by Susan Thomas
Without another word she began kicking off a smart pair of white shoes. Her trousers were not ones she would have worn had she thought she was going to take them off to be punished. They had clearly been inspired a long time ago by jeans but had since escaped that humble origin. They were tight with a very high waist held up by two vertical sets of five smart buttons. There was a lacing device at the back to ensure that the trousers showed off her trim waist and accentuated her hips while the tight fitting trousers reflected her lovely bottom and legs to perfection. Removing them was a pain and Jack felt the strong need to go and look out of the window which looked across to Kerry's room.
Erin peeled off the jeans and then removed her thong (trousers that tight require a thong) hating as before how exposed she was. She walked over to her bed and placed a pillow in the middle as Sallie-Jo had told her it was done. Then she lay down on the bed with the pillow under her tummy raising her bottom up for punishment; she grasped her large teddy bear which had been hers since she was two years old. "I'm ready Uncle Jack."
Jack walked over the strap dangling from one hand and took up his position.
"Uncle Jack."
"Yes what is it?"
"You know you're really going to have to do this hard don't you?"
"Yes, I do. Ready Erin?"
Erin didn't reply just buried her head into her teddy bear and hung on. Jack aimed the blow for the centre of her bottom and let fly with a good hard one. The blow was fierce and made Erin bury her head more down into her teddy bear as the burning penetrated.
She clung to her teddy bear and tried hard to make her noises into it but the sound of her thrashing made its way to the adults sitting grimly in the living room. Her mum and auntie flinched at every crack of the strap on her bare bottom and every muffled cry. Her dad stood stony faced and grim leaving only Pastor and Mrs Jones nodding appreciatively at the Godly corporal correction.
As each crack of the strap landed Erin writhed over her pillow and cried her distress into her teddy bear. It was a hard strapping and eighteen strokes is not an easy punishment to bear. Her bottom burned as if on fire and the blows hurt worse with each one. At the tenth she broke.
"Oh Uncle Jack it hurts," she wailed.
He didn't answer. There was no point, so he just brought the strap down hard again. Erin began to wail out loud each time the strap landed. The adults waiting and listening could tell that she was being punished properly and each reacted in their own way.
The stark wide red marks of the strap on her smooth skin mounted and began to overlap one another creating violently angry red areas. Erin's legs kicked up and down and she writhed over the pillow in a futile attempt to ease her punishment.
The last stroke cracked down hard across the mounds of her bottom cheek leaving her right cheek and thigh worse than her left and Erin simply held her teddy bear and sobbed. Jack sat down on the bed and gently stroked her hair feeling quite horrible. After a while she quietened down and blew her nose and dried the older tears though fresh ones would leak out.
"I expect I should go to the corner now."
"Just ten minutes and then it's all done. I must find out if Josh had to do that."
Erin walked very stiffly to the corner, her bottom burning and throbbing. She placed her hands on her head and stood there vowing to herself things were going to change. She would rather disavow her pledge, go on the pill and have a full sexual relationship with Josh than continue like this.
She heard her parents and aunt come in and look. Her mother gasped at the state of Erin's bottom but she knew it would heal up soon enough. These marks were only temporary. When her time was up her mum and aunt stayed with her. Her mum found her a loose pair of cotton knickers and her aunt got her a nice skirt to wear. They washed her face and put her trousers away in the cupboard and her thong in the laundry bin. Erin refused to come back to the living room until Pastor and Mrs Jones had gone.
When she came in the first thing she did was apologise for all the trouble she had caused.
"Strikes me this relationship of yours needs to be out in the open properly. Nicola and Jack - any chance of getting this Josh over for a meal?"
Of course this was agreed and Jack was pretty sure Josh's parents would want Erin to come and eat with them too, though she was warned they were ultra-strict with all their children. Erin's mum suggested that the cabin by the lake be off -limits when they were together.
"It's asking for trouble Erin honestly it is. I was your age and I know there were places I simply didn't go even with your dad before we were married. Why put temptation in your path?"
