by Sarah Steel
Tuppence staggered up from the floor. Shouldering her cane, the spinster bent down and plucked the apple from the maid's thighs. Tuppence blushed deeply - the Sweet Susan was quite wet and shiny with her sticky juices.
Miss Victoria turned and strode down the freshly scrubbed passage. Stooping to pull up her cami-knickers, Tuppence shuddered as she heard the firm mouth of her cruel mistress bite into the apple with a succulent crunch.
Despite their comfortable income, the four young spinsters at The Birches did not observe the prevailing conventions, eschewing the customary trappings of wealth by employing only one maid. Tuppence undertook all the daily tasks - and was frequently pressed into the service of attending their toilette.
Tuppence tapped politely upon Miss Elizabeth's boudoir door. The tallest of the four sisters, Miss Elizabeth had a graceful, slender figure and delightfully delicate hands. She seldom had occasion to chastise Tuppence, and the pert maid always enjoyed the intimate duties of dressing this gentle, almost submissive, mistress.
Miss Elizabeth sat naked at her dressing table, her auburn tresses spilling down over her white shoulders in customary disarray.
Tuppence picked up the solid silver hairbrush and started to carefully disentangle the rebellious locks, administering a succession of firm strokes to the tresses. In the looking glass, Tuppence caught a glimpse of her seated mistress. Eyes closed, lips slightly parted, her face tilted upwards, Miss Elizabeth was relishing the sweeping strokes of the hairbrush. Reflected in the glass, the bare bosom rose and fell voluptuously. Tightening her grip, Tuppence dragged the brush down hard. In the glass, the swell of the heaving bosom quickened. As the mistress grew more submissive, the maid grew bolder.
Watching the dark nipples thicken and noting how they grew erect as she plied the hair brush more dominantly, Tuppence placed her left hand down upon Miss Elizabeth's naked shoulder. The seated nude shuddered. Tuppence accidentally allowed the stiffly bristled brush down the nude's spine. It was a calculated and deliberate mistake. Tuppence watched as, in the glass, the face of her mistress gasped with delight - and gasped again as her naked body buckled beneath the cruel brush against her flesh.
'Sorry,' Tuppence whispered.
'No matter, child. No matter,' Miss Elizabeth's lips murmured as they parted wider in ecstasy. 'Accidents will happen.'
Emboldened, Tuppence stood alongside her seated mistress and brushed the tresses fiercely so that they fell down over the white shoulder to fringe the swell of Miss Elizabeth's right breast. Following the auburn cascade dutifully, the bristles began to dimple the upper slope of the naked breast. The fifth firm stroke dragged the brush down over the peaked nipple. The nude grunted thickly and clutched the edge of her chair. Tuppence noted the whitening knuckles. The bristles kissed the tormented nipple once more, fiercely. Miss Elizabeth squirmed, grinding her heavy buttocks into the satin cushion seat of her chair. Her hands flew up and fluttered helplessly in the air.
Tuppence suppressed her naughty grin. She knew, with all the sly cunning of a wanton, that the nude at the dressing table wanted to - ached to - cup and crush her tormented breast.
'Minx,' Miss Elizabeth hissed. The tone attempted was asperity, but being thickened with lust proved unconvincingly severe. 'Be more careful with that brush, child.'
'Very well, Miss Elizabeth,' Tuppence lied.
After dressing and fixing the nude's glorious auburn hair, the maid prepared to dress the mistress. The elegant, passive young spinster selected a lace corset in cream silk and satin, fingering the deep cups meditatively before passing it to Tuppence. The maid, standing behind her naked mistress, drew the open corset in towards the nude and sheathed the breasts and belly in its cool embrace before bringing the two sides together along the line of Miss Elizabeth's dimpled spine.
'Tie me tightly, child. Be sure to tie me tightly.'
'Yes, miss,' Tuppence grinned, thrilling slightly to the urgent whisper.
'Tightly, mind.'
Tuppence raised her right knee up and positioned it between the bare buttocks to obtain a better purchase. Lodging her knee in the cleft, she shivered briefly as she felt the heat. Gripping the laces, and kneeing the soft cheeks deeply, she tugged. The spinster sighed deeply as her breasts bulged in their sudden and delicious bondage - and moaned softly at the knee pressed up into her splayed cheeks.
'Tighter,' she hissed. It was a soft command, a stern entreaty.
