls being awarded prizes. The losers suffered a very different fate, kneeling in the mud with their bare bottoms stuck up. The last two photos were the best of all: six pretty girls kneeling in a row, bottoms presented for punishment. The top photo showed them face on, looking shyly into the camera with their breasts dangling as they held their humiliating poses. This image had me wanting to put my hand down my panties, but the last was even better. It was the same scene, but viewed from the rear. The girls’ bottoms were high, their knees apart, and their lovely cheeks open to show six fannies and six bottom-holes. Some were pert or petite, some full and meaty, but each glorious pair of female buttocks was marked with eight dark lines. The girls had been caned.
I was balancing the album with one hand, the other struggling with the button of my jeans. I desperately needed to touch myself, and I’d have sat down and masturbated on the spot if it hadn’t been for the sound of a door closing somewhere in the house. I hastily slipped the album into place, climbed down, and dragged the chair back into position. I knew I was blushing furiously and turned to look out at the rain-sodden lawn in case Henry should come in and catch me with my cheeks flushed.
The album was obviously put together by hand and not something published in order to titillate its readers. It was real, and it was in Henry’s library, which meant that, although he didn’t appear in any of the pictures, it had almost certainly been him behind the camera. That meant that Henry liked pony-girls, which made a big change in my image of him as a friendly, slightly vague man. I’d been coming to think of him as a father figure, although more like Father Christmas than my own father, but all the time he’d probably been wondering how I’d look as a harnessed pony-girl with six red lines across the width of my naked bottom.
My teeth were chattering so hard that I was shaking. The thought of six girls being made to line up in the nude and present their bums for the cane was too much, especially when they’d been made to act as horses beforehand. That Henry had probably taken the photograph made it worse. None of the photos showed the girls being caned, so maybe he’d actually beaten them himself.
I had to play with myself. There had been no sound since the door had shut and I knew the maid was out. Tiptoeing to the library door I glanced into the hall and up the stairs. The door to the master bedroom was shut, which meant that Henry was taking his nap. The house was silent but for the gentle sound of the rain and the ticking of clocks. I decided to do it, and not in the safety of my bedroom but in the library with my legs apart in one of the armchairs.
I shut the door, feeling wonderful
ly dirty as the catch clicked into place. I was really going to do it – play with myself over pictures of pony-girls and come over the thought of caning them. Henry was asleep but, if he caught me, then maybe he’d serve me the same way; pull down my jeans and panties and cane my big white bottom as I knelt in his armchair.
A new blush coloured my cheeks as this last thought came into my head. I’d never before thought of Henry in a sexual context, but the idea of him beating me was undeniably exciting. Maybe I should go upstairs into his bedroom, admit my crime and beg for the punishment I so richly deserved.
He’d probably spank me first, I thought, as I sank to my knees on the floor and began to struggle with my trouser button. He was so big that he’d easily be able to take me across his knee like a naughty little girl. Then my jeans and panties would be pulled down and I’d have the shame of showing a bare bottom over a man’s lap, helpless and kicking as he fondled me before starting my spanking.
I got on to all fours and eased down my jeans and panties together, imagining that it was him doing it. It felt so good with my bottom bare, and I found myself wishing that someone – anyone – was there to beat me. I slipped my hand back between my legs and began to play with my clitty, sobbing and gasping into the carpet.
A little voice inside my head was telling me to take it slowly, to take the album out and come over the thought of whipping the pony-girls. That would have been much more like my usual fantasies. But it was no good and, even when I tried to focus my mind on the thought of having Ginny and Susan like that, it kept slipping back to my own humiliation and punishment. My orgasm was approaching, swelling up and then fading as I tried to control my fantasy.
Finally I gave up, concentrating on how awful it would feel to lie bare-bottomed across Henry’s lap – a contrite, tearful teenage girl about to be given the punishment most appropriate to her. He was nearly three times my age, which somehow made it all the more fitting that he should spank me. When he’d finished, and my poor bum was all red, he’d make me undress for the cane. Not because he particularly wanted to see me nude, but because it was better for my sense of remorse that I be naked. He’d make me touch my toes and my breasts would swing out under my chest embarrassingly big with my erect nipples betraying my excitement.
At that point my orgasm hit me. It was like an explosion, my back arching and my muscles going weak. I had my eyes tightly shut and my spare fingers clenched into the carpet, my head swimming with pleasure as the second jolt hit me. I knew I was gasping and panting, but was barely aware of my surroundings as my legs gave in and I collapsed on to my side to lie whimpering on the floor.
My first feeling as my orgasm subsided was one of utter shame. I had come over fantasies about men before, rarely, and fantasies about being punished before, notably by Miss Campbell. Never, though, had I come over the thought of being given a thoroughly humiliating whacking by a man, let alone an overweight fifty-something who liked putting young women in harness.
As I got somewhat unsteadily to my feet and began to arrange myself my shame gradually began to be replaced by a wry self-awareness. I’d done it and I hadn’t been able to help myself, and the result had been among the best orgasms of my life.
I had had my much needed climax, but that didn’t make my curiosity go away. After a quick wash and a change of panties I checked that Henry was firmly asleep and once more went into the library. This time I managed to find a sort of mobile step wedged against the end of a bookcase and hidden by a curtain. I pushed it into place and was soon, once again, engrossed in the albums.
