by Penny Birch
‘Let’s put it on show then,’ he said and took the hem of my dress in his hands.
I really felt it. We were acting, but the dirty old men were real, very real, and very close. My exposure was real, too, my breasts already bare and dangling, while I really was in a nappy, so as Michael lifted my dress and dumped it on my back I was close to tears in reaction. I was in stockings and a suspender-belt, grey to match my panties, which were now on show, bulging with nappy material, a sight at once lewd, ridiculous and perverse.
He took hold of the back of my nappy and I braced myself, feeling that awful moment of exposure as the ludicrous garment was pulled slowly down off my bottom. I was looking back, and he was grinning as he did it, watching my bare rear view come on display until it was all showing. My legs were far enough apart to make my pussy show, and as he settled the tangle of nappy and panties around my thighs I pulled in my back, spreading my bumcheeks and maybe revealing the little hole between, pink and winking in her nest of hair.
‘Good girl,’ Michael remarked. ‘Such a pretty pose, it’s just a shame Annabella and the boys can’t be here to see it. Now, my dear, spankies time.’
I gave a little broken sob, which was by no means all fake. Michael raised his hand and slapped me, hard across both cheeks to make me squeak. I tried to rise, only to be grabbed around the waist and held down as he released a volley of hard smacks to my naked bum. It may have been acting, but it hurt. I made a thoroughly undignified display of myself in any case, without having to pretend, kicking about, wriggling and squealing like a stuck pig as he punished me.
He may have given me fifty, maybe sixty, and when he suddenly stopped my bottom was a burning ball of flesh. My pussy was juicing so well it had started to trickle down my legs and into my nappy. I was breathing hard, too, really hard, and would have been happy to take his cock, and all the better for our audience. I could hear a shuffling noise from the bushes as I stood up to rub my smarting cheeks, and I knew exactly what they were doing, despite the darkness.
‘There, now perhaps you’ll be a bit more obedient in future,’ Michael told me. ‘Now, you can go and do your business, over there, where it’s nice and light. Oh, and you can take those fancy pants off, but leave the nappy on and down. You’re to do it in it and come home with it wet.’
I hung my head as I pulled down my panties, letting them dangle limp from my fingers as I walked to the place he had pointed out. It was the brightest part of the lay-by, illuminated by two areas of lighting, and would give everyone the best possible view. I was shaking inside and acutely conscious of my bare bum as I went over. Choosing the brightest spot, I squatted down, tucked my panties into the front of my dress and lifted it safely clear of any possible splash. With my bum stuck out and red from spanking I felt wonderfully exposed, especially as I knew I had to pee in the nappy stretched taut between my legs. I just had to masturbate, so I bundled my dress into the crook of my arm and put a hand to my pussy.
Peeing and coming at the same time is less than easy, so I frigged a little and then stopped, nicely high as I let the tension in my bladder build, rocking on my heels and squeezing my smarting bottom-cheeks. It came, a trickle, then a gush, and I was filling my nappy, in public, with an audience watching as my pee spurted out beneath me. It wasn’t just going in the nappy either, but down my legs and into my shoes, which felt so beautiful and so dirty as I started to rub at my clit once more. With my orgasm rising in my head I let go completely, filling my nappy behind me and revelling in that terrible heavy feeling as it built with my orgasm.
I screamed as I came, my muscles locking in ecstasy. My balance went and I sat down in my own mess with a sticky squelch, but it didn’t stop me, I just kept on rubbing, gasping and squealing out my pleasure to the night until it finally began to fade and I sank down in blissful exhaustion.
Six
THAT SHOULD HAVE been enough. They had completely taken my mind off Beth, and given me a dirty experience to rank among my best. It had been so good that I had come twice more back at Henry’s, once in front of everybody and once alone in bed with Amber before sleep. It was the best sex we had had in a while, and I went to sleep with my head on her chest, feeling absolutely contented.
