by Laurel Aspen
Betty extends a hand to the distended front of his chinos. ‘Harder here?’ she asks.
He slaps her leather-clad arse by way of response. ‘Harder here. Good choice of clothes for television, by the way. It looks sexy on camera but way safer than a short skirt.’
‘You didn’t answer my question, you’re gonna paddle me, right?’ She’s hanging in there, has to know.
‘Something like that,’ he’s infuriatingly imprecise, ‘and whatever it is will be on the bare.’
Which leaves ‘Indya’ to endure three hours of anticipatory torture. Most of it spent perched on a burning bottom trying desperately not to squirm on screen. Witless interviewers pose an interminable succession of vacuous questions and Betty tries hard to concentrate, all the while wondering what that annoyingly assured Englishman is planning. She hopes it will involve filling her achingly empty pussy, she’s no good at deferred gratification, this frustration’s killing her.
So much so that between the television station and radio studio she pleads the need for a pee and takes a brief, impromptu adjournment. Safely bolted into a cubicle she delves frantically in her handbag, a moment of panic, then thank goodness. With the most discrete of whirring noises a delicate, finger-sized vibrator provides some urgently needed clitoral first aid and, refreshed and revived, Betty goes on to do a barnstorming prime-time TV interview.
‘Superb,’ says Chris enthusiastically, as she emerges from the studio. ‘Media feeds off media and I’ve already had the Sundays on wanting profiles.’
‘The Sundays?’
‘The newspapers. Predictably at least two tabloids want fashion shoots, but one of the broadsheets is up for a profile on the real you, while another wants to focus on your status as a post-feminist icon.’ This makes Betty laugh, and Chris sports a wicked grin. ‘I think a small celebration is appropriate. I’ll pick you up at eight, oh, and wear a skirt.’
‘Sugar, nobody tells me what to wear on a date.’
‘I do,’ he replies laconically, and in her heart Betty already knows she’ll comply.
‘You haven’t eaten a lot,’ Chris observes later.
‘I’m anxious,’ replies Betty, with beguiling honesty. ‘I feel like a prom queen on her first date. Not, she adds quietly, ‘that I ever got the chance to go to a prom, nor on to college.’
She rallies and looks affectionately at him. ‘Okay, I guess we’ve reached the point where it’s your place or mine?’
‘Mine,’ says Chris, ominously.
A little later he closes the door of his Islington flat, quietly watching Betty take in her surroundings, pleased to see her nod approvingly at the polished wooden floorboards, the eccentric mix of battered old and functional new furniture. She turns, reaches up to kiss him then lowers her eyelids, awaiting his next move.
‘Knickers and tights off, lose the dress too, but put your heels back on.’
‘Tights?’
‘Pantyhose,’ he translates, and she gracefully obeys, managing, Chris reflects, to be the only woman he’s ever seen removing her tights sensually.
Betty walks confidently towards him, breasts prominent within the confines of a skimpy bra, pubes glistening in the low light, her gym-toned posterior still faintly flushed. She kisses him again, her touch electric.
‘Now you’re gonna screw me?’ she whispers, hopefully.
‘Ultimately,’ he confirms, ‘after I’ve finished what we started earlier. Bend over the table.’
For a moment nothing happens. Has he pushed things too far too quickly?
Apparently not, Betty tosses back her hair, undulates across the room and obediently bends facedown, her torso elegantly on the tabletop. Languidly aware of the erotic spectacle she presents, Betty grasps the edge, spreads her feet and blatantly thrusts out her haunches.
‘Excellent.’ Chris savours the sight of her perfect cunt, and the dark promise of her tightly puckered anus.
‘How many?’ Betty asks timorously.
‘Six.’ Chris waves a slender strip of pliant leather where she can see it. ‘With a Scottish tawse.’
‘You’ve used this before?’ she asks.
‘Oh yes.’
At once the first stroke descends, cracks down, then another and another, searing her flesh. She gasps, but won’t cry out. Betty, being accustomed to pain, long ago learnt to control herself and triumph over suffering. Three livid stripes decorate the American’s rump, one above the other, skilfully applied and no overlap. Chris lets her wait, absorbing the pure bright pain. She’s breathing hard, eyes screwed tight shut, fighting her emotions, for the moment still in control.