Of course Erin agreed and also agreed that she would report after every college session so they knew she wasn't cutting any more.
It was then that Erin suddenly changed the whole tone and nature of the meeting and raised some business ideas with Jack which her father became extremely interested in. The two men and Erin became locked into the discussion rather leaving her mum and aunt nowhere so those two walked off and began preparing a meal together.
Chapter 7
Erin wanted to develop the Internet side of the business, first by building a website which was a part of her college studies, then instead of passing on trade-in machinery to auction, to recruit some more workers and refurbish selling them through EBay. She felt that they could sell new stuff as well directly to the public via the Internet perhaps even ordering stuff straight from manufacturers. She made a convincing enough argument for her dad to want to buy into the business and for Jack to agree. It was left that Jack and Erin would plan the development and her dad would provide some capital and provide his advice. Jack promised to get his lawyer to draw up the paperwork.
While Jack went off to phone his lawyer Erin and her dad had a long heart to heart. Her dad was not happy about all this religious stuff and the spanking regime. He wanted her to withdraw and he said bluntly, "Look if you want to have sex with this Josh while I might not approve I'd rather you did it than all this punishment just as long as you don't get pregnant or get a STD."
"Look dad all my girlfriends here get spanked, honestly all of them. The general rule seems to be if you live at home then you abide by house rules and if you break them then you get spanked. Josh has been my downfall and it's led to two strappings and I am the only girl so far who has had any though Sallie-Jo isn't going to be too long if she isn't careful. Josh and I need to sort ourselves out and I have to be honest. I promise I'll renounce my pledge and go on the pill if we can't find another way. Now can we stop talking about this you cannot imagine how embarrassed I feel talking to you about it?"
"Erin do you really think it is easy for me to talk to you about these matters?"
Erin of course had not thought about her dad's feelings and felt chastened so apologised and the two hugged each other. The next day Erin saw her parents off on their flight home realising just how much they loved and cared for her in order to drop everything and fly to her rescue as they saw it.
Her Aunt Nicola was unable to get the invitation to Josh in first because Erin received an invitation from Josh's parents to come over for a meal on the following Saturday. She was nervous and took great care with what she wore, choosing a conservative dress which came down to the knees with plain shoes. She wore virtually no make-up and very simple jewellery.
Mr and Mrs Whittle were farmers and they looked stern. Both were quite tall with straight backs and sober clothing. Erin imagined that they would not have looked out of place in a group of eighteenth century puritans.
"I hear you have been punished and behaved well by asking for the strapping your uncle gave you, but you and Josh have behaved sinfully and it must end. I do not blame you alone. Josh is at least as much to blame if not more, but your relationship has led to both of you cutting college and that is wrong too. You must decide whether you wish to tread the path of sin or righteousness."
Erin felt sorry for Josh having parents like this. Her uncle and aunt weren't as weird as these two but if she want
ed to stay with Josh she must put up with them. Josh asked if they might have some private time to discuss their situation and his father graciously agreed. Erin wondered if he really had much choice but she kept quiet about that.
Their conversation as they walked around the farm was a difficult one. In the end they agreed that there would be no more meetings in private places and although they wanted to go out with each other they would confine themselves to straight kissing and cuddling. They hugged and kissed and walked back to the house.
"Sir," began Josh, leaving Erin wondering who on earth calls their father 'sir', "we have decided to continue going out but be nowhere on our own. We will be modest and discreet in our behaviour and bring no disgrace upon us."
Erin wondered quite which century she had landed on at this farm but again said nothing. She had thought her home back in Lancashire was conservative and old fashioned but this...!
"Very well, but before we go to our meal, you young lady need to understand that on my farm, in the bosom of my family, you come under my authority and that should your behaviour in any way deviate from the straight and narrow path, I shall apply the chastisement I would apply to one of my own daughters."
