by Penny Birch
‘And down come the knickers!’ he declared, and peeled them slowly off my bum.
I must have had my panties pulled down hundreds of times, slowly, fast, even torn off, but perhaps never with such lascivious satisfaction. He gave a long, happy sigh as my cheeks came bare, and made very sure to strip me properly, inverting my panties around my thighs and giving a little tug to pull the material away from my pussy and leaving me showing behind.
‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘In perfect proportion to your waist, round and feminine, elegant yet cheeky, firm without being hard, and as smooth as cream.’
He’d begun to feel my bottom as he spoke, stroking and squeezing my cheeks with a casual intimacy that had me shaking uncontrollably.
‘And between?’ he queried, and I gasped as my bottom cheeks were spread wide to show off my bumhole and the rear view of my pussy to his probing gaze.
‘Mr Hambling! You said a spanking!’
‘And a spanking you shall have, my dear.’
With that he let go of my cheeks, took me firmly around my waist and brought his hand down across my bottom with a slap that echoed around the room. So did my squeal of shock and pain. He had huge hands and he spanked hard, putting his shoulders into the swing and holding me firmly in place as he applied smack after smack to my wildly bouncing bottom. My skin had been cold, and it had all happened too quickly to let me get fully turned on, so it hurt like anything, making me squeal and kick and wriggle across his lap, all of which he thoroughly enjoyed. At last I managed to get some words out between my gasps and yelps.
‘Not so hard, Mr Hambling, please!’
He responded with a smug little chuckle and eased off. I slumped limply across his lap, too dizzy with reaction even to think of resisting as he began to feel me up between softer, gentler smacks. My bottom was aglow, bringing me slowly on heat, and he enjoyed himself with me, spanking me, groping me and increasingly teasing me with one thick finger tickling between my cheeks. I began to sob as his exploration grew more intimate, unable to stop myself – or to stop him. It felt too nice, for all the appalling shame as he began to tickle, making me giggle like a little girl and squirm my bottom about, which only encouraged him.
My sobs and giggles grew stronger as his teasing finger moved closer to my anus, only to turn to fresh squeals as another dozen hard smacks were applied to my blazing posterior. Again he stopped, this time to move my thighs gently but firmly apart, stretching my panties taut across his knee and opening my bottom. His finger went back between my cheeks, which began to squeeze together as he tickled in my slit, around my bumhole and on it, teasing the little bumps and crevices to set me squirming desperately in his grip. I was trying to stop him, or I was telling myself I was, not because I didn’t like it but because at any moment I was going to break. Then I had, pushing my bottom up to let my cheeks spread fully open, offering him my bumhole to explore as much as he pleased, my pussy too.
‘You delightful little tart!’ he chuckled. ‘Shall we see how wet you are?’
His finger moved down from my bumhole and, before I could protest, it had been eased in up my pussy, filling my hole and drawing an involuntary sigh from my lips. He knew he had me, and released his grip on my waist so that he could spank my bottom with one hand while still fingering me. I’d given in completely, my bottom thrust high to let him get as deep as possible and my thighs squirming on his.
‘Little tart indeed!’ he said as I began to rub myself on his leg.
I could get there, I knew I could, just by wriggling on his leg, so long as he kept his finger in and my bottom was being smacked. He’d treated me so well, firm and authoritative in order to get me over his knee where I belonged, rude and intrusive as he stripped me and felt me up, firm with my spanking and standing no nonsense when it came to getting access to my bumhole and pussy.
‘I’m going to come,’ I sobbed. ‘Don’t stop me, please . . . spank me . . . finger-fuck me . . .’
He set up a rhythm, easing one fat finger in and out of my slippery pussy as he smacked my cheeks one at a time. I let my mind drift, thinking of what he’d called me and how true it was. It was bad enough that I’d let a man more than twice my age pull down my panties and spank my bottom for kicks, but to let him tickle my bumhole, to let him stick a finger up my pussy, to rub my dirty little cunt on his leg until I came off . . .
