by Steve Rayer
Well, hello there. It's four o'clock on a Saturday morning, dark outside and I'm lying in bed listening to the snores of the great hulk beside me, the man in my life I am pleased to call my husband. He did his conjugal duty again last night; as a matter of fact he always starts to get horny by the weekend and usually manages it Friday or Saturday night. It doesn't last long and when he's delivered his pleasure he snuffles in my ear "Judith" (my name's Judith), "I love you so much," turns on his side away from me and in a few minutes he's asleep. Well I ask you! And I do try, really I try very hard for some excitement. I'm cabin girl on board this pirate ship, and I'm bent over a cannon having my bare backside whaled with a rope's end on the orders of the pirate chief who is stunningly handsome and whom I secretly adore and will do anything to attract his attention even if it means I'm stiff and sore for days. Or I'm in the great cabin of a sailing ship (funny how the sea stimulates imagination) and the dashing young captain has me across his knee, skirt up, knickers down, whilst his strong hand imparts some discipline into the poor bottom of this rebellious young lady found as a stowaway three days out on a long voyage. Of course, he and I will fall madly in love several spanking sessions later. Or I'm lying across the saddle bow of a cowboy in the Wild West and very uncomfortable it is, but nothing like as uncomfortable as when we arrive back at the ranch and he takes off his thick leather belt because naughty little me has been unfaithful to him and now I'm in for the thrashing of a lifetime... You get the drift.
Well now that's done and I'm glad it's over."
I had to learn these words years ago, I'll tell you why later but they always come back to me at times like this and I've long since learnt to appreciate the real feeling of sadness behind them. And you know, I shouldn't be sad. All my friends, or at least the acquaintances who double up as my friends, would be astonished if they knew I had anything to be sad about. Married to a successful husband, two lovely young children doing well at school, lovely home in a lovely area, taking a responsible part in a respectable community, parent teachers association, citizens' advice bureau, you name it, been there, done that, one perfectly predictable day after another and a husband who loves me. Oh yes he does, honestly, I know he does. It's just that I wish he wouldn't be so achingly, so bone crushingly, dull.
Take last night for example when he's working me up to an orgasm, or thinks he is. Why couldn't I substitute him for the sailing ship captain in my dreams: now, you would say, wouldn't that spice up your love making? Ha, I would reply, no way, I gave up the attempt of making my husband appear in my dreams ages ago. The idea of him standing with cane or strap poised over my bare bum or me placing myself over his knee for a simple spanking is so absurd as to be ridiculous. In the first few years of our marriage I tried very hard to bring up the subject but simply ran into a wall of blank incredulity.
"Look!" I used to shout at him. "I get ratty, I get moody. Why can't you just haul me across your knee, yank down my pants and knickers, let me feel the shock of the cold air on my bum and then set about me till I wriggle and squirm and yell my head off, after which you can wallop me some more for making so much noise and if your hand can't take any more of it, try a hair brush or a ping pong bat." (I had a session with a ping pong bat once: you would never guess a simple thing like that could sting so much. I'll tell you about that too, later.) Of course, I exaggerate, I never got as far as shouting all that lot at him. At the first suggestion all I would ever get was, "you mean you want me to hurt you?" his brow puckered up in disbelief. Once, I downloaded an essay on spanking off the internet and left it on the computer screen at a time he usually went into the study to work. I can still see the look of outrage on his face as he burst out of the study demanding an explanation. Yes I admit I lost my nerve and mumbled something about 'spamming.' I never tried that trick again. Well, do you blame me?
So, as I said, here I am in the hinterland between sleeping and waking, dreaming of sea captains, pirates, cowboys of the Wild West, anything that helps to contrive a situation where I am taken in hand by a handsome muscular male of the species and thoroughly and exquisitely chastised. But it's no good. Those snores, oh alright then, those gentle snores turn the solid wooden walls of the sailing ship cabin into murky mist and I'm wide awake still. Time to abandon ship. I slide out of bed, wriggle my feet into my slippers, wrap my dressing gown around me and sneak downstairs to the kitchen, put the kettle on, nice pot of tea, now where was I? Yes, I remember.