‘Bring it on,’ Betty says in a clear, seductive voice.
He does so, and determined to beat her hard for such temerity Chris skims a scalding stroke across the top of Betty’s ravaged orbs, drawing an anguished cry from her lips. The next falls lower, cutting caustically into her curves, forcing the breath from her body, and to conclude is a cruelly calculated stroke that slices savagely into the crease where Betty’s bottom joins her flawless thighs.
‘Ooooh, ooh, ooh!’
No mere man has brought tears to her eyes for years. Extreme emotions, twin fires of passion and pain, burn deep within her. Betty’s ready, she hears his zip being drawn down; he waits for another few seconds then pounces. Turning like the expert wrestler she is, she catches him unprepared, at least for fighting. Cock in hand he’s in no position to defend himself as she flings him backwards onto the floor.
‘You can fuck me from behind next time, Brit,’ she growls, ‘but right now were gonna do it my way.’
Crouching over his prostrate form Betty slowly lowers her liquid slot down the full length of his powerfully erect shaft. ‘Oh yes, sugar, fill me up,’ she groans.
Chris is finding proceedings somewhat proscribed. For a start those impressive beasts are now, literally, in his face, his prick clasped tightly deep inside her, and it seems female athletes have equally well-developed internal muscles. ‘Next time?’ he repeats hesitantly.
‘Oh sure, honey, you’ll get to whip me again real soon,’ she purrs, ‘but right now let me show you how to wrestle…’
Meek Shall Inherit
I have become, thought Arthur Meek, who was miserably hunched over his workplace computer, a statistic, one of countless tens of thousands of unhappily married man. How could matrimonial bliss have deserted him so quickly?
‘Meek by name, meek by nature,’ joked his workmates, who were well aware of the humdrum, hen-pecked nature of Arthur’s domestic existence and missed no opportunity to crow over his despair. Never mind that half of them had never had a regular girlfriend and spent solitary evenings hunched over the latest edition of Pornography for Dwarfs; Arthur’s catch-all description of the so-called ‘men’s lifestyle’ magazines that were usually to be found placed on newsagents’ middle shelves within reach of those too short to get the real porn titles at the top of the rack.
Look at you smug, spotty-faced little bastards, thought Arthur angrily, giving it the big ‘un to each other in the pub and ogling pictures of B list celebs who wouldn’t deign to give nerds such as them the time of day. Wisely he kept these feelings to himself, after all, his current conjugal circumstance was hardly something to celebrate.
One spiteful soul had even taken to humming the old classic Under my Thumb whenever Arthur entered his open plan office at Castlereigh Brothers merchant bank. A cruel judgement but true, Arthur reflected glumly; just twenty-eight years old, married for nearly two years and already he and his wife, Lyn, lived the life of humdrum forty-year-olds.
Lyn, under the dubious tutelage of her mother, whose house they had unwisely elected to share whilst saving for a home of their own, had attained shrewish dominance of their fledgling matrimonial relationship at an early stage, and now frequently made poor Arthur’s life a complete misery. Try as he might, he just couldn’t seem to do anything to please either of them. It was not as if he was always out playing football or boozing with t
he lads, reflected a perplexed Arthur. He tried to be reasonable and respect her point of view as an equal, and never so much as raised a hand to his spouse, not matter what the provocation.
The Cedars, the large and comfortable 1920s detached house where they currently lived was set among similar dwellings in stifling suburban conformity miles from the town centre, and any prospect of a social life. What they’d initially convinced each other would be fine for a while had become a claustrophobic prison from which Arthur was only too glad to escape, even if it meant enduring the cattle truck-like horrors of the 7:43 every morning. Pissed off at work, fed up at home, what a life.
Arthur was in dire straits and might have remained so indefinitely had Castlereigh Brothers shrewd MD not come up with a solution - two solutions, in fact. Quite out of the blue he’d called his young protege into his imposing oak panelled office one day, closed the door and suggested they have a little chat.
