by Susan Thomas
It was the most fashionable restaurant in the whole of Denver, a place where people didn't so much go to have lunch or dinner, but to be seen. For the poor, had they been able to see inside, it would have been a glittering palace with rich decoration, chandeliers, polished mahogany furniture adorned with beautiful white tablecloths and gleaming silverware. The poor, of course, got nowhere near the restaurant. At luncheon the tables were thronged mainly with ladies all dressed in their finest. The best placed table, in the sense that its occupants might be readily seen by everyone and yet their conversation remain private, was occupied by two attractive ladies well into middle age if not older.
No one else in that restaurant knew that one was the madam of the best establishment for gentlemen in the whole of Denver, while the other had once occupied that same position, and now procured the finest girls to serve in the elite establishments for gentlemen. Madame Edith was the younger of the two and only too well aware of how dangerous Madame Blanche was. It was Madame Blanche who had brought her to the work, Madame Blanche who had taken her as a young and naïve girl, into her first gentleman.
Edith had reasoned it was better that clean gentleman with his fine cologne and his generous tip afterwards, than her drunken brute of a father. As one of Madame Blanche's girls she only had to 'entertain' the wealthiest of men in the most well-appointed bedrooms. As with all Blanche's girls she ate excellent food and was taught how to differentiate the finest wines.
Nevertheless she had to learn that obedience to Madame Blanche was not optional. The fierce sting of Madame Blanche's cane had seared across her posterior on many occasions before she really absorbed that lesson. On one occasion she had been whipped. Although very painful her whipping had not left scars. Madame Blanche knew that the gentleman who frequented her establishment did not like their playthings marked in any way.
Anyone in the restaurant glancing across at Blanche would simply have thought her a respectable and wealthy woman from the finest strata of Denver society. A wealthy widow perhaps. Edith had quite different memories. She remembered all too clearly the day after Blanche had sold her virginity. Gentlemen rarely came in the morning so that was a time for the serious business of teaching the girls: deportment, small talk, learning to tell a good from a bad champagne. Then of course, discipline. Blanche believed that only a disciplined life, rivaling that of a nun in the strictest of orders, would help the girls not just to survive but to retire wealthy.
The girls often found Blanche's rules tough, and when they broke them there was the cane. Every punishment was conducted in front of all the other girls, as well as Bernie, whose title was 'Porter', but who was in fact an ex-pugilist whose fists were fast and whose oak shillelagh was always ready if any gentleman became difficult. That was a very rare event indeed despite alcohol and arrogance being a lethal combination. Edith remembered that first discipline session very well even though she was not the recipient.
The 'stool' was brought out and they all had to gather in a semi-circle to watch, with Bernie standing behind, his height allowing him to view over their heads. None of the girls was fully dressed but all in their underwear and already nervous at what they would witness. They all knew that it wouldn't take much and they would be joining poor Flossie. Blanche had stood and told them the 'sin' for which Flossie was being punished.
"When Mr. Lightwood gave her the most generous of tips she chose to hide that fact and not, as she should, give me my due. Girls, I am already generous in allowing you to keep half of any tip. You'll find no other establishment does the same. Flossie will be caned. A severe caning of twenty-five strokes." There had been gasps of horror from the girls around her. "When I apply my cane to her delicate posterior she will howl. Yes girls, she will howl, she will beg, and she will plead, but there will be no mercy for her. She will carry no scars of note but that is the limit of my mercy. Never try to cheat me girls, not ever."
At a signal from Blanche, Flossie had been dragged in by two burly kitchen maids. She was naked and already weeping and pleading for mercy but Edith saw, for the first time, that mercy was not a quality that Blanche possessed. Flossie was forced struggling and screaming for mercy, over the stool. Once bent over it, her ankles, wrists and the small of her back were restrained in place with leather straps. The stool was tall and poor Flossie was now standing on her own two feet but bent right over with her head hanging down. Her bottom was now perfectly placed for the thrashing she would receive.
The cane was a long, vicious looking, thing and it was clear that Blanche knew how to wield it. Blanche stood back and laid the cane across Flossie's bottom. Flossie whimpered at the touch of the cold rattan.
"Blanche," she whined, "please don't. I'll never do it again. I promise."
"No, indeed you won't Flossie, but you will be caned and when I have finished thrashing you, then you will go down on your knees and thank me. Indeed you will. If you don't, Flossie, I will sell you to one of those cheap brothels where the low-life go. You'll be servicing at least twenty men a day there. Now stop whining and take your punishment with dignity."