I was going on about trying hard for excitement and sure once upon a time there had been excitement, real mind-blowing stuff. The sort that my respectable 'friends' and husband with his 'gentle' snores would be startled to know about, incredulous to learn the truth of respectable Judith's experiences. I sigh and stir the tea in the pot, thinking of Roxanne. At times like this I always think of Roxanne: Roxanne who dealt me my first whipping, Roxanne who understood and sympathised with my fascination from an early age for the act of spanking, Roxanne who gave me my first taste of a really sore bottom. Yes, Roxanne is where the excitement begins.
My Dad was a diplomat serving long periods abroad and of course Mum had to go with him. I was an only child and was packed off to boarding school at the age of ten. I spent Christmas and Easter holidays with my aunt, and it was only in the long summer vacation that I was able to travel to the country where my parents happened to be living at the time and stay with them. They did their best to love me, I'll say that much for them, but let's face it: the circumstances precluded any real emotional attachment (how could it be otherwise?) and by the time I was eighteen and ready to leave school for university, you would have seen a quiet and withdrawn young lady ever ready to obey the ringing of the bell which governed the daily routine of school life.
Physically I was none too hot either. Okay, I was slightly above average height, I kept my black hair at a length school regulations permitted, blue eyes and I knew I had a good skin but I was still at a gawky stage, my figure not yet developed and I had learnt to hide my emotions so that my face habitually bore a rather sullen expression which I never allowed to alter, much. I shall always remember what the housemistress wrote in my school leaving report:
"Judith has many interesting attributes but she must learn to have confidence in herself and her appearance if, as she steps into the outer world, she is to be marked out as a young lady who would have no trouble in attracting the attentions of a desirable young man with a successful career ahead of him."
Oh right, thank you Mistress Wonderwoman, and how come you never succeeded in attracting any man, desirable or not? Anyway, as usual she was barking up the wrong tree. Judith was not the least bit interested in marking herself as an attraction to young men. Judith had marked out Roxanne.
From the start there was something mysterious about Roxy (as she became known). Born of a French mother and a Persian father, brought up in a home on the outskirts of Paris, she had arrived at our school at the age of fifteen and, so we heard rumoured, had been taught privately by a governess until being sent to finish her education in England. She would neither confirm nor deny any rumour, seeming to prefer the veil of mystery about her. She spoke French fluently, of course, took no part in games apart from swimming, at which she was very good, hopeless in maths and science but devoted to literature in both English and French and, to our never-ending disbelief, actually read poetry for pleasure. She was a few months older than me and due to leave at the end of the same summer term.
I'm sorry to say most people thought her a bit of a snob, probably founded in jealousy because there was one thing on which everyone was forced to agree: her truly remarkable good looks. Already fully matured in her figure, with a darker skin than was normal for cool climes, and thick auburn hair which outside school classes was allowed to hang down to her shoulders, her facial features would have been outstanding enough on their own but what really set her apart were her enormous green eyes. To me in my romantic dreams and fantasies, they spoke of tales of Arabian nights and warriors with drawn scimitars, princesses locked in dark towers, young maidens torn from their mothers and sold into slavery to be bought by the sultan for the benefit of his harem. Yes, I know, I know, but you try spending the formative years of your life within the bounds of a girls' school and the only male allowed inside the premises was the daily paper boy. I was very good. Not for me to show a 'crush' on another girl, unlike the way some of my more outgoing companions in school would do, silly twerps, and if ever Roxanne had tried to ingratiate herself with me, which I have to say she did not, then plain ordinary Judith would have worn her best facial mask and responded with customary chilly charm.
Secretly, dare I say it, because you might not like what I am going to say, stop reading now if you like; but secretly, I was bewitched.
Well, school was over for good and on the last day I walked down the drive to the gates without a backward glance. From this moment on I wonder whether the gods had taken me into care. Dad was on long leave before taking up a new posting in India, and for the first time in years I was able to spend the summer hols in dear old England with my parents. I was really happy for once - I had secured a place at a good university, enjoyed the company of my parents, school was rapidly becoming a thing of the past (as was Roxanne) and so when the time came to say goodbye and set off for my first term at university, it was a Judith with a lighter heart than frankly she had known for years.