‘I won’t prevaricate, lad.’ From anyone else it may have seemed a patronising beginning to a conversation, but Arthur liked and respected his employer. A distinguished figure in his mid-fifties, Sir Maurice Ashby had served as a much-decorated general prior to military retirement and had a glittering career in the City. In stark contrast to many of his contemporaries, Sir M’s sole aim in life was not simply to stuff his pockets with shareholders’ hard earned savings whilst doing as little work as possible. Wishing for more than afternoons at a Pall Mall club and a smooth ride to his pension, Sir Maurice had adeptly steered the old established merchant bank and its many blue-blooded clients to a string of successful investments.
‘You’re a clever fellow,’ Sir Maurice’s voice interrupted Arthur’s reverie, ‘one of my brightest investment analysts, in fact. Your work is excellent, you’re an asset to the bank and a promising business career in the financial sector should be beckoning. I emphasis should be,’ he went on, raising a hand to silence Arthur’s incipient protest. ‘It’s pretty obvious, even to an insensitive old sod such as me, that you’ve not been happy these last few months. Naked self-interest of course, dear boy,’ he continued, although his concerned expression belied these words. ‘An unhappy worker isn’t an efficient worker, and I’d like to lend a hand, if you’ll permit me.
‘Now then, old chap,’ no touchy feely, people-centred approach from Sir Maurice, his army background accustomed him to speaking his mind, at whatever length he deemed necessary, ‘I’ve asked around and it seems the problem’s not at the office but at home. Not to put too fine a point on it, a spot of women trouble, that right?’
For all his bluff pretext at being the gentleman amateur, Sir Maurice already knew the answer, but his affable concern had the desired effect and with a mixture of relief and shame Arthur spent the next ten minutes blurting out the mortifying details of his matrimonial predicament.
‘So,’ he concluded sadly, ‘sharing with the mother-in-law - like you, sir, she’s widowed - has turned out to be a disaster.’
‘Hmm, see what you mean, old boy,’ mused Sir Maurice, after a long and considered pause. ‘Well, can’t say I’m unduly surprised. Perverse lot, the female of the species. Y’know for decades the monstrous regiment struggled, quite correctly in my opinion, although that’s not the sort of thing I’d say at my club, against male dominance, then when the supposed goal of total gender equality is all but achieved, change their minds. Net result: the men wander around confused and the women find themselves in a void. Suddenly they discover they need a little dominance after all. Not all the time, mind, but in certain, ahem, particular aspects of their lives. Catch my drift?’
Arthur’s blank expression confirmed what Sir Maurice had rather feared. He’d no idea to what he was alluding. Oh dear, this was going to be a longer and more complex task than he’d hoped. But, if the cunning old tactician was correct, not without its rewards…
‘Perhaps I should be more specific,’ Sir Maurice said patiently. ‘Sherry?’ he added. ‘Think I’ll have one anyway,’ and in response to Arthur’s nod he poured two generous schooners from a decanter on the bookshelves behind his desk.
‘Ah, that’s better,’ Sir Maurice imbibed deeply then gave a sigh of satisfaction, ‘now where was I? Oh yes, take your case, my lad. Am I right in thinking your wife’s mother’s maiden name was Rowton? Yes, thought so.’ He knew damn well so, in point of fact, because Sir Maurice was always well researched, but he wanted his employee to feel part of his plan rather than the butt of condescension. ‘Knew her husband, y’know, was at school with him in fact, met them socially a few times. Fine looking woman, as I recall.’
‘Oh, very attractive,’ Arthur confirmed generously, the alcohol loosening his inhibitions. ‘Worn well, I believe is the phrase, but then she’s never had to work so there’s always plenty of time for grooming and the gym.’
‘Used to be pretty personable, too,’ Sir Maurice reflected his eyes, apparently occupied with a view far beyond his office walls. ‘Sociable sort of wench, could be bit of a temperamental filly though, as I remember. Old Rupert needed to exercise a firm hand occasionally, dose of the stick and all that.’
He was, Arthur assumed, speaking metaphorically, yet strangely the idea captured his imagination and the image it produced was extremely beguiling. An unsettling image appeared on the internal cinema screen of his imagination. Lyn and her mother side by side bent over the back of the sofa in the front room at home. Skirts raised, knickers around their knees; bare bottoms, pert, pale and scored by several red lines invitingly presented for his… what exactly? Hot, confused, and feeling rather foolish, Arthur was dimly aware his boss was still talking.