Erin gaped at him. She wanted so desperately to ask him what planet he had just landed from but just knew that would upset Josh and earn her a ban from coming here. Josh was her goal and dream. She would sacrifice much to stay with him as long as he wanted her so she agreed to this. Well she was only eighteen.
The meal was good but the conversation decidedly stiff in comparison with anywhere else she had been but she managed to get through it without further disgrace, and later she got in her car and returned home, her aunt and uncle's invitation to Josh having been accepted.
"How did you get on?" Her aunt was anxious.
"Well his dad is really old fashioned and they are so strange and strict you wouldn't believe. Josh is the eldest but there are three younger daughters and a much younger son who is eight. He is a lovely boy really quite like Josh. The three girls are so demure and I think I am expected to be like that too. In fact he expects me to keep to the straight and narrow path when I am there and if I don't he will chastise me as he would one of his own daughters."
"Is Josh worth all this?" Her uncle looked really worried.
"Oh yes Uncle Jack he really is."
Now it is sad but true that Nicola and Jack and Erin's parents thought that once put on this different footing the relationship between Josh and Erin would wither and die. Although they never discussed it with anyone I can reveal that is what Mr and Mrs Whittle thought too. 'A relationship born in lust which will perish in the fierce light of God's sun.'
However, some couples will surprise in the strength of their relationship and Erin and Josh's relationship changed but grew. Erin began to realise that Josh wasn't just tall, strong and handsome but somehow had escaped the narrow beliefs of his parents and was a thoughtful, rather deep young man, with an integrity that was very attractive. He also had a keen sense of humour which Erin loved. Josh for his part loved Erin's quick intelligence, her drive, her kindness and yes too her sense of fun. He could see clearly how she had struggled with a very different culture but adapted remarkably quickly. Instead of withering from lust to nothing it grew into a strong love although of course sexual desire was never far away.
Josh impressed Jack and Nicola and became a frequent and welcome visitor. Erin was accepted at the Whittle home. It would be a gross exaggeration to say welcome as in truth they treated her much as you would an unexploded bomb. Erin had to make sure she was demure in her dress and behaviour and she could see she was regarded with suspicion by Josh's parents. The suspicion increased when Josh began to attend church with Erin and her uncle and aunt. To Erin it was lively but very strict in belief but to Josh it was exceptionally liberal and much more congenial to him. She felt obliged to attend church with him once in a while and it was very different indeed. She summed it up to her dad as, "Judgemental hell fire and damnation."
Meal times at Josh's house were also not relaxed. If anyone of her children behaved at table in a way she did not approve of, their mother would use the handle of an old knife to rap the back of their knuckles. Naturally their youngest son Caleb came in for most of these raps although the middle girl, Sarah, also came in for her fair share. She seemed the most rebellious of the three sisters. The eldest, Ruth, who was eighteen like Erin, almost never got a rap and she was clearly destined for a marriage in the image of her parents. The youngest, Abigail was twelve and not only had her parents on her case but Ruth as well so seemed quite cowed to Erin.
One fine Sunday Erin attended church with Josh. She totally switched off during the lengthy service and during the long hymns did mental arithmetic to calculate what vulgar and decimal fraction remained to be sung and what that was as a percentage. At the meal table Mr Whittle began to quiz his children on what they had learnt from the sermon. Erin quickly made up a form of words to the effect that she regretted her past lack of a church background because the finer points eluded her. But she wasn't asked, after all one doesn't poke an unexploded bomb. Instead her father seemed particularly keen on quizzing Sarah.
Sarah's bluntly honest reply took Erin's breath away, "I am not really sure Papa, it was so boring I found it difficult to follow."
"Sarah, the Lord has laid a banquet before you and you have refused to partake. That is sinful child but I shall take your young years into account and merely spank you. However, I shall expect you to take particular note next time, and you may be sure I shall examine you afterwards."
Josh gave Erin an apologetic look but he did not intervene and she felt unable to defend the girl as it had been a rather tactless answer almost designed to provoke. The rest of the meal passed in a tense silence except that Erin noticed Sarah seemed to have a grim satisfaction about her. Clearly the girl was rebellious and Erin felt there was no way this girl was headed for a church marriage.