Tuppence obliged.
'Leave me, child. I will finish dressing alone,' Miss Elizabeth murmured, steadying herself against the bedpost. 'Open that drawer.' She pointed. 'No, the second one.'
Tuppence discovered a beautiful pair of ivory kid gloves.
'A little present for Lammas Eve, child. Let it be our secret, mind.'
Tuppence was suitably grateful. She was always polite and thankful when receiving little kindnesses from Miss Elizabeth. Last week it had been a box of chocolates. On Sunday, after assisting her mistress in the bath, it had been a pair of silk stockings. Miss Elizabeth was extremely appreciative and always rewarded her little minx.
'Run along, child.'
'Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.' Tuppence withdrew from the boudoir, She closed the door gently behind her, instantly dropping down to her knees, her eye to the keyhole.
In the boudoir, hairbrush in her clenched fist, Miss Elizabeth vas kneeling at her bedside - breasts buried in the silk eiderdown, and was rasping the bristles savagely up between her parted thighs against her pubic mound.
Tuppence would have to pluck the auburn coils from the hairbrush later, unobserved, when the boudoir was empty. She felt her nipples tighten and her slit prickle with arousal as she spied upon her mistress ravishing herself. Tuppence noted that her tightly laced corset caused the kneeling woman's bosom and bottom to wobble and bulge, and that the bite of the bristles at her wet heat caused Miss Elizabeth's hips to jerk vigorously, so lewdly - so unfittingly for a lady.
A soft cry filled the boudoir. Tuppence held her breath. Would her mistress bury her face down into the silk and muffle her delight as she came? Would she use the hairbrush as she had done last week - to spank her breasts as, down below, her taut buttocks loosened in orgasm?
Through the keyhole, Tuppence saw Miss Elizabeth buckling under her approaching climax. Sweeping the hairbrush down against her left buttock, reddening the creamy flesh instantly with crimson blotches, the mistress spanked herself eight times then quickly inserted the thick silver handle up between her thighs into her gaping wetness.
Pressed against the door, and breathing heavily, Tuppence felt her hot trickle of arousal bubble then burst against the tight stretch of her cami-knickers as, inside the boudoir, the kneeling spinster came with a soft scream.
Hurriedly donning the supple leather gloves, Tuppence dragged up her maid's uniform apron and black skirt, then impatiently peeled her cami-knickers down over her plump buttocks. Before the screams of her mistress had died away, the maid's fingertips were busy, the leather of the gloves already stained.
It was a hot afternoon. Tuppence trod the cinder path down through the neat beds of the kitchen garden. She paused by the rows of beans and read the faded white card. Aquadulce Claudia. The beans were all shrivelled now after the long summer, wilting as they clung to the line of thin bamboo canes. Tuppence hated the beans - a succulent white variety which the four spinsters enjoyed when served with a moist gammon - hated them because they needed the bamboo frame to climb. Tuppence shivered at the bamboo glinting in the sunlight - bamboo which was collected before the first autumn frost and stored in the scullery for use on her bare bottom throughout the winter months. Hurrying by quickly, Tuppence came to the pea patch and, stooping down with her large bowl cradled to her bosom, plucked the pods that would accompany the saddle of mutton and redcurrant jelly for dinner that evening.
Pausing in the heat of the sun to wipe her moist brow, Tuppence split a pod open with her thumbtip - just as expertly as she would split herself open under the blanke
t at night - and dribbled the line of peas into her open mouth. They were sweet but left her very thirsty.
Back in the cool of the kitchen, Tuppence poured herself a glass of iced lemonade then rinsed the empty glass - drained gratefully in one go - under the tap. The cold water splashed her wrists. Dare she? Should she? The maid was strictly forbidden to wash herself at the kitchen sink but, on such a hot day as this, Tuppence decided to take the risk. It would only take a minute or two to strip, splash herself with the refreshing cold water - towel her breasts and belly dry - and struggle back into her maid's uniform.
Almost naked, and just as she was stepping out of her black stockings, the little brass bell on the kitchen board rattled imperiously. It was a summons from the drawing room. They would be ringing for afternoon tea. Let them wait.
Bending, her breasts spilling loosely in their freedom, Tuppence turned on the tap and, capturing the icy stream in her cupped hands, splashed her face, neck and breasts repeatedly. The naked maid had to suppress her squeals of delight as the silver droplets sprinkled her bosom with sparkling diamonds of ice.