Sir Maurice, everything but politically correct, ploughed on relentlessly, pursuing his train of thought. ‘Seems as if being on her own doesn’t suit, devil makes work for idle housewives, what…’
Arthur winced at the stereotype, but it was no more than the truth. ‘Absolutely sir, I think that partly explains her enthusiasm to have us stay while we save for a property. She certainly doesn’t need the rent, her late husband left her handsomely provided for; trouble is she’s always finding reasons to keep us there.’
‘Such as?’ prompted Sir Maurice.
‘No flat we see is good enough for her precious daughter, for one thing. She never had to work so why should Lynne is another. Nothing I do?’
‘Will ever be good enough so rather than upset your wife by criticising her beloved mater you remain silent, get stuck in the middle and end up being respected by nobody, least of all yourself. Typical female conundrum: can’t do without a chap about the place, soon as they get one they start trying to rule the roost.’ Sir Maurice’s assessment was, as ever, pithy but to the point.
‘In a nutshell, yes,’ Arthur agreed crestfallenly.
‘Well don’t despair, old chap, you’re far to valuable an asset to this bank to see it squandered. Not many of those oiks out there can boast a first from Oxford. I’ve got an idea that may help and I’ll be very surprised if it doesn’t do the trick. Tomorrow, first thing, you’re off on a training course, after which, guess who is coming to dinner?’
‘The boss?’ Arthur said tentatively, and for the first time in what seemed liked eons his face broke into a smile.
‘Exactly,’ confirmed Sir Maurice, clearly enjoying himself. ‘You look after the daughter, my boy, and I’ll take care of the mother.’
‘What’s the course about?’ Arthur asked curiously.
‘Assertiveness training, teach you how to decide what you want then make sure you get it. Ever thought you might be being tested, Arthur?’ Sir Maurice asked sagely. ‘I don’t necessarily mean consciously, the women in your life may not be fully aware of the situation themselves yet, but,’ he added ominously, ‘they bloody well soon will be. In their different ways both of them could be subconsciously hoping you’ll take over control of the household. Be a damn shame to disappoint them, old boy.’
‘But what if it doesn’t work out?’
‘Don’t even consider t
he possibility,’ retorted Sir Maurice, a man in whom doubt was unknown. ‘And anyway don’t worry, there’s a backup plan; any recalcitrance on the part of the womenfolk and we’ll promptly employ more forceful means.’
‘Forceful?’
‘Tan their hides,’ Sir Maurice told him cheerfully, and before an aghast Arthur could enquire further the meeting was over.
For two days Arthur paid rapt attention to the course syllabus. Confidence, that was the secret, don’t get angry get what you want - quietly, firmly, decisively. In the few moments that he wasn’t digesting the contents of his training Sir Maurice’s parting comments kept returning to his mind like a tape loop, endlessly repeating again and again, ‘Tan their hides.’ He couldn’t possibly mean that, could he? Arthur wasn’t totally naïve, had read of the rudiments of CP, understood, if only in theory, that some relationships were founded on the principal of domestic discipline. Put bluntly, some people got off on the idea of spanking. He recalled the image which had first sprung to mind when Sir Maurice had referred to his mother-in-law’s late lamented husband employing a firm hand and once more imagined her sumptuously curved but still firm rump bent for a good hiding. He fantasised further about his wife’s girlish rear presented, knickers down and trembling, for a taste of the tawse. Something stirred in Arthur; well in truth two things, the second of which was strong determination and a sense of purpose.
Walking home from the station, Arthur made the most momentous decision of his married life thus far; things were about to change in his particular part of suburbia. Whistling cheerfully, a spring in his step for the first time in months, he marched resolutely up to the front door.
‘Oh, there you are,’ said Lyn, without evident enthusiasm as he walked through the front door. By reason of some imagined stress she only worked part-time - if her husband was a proper man, her mother sniffed disdainfully, she shouldn’t have to work at all - and was thus always home before him.
‘Where’s your mum,’ he enquired, carefully keeping his tone neutral.