We spent the Sunday pony-carting at Henry’s, with Ginny, Vicky and I naked and in harness, being put through a dressage routine and then raced. Inevitably Vicky won, but I did manage to beat Ginny, just. Just was enough though: I had the pleasure of making her pose in the yard behind Henry’s and whacking her big, wobbly bottom with a crop. I got my own, too, across Amber’s lap, leaving me red-bottomed and giggling and just in the mood to give Henry a slow suck before lunch.
I was in an excellent mood on Monday morning and just felt silly for the state I’d let myself get into over the magazine. After all, other than Beth and my friends nobody was going to know it was anything to do with me. As she didn’t even know my real name it wasn’t worth worrying about. I felt they could spout their opinions to their hearts’ content, too: after all, I knew dirty, painful sex kept me happy.
With term approaching and Amber at a show I had decided to go into the library to look up an obscure paper I’d been unable to get hold of in the north. As this meant being in Midland Road I thought of Natasha Linnet and suggested lunch, which she cheerfully agreed to.
We met in a wine bar in Primrose Hill, just yards from her flat, and were soon chatting away merrily. I told her about the Beth fiasco, making light of the bad bits and concentrating on the sex. She found the whole thing hilarious anyway, particularly the way Melody and I had been when Beth walked in. It was typical Natasha, laughing at the most ghastly social disasters, but it was impossible not to smile.
‘That’s priceless!’ she said when I finished with the bit about Beth’s letter. ‘I can’t wait to tell Amy!’
‘Amy?’
‘Amy McRae, the Metropolitan editor. She’ll split.’
‘No, you mustn’t! She’s the cause of it all. Beth believes every word she writes! Anyway, she sounds ghastly, not your sort at all.’
‘Amy? No, she’s great.’
‘You’re joking. She believes all women think the same way, want to look like elongated Barbie dolls, spend their time either gold-digging or dieting and can’t even enjoy a good spanking!’
‘Get real, Penny, that’s just the editorial line. It’s what the readers want to see, so it’s what they get. Amy’s not like that, well, no more than I am. Honestly, Penny, how can you be so naïve?’
‘Easily, when I write a paper I present my facts as clearly as possible, making absolutely certain other people can follow my results and if necessary reproduce the research. Truth, Tasha, ever heard of it?’
‘That’s science, Penny, it’s not the same. Amy commissions polls to see what the women in her target audience want to read about. Then she commissions articles on those subjects.’
‘So she’s feeding the readers back their own ideas?’
‘Yes. It works. Have you seen their circulation?’
‘That’s so cynical.’
‘The real world, Penny dear.’
‘Sure, when it’s OK to get a tattoo or have your clit pierced but not to ask a friend to smack your bottom.’
‘Who says?’
‘Amy, there’s more than one recent article about how women should never cede control of their bodies to another, especially for physical discipline.’
‘That’s because she sees it as male violence and control. Be fair, would you like to be smacked around by some yob?’
‘No, of course not, but that’s not the same. I like to be spanked, and if I want to be I don’t see why I shouldn’t be. It’s my choice.’
‘Sure, I know that. Most women don’t.’
‘Fair enough, but why aren’t I allowed to be an individual? What I really hate is being told I don’t know my own mind. What gives her the right to dictate to me?’
‘Nothing, she just does what will sell the magazine. She’s not trying t
o dictate to people; she’s just telling them what they want to hear. Personally she’s great fun; I won’t have a word said against her.’
‘Fair enough, I’m sorry. I’d still like her across my knee, and enjoying it.’
‘I’ll tell her that, too!’
‘Tasha!’
‘I might. She’d laugh, after all it’s not as if you’re a threat to her. Anyway, you couldn’t do it if you tried: she’s really fit, and bigger than you. That’s the thing with her, you see, although I shouldn’t really say this. She’s tough and fit, but she always wants to be tougher and fitter. You know how she takes the piss out of muscle men?’
‘Along with the rest. No, you’re right, more than the rest.’