And then the gods had their way with me. On day three, rounding a corner at speed, I bounced off another body travelling in the opposite direction and recoiled in astonishment: Roxanne, who else? After the usual you-never-said, you-never-told-me chatter, I learnt that Roxy had been ordered to join her father in New York where his business affairs had taken him, but hating the idea had pleaded and been granted the option of three years at university to study English literature. You know me well enough by now to understand I was over the moon with delight, and Roxy seemed genuinely pleased to find a familiar face in strange surroundings. I hope the gods were pleased with what they had brought about because from that moment on our friendship took root and for me, ripened into what you would call adulation. I was only eighteen, remember, and boys just didn't exist in my tiny world. Although we were studying in different faculties, we found we were staying in adjoining halls of residence and we often met up in each others' rooms. Roxy of course was much more outgoing than me, and her natural charm and great good looks proved irresistible to young male students. She had no shortage of boyfriends but I have to say that each liaison was only of a temporary nature and she proved quite unable, if not unwilling, to form any permanent attachment.
The only deepening attachment was with yours truly, something which you can well believe I was only too proud to encourage. Roxy took to visiting my room late evenings, bringing her books which she spread on the floor to read, lying on her stomach, head propped in her hands, while I would sit at my little table trying to concentrate on my own work but eyeing every now and then the superb form lying on the carpet. Roxy was not shy to show off her figure in the clothes she wore (unlike me), and my surreptitious gaze would travel down from the auburn hair, down her back, down to her hips and now this is where it really becomes confession time: I was fascinated by her bottom.
From an early age, don't ask me why, I shall never understand so I can't tell you, I had been curious about spanking, mulling over stories in which such scenes occurred however briefly, dreaming of situations in which I was very properly dealt with. Once, at the age of ten, just before I got sent away to that school, I was playing with a friend, the daughter of a neighbour, in their house and between the two of us we broke a valuable vase, accidentally. My friend got a first class smacking on her bare bum while I looked on, waiting my turn for my share of the punishment. I was ready for it, ready for a sore bum, honestly I was but then they let me off scot free even though I protested I was equally to blame and sent me home because I wasn't one of the family, to tell my parents and all I got was a ticking off. I've never forgotten the disappointment I felt at the time or the strange feeling of excitement this scene left with me.
Now, gazing down at Roxy's bottom, at those superb buttocks swaddled in neat jeans, all the old excitement would come back to me and my mind would drift from my studies into dreams where we would be soundly chastised together, or where each would be called upon to chastise the other: it didn't matter which. It was enough simply to imagine these things, to fantasise over Roxy's elegant bottom. Of course, I would have walked barefoot over hot coals first rather than breathe a word of these longings to the young lady lying on the strip of carpet (you bet!), but it was enough in my quiet lonely little world to weave these dreams around my friend.
Later, when we were both too tired to go on with our work, we would sit side by side on the divan which served as my bed, backs against the wall and chat until late at night. Slowly, by degrees, Roxy's past emerged. Her mother had died when she was only five, leaving her in the care of a father who, though kindly enough, was a remote figure. He had remarried a Parisian beauty, a lady who cared little for Roxanne but who absorbed herself in her husband's business as an art dealer which took him often to New York, a city she had come to adore. Increasingly, their time was spent in New York, leaving Roxanne to be brought up by a governess at their home outside Paris. She had never been sent away to school, but her education had been entrusted to the governess, (whom Roxy always called Madame) who preferred to keep her at home to teach privately. Her father had broken this arrangement when she was fifteen, thinking an English education for a few years would suit her for the time when she joined him in the art world business as he hoped. Madame had been none too pleased at losing her charge but still lived in the house, keeping an eye on some of the running of the French side of the business. Roxy said little of her, but I got the impression that a strong bond still existed between them.
Me, I was in heaven. For the first time in my life I had a friend who was prepared to confide in me and listen to my own life story, such as it was, and who understood from her own experience the loneliness of being brought up outside the parental circle. Try to imagine the thrill of this gorgeous creature coming to my room like a homing pigeon to seek out my confidences, to talk over the day's events or simply to sit close on the divan saying nothing for long periods, content with my company. Yes, I admit, something I couldn't possibly know or understand at the time but is all too clear now - poor lonely Judith was in love.
