by Laurel Aspen
‘There’s always too much to do these days, life must have been simpler in black & white,’ Dan mused, idly taking from a rack a monochrome postcard of the village as it was some fifty years ago.
‘Life was what?’ said Laura, bemused.
‘Simpler in black and white,’ repeated Dan, then aware this must sound a non-sequiter, quickly added, ‘In the nineteen-fifties, for instance,’ he examined the back of the postcard, ‘when this picture of the high street was taken. You know, like in those old Ealing comedies.’
‘You’re quite sure about that, are you?’ queried Gran, who’d been quietly listening out back.
‘Oh yes,’ replied Dan confidently, although in truth he was no such thing, the idea only having just occurred to him. ‘I mean, not much in the way of TV, no mobile phones, no computers, people not travelling as far to work. Everything in its place and a place for everything,’ he concluded rather lamely.
‘And no cliché left unturned,’ Laura put in with a giggle.
‘Well, if you are so convinced,’ Gran said carefully, ‘why not put the theory to the test?’
‘How?’ Dan and Laura replied in unison.
‘Try spending the next forty-eight hours subject to the same sort of rules and constraints as I had to half a century ago,’ said Gran. ‘You should know, Laura, the twentieth century is your specialist subject.’
‘Yes, why not?’ Laura smiled at the suggestion. ‘I’m up for it, how about you, Dan?’
‘Fine,’ he replied, much amused but wondering just what he’d started, ‘why not?’
‘Because,’ said Gran, ‘you’ll discover that life was nowhere near as free and easy then as you appear to think it was. Still, it might make you young people more appreciative of the freedoms you enjoy these days.
‘For a start,’ she added wickedly, ‘a young girl such as Laura might well have expected a chaperone on her first date.’
‘What?’ groaned Dan, beginning to wish he’d never brought the subject up, after all.
‘Don’t panic,’ Mrs Winterton smiled mischievously, ‘I don’t intend to waste my precious evening playing gooseberry. And anyway, that sort of behaviour largely died out during the war. When you didn’t know what tomorrow held you took your chances when you could. But even so,’ she added with a meaningful look at the pair, ‘my father would certainly have insisted on meeting the young man first, to check his character and discover his intentions.’
‘And what are your intentions?’ Laura enquired, causing Dan, to his intense chagrin, to blush.
‘He’d have set a strict curfew, too,’ added Gran, ignoring them, ‘and woe betide me if I was late home.’
‘Grounded?’ Kate said sympathetically.
‘Huh, stupid American expression,’ Gran snorted dismissively. ‘Hauled across his knee and soundly spanked, more like.’
‘At that age?’ said Dan incredulously.
‘“You’re never too old for a good hiding, and while you live in my house you’ll follow my rules, my girl”,’ Gran mimicked her own father. ‘That’s how it was right up until I left home at twenty, the same age as Laura is now.’
‘But that’s terrible.’ Dan had been about to engage full political correctness overdrive when he glimpsed Laura’s distant expression. Instead of the expected outrage the idea seemed to hold a peculiar fascination for her.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ she murmured dreamily. ‘At least it’s over and done with, which is better than being nagged at for days.’
‘Right enough,’ said Gran, approvingly. ‘Very sore at the time, but no harm done. And it at least instilled a little respect. Anyhow,’ she continued briskly, ‘that’s quite enough reminiscing about the “never had it so good” era. I’ll lock up, so you two go about your business and get out from under my feet.’ Then with an affectionate smile she ushered them from the shop.
Despite it being summer, by early evening a distinctly unromantic light drizzle had descended. For his short walk to the cinema, which somehow endured in the face of competition from the multiplexes of larger towns, Dan had dressed in an old belted raincoat, at the last moment adding a trilby left by a previous occupant of the cottage.
Laura arrived breathless, flushed and five minutes late, just as Dan’s carefully cultivated veneer of nonchalance was starting to fade. Closing the large umbrella under which she’d sheltered, she revealed a simple floral dress, her hair tied back into a cute ponytail and, save for red lipstick, a clear complexion free of make-up. Laura’s legs were equally bare and she wore on her feet flat sandals, which looked petite next to Dan’s brogues.