It stopped.
‘Somebody is coming,’ he said quietly.
‘Hey, no, I’m nearly there!’
‘Sh! Natasha!’
I’d been right on the edge, so close I wouldn’t have cared if half the population of London, with a few tourists for good measure, had watched me bring myself off. He had more self-control, easing me gently but firmly off his lap and under the desk a moment before there was a sharp rap on the door. I made to protest, but he was already on his feet and all I could do was curl up tight, struggling to pull up my panties in the tiny space as he asked the caller to wait a moment.
Fortunately the desk had a solid front, but I was blushing furiously as he coolly opened the door to his secretary and made an excuse about having been at the safe. She had brought copies of the relevant figures for me to peruse. It was a long way to the front desk, and she may or may not have wondered how I had managed to enter the room but was apparently gone. I found myself imagining her out at lunch with friends, giggling as she described how I’d given in to the boss on my first day.
By the time she went away I was no longer in need of an orgasm, but I still had a hot bottom, which I knew would keep me flustered for the rest of the day, or until I did manage to get myself off. The temptation to nip into the loo was considerable, but the moment was gone and I felt too embarrassed, so I applied myself to the figures instead. They proved soothing, in the sense that reading them almost put me to sleep, what with such fascinating pieces of information as that in the mid-’80s the original company had been transferred to an off-the-shelf parent called Monterprise Ltd, and that Gilbert and Otto paid £1 a year each for the rent of their upstairs flats.
Unfortunately as the shock of near-discovery died away and my boredom grew, my arousal came back. The warm glow of my bottom made it impossible to forget that I’d been spanked, which in turn kept me thinking of how I must have looked and how intrusive it had been, with inevitable consequences. Gilbert had gone out, so in the end I put the papers aside and went down to the cellar, knowing full well that if it was quiet I’d probably have my knickers down again before too long.
The bulk of their stock was in a bonded warehouse downriver at Silvertown, somewhere I intended to avoid unless it was absolutely essential to visit, but they had a policy of holding back a share of the better wines until full maturity, and these they kept in the cellar. Just reading the list had been a mouth-watering experience, but it didn’t come close to the reality, which even succeeded in pushing the needs of my body into the background.
The cellar had a massive oak door, probably original. It opened with the largest key I had ever seen, revealing a flight of worn stone steps disappearing into absolute blackness, from which rose a dank, vinous waft familiar to me from a hundred visits to wineries across Europe. A light switch to one side produced a dim, golden glow and I started downwards, pulling the huge door closed behind me. The air was cool, so much so that I did up my suit jacket as I reached the bottom of the stairs.
A second door led off to one side, opening on to more or less the scene I’d been anticipating: a vaulted ceiling above a passageway with alcoves on either side, each stacked either with cases or with carefully arranged bins of bottles. Those nearest me were cases of Cissac and Pichon-Baron ’89, which I gave an appreciative glance before moving on. Many of the bins were marked for keeping, and most of the others I recognised from the list, but I quickly realised that a lot of obviously mature stock wasn’t being offered for sale at all.
Three alcoves were entirely given over to small bins of ancient port, never more than a dozen bottles of each but with three e
xamples of the legendary ’45 and others going back to the 1904. Beyond was a single bin of Lafaurie-Peyraguey ’29, as golden as the darkest honey where the cellar lights reflected within the stack of bottles. Beyond came a set of Burgundies, wines from Clair-Daü and Marey-Monge dating back to ’53s. I was entranced just to see such rarities, to drink in the musky, ancient smell and to stretch out my fingers and stroke the cool, hard glass.
