by Ryan Rowland
Something didn't look right. Eric Sawyer scanned the walls of the dining room again. He hadn't lived in the house long enough to become intimately familiar with the furnishings, but he was sure something was missing. There! Next to the window, where the unfaded paint didn't quite match the area around it. Hadn't there been a small landscape painting there?
At age twenty-seven, Eric had recently returned to the town where he grew up to take possession of his grandfather's estate. He hadn't wanted anything to do with the old man when he was alive. He was ashamed to admit it, but his grandfather had been a crook. While managing to stay out of jail, he had skirted the law with unethical and sometimes downright illegal practices as an investment broker. In the process, he had amassed a small fortune while fleecing quite a few gullible people out of their savings.
But lavish spending and health problems had drained away nearly all his ill-gotten wealth. There was nothing left except the house, but its tasteful furnishings included a number of moderately valuable paintings. One of them seemed to have vanished. Had someone broken in and stolen it? It was common knowledge around town that the old man had collected art, so anyone could have surmised there would be valuable items in the house.
Eric went to check the inventory so he could report the theft. He would also have to summon a technician to repair the alarm system which hadn't worked correctly since he had moved in the previous month.
A buzzing noise roused Eric from his sleep. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was just after two in the morning. With a rush of adrenalin, he realized that it was not the alarm clock, but the intrusion alarm that had wakened him.
The alarm system was set to 'silent'. It would notify the police, but would not sound the piercing siren that would scare an intruder away. If there was a burglar, Eric wanted him caught and sent to jail. He rose quickly, pulled on his trousers, and retrieved a shotgun from the closet before cautiously opening the bedroom door.
Silently approaching the darkened living room, Eric saw a shadowy figure. His heart was pounding as he reached for the light switch. He was scared but also angry. How dare this thief come into his house to steal his possessions!
"Freeze!" Eric shouted as light flooded the room. At the same time, he pumped the twelve-gauge shotgun to send a shell into the chamber. He wouldn't actually shoot except in self-defense, but hoped to intimidate the thief and hold him for the police.
A pair of antique sterling silver candlesticks thumped to the floor as the intruder, dressed in black and wearing a hooded ski mask, froze with hands raised.
"Turn around slowly and take off the mask!" Eric ordered.
"Don't shoot! Please!" the would-be thief begged.
By the time Eric's mind had registered the fact that the voice had been decidedly feminine, the hooded mask came off to reveal shoulder-length dark brown hair framing a pretty and very frightened face. He stared in astonishment. "You're a girl!"
"I'm sorry! Please don't shoot!" she repeated.
Eric lowered the shotgun, making sure the safety was still on. He obviously wouldn't need it against this young girl. She looked to be no more than about sixteen years old, and from the way her snug-fitting jeans and sweater hugged her curvaceous figure, it didn't appear that she was hiding any weapons... at least not the kind of weapons he needed to be afraid of.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" he demanded.
Before she could respond, there was a knock on the door. "Police!" One of Eric's old school friends was a sheriff's deputy and had been patrolling in the area when the call came in.
As Eric explained the situation to the deputy, the look of fear and misery on the girl's face made him feel a little pity. "Warren," he said to his old schoolmate, "I hate to see her life messed up with an arrest record. I think what she needs is a belt taken to her bottom until she can't sit down for a week. If we contact her parents, and if they agree to punish her properly and pay for damages, I'd consider not pressing charges."
"We can't require her parents to use corporal punishment, of course," the deputy said. "But we can talk to them and see what they say."
But when he had checked the girl's identification, he and Eric were both surprised. Her appearance had been misleading. Her name was Stephanie Olsen, age twenty-three.
"Well that's different," said Eric. "She's an adult and should know better. I'll bet she's the one who stole the painting a couple of weeks ago too. I want her locked up."
Stephanie broke down in tears. "Please no! I can't go to jail. I just can't! I have to take care of my mom!" Pleading desperately, she explained she was the sole caregiver for her invalid mother. If she went to jail, there would be no one to help her mom.
"Your mother will be taken care of," the deputy said as he snapped handcuffs on Stephanie's wrists. "The Social Services Department will see she's placed in the nursing home."
"Oh God no!" Stephanie wailed in anguish. "Have you ever been in that place?"
Eric cringed with sympathy for Stephanie's mother as the deputy read Stephanie her rights. He had been to the local nursing home, which operated on a low budget and took mostly charity cases. He remembered vividly the odor and the feeling of despair. He felt sick at the thought of being confined there.
"Warren, can I talk to you a moment?"
Stepping out of earshot of the distraught young woman, the two men conferred in whispers as Eric outlined his idea.