‘You look wonderful,’ he said sincerely, ‘although that dress is close to being period costume.’
‘I know,’ retorted Laura. ‘Gran’s a notorious horder and because her own flat’s so small she stores a lot of old stuff in the rooms over the shop. And since we’re having our own little monochrome retrospective, I decided to dress accordingly. You’re looking very Humphrey Bogart-like, by the way.’
‘See,’ he said, ‘I’m not a total ignoramus when it comes to the recent past.’
Laughing together, they went into the auditorium.
The movie turned out to be a golden oldie, an American screwball comedy, one of the last to be made before the advent of Technicolor. Since this was Hollywood at its most censorious, references to sex could only be made obliquely and clothes remained firmly on, but if anything this added to the film’s period charm. The script was sharp and knowing, and while it was soon obvious the hero and heroine would eventually be united, the feisty leading lady led him a merry dance for much of the plot. So much so that in one scene the exasperated leading man hauled her across his knee for an all too brief spanking.
By this midway stage of the movie Laura had, in true romantic picture-goer fashion, snuggled comfortably against Dan’s shoulder. Taken aback by the second overt reference to one of his favourite fantasies in one day, he glanced at his putative paramour to gauge her reaction, which was to look up and kiss him full on the lips. Dan’s earlier suspicions were confirmed, unless his decoding of body language had gone completely to pot, it seemed Laura found the subject of CP more than a little stimulating.
The pair’s concentration on the remainder of the plot was sporadic, and for the first time since he was a teenager Dan found himself snogging in the back row. Emboldened, he cupped a breast in his palm, and was gratified to feel her nipple stiffen through the thin material as she pulled him closer.
‘Back to my place?’ he suggested as they walked home, arm in arm along the high street.
‘Sir, what sort of a girl do you think I am?’ she replied, with feigned indignation. ‘I’ve already gone further than was wise on a first date. And what would the neighbours say?’
‘I haven’t any neighbours,’ reasoned Dan, but even as he spoke he knew there was no chance of them spending that night together.
‘You’ll just have to be patient and wait until tomorrow afternoon,’ continued Laura, now seemingly in sensible girl mode. ‘Daylight’s the appropriate time for a well brought up girl to visit a gentleman for tea,’ she added primly.
‘And in the meantime it’s a black and white lifestyle for you - no computers, no video. A mug of tea and a good book are all you’ve got for entertainment until then. Find out how quickly time flew when life was simpler and the best things in life had to be waited for, like it or not.’ And with a smile and a chaste peck on the cheek she was gone, leaving one very bemused and frustrated young man alone on the pavement.
Next day Dan was up with the lark. Managing to forsake the attractions of electronic entertainment for a few hours he did indeed read, before eventually surrendering to the dubious pleasures of an early rock and roll programme on the radio. There was no doubt about it, the days before youth culture and consumerism could be long and dull, and putting the waiting into wanting was definitely not his idea of a good time. Laura’s granny had amply proved her point; a life lived in shades of grey
may have been simpler but it was also a lot less fun. Slowly a plan formed in Dan’s mind. If Laura wanted to play at nineteen-fifty’s morality so be it, but later today she would find herself in for a shock.
At last it was mid-afternoon, and answering the knock on the front door he was immediately taken aback by the glamorous visitor waiting there. In place of yesterday’s spartan “made-do-and-mend” garb, his date had clearly decided on the glamour of the late Macmillan era.
Laura’s hair hung in soft waves to her shoulders, her eyebrows were drawn into dark curves, the lashes mascared, her lips a succulent dark red. The carefully fitted jacket emphasised her trim waist, and the matching full skirt swirled just below her knees. Demurely accepting his spellbound invitation to enter, Laura teetered across the room with dainty steps, still unaccustomed to the high heels of her peep-toe, ankle-strap shoes.
‘You look stunning,’ he said, leading her to the sofa where she sat, crossed her legs with a sensual swish of nylon, and clasped a diamanté bag in her lap.
‘I went a bit overboard with Gran’s wardrobe,’ she admitted, ‘but I’d been wanting to try some of these clothes on for ages.’ She giggled mischievously. ‘I feel like a proper lady.’