There was Romanée-St-Vivant ’64 from Marey-Monge, a wine I could remember tasting as a child. I used to come out of the nursery and demand a single drop from the tip of my father’s finger before I’d go to bed, but on that occasion he’d refused to let me taste until he’d explained the significance of the wine and the story behind the vineyard. He’d then, very solemnly, poured out a tiny amount into a glass and allowed me to drink, filling me with gratitude and a pleasure that had never really gone away. The memory brought me close to tears, followed by a sudden burst of anger as I thought of the eight beautiful bottles that remained being swallowed by some cigar-puffing CEO, a prima donna or some overpaid nancy boy whose sole talent lay in being able to kick a ball around. For the first time I began to understand how Gilbert Hambling and Otto Borse felt.
I never did get my frig, and the rest of the day was rather dull, because, for all my determination not to get bogged down in paperwork, I clearly had to make myself familiar with the company. Percy had been right to say they were rich in assets but otherwise poor. Hopeless might have been a better description. Both Gilbert and Otto were paying themselves more than substantial salaries, with expenses to match, while their overheads were alarming, all of which made for outgoings their income couldn’t hope to match. Despite accounts with most of the country’s top hotels and restaurants, they simply didn’t have the volume of trade necessary to make a profit. The private accounts were in worse condition, with an ever dwindling band of customers with impeccable taste but an average age of about sixty, my parents among them. To make matters worse they seemed to regard asking for payment with as much distaste as a dowager duchess might show to the suggestion that she drop her knickers to pee in the gutter.
I could imagine the response I would get to any of the obvious suggestions for saving money, and besides, it simply wouldn’t be enough. What I needed were rich clients prepared to pay high prices – or, ideally, filthy rich clients prepared to pay extortionate prices. To that end I needed to work on Earle Hayes and Anton Yoshida, but the direct approach was almost certain to fail. Both undoubtedly had the attention of every hopeful marketing manager in the trade and received enough samples to drown in. It would be better to use reverse psychology and try and make them think I was deliberately hiding some superb product in order to prevent the price from rising beyond my own income.
By the time I left, my head was swimming with ideas and I felt exhausted. I made for Marylebone, thinking vaguely about food while wishing Percy had volunteered to stand me dinner for one more night. By the time I reached my block I had decided to order a takeaway and eat in the bath, perhaps exploring one of the eastern cuisines so common in London but unheard of on the island. My bum still felt pleasantly sensitive and I knew that I’d soon be masturbating over what had been done to me earlier.
There was a young woman standing outside the door, petite, smartly dressed and looking completely lost until she saw me, when her face split into a beaming smile.
‘Tasha, hi!’
‘Er . . . hi,’ I managed, trying desperately to remember if she was an old schoolfriend, some forgotten one-night stand or a reporter.
‘It’s me, Lydia!’ she laughed. ‘You must remember me.’
‘I’m sorry . . .,’ I began, only for a subtle change in the light on her grinning face to bring back a flood of memories: of that same grin as she eased a candle up my pussy, as she sprayed my bottom metallic blue to humiliate me in front of her boyfriend, as she held me down across her mother’s lap while I was spanked to tears with a hairbrush.
Then she’d been a wild teenager with red and green hair, piercings and a taste for leather microskirts with no knickers underneath. She’d also been a sadistic, controlling little bitch. Now she looked as if she’d just stepped out of the boardroom of a blue-chip company, with her designer suit and several hundred pounds’ worth of hairdo. She also seemed genuinely friendly, although I wasn’t about to take that at face value.
‘You . . . you look different,’ I said, the only words I could get out and in the circumstances a truly pathetic effort.
‘You don’t,’ she said happily. ‘You look exactly the same as the last time I saw you.’
I found myself blushing, unsure if what she’d said was a compliment or a subtle dig. As far as I could remember, the last time she’d seen me I’d been having my bottom smacked at a birthday party, although that had at least been my own choice.
‘How are you anyway?’ she carried on. ‘I hear you’ve taken up an appointment as manager at Hambling and Borse?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted, slightly surprised because, although her parents were both in the trade, I was fairly sure she wasn’t.
‘I want to talk to you about that,’ she said, taking my arm. ‘Can I treat you to Thai? Is the Royal Elephant good?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve only been back in London a few days, but I was thinking of just having a takeaway.’
