by Tara Black
Melinda George had arrived at the grand age of thirty-seven without experiencing an orgasm. Or so she supposed; it wasn't really something she brooded about. At odd times during her marriage of a dozen years she had felt, well, pleasurable sensations 'down below' (as her mother would have put it) but under the uninspired pumping of her husband they would come to nothing. Generally she had been left, if briefly, resentful and frustrated with a view of his back. The more forthright agony aunt might recommend masturbation, but she could hardly do that with him beside her and in the morning the issue would be gone from her mind. In any case, an upbringing where female anatomy was a taboo area had left her not only ignorant but had attached to the subject a distaste that kept her wilfully so.
The marriage had ended in divorce after he'd admitted an ongoing affair with a fellow office worker and with no children the break-up had been an occasion for relief rather than acrimony. Thank God it was over. With an honours history degree, Melinda had worked part time for years in the University Library, but her position had disappeared six months before in a series of funding cutbacks. And she was bored. There was the growing feeling that life was slipping by, trickling through her fingers with no residue of stimulation or satisfaction.
And that was her condition when she chanced on an advertisement in the local paper.
There is a vacancy for an Archivist with the Marchmont Collection which is a privately endowed library of historical materials relating to the regulation of the behaviour of women. Applications are invited from suitably qualified women with an interest in sometimes controversial questions of discipline in the home, school and the wider community. A curriculum vitae together with a short account of some personal experience that relates to the collection's theme may be submitted to its Keeper, Miss Samantha Morton.
Salary levels were generous and her experience would place her at the upper end of the range specified. The address indicated that the collection was held at 5 Abbot's Lane, near the heart of the old city where the earliest departments of the University were still housed. Melinda read the carefully worded notice again. It seemed plain that the focus was on the use of corporal punishment in the past, where for some decades it had seemed to have been consigned. Now, though, since its reintroduction on a trial basis in a selection of schools, it had indeed become the object of heated debate between the 'spare the rod' faction and their die-hard opponents.
She was intrigued enough to want more information, but then the last sentence brought her up short. What on earth was this Miss Morton looking for in a 'personal experience'? That applicants should have undergone - or even handed out - a caning or the like? Ridiculous. This was Britain, and, save a few schools, not Singapore. Anyway, she thought slightly hysterically, women didn't get caned even there, did they? And the Marchmont outfit was evidently a women only affair with an emphasis on the treatment of women. Hmm. What this called for was a tête à tête over a glass of chilled white wine.
"So, they want someone to catalogue stuff about smacked bottoms?"
"Well, yes - historical material."
"Okay, so its historical smacked bottoms. Or worse than smacked?"
"I would guess much worse. Not for the fainthearted, as they say." The image of a naked woman tied to a whipping post came unbidden to Melinda's mind and her companion made a moue of distaste as if she could see it too. "But what's bothering me first off is the last bit of the ad. Here, read it yourself."
She pushed the clip over and sat back with her glass of wine, waiting for Kay's reaction. In her late twenties, the younger woman was short and a little pear shaped, which made Melinda feel better about her own rather spreading hips. They had become friends during her spell at the Library where Kay still worked and still battled to get the promotion that went each time to the latest boy wonder. Now she looked up with mischief in her eyes.
"Seems pretty clear to me, Mel. Miss Samantha - and how old do you reckon she is? - wants to know about the last time you were spanked. Or spanked loverboy. Did it turn you on? I mean, those initials SM, can that be a coincidence?" She laughed merrily, swigging her wine.
Melinda laughed too at the absurdity of the idea but there was something nagging at her mind. Suddenly it came through clear across a gap of nigh on two decades.
"You know, there was that time, not long before I left school. The cane was never used but it came out that once. A mousey girl, I can't think of her name, and we never knew what she did. But a couple of pals got to see the after effects and word spread. Oh, those welts..." She stopped and felt her colour rise as she relived the experience.
"God, Mel, you're blushing. So it was a turn-on, was it? Seeing a striped bum." She chortled away while Melinda squirmed uncomfortably.
"Stop it, Kay. I hadn't thought about that for years. Of course it wasn't a turn-on."
"Sorry. But you're too easy to get a rise out of sometimes." She leaned forward and put a hand on her friend's arm. "Though seriously, that's your answer. Just write a description of it. Plain and simple, yeah? And you were a bit shocked, or something."
Melinda agreed that might just fit the bill and they went on to talk about other things for the rest of the evening. But at the back of her mind lurked the thought that she'd not really told the truth. If 'turn-on' wasn't quite the right term there was a definite fascination there. Now the scene had come back - the pale skin laced with those double-edged marks - it was not going to be as quick to leave her again.
A fortnight passed without any response since she sent in her application and Melinda was resigned to the form letter that would express regret at being unable to offer her the position. Then one afternoon she answered the phone to hear an unfamiliar voice.
"Is that Mrs George? I'm Samantha Morton." Her mind was blank for a second until she placed the name: the Marchmont Collection.
"Hello, Miss Morton. Yes, it's me."
"Your application intrigued me, I have to say. The incident you describe took place twenty years ago, am I right?"
"Yes, that's right." Boy, this lady did not beat about the bush.
"And you hadn't thought of it for years?"
"Not that I recall."
"And now that you have revisited the occasion, has it come rather to occupy your thoughts?"
The directness of the woman was startling enough, but her prescience yet more so. Melinda decided to be honest. "Preoccupy would be a better word, Miss Morton. It's been difficult to escape."
"And do you find yourself imagining the actual punishment that created the effects you saw?"
The Keeper of the Collection was a bloody mind-reader. "All too frequently, I'm afraid."