‘And would the proper lady care for a glass of Chardonnay?’ enquired Dan.
‘Definitely not authentic, but a small sherry would be nice,’ she said, happily acting out her self-appointed role. ‘And no doubt you’ll take a scotch and soda?’
‘No doubt,’ replied Dan, with heavy emphasis as he fixed the drinks, ‘you’ll be insisting on the same degree of propriety as last night?’
‘That,’ said Laura, with a saucy grin, ‘is for me to know and you to discover. Careful,’ she added as he leant over to pass her glass, ‘these stockings are terribly hard to find these days, and cost a small fortune.’
‘Why so special?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ Laura stood and hitched up her skirt to reveal the gorgeous legs he’d so long admired sheathed in sheer black nylon, ‘they’ve got seams.’ She twirled across the room, which rapidly turned out to be a coquettish step too far for, as his trousers tightened even more uncomfortably at the glorious sight, Dan reached his limit.
‘So you think,’ he said, his voice dangerously low, ‘you can flirt and tantalise me outrageously, yet hide behind your precious old-fashioned morality each time I take the bait?’
‘It worked for Hepburn and Tracey,’ she responded cheekily, but sensing a change in his stance and tone prudently tried to move out of his reach.
‘Not so fast, young lady,’ he said, in the time-honoured tones of a B-movie hero, and in a flash he’d seized her by the wrist, sat down and unceremoniously tumbled her facedown across his lap.
‘W-what the hell are you doing?’ she demanded peevishly.
‘What your great-grandfather did to your Gran, what Rock Hudson did to Barbara Rush and what I’ve wanted to do for the last twenty-four hours,’ he responded decisively, and to further exemplify the point he brought his hand down sharply across her skirted rump. Now, while it’s true Laura protested - verbally, with a stream of insults, and physically, by kicking, struggling and squirming over his knees - a seasoned outsider might have detected a perceptible lack of conviction underlying her struggles.
Growing ever more confident, Dan pulled the material of Laura’s tailored skirt tight across her thighs, and methodically spanked every inch of the material until his palm felt hot, which was nothing in comparison to the burning sensation assailing Laura beneath her knickers. It had never stung this much in her fantasies but, held tightly in Dan’s powerful grip, she’d little choice but to acquiesce to her fate. Things got worse, and feet kicking as she was pinned by Dan’s right leg, Laura wailed in distress as she felt the chic skirt being lifted to her waist.
‘You certainly have got Betty Grable’s legs,’ Dan said, admiringly running a hand languorously down each silkily clad thigh. ‘And what appears to be a peach of a derriere inside those gorgeous French knickers.’
‘Real silk,’ sniffed his paramour, ‘and please don’t rip them.’
‘Or what, Gran will spank you when she discovers they’ve been purloined? How terrible; still, to be on the safe side you’d better not struggle while I take them down.’
‘What?’ she shrieked. ‘Oh no, hang on, you can’t possibly intend to…’
Oh, but he certainly did intend to. And what’s more, he fully intended to relish every second of the experience. Pinning Laura’s wrists into the small of her back he inched the flimsy lingerie down over her hips to reveal two glowing orbs beneath. He smiled, as despite her wriggling and protestations Laura meekly lifted her haunches to ease the process. Down over the stocking tops and the clasps of her suspenders, down with a soft, sensual swish, over slender thighs until they reached a temporary halt tangled about her knees.
Dan ran his palm across the perfectly proffered bare cheeks, still radiating heat from his preliminary attentions. Then raising his arm to shoulder height he recommenced the spanking, cupping his palm to occasion a loud report as each successive blow sent a ripple across the surface of her taut, flawless skin. The surrender of her knickers seemed to have taken any remaining fight from Laura, who now lay limply in his grasp, one hand clutching her hair, the other in her mouth to stifle the yelps and groans she emitted at each resounding slap.
Eventually, aware that once again his palm was burning, Dan decided to allow another respite. ‘Not quite so exuberant now,’ he observed triumphantly, admiring his handiwork.