The one I had picked first was the only one that told the complete story of one event. The others were more scrappy, but it didn’t take me long to discover that my suspicions of Henry were correct. The third album I chose showed him exercising a blonde girl with freckles on a long rein. I recognised her as one of the girls from the first album and, on further investigation, it became clear that she was called Jean and must have been Henry’s girlfriend.
Some of the photos showed parts of the farm in the background; rather a lot of them in fact. It was quite a shock to see the places I had come to frequent being used as pony-girl runs, spanking sites and scenes of other curious goings-on. Pony-carting was the mainstay of Henry’s collection, but by no means its only subject. There were plenty of punishment photos: girls on their knees, over men’s laps, over other women’s laps, bent over tables, touching their toes and, in one case, a full photo-set of Jean receiving punishment bent over an upturned boat.
Most of the photos had been taken outside; not just the pony-carting ones, but plenty of tying-up and punishment shots as well as ones of Jean being naughty in public places. It astonished me to see how rude she was. Several showed her posing with her breasts or bum bare by the side of roads. One even showed her peeing in a ditch, with a cheeky smile on her face and a stream of golden pee running out of her open fanny. Oddly enough it was her delighted expression that shocked me the most. She’d obviously not merely allowed a man to photograph her in that most private act; she’d been actively showing off.
Uniforms were another thing of his. In addition to riding gear there were some military uniforms among the men, while several girls were in school uniform, abbreviated forms of military dress or, in one case, a little sailor suit with a skirt so short that it left the girl’s panties showing.
I was already thinking of taking a more leisurely play in my bedroom but was determined to finish all the albums first so that I was really worked up by the time I started. I was also wondering how to enhance the experience. Seeing all those naked and half-naked girls indulging in strange and rude activities had left me feeling very innocent, not to mention inexperienced. I had thought that my own preference for my own sex and bottom smacking made me pretty adventurous, but some of the behaviour of Henry and his friends made my own look very tame indeed. I knew that I would never really dare to wake Henry and ask him to spank me, but I was seriously considering warming my own bum just to see what it felt like.
The second shelf proved not exactly disappointing, but there was something less open, less playful about the pictures in the first two albums I looked at. They were also newer, dating from the end of the seventies and the eighties. The scenes were different as well, showing big, empty warehouses that seemed to me a lot less fun as a place to play in than the fields and woodland tracks of earlier pictures. There was also a man who featured in almost all of the pictures. There was something disturbingly familiar about him. He had the typical seventies wide-boy look: a garish blue suit with wide lapels, a kipper tie in bright orange, and a flowery shirt. He also had a big, brush-like moustache, and it was that which made me realise who he was: Mr Rathwell, a client of my father’s firm.
This stopped me dead. Mr Rathwell was a property developer and one of my father’s best clients, which meant that he was a frequent dinner guest. He was also an oily, self-satisfied lecher who could never keep his eyes off me. Whenever he visited I tried to stay seated because of the way I knew his eyes were fixed on my bum when I walked. Of course when I was seated he’d stare at my boobs instead, and I had always made a practice of wearing baggy, shapeless clothes when I knew he was coming. He also had a knack of making half-sexual, half-insulting little remarks, phrased as jokes but always calculated to bring a blush to my cheeks.
Now here he was running pony-girl events. Up until then the idea had been fascinating me. Rathwell’s involvement put a new slant to it. Henry was nice, friendly, open and kind. He had never pinched my bottom or tried to watch me in the bath, or any of the things he might have done while I was staying with him. More importantly, he treated me as an equal. True, he was in his fifties and seriously fat, but he was also really sweet natured. Besides, there was something about him that made the thought of being spanked over his lap exquisitely exciting, at least now that I knew what he had been up to when he was younger. Rathwell was very different. He was younger than Henry and kept his body in pretty good trim, but his personali
ty was simply obnoxious. He was a creep, and the idea of him spanking me made me shudder.
Actually, the difference in their personalities was fairly evident in the photos, or so it seemed to me. At Henry’s events everyone always seemed to be smiling and laughing, while at Rathwell’s they were much more serious. Another major difference was that where with Henry the winners got a rosette and the losers got smacked bottoms, with Rathwell no one had rosettes and there was no evidence of what happened to the girls who lost. It struck me then that it wasn’t so much what one did, but how one went about it. Henry was a true sensualist but Mr Rathwell merely thought he was.
It had just about stopped raining and, after my discovery of Mr Rathwell’s involvement with Henry’s pony-girl activities, I felt I needed a breath of fresh air. Pausing only to put on a pair of boots, I went outside, finding the weather fresh and cool. Everything about the farm now looked different, taking on a pattern that I had never before noticed. After seeing the pony-girl photos it was obvious.
The track that led from the main road was curved and sheltered from prying eyes by thick beech hedges and sections of densely grown wood. The oddly shaped tracks that ran through the woods had served as a run for exercising both horses and pony-girls. The big field behind the house was the main racetrack, the two strangely geometrical spinneys within it forming the centres of the course as well as being used for some of the more elaborate games they had played. The big field rose to a ridge with a thick hedge planted along the top, providing further shelter even though there was more of Henry’s land beyond it. The yard was where they had put things together, the old stable blocks serving as well for pony-girls as they had once done for horses.