They cleared up the meal (which had been excellent) in virtual silence. Then when all was done his father turned to Josh, "Son please take Caleb outside until we are done."
"Yes sir. Caleb?"
"Help me practice with my throwing Josh."
"OK, come on then."
Erin wanted desperately to go with Josh but it was clear she was expected to go with the others. They walked into the parlour and it was indicated that Erin should sit in a line with Ruth and Abigail. Mrs Whittle went and stood to one side of her husband who sat down on an upright chair and beckoned Sarah to him.
"Daughter, prepare yourself."
Sarah obeyed but with that air of insolence that teenagers seem to achieve without trying. Erin had a hard job to stop from smiling. The rebelliousness of this girl lay bubbling just beneath the surface.
She lifted her dress to reveal a pair of extremely boring rather large panties which were most unlike anything a teenager would choose. Erin did not in fact spend large sums on clothes but was able to make even the cheapest of items look stunning and always took particular care over underwear. She longed to take this girl off and help her chose some new clothes.
In a manner that suggested familiarity born of long practice Sarah slid her panties down and stepped out of them. Her mother held a hand for them and they were passed across. Then Sarah positioned herself across her father's lap but he did not help or guide her, the way Uncle Jack did for Erin. He lifted the dress to reveal her legs and bottom and the frowning told her once again to prepare herself.
Mr Whittle had large work-spread and calloused hands which he used to great effect. He spanked fast and hard causing Sarah's bottom to ripple constantly. She was stoical and apart from soft sounds and legs that stretched and moved, gave little sign of how hard he was spanking her. A sudden jerk of one leg gave a clear sign that the hard spanking was being really felt. The reaction was so sudden her shoe flew off and landed with a loud clunk. Her bottom was already bright red as his hand landed anywhere and everywhere on its target
. Another sudden jerk of both legs and the other shoe fell and dropped onto the ground.
Now at last her noises became louder ... gasps, cries, yelps and incoherent sounds of distress all followed each other with increasing frequency and volume. Her legs jerked up and down, now separately, now together but there was no pleading or apology. Sarah took her spanking and it clearly hurt but her father continued to spank hard and fast, only occasionally pausing to spank extra hard, but more slowly than normal. Erin watched the poor girl's bottom turn from bright red to angry and then to mottled and this had been described as "merely" spanking.
The clock on the wall told Erin that Mr Whittle had been spanking his daughter ferociously for nigh on six minutes. When the girl finally broke and began to howl and cry he smiled in grim satisfaction and stopped. He let Sarah slide down onto the floor but neither he nor her mother made any attempt to comfort. She used a handkerchief to blow her nose and wipe away tears still kneeling beside him.
"Have you learnt the lesson Sarah?"
"Yes Papa."
Mr Whittle looked at his other two daughters and at Erin. "Have you learnt the lesson this chastisement teaches?"
Ruth was meek, "Papa, I taken the lesson into my heart."
In her turn Abigail was clearly repeating a formula, "Papa, I have taken the lesson into my heart."
He turned to Erin who thought quickly and said, "I hear what you say Mr Whittle."
His eyes narrowed and he looked hard at her but she looked steadily and calmly back. He wasn't sure whether she was challenging him or not. After all the girl was English and perhaps that was an English expression meaning much the same thing so he let it go.
Later on her way home Erin felt sure Mr Whittle was looking for an excuse to order her to his parlour for a spanking. She was fairly certain he wouldn't go for a strapping or even the paddle because really he had no justification but he could highlight something smaller and use that.
Erin's problem was that in general she had come to see some value in the spanking regime. It did help to keep her feet on the ground somewhat and was over quickly, so was a lot better than grounding or other punishments. The time she, Kerry and Sallie-Jo had messed around in church was a case in point. They had been silly and out of order but by getting spanked it was all forgiven and forgotten, leaving the girls quite certain they didn't want to do that again.