by Susan Thomas
Dad sighed as he said, "Anne, enough is enough. Go to my study please and wait for me. You can place yourself facing into the corner."
I watched Anne go a little pale, as she had every reason to do. She had been pushing his buttons for the last two days and he had been very forbearing and reasonable, but no longer. She was very quiet but just got up and walked off towards his study. Dad sat for a little longer at the kitchen table sipping his tea and steeling himself for what he had to do. He was never quick to punish, preferring the gentle reprimand and quiet warning, but Anne had ignored all those. Finally, with a heavy sigh he got up to go and deal with her.
"Dad, don't be too hard on her, I pleaded.
He smiled down at me. "I'd like to do as you ask but I don't think Anne would thank me. The discipline has never seemed real to her, which I expect is why she has been so difficult these last two days. She needs to know that it is real, so I am going to spank her bottom good and hard."
I could only nod my agreement. He was quite right. Anne had never experienced for herself the discipline in Rosemary Park. She'd agreed to it right enough and seen me getting it, but she hadn't had it herself. With another sigh Dad went off to the study. I knew he'd leave the study door open and I knew if I went and watched he'd not object, but equally it would be a while before the actual spanking started.
I began getting ready for their return. I know how I feel after a punishment so got a fresh tea tray ready and the cake tin out. I'd make sure she had some hot sweet tea and a piece of cake after. I also went and got a cushion because the chairs around the table in the family room are more than a little hard. Then I went along to the hall and stood leaning against a wall looking into the study. Anne didn't know I was there. Dad did, but fair is fair, as she saw me getting punished.
Dad was already sitting on the chair he used for over-the-knee spanking. It was an antique oak dining room chair that had obviously once been part of a set. It had beautiful barley twist supports, and when I wasn't over his lap I could appreciate what a beautiful old chair it was. Anne was already in place over his lap. Her leggings and knickers were well down her legs, her top pulled right up onto her back but her bottom was as yet unmarked. Dad pulled her right arm up onto her back and held it firmly in place and then began to spank her vigorously.
Dad spanked her very hard, his hand raining down hard smacks without any hesitation. There was nothing scientific about the spanking, his hand just smacked down landing in a different place each time. Each smack was so hard it made a huge ripple and soon her bottom was in continuous movement and becoming redder with every smack. Poor Anne was not quiet. She yelped, gasped, cried out and made every expression of distress imaginable. I felt sorry for her. After a while the hand spanking stopped. I saw the hairbrush but thought he'd give her a break in the corner before using it, but not this time.
"Anne," he announced quietly, "I am going to give you a dozen with the hairbrush. Struggle or resist and it will be either a minute or two-minute spanking depending on how bad you are. Do you understand?"
"Please don't... I'm sorry."
"Do you understand?"
"Yes, but please..." She got no further because the first smack of the brush landed on her already sore bottom. Anne screeched loudly and her poor legs kicked. Dad brought the brush crisply down on her right cheek and she screeched again. This time she started struggling to get off his lap.
"Anne, do you want me to add more?"
"No! No! Please don't."
"Then hold still and take your punishment."
She certainly didn't hold still enough and ended up getting sixteen smacks with that brush, so I had done better than her when I first got it. Anne didn't have to do any corner time. I think maybe she would have, but when Dad let her up she burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. He ended up sitting on the chair with her clinging to him while he comforted her. I walked away at that point. Discipline in Rosemary Park is not especially private, but love is.
My mother was at university when she got pregnant. Such a bloody cliché isn't it, but the problem is easy to solve - go down to the abortion clinic, a few days in bed and no problem. My mum went home to her mum and dad and had me. That, boys and girls, is love. She was my mum and I loved her.
Of course it helped that we weren't poor. Granddad owned a business that sold supplies to plumbers and heating engineers. He had branches all over the north west of England including Manchester and Liverpool. We lived in an enormous bungalow with seven bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. It sat alone on a plot intended for four large bungalows. I was sent to a private school, not that I was indulged or spoilt... far from it. Mum and my grandparents were strict, with high expectations.
When I was thirteen, Granddad died suddenly and Grandma followed the year after. Mum inherited everything, but as a qualified accountant she was already doing OK. We coped, Mum and I, and life carried on as it does, with me doing well at school. I secured an unconditional place at university, finished my exams and left school. I did the usual leaving school stuff, which mainly involved getting hammered with friends I might never see again. Then Mum got killed.