"Excellent! Just what I hoped to hear. Mrs George, the post is yours if you still want it. I'm sure, though, you need more information about the work that will be required. Could you manage to come to us in the morning? At ten o'clock, if that would suit?"
"Erm, yes. Of course, yes."
"Good. And one more thing. Don't be concerned about this particular event in your past. Once you become engaged in the field that little obsession will fade, I promise you. Till tomorrow, then."
Abbot's Lane was located in a tangle of narrow streets and alleyways that formed the core of the mediaeval city. Number 5 itself was an end-terrace half-timbered house of three stories and Melinda climbed the outside stair as instructed and pressed a bell by the nameplate 'Marchmont Collection'. Samantha Morton appeared at once and ushered the visitor in through a door on the left. It was less an office than a book-lined den and once she was seated in an armchair beside the desk her prospective employer launched into an account of the archive they were engaged in assembling.
The founder's brief, Melinda learned, was to collect and collate records of the role of women in corporal punishment over the ages. In many cases they were, of course, on the receiving end of such treatment, but by no means all. At times, in correctional institutions a woman would rise to a position where she could and did apply the lash with vigour to offenders of both sexes. The notorious 'Flogger Mary' at St Jude's Bridewell was a notable example.
And when a woman was the object of punishment, that did not mean she was a passive victim. Documents were increasingly coming to light from some of the Great Houses of a few centuries back to show female members embracing and promoting a disciplinary regime that included their own chastisement among that of others. Melinda's interest was decidedly pricked. "You're saying that the idea of women in the past subjugated to patriarchal whim often isn't so?"
"At best it's an oversimplification even in the Victorian era. And definitely in earlier times. We have material coming in from a smaller country house quite close at hand. Indeed it's one of the things I'd like you to start by following up. But first, let me show you what will, I'm afraid, have to pass as an office if you decide to join us."
It was indeed more of an alcove than an actual room, but the desk afforded a view across the assorted tiles and slates of the buildings to the north beyond which could be seen a line of green hills. Melinda fired up the computer and was pleased to see indexing software with which she was thoroughly familiar.
"I'm sorry to say that's as far as we've got, Mrs George. You can search under a variety of categories but then you have to go and find the folder to see what's in it. And to fill you in on that side of it you need to meet our Lucy." She followed Miss Morton back down the narrow stair to the small room opposite her own where they found a young woman, freckle-faced with short brown hair, contemplating a small pile of dusty papers. She looked up with a smile that showed lots of teeth.
"This is Mrs George, my dear. You can explain to her where everything is and at the same time help persuade her to come aboard. I'll leave you to it."
The first impression was of rather a jumble of hefty box files and smaller document folders but Lucy explained that the two whole walls of shelves on the first floor were arranged by area of the country and the era to which they belonged with older being higher up. On the top floor there was a library of published works on discipline and sexual behaviour together with a stack of doctoral theses, while alongside stood a bookcase of relevant fiction from centuries past. The contents were completed by small closet of a room containing all the material that was waiting to be catalogued.
The unyielding focus was a little breathtaking; the work of a devoted, not to say obsessive collector. Melinda looked at the bright-eyed young woman who had enjoyed sharing her knowledge. "Lucy, I don't mean to be nosey, but isn't it a bit odd to be surrounded by all this material, day in and day out?"
She considered for a moment then shook her head. "Not really. It's what happened in the past so it's all real. Even the novels show what people thought about it. And maybe it's coming back."
"You mean the school trials?"
"Yes. But that's not all. And it's a part of my life anyway -" She broke off at a ringing from below and as it persisted Lucy headed down the stairs. "Sorry, Mrs George, I'll have to get that."
Hmm. Lucy may be comfortable here but would she be? Melinda followed the girl down the stairs and tapped on the half-open door of the study. "This is a lovely old building, Miss Morton and I like the idea of working here but the subject matter, well, it's a big step from anything I've met before. Would you let me sleep on the decision? I promise to give you a yes or a no in the morning."
The blue eyes raised to meet hers were coolly penetrating but Melinda held her contact with them. Then with the smallest of smiles the Keeper of the Marchmont Collection nodded her agreement.
"What's your problem exactly, Mel? I didn't think you were the squeamish type." Kay was looking at her over the rim of a wine glass, eyebrows raised.
"I don't think I am. I mean it's not like I'd be on a diet of naval floggings or anything totally gory. Just domestic stuff with a birch as the closest you get to drawing blood. It's the corporal punishment thing itself: it's plainly Samantha Morton's whole life - no joke those initials - and Lucy seems immersed in it. If I join them will I go the same way?"
"Would that be so bad?" Kay dropped her gaze and appeared to be busy with a beer mat. "I don't think I've said anything before, but I did go through a phase of reading s-m stuff. It started with the classics, you know, 'O' and things, then I got into the Victorians."
"And what stopped it?"
"Dunno, really. I suppose getting a proper boyfriend or something." Melinda wondered at the word 'proper' for what had always been a disposable item in her friend's life. She had no precise count but it must be close to two a year for the past ten. And currently she was 'between', as she called it. And Kay had more to reveal.
"You know what? Just the other day I came across a book at the back of the wardrobe and lo and behold what was it? Tales of a Nunnery by Anon of 1869. Thanks to you the topic's in the air again so I open it and start reading. And guess what? It's a bit of a turn-on, quite hot in fact with all that bare flesh writhing under the Mother Superior's martinet." Kay's flushed face betrayed a core of truth beneath the hyped-up description and there was a clincher to come.
"Tell you what, if you don't go for it, I might just put in for the post myself." She sat back, took a slurp of wine and cackled. "Only joking. But Mel, you should see your face." Kay leaned forward and wagged a stern finger at her. "Take the effing job before it gets offered to someone who'll jump at it."
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