Strip the Willow - an erotic short spanking story

by Justine Elyot

  STRIP THE WILLOW

  An erotic short story

  Justine Elyot

  Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2010

  ISBN 9781907016936

  Copyright © Justine Elyot 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Xcite Books, Suite 11769, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Strip the Willow

  by Justine Elyot

  As classic combinations go, strong cider and hot sunshine is not up there with strawberries and cream, tea and sympathy, wine and roses.

  I should have chosen one thing or the other. But I had the afternoon off, and my long, golden lunch hour in the beer garden with my new boyfriend did that magical stretching thing, knocking your attention off course until you suddenly realise that it’s after three and you are decidedly squiffy. Even though Evan and I had chosen a table beneath a mature, spreading chestnut tree, the shade had slipped off without excusing itself, leaving me lightheaded, a little bit maladroit, and horribly prone to saying the wrong thing.

  And I emphatically did not want to say the wrong thing to Evan. After all, in a place like Great Swingeing, single men of any description were hard to find, let alone eligible, sexy, funny, clever single men with size 11 feet who could do that James Bond single-eyebrow-raising thing. Most of the men in this village thought I’ve Got a Brand New Combine Harvester was a sophisticated romance ballad.

  I knew that Evan was a keen participant in village life – I’d only been in Great Swingeing six weeks, but I’d tried to get involved as much as I could, joining a book group and a skittles team. I’d met Evan at the skittles, and I knew he also played cricket and coached some of the village kids. He was a landscape gardener and got a lot of business from the rich retirees who made up a good section of the local populace.

  He was an outdoor type, a manly man’s man with broad shoulders, huge hands, a year-round tan and a smile to match his cricket whites. He alone had welcomed me and my new business wholeheartedly to the village, without any snide comments about arty-farty townies who didn’t understand country folk. There was no reason, he said, that a combined pottery shop and tea room could not work in Great Swingeing, and it was about time the village came out of Far From the Madding Crowd and into the 21st century.

  Evan’s arm rested loosely around my shoulder as we sat on the bench watching the erection of a maypole on the village green, striped and beribboned, all ready for the weekend fête.

  ‘You going to be dancing around that, Faith?’ he asked me idly.

  ‘I haven’t danced around a maypole since I was at school. Should be fun. If you’ll dance with me.’

  He turned to me, smirking, that one eyebrow raised. ‘Has anyone told you about our little village tradition?’

  ‘What, another one? How many traditions can one village have?’

  ‘This is an ancient one – goes back to before medieval times. Doesn’t get done much, because you have to have a female newcomer for it.’ His fingers closed around my upper arm and he whispered into my ear. ‘Take me home and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  About half an hour later, in the flat above my shop, I lay bent over the kitchen counter, still in my blouse but with my jeans and knickers cast to the corners of the room while my overheated pussy played host to Evan’s thick, fat cock.

  ‘Are you ready to hear about the tradition?’ he grunted, ramming it up to the hilt and leaving me stuck between the granite units and his granite thighs, staring the knife block in the face.

  ‘Mmm, can’t you fuck me first?’ I complained. My cunt felt prickly with heat and sweat; I needed a hard, fast shafting to take the edge off.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get fucked,’ he promised. ‘When you agree to play your part at the fête.’

  ‘Well, go on, then, tell me what it is!’ I wailed.

  ‘Mmm, nice and tight,’ he said, making me wait while he rotated his cock inside me, seeing that I was filled to bursting before he would deign to enlighten me. ‘Hot, hungry little pussy, mmm.’

  ‘Tell! Me!’

  ‘Back in the Dark Ages, or so the legend tells it, a mysterious woman came to the settlement. Her name was Grimgerda.’

  ‘Lovely name!’

  ‘Yeah, isn’t it? Anyway, her coming brought ill luck to the villagers, for it is said that she cursed the lands round about and tainted them ...’

  His overdramatic narrative made me giggle. ‘Carry on, Tolkien.’