‘You brute,’ Laura murmured, as she made the most of the chance to rub and soothe her blazing bottom.
‘Oh please, I think you exaggerate, Ms Walker,’ said Dan. ‘A brisk hand spanking is well within the tolerance of a fit young lass like you.’
‘Don’t patronise me, you sod,’ came the waspish reply, ‘my poor bottom feels as if it’s on fire.’
‘So I see,’ he replied, unabashed. ‘And any other side effects, I wonder?’ To test his unspoken theory he tentatively slid two fingers into the dark recess between her cheeks. ‘It seems to me there’s a degree of moistness present here.’
Betrayed by her own body Laura turned to face her tormentor, blushing scarlet. ‘It’s an involuntary reaction,’ she sniffled weakly.
‘But a welcome one, nonetheless,’ observed Dan, skilfully locating the emerging bud of her clitoris and drawing from Laura sounds of an entirely different timbre. Clearly blazing buttocks were not the only hot spot on Laura’s anatomy.
Dan resumed the chastisement, and as the spanking relentlessly progressed so the slow burning heat it engendered spread ever further, ever deeper into the epicentre of her sex. And squirming across his thighs simply made matters worse; the friction sending jolts of pure pleasure through her sopping slot in glorious counterpoint to the havoc being simultaneously wrought about her delicious rear curves.
‘This is supposed to be a punishment,’ Dan’s sonorous tones interrupted her thoughts, ‘but you seem to be enjoying it far too much.’
Pulling her redundant pants down from knee to ankle he removed them completely, before grasping her knees to lewdly spread wide her thighs. Laura whimpered at the indignity, her all too obviously aroused labia pouted wetly before him, and just above it the dark secrets of her cutely puckered anus were revealed to his appreciative scrutiny.
Using just the tips of his fingers he carefully commenced spanking Laura’s prominent pussy, stinging the blood-engorged lips and sending electric surges of pure, passionate fire racing to her very core. Suddenly the out of control, utterly humiliating indignity of the situation overwhelmed her and, as all thoughts of composure were abandoned, she jerked and cried her way to a noisy orgasm, a pleasure thus far denied to Dan and something he now determined to resolve.
‘I think you may be forgetting something,’ he observed sanguinely as Laura remained prostrate across his lap.
‘Something?’ she enquired, looking up, the spark restored to her v
iolet eyes.
‘In particular…’ Dan completed the sentence by looking pointedly down at the uncomfortable bulge now threatening to burst the front of his trousers.
‘Ooh, you poor thing,’ murmured Laura throatily, and slipping to the floor worked busily to free him from the constraining cloth.
‘My, who’s a big boy, then?’ she whispered huskily, delicately running her tongue up the standing length of his glistening shaft.
‘I thought…’ croaked Dan, pausing to gasp at the sheer exquisite pleasure her hot mouth was bringing him, ‘I thought you were supposed not to have seen such a thing before…’
‘Yes, well, nostalgic playacting or not, claiming to be a virgin might be stretching credulity too far,’ admitted Laura, looking up at him with doe eyes, before continuing to practice an obviously well honed skill.
‘Which leaves me no option,’ he groaned, desperate to divert proceedings and avoid an all too premature conclusion, ‘but to punish you further.’
Reluctantly he disengaged himself from Laura’s oral expertise and stood her upright. On impulse he then tore open the front of her blouse and hungrily pressed his mouth to each of her firm little breasts. Tilting back her head Laura gave a sensuous moan, then catching her unawares Dan grabbed her shoulders and steered her into position astride the well-padded arm of the settee.
One knee resting on it, the other leg straight, toes touching the floor, he urged her forward until she lay along its full upholstered length. Legs spread, buttocks perfectly poised for further chastisement, Laura might have been expected to appear embarrassed, but far from it, the very indignity of her blatantly exposed valley of delights only enhanced her anticipation. Framed by stocking tops and rumpled clothing her vagina peeped in open invitation.
But not yet… Slowly drawing the worn leather belt from his trousers Dan doubled it, raised his arm, and waited.
‘Six strokes, Laura,’ he told her, ‘and I want you to count each one out loud. Understood?’