When we met up again after the Christmas vacation, I have to tell you of a rather peculiar incident. My aunt had taken me visiting relatives just after Christmas and driving up the motorway we stopped off at one of the service stations. I wandered into the shop and, with nothing better to do, started reading the titles of the cheap paper-back novels on display at one end. These were the days before the internet had taken off, and there was some pretty gung-ho stuff on display. I took a careful look round to make sure no one was watching, eased one off the shelf, opened it at random, glanced down the page and the top of my head flew off. There was this lady in a small copse collecting switches to take to a man whom she knew would whip her backside with them; and what's more, she seemed to be looking forward to it. Of course common sense said I should put the book back and walk out and waste no more time on such trash, but I'm not like that: I wanted to read it and read it before anything else. I had enough money with me, the bored girl at the cash desk never even glanced at the title, and I tucked it under my jumper and kept it there for the rest of the journey and managed to park it in a drawer without being seen when we got to the relatives. Later, as soon as I could make my escape politely enough, I got my book upstairs, started reading and wow, what a world! That lady ended up in more tricky situations than I've had hot dinners, and the only way out of trouble every time was to accept a spanking or a birching, the full operation and the effects on her bottom all vividly described whilst my own bottom tingled at each stroke of the birch, and I squirmed on my chair in imagined anticipation.
I think I must have read every punishment scene so many times I knew them all off by heart. My favourite was the one where the lady placed herself across the man's knees for a bare bottom spanking which served as a warm-up prior to the more serious business of the birch. How jolly reasonable I thought: most considerate. It seemed a warm-up would lead to a longer and more sensuous session. This was news to me, and I stored it away in my mind for development in my next spanking fantasy. Meanwhile, on no account was the book to be left lying around for my aunt to find, and I was most certainly not going to throw it away, so I took it back to university and hid it on the shelf in my room behind some other books - which is where Roxy found it because I came in late one evening and there she was sitting on my bed reading it.
She was so absorbed in her reading that I didn't know what to say, and when she asked if she could take it away to finish it how could I refuse, apart from an earnest plea not to leave the thing lying around, which made her giggle. She was prone to giggling was Roxy. She brought it back next day without any comment and when I played the experienced little lady and asked her what she made of the warming up session all I got back was something about it being useful and worth considering. After which, the subject was never mentioned again, the book resumed its hiding place back on the shelf and poor innocent Judith was hugely relieved that her friend hadn't caused any embarrassment over it - relieved but puzzled at her cool reaction. That night, I played with a fantasy of the two of us, Roxy and me, together bending over the flogging block, side by side, holding hands in mutual support whilst the birch was rigorously applied with alternate strokes respectively to our bare buttocks. Well what was the harm in that? Only a fantasy; it was never going to happen in real life, was it?
You think after this the gods had lost interest in me? No way. Towards the end of the summer term, I'm really looking forward to seeing India for the first time, when Dad writes to say very, very hot here, hottest time of the year coming up and Mum already under the weather, so to speak. Stay away Judith; come at Christmas instead when it's cooler, or at least as cool as it ever will be. So I'm right down in the dumps and Roxy, bless her, knows me well enough by now to separate real depression from my normal sombre self and asks me what's wrong and I tell her and she says right then, come and spend the summer holidays at my home; and I stare at her, mouth open - can this be true? And it is, she's not bluffing. Her dad and Lady Porcelain, as she always called her step mother, were safe in New York, and apart from the governess and a housekeeper we would have the place to ourselves. I still have trouble believing it's all happening but several phone calls later, (including two long distance to India and New York) and three days into the summer vac, I'm being met off the Eurostar at the Gare du Nord by Roxy and the governess who drives us (the two of us chattering like parakeets in the back seat) to the house outside Paris.
The car turned into the drive of a lovely old home built around 200 years ago I would say, long and low but with a high sloping roof. A terrace ran three quarters of the way round the house with well kept lawns sloping away from a small balustrade. There was a fair-sized swimming pool at the back and beyond that an orchard. I was captivated, and when Roxy showed me to a huge bedroom with a window which overlooked the lawn to one side of the house, equipped with some splendid old furniture, and told me this would be my own room for the duration well, what more could a young lady just past her nineteenth birthday ask for? I tell you I was enchanted.