‘That’s because she knows that however hard she works out she can never be as strong as some men, even ones who don’t try but are just big and well muscled by nature. I didn’t tell you that, by the way. She’d never commission me again if she knew.’
I nodded and took a swallow of water. After what Natasha had said Amy McRae seemed human, even a little vulnerable, rather than a complete harpy. I still felt a touch of resentment, but understanding too.
‘How about Isabel?’ I asked.
‘Isabel?’
‘The girl who writes their agony column. Pert, slim, blonde, twenty-something.’
‘That could describe half the female journalists in London. What I will say is that if they got Beth’s letter into the last issue then they pulled the stops out to do it. Two to three months would be a more normal period between receipt and publication.’
What Natasha said was true. To get Beth’s letter in they must have more or less stopped the press. For a scientific journal it would have been out of the question. It seemed a major effort to get one letter in, especially when they must have had a stockpile of appropriate material for the agony column. Natasha’s conclusion was that it could only mean the topic of sexual violence was due for an airing, probably in the next issue, maybe in several. I could only agree. She promised to find out from Amy, and not to reveal who I really was.
Sure enough, the very next afternoon Natasha rang to say Amy was planning a full exploration of what she called hidden sexual violence. Among other things this was going to cover women getting spanked by their partners and would take the attitude that it was inherently non-consensual. Moreover, Amy was delighted to discover that Natasha knew the Penny from the letter and wanted to interview me.
It was impossible to turn it down. I could almost see what was going to be said in front of my eyes and it made me burn inside. Amber was doubtful, saying that it was a bad idea to reveal my true identity and in any case Amy could always twist my words whatever I said. I had to agree with the first point. The second was a chance I’d just have to take, if only because if she did then it would leave me on a clear moral high ground.
I agreed to talk, but only on my own terms, which meant somewhere that could in no way be identified with me and with no camera present. That felt safe enough, as unless she was in the habit of attending genetics conferences she was not going to recognise my face. After a lengthy exchange of telephone calls via Natasha it was arranged for Friday. We were to meet at a pub in Southwold and she could interview me walking along the beach.
Although I was genuinely distrustful of Amy, I have to admit enjoying setting up the interview enormously. It had a thrill of danger, which was not entirely false, and was also a challenge, and from what Natasha had said Amy had a pretty high opinion of her intelligence.
The basic idea was mine, to choose a place that I had no association with at all but where we could stay in control of the situation. Amber had suggested Suffolk, which she knew from childhood holidays, and Southwold because of its location. The pub we had chosen was right on the river front, just yards from the southern shore across the Blyth, but nearly ten miles by road. We arrived early, driving to Walberswick and walking up the river until we were opposite the pub. I was actually hoping that Amy would arrive with a cameraman, but she kept her word.
I still made her go through the whole routine, crossing by the ferry, meeting her and crossing back to be absolutely certain nobody else was with her. She was fairly tall, very sure and poised, with a confidence and strength about her that actually reminded me of Amber. There the resemblance ended. Amber, with her unruly honey-coloured curls and outdoor clothes, is very much the country girl and always looks out of place in the city. Amy was the opposite, cool and poised in her smart suit and cropped blonde hair, but completely out of place on a Suffolk beach.
Not that she was prissy, which I’d rather expected. When I said we were going to walk along the beach she bought a pair of jelly shoes and quite casually peeled her tights off under her skirt, ignoring the various yachtsmen and tourists nearby. The day was fair, and a few people were on Walberswick beach, so it was a while before we could speak in confidence. When we did she came straight to the point.
‘So your boyfriend beats you?’ she asked, obviously expecting the answer to be yes.
‘No,’ I answered, ‘I haven’t even got a boyfriend . . .’
‘Hold on, what about the letter? Your friend said you’d been so badly abused by your boyfriend that you’d started to tell yourself you liked it.’
‘She wrote the letter, not me. Most of what I said to her wasn’t true at all, but never mind that. I’m bisexual. I’ve been in a stable lesbian relationship for nearly five years.’