‘Great. You go up and get a bottle on ice. I’ll order.’
She didn’t bother to wait for my answer, but gave me a last smile and disappeared in the direction of the restaurant. I was about to follow and turn down her offer, but my curiosity got the better of me. She’d said she wanted to talk about my job, and she was suspiciously friendly. I’ve allowed plenty of women to dominate me sexually, but with nearly all of them our relationship outside the bedroom has been as equals. Lydia had been different, always treating me as an inferior, which I’d found arousing but irritating. I decided to play along but to be extremely cautious.
The intercom system would enable me to let her in from my flat, so I went up and put one bottle of Gewürztraminer in the freezer and another in the fridge. It was annoying to have to postpone the leisurely bath I’d been planning in favour of a hurried wash, but I wanted to give the impression that I was a little in awe of her and so laid the table with my best glasses and some white linen napkins I’d bought in anticipation of entertaining various men. I’d only just finished when she buzzed to get in. She was already talking as she entered the flat.
‘I adore Thai. I’ve got us Gai Phad Khing, Ped Aon Yod Pak, Nua Phad Nam Mun Hoi and jasmine rice. Let’s eat.’
I had no idea what she was talking about, and suspected she was showing off, but to my surprise she began to dish up rather than expecting me to do it. The bottle from the freezer was already pleasantly cool and I poured out two glasses. She swirled her wine, sniffed and sipped, clearly appreciative but without the concentration Percy or Otto Borse would have shown for a single vineyard wine. Nor did she bother to comment, but took a swallow and a bite of food before starting to talk once more.
‘Bottom line first. I’m with Orpheus Asset Management, who I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of? We’re one of those companies that keeps the world moving on, and I am going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.’
She’d put on a mock Italian accent for the last few words, and grinned at me before taking another swallow of wine.
‘Hambling and Borse is a dinosaur,’ she went on, ‘yesterday’s news, twentieth century.’
‘Nineteenth, I’d have said. Eighteenth, even.’
‘I like the way you think, Tasha. They’re dead and buried, I’m sure you know that, and I have the solution. Orpheus want to make an offer and, believe me, it’s a good one, but those two old farts in St James’s won’t even acknowledge us.’
‘What are you planning to do?’
‘Buy them out at a fair price and rationalise the company.’
‘Which involves what, exactly?’
She hesitated, pre
tending to concentrate on her meal for a while, then pursed her lips in sudden decision.
‘OK, I’ll be open with you, because I know you think the way I do and will see that it’s the best option. As we said, their set-up is outdated. Only global companies can afford to have a headquarters in St James’s nowadays. For an outfit like Hambling and Borse it’s a joke. So the premises go. We have offers from names that would make your eyes pop, and they want it badly, so we should get well over the market price, and even that’s high. Then there’s the name. When you’re selling wine, there’s nothing like a touch of snobbery to make the punters shell out. We sell the name to a supermarket, who set it up so it looks like they’re in partnership with Hambling and Borse, which we estimate will give them at least a twenty per cent premium on their upper range wines.’
‘And the stock?’
She shrugged.
‘Whatever.’
There was no point in asking about the employees, who were obviously for the chop, or in telling her that her bit of blatant asset-stripping would give poor old Gilbert and Otto heart attacks. She obviously didn’t care.
‘They want me to make the company profitable and help pass it on to somebody who’ll keep up with the same traditions,’ I pointed out.
‘You know as well as I do that’s not going to happen.’
I made a face.
‘They should be more than content with the Orpheus offer,’ she insisted. ‘Both of them will retire rich, while the name of Hambling and Borse will become one of the most prestigious brands on the market.’
‘Associated with characterless bulk-production wines. You know how supermarkets work, Lydia, using their buying power to force producers to sell at little or no profit – which inevitably means poor quality, whatever it may say on the label.’
‘I wasn’t actually planning on drinking the stuff, Natasha.’
‘I didn’t imagine you would be, but don’t you think it’s a pity?’