'Wretched girl,' the stern voice of Miss Emily rasped.
Tuppence scrabbled to turn off the tap and reached out for her towel.
'Did you not hear the bell? Lady Draco has been out riding on her new hunter and is desirous of tea. Do you hear me, girl?' Miss Emily chivvied feverishly, her snobbery battling with her temper. Lady Draco awaits her tea. And you will be whipped, wretch. Soundly whipped. Bathing in these quarters is forbidden to you, as well you know.'
Tuppence, whose groping hand had managed to secure a towel from the back of a kitchen chair, was hurriedly dabbing her breasts. Miss Emily's eyes narrowed hungrily as she saw the maid's soft bosoms bulge beneath the towelling.
'What's the delay?' Miss Victoria inquired anxiously, entering the kitchen in haste. 'Lady Draco—' The stern spinster, joining her sister in the quest for tea, paused. 'Tuppence,' she thundered. 'You wicked girl. How dare you bathe in the kitchen!'
'We will deal with her presently,' Miss Emily hissed. 'Get dressed and serve tea in the drawing room instantly. Every minute's delay will earn your bare bottom an extra stroke. Understand?'
The rich hunting voice of Lady Draco echoed along the passage. The two sisters paled.
'Any tea this afternoon, girls? Simply dying of thirst. Ah, here you all are,' she concluded, entering the kitchen. 'Thought I'd take pot luck below stairs. Don't mind roughing it, if it means I get a dish of tea. Hello. Who's the pretty filly, what?' Lady Draco purred, appreciating Tuppence's squirming nakedness.
Miss Victoria signalled frantically to her sister to escort Lady Draco back upstairs to the drawing room. 'A trivial domestic problem, Lady Draco. We will deal with it later.'
'Deal with her now, my dear girl,' the huntswoman thundered, refusing to be expelled from the kitchen. 'Only way to settle the damned servant problem. Punish 'em on the spot. Pretty little thing. Wouldn't mind chastisin' her myself. Run and get me my riding crop.'
Miss Emily, bewildered by the turn of events, looked blankly at their visitor.
'Tally ho, girl. Left me crop and gloves up in the hall. Fetch 'em, will you? Thank you kindly.'
'But Lady Draco,' Miss Victoria protested, her face pink with the social disgrace of entertaining the queen of the county set below stairs, 'I'm sure you would rather take tea in the—'
'Tea be blowed. Ah, thank you,' Lady Draco boomed, accepting her crop from Miss Emily. 'Now, get that minx across the kitchen table.' She flexed her crop, then thrummed it twice. It sang a cruel note in ode to the promise of pain. 'Come along, come along. Tails up.'
Tuppence, who had only managed to don her black stockings, was seized and held face-down across the large scrubbed table, the stern sisters cupping a breast fiercely and grasping a wrist apiece.
'A stinging six?' Lady Draco demanded rhetorically, easing off her black velvet riding jacket and unbuttoning the cuff at her right sleeve.
Slightly overwhelmed by events, the two sisters merely nodded in silent unison.
'Six it is, then,' the huntswoman grunted, swishing the crisp crop down across the maid's bare bottom.
Tuppence, writhing in the pinioning grip of the two spinsters, jerked as the crop cut across her proffered cheeks - and squealed aloud as the two sisters squeezed her breasts within their controlling grasp. The second and then the third searing slice of crop across naked rump followed quickly upon the first, scalding the maid's soft bottom with red weals of livid pain.
'Fetching little piece,' Lady Draco murmured softly, dropping down on one knee in a genuflection to de Sade to inspect the whipped cheeks.
Tuppence whimpered aloud as she felt the fingers that had gripped the leather-sheathed crop now splaying across the curve of her hot buttock, to talon and torment the flesh of the punished cheek. The maid wriggled and squirmed to escape the tormenting land but the two sisters held her firmly in their dominant thrall. Tuppence slumped down submissively as Lady Draco's straightened forefinger slowly traced the three stinging stripes that he crop had blazed across her bare buttocks.
'Hold her down, my dears,' the punisher demanded, rising up and swishing the crop ominously. 'Three strokes received and three strokes to come.'
Tuppence squealed aloud as the whippy crop sliced down, planting the three Judas kisses in rapid succession.