‘So you’re a lesbian? What was all this stuff about being beaten up by your boyfriend then?’
‘I’m bisexual; I like men. I just happen to be in a relationship with another woman. The boyfriend doesn’t exist; I just made him up to get out of an awkward situation. I got a bit carried away telling the story. Look, it’s complicated and not really relevant. Let’s just say I told her a dirty story, went to bed with her and when I asked her to spank me she wouldn’t. That’s what got her on her high horse. What does matter is that I never said the boyfriend beat me up, nothing like it. I said he spanked me and deliberately humiliated me.’
‘Isn’t it just the same?’
‘No! I’d hate to be hit. I never have been. I love to be spanked. I adore it; it turns me on like nothing else, and my girlfriend does it to me all the time.’
‘You’re losing me, Penny. So you don’t mind the violence as long as it’s from another woman and done for sexual purposes?’
‘More or less, but I don’t see it as violence, that’s the thing. I want it; I enjoy it.’
‘Look, I know about endorphins, but that doesn’t excuse the act . . .’
‘Why not? If both people want it and no harm is done?’
‘But how can you let someone do that to you? Doesn’t it make you feel inferior? How can you feel sexy like that?’
‘That’s exactly it. The feeling of inferiority, of humiliation, is the main turn on. Sure, I need the pain to get my endorphins running, but the real thrill is all in my head.’
‘So you like it, I can see that, even if I don’t understand. Why do you like it though? Most of what I’ve seen on the subject says it’s a mental defence against abuse. How did it start for you? Was it because some boyfriend did it to you against your will, perhaps when you were a teenager? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re very small. It wouldn’t be difficult. Is that what happened?’
‘No, very firmly not. I’m going to be absolutely honest here, and if you choose not to believe me then so be it. I didn’t get into it because it was forced on me. If anything it was the opposite. Maybe I don’t even need the pain, because I used to get turned on by the idea of being spanked even before it happened to me.
‘I was brought up to be quite shy of my body and guilty about sex. I was something of a late developer too, and I did well at school, which may have put the boys off. They used to call me Little Miss Smarty Pants. I used to fantasise though, and it was my sense of embarrassment about my body that turned me on. For instance I’d think about tearing my sk
irt and having to walk home with my panties showing. That got stronger after a boy persuaded me to show him my boobs and bum so he could wank over me . . .’
‘Typical. Bastard. Like I said, you were forced.’
‘No, he was wanking over me because I’d talked him into doing it. I’d caught him doing it, and I wanted to see, and when he asked me to strip off it seemed unfair not to.’
‘Hmm.’
‘He came all over my bum, which I admit hadn’t been part of the deal, but he didn’t try and rape me or anything. I’d enjoyed it, but I felt guilty and confused. I felt I ought to be punished, and I knew how, by being put over someone’s knee for a hard spanking, on my bare bottom, and that just turned me on so much, like nothing before. That’s where the link between sex and spanking came from.’
‘From repression. I’m afraid I’ve heard lots of similar stories from women our age, mostly with religious upbringings, although none of them handled it quite the way you did.’
‘Repression perhaps, but never abuse, everything I did was done willingly, with no force applied. It wasn’t just old-fashioned Christian guilt: I’ve been an atheist since I was twelve. It was guilt though, and some of it because of how strongly my mother would have disapproved. Most of it was because the boy who made me strip was socially unpopular and my friends, especially my cousin Kate, would have been horrified if they’d known I’d been with him.’
‘Peer pressure then, which is much the same.’
‘Exactly, and what do all your articles on how women should look and what they should eat and what they should do exert? Peer pressure.’
She laughed, a really free, easy laugh.
‘Peer pressure,’ I went on. ‘Guilt for not conforming, just like a slightly less than slim girl might feel after reading your last month’s article on chocolate cakes. I think that’s more immoral than indulging in a little spanking.’
‘It sells magazines: women want to be told they should slim.’