"I can't formally sanction it or participate, but if she agrees, I'll hold off on the arrest," the deputy said. "You can still press charges later if she doesn't go through with it."
Eric turned to the young woman. "Miss Olsen, when I thought you were a teenager, my first impression was that you needed a serious whipping. For the sake of your mother, if you don't want to go to jail, I will give you the alternative of allowing me to give you that whipping. Are you interested in that option?"
Stephanie gulped as she looked at him with a mixture of hope and fear. "What do you mean by a serious whipping?"
Eric considered for a moment. "I will use my belt on your bottom. On your bare buttocks. I won't cause you any permanent injury, but I daresay you'll be too sore to sit down when I'm through. And of course, you'll also have to return the painting you stole before."
"I can't. I sold it," she admitted.
"Where is the money you got for it?"
"I used it to buy groceries and pay some of Mom's doctor bills."
Eric took a deep breath as he thought that over. "Well then I'll have to punish you a lot more severely. More than I could safely do at one time. Unless you can come up with the money to replace it, you will have to take a whipping once a week until I decide you've been sufficiently punished."
Stephanie turned pale at the thought of being whipped over and over for her crime. And at her age, it would be especially humiliating to have her buttocks bared and whipped as if she was a naughty child by a man who wasn't that much older than she.
"I don't think that's fair," she protested. "You could at least tell me how many whippings I'm going to get so I can decide."
"I haven't decided how many," Eric replied. "But if you choose to go to jail, you don't know how long a sentence you'll get, so you're taking a chance either way."
Could he really do that to her? She looked from Eric to the deputy, who shrugged.
"It's up to you. You can refuse his deal and I'll take you to jail."
She lowered her head and sobbed. "I can't go to jail. I have to take care of Mom, so I'll have to take the whippings."
The deputy removed the handcuffs from Stephanie's wrists. As he was leaving, he grinned at Eric. "Have fun, dude. Wish I could stay. We'll have a beer soon and you can give me a full report."
When the deputy had gone, Eric turned to face the sorrowful young woman. "Let's be sure we understand each other, Miss Olsen. I'm going to give you a whipping now and you will report back here next Saturday afternoon, and on successive Saturdays for additional punishments. I expect you to do as I tell you and submit to your whippings without giving me any trouble. Understand?"
Stephanie trembled as she looked at Eric. He still wore only his trousers, and she couldn't help appreciating his handsome face and slim, muscular physique. Caring for her mom left her almost no time for romance or other social activities, and opportunities for being alone with a man had been few and far between. In other circumstances, she would have admired his muscular shoulders and arms, but she was mindful that those arms would soon be swinging a leather belt at her unprotected bottom.
"Yes," Stephanie replied in resignation.
"Then take off those jeans." Eric brought a chair from the dining room as Stephanie removed the black denim trousers. "Panties too," he said.
Her face was red with embarrassment. "Do I have to? Couldn't I just..."
"Panties off!" Eric was adamant. "I won't do anything you haven't agreed to, which is a bare-bottom whipping. If you think I'd take advantage in any other way, don't worry about it. I'd only have sex with someone I can respect, not someone who breaks into my house and steals from me."
Rather than feeling reassured, Stephanie felt her cheeks burn hotter at his contempt. When the panties were removed, Eric commanded her to stand behind the chair and bend over. With her diminutive size, she had to stretch and stand on her toes to lean over the back of the chair and place her hands down on the seat.
In spite of his disdainful words, Eric couldn't help admiring Stephanie's backside as he slid his belt from trousers and doubled it over. Her nicely rounded buttocks were just the right size for her small frame. She really was a very cute girl and he felt a stirring of both sympathy and arousal as he contemplated what he was about to do. But he pushed that aside and reminded himself she was a thief who deserved this punishment. He swung the belt and smacked it hard across her buttocks.
Stephanie gasped as the leather belt burned a hot streak on her soft flesh. She bit her lip and tried not to cry out but couldn't help a whimper when it struck again a few seconds later.
Eric swung the belt again and increased the pace as he worked into a steady rhythm. He worked his way down her buttocks to her thighs, then returned to the top and started over again. Stephanie was groaning and writhing, twisting her hips back and forth as the belt turned her bottom first pink, and then darker red. Her tears were soon flowing in earnest and she couldn't keep still.
"Ow! Please, not so hard!" she pleaded. She pushed herself up and reached back to rub her burning backside.
Eric took a step back and lowered the belt. "I'm not finished but you can rub it for a minute," he said.
"Please, isn't that enough?" Stephanie whimpered and continued to rub her sore bottom.
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