'Excellent,' Miss Emily hissed. 'A capital whipping.' She furtively rubbed her pubis against the corner of the kitchen table, raking the lips of her wet plum down over the angle of wood.
Tuppence, still pinned down at the nape of her neck by the strong hands of Miss Victoria, froze as she sensed Lady Draco kneeling once more, and shuddered as she felt her chastiser's warm breath at her exposed slit.
'That's the only way to deal with the servant problem, my dears,' the huntswoman chuckled. 'Now, how about some tea, what? Thirsty work, punishment.'
'Seed cake?' Miss Victoria inquired politely, desperate in her attempt to re-establish a drawing-room decorum.
'Seed cake? That's for family solicitors and stable boys,' Lady Draco retorted dismissively, palming Tuppence's striped cheeks rhythmically with her broad palm.
'Perhaps a finger of ginger sponge,' Miss Emily grunted softly, recovering herself after coming against the table. 'It's deliciously moist.'
Lady Draco, sucking on the tip of the crop, chuckled and nodded her assent to the suggestion of ginger cake. 'I think I could be tempted by a moist finger.'
Tuppence clenched her thighs together tightly, retracting her sphincter so that it was a stubbornly closed rosebud. Lady Draco worried the anal whorl teasingly with her finger tip and chuckled softly.
Being Lammas Eve, Miss Edwina was in her study settling up the household accounts. In between sips of a warming amontillado she scribbled in the totals beneath the spidery columns of figures. When summoned by the tinkling bell to do so, Tuppence entered the study and presented Miss Edwina with the kitchen books - one each for the cellar, the pantry and the dairy. Miss Edwina retained the books for the fishmonger and the butcher, doubting not the maid's honesty but more her ability to be the judge of a fresh salmon or a well-hung sirloin.
Tuppence stood in respectful silence as the mistress of The Birches balanced the books. At length, Miss Edwina handed them back to her maid.
'All is in order. And now,' she murmured, opening a desk drawer and extracting a thin ledger bound in green leather, 'one more book to balance.'
Tuppence winced. It was the punishment book, into which details of all the maid's misdemeanours were solemnly entered - together with the punishments such mischief had been deemed to merit. For Tuppence, this ritual was as shaming as a bare-bottomed spanking.
'Well, girl?' Miss Edwina demanded briskly, her pen poised expectantly.
Tuppence admitted to her sins - and the catalogue of painful retribution. 'I was abed, miss. Doing wicked things with my person. Miss Emily caught me—'
'And?'
'Ten strokes,
miss. With the strap.'
'Ah, the devil to pay,' Miss Edwina chuckled, entering a neat record of the maid's offence and punishment into the ledger. 'And?'
'Then you spanked me, Miss Edwina.'
'So I did. For stealing sherry, was it not?'
'Yes, miss.'
The crime, and the penalty, were carefully recorded.
'And?'
'Miss Victoria punished me for not scrubbing the passage floor properly.'
'Cane?'
'Yes, miss,' Tuppence whispered, adding softly, 'and an apple.'
'An apple?' The inked nib paused above the ledger. 'Pray explain yourself, girl.'
Blushing, Tuppence reluctantly stumbled through a confused account of how Miss Victoria had employed the Sweet Susan while caning the kneeling maid's bare buttocks.
'We may omit the apple and record it simply as a caning. How many strokes?'
Tuppence supplied the answer. It was entered into the punishment book.
'Such an eventful day, my girl. Surely that is all?'
Tuppence recounted her memorable encounter with Lady Draco. Miss Edwina noted it all down.
'Sign here, girl.'
Tuppence stepped up to the desk and picked up the pen. The pages of the punishment book were of a creamy ivory colour - lot unlike the flesh of an unpunished young woman's bottom. The golden nib - a shade deeper than that of a whippy cane - left a thin line of red ink as Tuppence hurriedly scribbled her signature. Gazing down, she shivered at the sight of the thin red line of ink across the unblemished cream: it was just like gazing into the looking glass to glimpse her own striped cheeks after chastisement. Above her signature, the thin red lines left a record of the day's pain.
Miss Edwina blotted the page carefully and closed the book. 'Off with you to bed, girl. No, wait a moment.'
Tuppence paused, her hand upon the door handle.
'We received a note this evening from Draco Hall. Her ladyship has requested your presence there for the weekend. Be sure to take your best maid's uniform, Tuppence, and a decent pair of shoes.'