  He pressed me tighter into the cupboards. ‘Cheeky! You’ll pay for that, Miss. At midsummer, she cast her fatal spell. The harvest failed and many villagers perished that winter. Grimgerda, I think, was thrown into the river. So they say ... and her malign spirit haunts the waters and the banks to this day.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I snorted. ‘So where do I come in then?’

  Evan took hold of my ponytail, tugging at it so that my scalp flooded with a rush of sensation.

  ‘You, dear Faith, will pay the symbolic price for Grimgerda’s misdeeds.’

  ‘Not sure I like the sound of that.’

  ‘If the way you reacted after I spanked your arse last week is anything to go by, I think you might.’

  ‘What? I get spanked? What? How? When? Where?’

  ‘I have to whip the evil outsiderness out of you, my dear, with a wand of willow.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘Nope. And it has to be done in public, at midnight on midsummer’s eve.’

  ‘In public?’ I yelped, though my pussy was getting wetter and squirmier by the second in contemplation of this fate.

  ‘Oh yes.’ He reached down and brushed my ripe, red clitoris. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ he said softly. ‘Your body gives you away every time.’

  ‘But surely nobody agrees to this?’ I tried to rub myself on his fingers; he let me do it for a few seconds, then snatched them away and gave my flank a smart slap.

  ‘There have been refusals, yes. And it’s probably a coincidence that the harvests were bad each time ... but you’d have a hard time convincing the farmers of that ...’

  ‘So ... people have done this?’

  ‘Yeah. Last time was 12 years ago, I think. I was not long out of school, couldn’t wait to take part, I tell you. One of my fondest memories ...’

  ‘She ... didn’t mind?’

  ‘No. It was Lady Pensmith from the Grange. She’d only just married.’

  ‘Lady Pensmith!’

  ‘Yes. She’s popular in the village, you’ll have noticed. Can’t say that for every lady of the manor we’ve ever had ... But the locals love her for doing this one thing for them. They’ll love you. They’ll buy your pots and eat your scones until the cows come home. If you’ll just ...’

  ‘OK,’ I decided, feeling a little wobbly at the enormity of what I was agreeing to. ‘I’ll do it.’

  And then he unleashed himself upon me, riding me into a stars-and-planets orgasm with a huge hand on each of my bum cheeks, holding them apart until the sight of my shameful exposure drove him to his climax, panting with exertion.

  He kissed the back of my neck, and each bump of my spine until, standing straight, he asked, ‘Fancy a practice?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Toughen up your bum?
For what’s to come?’

  Already he had unhooked a plastic spatula from the rack above the hob and within seconds it was splatting down on my backside. He held much of his great strength in reserve, but it was still stingy and sharp and my bottom was noticeably warmer by the time he aimed his twentieth and final shot, throwing it aside and mounting me once more, until I was shagged to a weary pulp and could do no more than doze on the sofa for the rest of the evening, entwined in his grasp, watching mindless TV.

  Bloody cider. Bloody hot sunshine.

  The next day was Friday – the day before the ceremony – and I questioned my decision approximately a million times. In between re-arranging my pots and making the odd cup of tea for my sadly infrequent customers, I called and texted Evan manically, revisiting and revising the information he had given me until I wondered if I was going mad.

  ‘There’s nothing to it, Faith,’ he assured me. ‘You’ll enjoy it. And you’ll get so much out of it.’

  Still I dithered until, late in the afternoon, as I was about to shut up shop, an elderly lady wandered into the tea room and sat down, giving me a cheery twinkle of her eye.

  ‘What can I get you?’ I asked breezily, sailing over my notepad.

  ‘Oh, a cup of tea would be lovely. Faith, is it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Are you local?’

  ‘Well, you know, I am now. Came here 50 years ago, and nobody would speak to me much until I started courting a young man – young Evan’s great uncle. You know Evan, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do.’ I blushed. ‘So are you ... his great aunt?’