A twenty-five-year-old man with no driving licence or insurance but a long criminal record 'borrowed' a car. High on crack he lost control of the car and killed a young mother and her three-year-old child, a recently retired GP, and my mum. When I eventually surfaced, I discovered I was extremely wealthy. I contacted the university and explained what had happened. They were so kind and helpful and arranged a gap year while I tried to recover.
As I began sorting through all my mother's papers I came across two archive boxes. One was labelled 'Joe 1' and the other 'Joe 2'. I opened Joe 1 which was in the order of most recent documents at the top, oldest at the bottom. I started with the oldest and found a whole load of photos of my mum. I sort of laughed and cried. Her hair was freaky, and her clothes! Then I realised that she was at university when these were taken and was pretty much my age. She looked so young and so weird... almost not Mum at all. In many of them she was with a young man, very slim with long hair who I guessed must be Joe. Was he her boyfriend?
There were also journals or diaries in that first box. Joe was her boyfriend and she clearly loved him. The affair they were having was intense. He was reading English whereas Mum was reading mathematics. That was their first year at university and I kept expecting the affair to break up. Well I'm not daft, I'd already had four boyfriends since I was fourteen. The affair didn't break up, it continued into the second year and her feelings for Joe were almost all she wrote about. Then came a whole series of entries in which she first suspected then discovered that she was pregnant. That was me!
She wrote, "Oh God why didn't I go on the pill? I know how it happened, it was that time we got carried away and had no more 'johnnies'. What will Dad say?"
I wondered what my granddad did say, but he'd always loved me, so if he was upset it didn't last long. It shook me to realise that Mum knew who my father was. I'd always been given the impression she got drunk at a party and didn't know. Then came what was to me a shattering revelation in her journal.
"Joe has proposed marriage. He says we can manage and will manage, but I can't accept the lifestyle he wants. I understand it and his reasons... I do get it, but that is just not me. I've said no and spun him a story. He's very upset and it breaks my heart but I think what I have done is for the best."
There were no more journal entries and I knew what had happened. Mum left university, went home and had me. Grandma looked after me when I was little while Mum trained to be an accountant, but none of that was in the boxes. There was a break of time in Joe 1 and then suddenly there was a report from The Guardian. It was about a short story competition which had been won by a young gifted writer by the name of Joel Taylor. Was Joe, Joel Taylor? If not, why would he have been in there? Then there were photos taken from a distance and all I recognised as being Joe, only he looked a bit older and his hair was shorter.
It was only when I opened Joe 2 that I finally twigged who Joe really was. Joe was Joel Taylor, the world famous author of the Rev. Clementine Wilberforce books. The Rev. Wilberforce is the fictional vicar of a large city parish whose close friend is DI James Parker, and who unofficially seeks her help in numerous crime mysteries. There was also a TV series starring Caroline Ford as Clementine. It was clear that Mum had been monitoring Joel Taylor's career and life very closely. She was practically stalking the man! She had his whole career mapped out in detail, his marriage to Carol was marked by long distance photos. It was obvious that Mum still loved the man. Maybe that was why she'd never taken up with anyone else.
Mum had clearly been very upset for Joe when his wife died after only five years of marriage. I found the receipt for flowers from 'An Admirer' and showing a card had been sent with them. What staggered me was where Joe lived. Mum had his address and everything although no photos. He lived in Rosemary Park at 4 Coriander Walk. I was staggered. Famous author Joel Taylor lived in our town! Our bungalow was in a posh suburb of our relatively small town, while Rosemary Park was the very exclusive place on the other side of town altogether. It was surrounded by farmland and walled in with one entrance guarded twenty-four hours each day by a security team. Granddad would have had the money to live there but he loved his large plot and his purpose built bungalow.
I got to the last few items, which were all reviews of Joel Taylor's books, and then the reaction hit me. Joel Taylor was my father! I had always yearned to have my own dad when I was young and thought my mum didn't know who he was. She'd hidden all this from me! Why? If she'd been alive I might well have been angry with her but instead I just sat and cried wailing, "Why Mum? Why?"
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