Edith's memory was clear - the rich scents of the perfumes they all wore; the smell of Bernie's cigars; the red faced coldness of the kitchen maids who stayed to watch. Then the sinister swish of the cane as it flew to punish Flossie's bottom. There was a nasty crack as the cane landed dead center on Flossie's bare bottom. The cane bounced back off the bottom even as Flossie let out a high pitched squeal.
It was clear Blanche was an expert for the next stroke cracked down right next to the first. Flossie's squeal of pain came with, "No! Please Blanche..."
It made no difference as the cane rose and fell in a steady controlled way, each stroke delivered with considerable force. The nasty red welts that sprang up on Flossie's delicate bottom looked terribly painful to a young Edith. Flossie's increasingly shrill squeals and screams confirming it.
At the fifteenth stroke Blanche changed the pattern somewhat. Her cane sliced almost upwards and caught Flossie on the under swell of her bottom cheeks. It was a vicious stroke, a nasty stroke calculated to generate the most intense pain. Flossie's scream had deafened Edith who wished she could run from the room. That wasn't possible of course. Edith knew full well she now belonged to Blanche and that was that.
Blanche now made sure every stroke was either on that delicate under swell or on the upper part of Flossie's thighs, the sitting place, the very part that would make sitting down a painful experience for the girl. When the last stroke cracked on Flossie's upper thigh, eliciting a long shuddering scream, the whole of her bottom from the top to mid-way down her thighs was covered in those vicious red welts, some of them already darkening. Flossie herself was babbling and crying.
The two kitchen maids came forward and released the restraints. A shaky Flossie had stood then craned her head to look at the results of her punishment. One of her friends signaled with a look that there was still more to her punishment. Flossie turned and slowly, painfully, knelt in front of Madame Blanche. "Blanche I am most dreadfully sorry that I tried to cheat you. Thank you for thrashing me. I deserved it. I promise I'll never do it again, not ever."
Edith was taken out of her memories by the arrival of dessert. She noticed that Blanche was watching her with knowing eyes. Blanche had that unnerving ability to read another person very well indeed. She decided to assert herself.
"I was remembering my second day in your establishment. I'd had my virginity taken the day before... in fact quite enjoyable. I remember being surprised by that. Then the next morning a very young Edith..." she laughed, "watched that Flossie being thrashed for stealing a tip she'd been given. She married one of our gentlemen didn't she?"
"She did. A good marriage to a wealthy fool. She's done well. They're in Washington now where he is a senator. But my dear Edith do you remember the first time I caned you? I was hard on you because I could see your potential."
Edith remembered all too clearly. She had been so young and ignorant. A good selling point and she was quickly a favorite, but ignorance cost her a thrashing. A gentleman she'd never been with before, slipped a finger into her, in a place that she had simply not expected. She had squealed and slapped his face. He, of course, had complained and Blanche had promised that not only would Edith be caned, but afterward he could enjoy her free of charge.
She remembered very well how, trembling, she had been forced to undress by the kitchen maids and then taken in to be thrashed. She'd only been entertaining gentlemen for about five weeks at that point. She had been spanked but that was common. If Blanche had any minor criticism of a girl's work then Bernie put that girl across his knees and spanked her bare bottom very hard with his large hand. Those spankings hurt of course but left no real marks and the gentlemen often liked having a girl with a well spanked bottom.
She had vowed to take her caning with more dignity than Flossie. She knew she'd scream and cry, that was inevitable, but she would not beg. Edith remembered how scared and how vulnerable she had felt when restrained over that damned stool; the nasty feeling that the cold rattan had made as it rested across her bottom. A semi-circle of watchers were all there to see her thrashed. The other girls, the kitchen maids, Bernie, whose hard hand had spanked her bottom twice in just a few weeks and, of course, the 'offended' gentleman himself. Then abruptly there was a fierce, forceful, blow right across the center of her bottom.
The power of the stroke itself had made her gasp. It was gigantic, but a millisecond later an enormous pain had hit. She had screeched loudly... really loudly. All dignity had flown out the window. It hurt so much but when she tried to get up and off that bench the leather straps held her fast. Scarcely had all that happened when there was another powerful stroke across her bare cheeks. It wasn't on the same place but it was just as fierce and the pain that followed was hugely nasty. She had screeched again but managed, just about, to withhold the scream for mercy.
It made no difference. There would have been no mercy. She was restrained over the bench with her bare bottom stuck up for all to see, and Blanche would thrash her no matter what she screamed. Only two strokes out of twenty and five. Just two and her bottom was already hot while the welts left by the cane were already throbbing nastily. Yet another blow landed. This one was very low down just above the thighs where the swell of the bottom cheeks begins. It was far more painful and she had screeched and again tried to get off the bench.
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