  ‘By marriage, yes. And a wonderful, long and happy marriage it’s been. I’m the luckiest woman alive ... but it wasn’t like that when I first moved here.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Oh, no. Not until I agreed to do the villagers a favour. A very special favour. I think you’ll know what I’m talking about.’

  The notebook flipped out of my fingers. I bent to pick it up but the visitor put a thin hand on my arm.

  ‘It will be the making of this place, Faith. You won’t regret it. Don’t worry about the tea – here’s a pound anyway.’

  She left it on the table and shuffled off, leaving me speechless and intrigued.

  It was hot again, tinderbox heat. The village children ran riot on the bouncy castles while Evan squired me here and there, from stall to sideshow, gathering a fine collection of handshakes and winks and good luck wishes. I felt bare before the villagers’ gaze, approving as it was, knowing that later they would all get a good eyeful of my bottom, but I maintained a civil façade, smiling and joining in the games and races. It was the toughest thing I had ever done, wanting to shrink from their knowing looks, forcing myself to hold up my head.

  ‘Three o’clock, Evan,’ said a man who was playing the accordion in the pub garden once we had drained our lemonades.

  ‘Thanks, Chas,’ he said, then he turned to me. ‘Work to be done, Faith. Come on.’

  He took my arm and led me around the side of the church, along the dirt track that led out to the fields and the river and the woodland beyond the village.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To cut the rod. You have to do it yourself, and trim it too.’

  We were barely past the graveyard when two men fell into step with us – members of Evan’s cricket team, I think.

  ‘Oi, Evan! Haven’t you forgotten something? You need witnesses for the cutting?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d forget,’ he chaffed, winking at them. ‘Brought your measuring tape?’

  ‘O’ course.’

  We walked on in silence, the mid-afternoon sun bearing down heavily on us, across fields of yellow and green, until we arrived alongside the river, its banks flanked with lush woodland.

  The trees provided deliciously cool refuge from the June sultriness; we tramped on over the fallen twigs and branches until we arrived at a small clearing. Willow trees.

  ‘Here,’ said Evan, handing me a craft knife. ‘The rules are that it must be no more than three feet long and less than an inch thick. You might need to cut a few.’

  I began sawing at the tender greenish saplings, watching the men watching me from the corner of my eye. Half-jokingly and half-seriously I hummed that song from The Wicker Man as I worked, wondering if perhaps I should have sold up and moved to another part of the country when Evan made his bizarre proposition. But I was here now, cutting off willow switches for my strapping boyfriend to whip me with on the village green at midnight. As you do.

  ‘Heigho, la la la,’ I sang, forgetting the words as I hacked, getting greenish sap all over my fingers in the process. Should have worn gloves. ‘Am I not young and fair?’

  ‘Lovely arse,’ said one of Evan’s cricketing buddies admiringly. ‘Made for those jeans.’

  ‘You can keep your hands off,’ said Evan gruffly.

  ‘I can look though. And dream.’ The two friends fell into ribald laughter and I cut the last of my bunch, handing them over to Evan, who was leaning against a tree watching me through heavy-lidded blue eyes, his expression inscrutable.

  The measuring tape was produced and the switches assessed for length, thickness and durability. Two were discarded as unsuitable, leaving Evan with three candidates.

  He gave them back to me. ‘Trim them,’ he ordered. ‘We need them nice and smooth. Don’t want to cut that peachy skin, do we?’

  It seemed topsy-turvy that I was expected to prepare the rod for my own back, or rather, bottom. I sliced off the knobbly buds with a growing sense of humiliation, imagining my three observers later on, watching me writhing underneath the lashing willow. There was more to it than simple humiliation, though, and the doughty denim crotch of my jeans began to dampen as I hacked.

  ‘They look ready now,’ commented Evan, who had noted my not-so-subconscious efforts to drag out the task, perhaps in the hope of some postponement further down the line. ‘Let me have a look at them.’

  Three slender wands of pale green-brown, looking so delicate, so pretty, so harmless.