Roxy seemed genuinely pleased to have me to stay and took me all round the house and grounds. Apart from the governess, the only staff were a cook/housekeeper and a part-time gardener, so with the nearest village a few miles down the road, I could well imagine she would be glad of my company, any company, but I hoped, how I hoped, that Judith meant something special to her. At dinner the first evening (a bottle of wine on the table - my aunt would have been shocked), I began to make the acquaintance of Madame. She was a tall, elegant lady in her late fifties, with high cheek bones and swept back hair showing fine grey streaks. Clearly, earlier in life she must have been very beautiful, still was in a severe sort of way, and I couldn't help wondering whether she had once been married and lost out in some way - otherwise what had brought her to the singular state of governess? Roxy would not be drawn on the subject only to say that there had once been a man in her life but that nothing had come of it.
From that first evening I was intrigued by Roxy's relationship with Madame, as everyone called her. Obviously well educated, she spoke English fluently and had a deep knowledge of both French and English literature. The care of the home was in her keeping and whatever her duties comprised of the Parisian side of the art business, you can bet she performed them well and efficiently. Roxy said she was a photographer of professional standard, and from what I saw of her work I can believe it. She would take photographs of works of art which came on the French market, developing them in her own studio attached to the house and sending the prints over to New York. Some of this had rubbed off on Roxy who was allowed to use the studio for her own efforts, which to me at the time seemed pretty good. She treated Roxy in a friendly manner who in turn seemed easy-going in her company; clearly they had developed a close relationship over the years, but I noticed that the younger always deferred to the older woman over any contention, and no doubt about it Madame was the one who called the tune in that house.
I confess I found it difficult to feel at ease with her. It wasn't that I could accuse her of openly staring at me or watching me or anything like that, but somehow I sensed I was always under observation, as though being assessed as a suitable companion for Roxy. Worse still, the feeling grew on me that I was intruding on a relationship, that I had drawn too close in my friendship with Roxy, that I was in danger of usurping her place in the pecking order and she resented it. Poor me, not exactly over endowed with self confidence, grew ever more confused as you will see; but for the moment, I was too absorbed in the life of my new surroundings to bother much.
The first few days were great, really great. I was just happy at being able to delight in Roxy's company. We cycled down to the village together, swam in the pool together or rather, I lay on the grass most of the time feeling a bit put out in my very ordinary school swimming costume compared to Roxy's scanty bikini, content to watch her antics in the pool and trying not to stare unduly at her superb figure. She even took me down to the local riding school. I have always had an abiding fear of horses - great powerful beasts - and I was fascinated by the easy control she exerted over an animal which to me seemed of a quite frightening strength and size. I sat on the rails of the schooling ring, smitten by the way she looked in tight jodhpurs and riding boots and the sublime grace as horse and rider cleared the jumps. She tried to persuade me to have a go, saying there was a very quiet horse in the stable, but I got out of it as gracefully as I could: I had no wish to look a fool in front of her. Stuck up little prig that I was, I should have had a wallop on the backside there and then, but such a one was coming alright and more. Much more.
So, we are well into the first week and I keep walking past a door which is always locked when I try the handle. One day I ask Roxy about it.
"It's the schoolroom. Want to see it?"
She went off to find the key. So those rumours that had gone round our old school were true. She had been taught privately, all here on her own with Madame for sole company. Crikey, what an upbringing!
There wasn't much to see: an old school desk of the kind with a sloping top and seat attached, a table where presumably Madame sat, charts on the walls, a chest of drawers and a wall cupboard in the corner. Purely out of curiosity I opened it, and I swear I stood transfixed at the sight of what was hanging inside, not kidding, I just stood there and gawped. It was a little whip, one with several tails, hanging from a hook on the inside of the door. I glanced over my shoulder: Roxy had wandered outside. I don't think for one minute she enjoyed being in that room, so I took the thing down for a closer look. It had been beautifully made, obviously the work of a skilled craftsman, eight supple strands of leather bound by some intricate plaiting of separate olive green strands into a brown handle, silky and firm, the work so cleverly done it was impossible to see how the eight strands were joined to the handle.
"Roxy," I called, "what is this thing?"
"What thing? Oh that? It's a martinet."
"A what?"
"A martinet, a real French martinet."
"But what's it for?"
She gave one of her giggles; can't say I saw much to giggle about.
"It's to punish naughty girls - naughty girls who won't learn their lessons properly."
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