  ‘What do you think, guys?’ He passed them around the trio, who bent them and whipped them through the air, testing them for flexibility, durability, speed of swish, vicious velocity.

  ‘Hard to tell,’ said one of them slowly. ‘Think we need further tests. In a bit more depth.’ His eyebrow was tipped towards me. I backed unthinkingly into the trunk of a tree.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Evan disconcertingly. ‘Turn around, Faith. Stretch your arms up above your head.’

  ‘Evan!’

  ‘It’s all right, love. You can keep your jeans on. It won’t hurt. Much.’ He tapped the end of one rod in the palm of his hand, narrowing his eyes as if making mathematical calculations.

  I hesitated.

  ‘We could always use all three. Extend the ritual.’

  I turned around, displaying my rump in its spray-on skinnies to their practised eyes. My hands reached upwards, tracing the patterns of the bark. I pressed my palms into it, firmly, and laid one cheek against the rough texture, gazing off sideways towards the river.

  ‘I think if we all have a go at all of the rods, that will give us an idea. Then we can vote,’ suggested Evan. His voice wafted closer, the ground crackling beneath his feet as he approached. ‘I’ll go first.’

  Before I even knew it, in the space of no more than a second, the air was singing, the willow swinging and my bum was stinging. ‘You LIAR!’ I shouted indignantly, once I had caught my breath. ‘That HURT!’

  Even through the denim, the switch had painted a streak of fire, and I dreaded to think how it would feel on bare flesh.

  ‘This is a good one,’ Evan surmised, and then, heedless of my yelps, he laid the next two on quickly. Neither of them were as painful as the first cut, but they were certainly deeply felt all the same. My torso danced against the tree trunk, but movement simply caused my sore bum to rub the rough denim, so there was no relief to be found that way. I brought
a hand down to soothe and pat the affected area while Evan handed over the weapons to the first of his friends.

  ‘Thing is,’ said my next experimenter, ‘will she be standing for the ritual? I thought the girl was bent over?’

  ‘Good point,’ mused Evan. ‘We might be diluting the effectiveness of the willow. Faith, see that tree stump over there? Can you put your palms down flat on it for us?’

  ‘You want me to bend over? Do I have to?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said firmly.

  I did as I was told, stretching my jeans so taut in the process that my buttocks were spread and separated by the seam that ran between them. The crotch rode up between my slick sex lips, rubbing against my clit and my soaked knickers. I badly wanted to unzip and push my hand inside but not with an audience.

  ‘Mmm.’ It seemed the picture my straining denim backside presented met with universal approval. ‘Now that’s a target.’

  The three lines left from Evan’s efforts were throbbing now; the idea of six more to come was hard to bear. But the next man was merciful, after a fashion, and struck me less hard, though the position I was in did intensify the effect.

  The final willow-wielder had no such delicacy, though. Three full-powered swishes fired up my vulnerable behind, and at the last, I had to leap to my feet, clutching my bottom and yowling.

  ‘Definitely this one, I think,’ he grinned, slicing it through the air one more time.

  ‘Yes, I vote for that one too,’ agreed Evan. ‘It seems to produce a strong reaction.’

  The third man simply nodded, and the two losing rods were discarded.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ said Evan, dismissing them. ‘As for you, my lady, who told you to stop bending over?’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I protested, but when a man of six foot two and powerful build comes towards you with a willow switch, resistance tends to be futile. I bent back over, wincing as abrasive cloth made close contact with punished flesh once more. ‘You aren’t going to use that on me again, are you?’ I muffled from my inglorious position.

  ‘No, no. Plenty of that to come later.’ His hand landed on one stretched globe. I hissed a little and wondered if he could feel the heat through the heavy-duty fabric. ‘Nice and warm,’ he remarked. ‘What about further down?’ The hand flipped sideways and slipped between my thighs, forcing me to spread them a little. His fingers probed at the seam, finding it damp and hot.