by Jacqueline Scott
It all started with a simple remark at a party. A simple throwaway remark - no real thought put into it at all. Made more to generate a laugh than anything else. Without the inhibition-loosening effect of two or three glasses of wine it would probably never have been said. It led to some unbelievable experiences such are normally only the subject of fantasies. But then, I suppose I had always had the fantasies.
I was there on my own. My marriage had ended in divorce some six months previously. Nothing messy - we had been married for the best part of thirty years and had been growing apart for ten at least - and the divorce was simply a recognition and a culmination of that fact. Her career took her regularly to different parts of the world, mine rarely beyond the city boundaries. We had two children, both safely seen through school and university and now in settled relationships. They were sad and disappointed but were both busy enough and established in their own lives for it to be unlikely to lead to any psychological damage. We simply appeared to have nothing left in common and agreed to part. Nonetheless it was only now that I was starting to engage in any real form of socialising.
In view of all of this it was slightly ironic that the party was to celebrate the silver wedding anniversary of two good friends of ours whom we had known since school. At the same time it was entirely typical that my ex-wife was unable to attend, being at a conference in New York at the time.
Anyway, I was one in a group of probably half a dozen. The conversation had turned to reminiscing about things that we had done when we were much younger and, as usually is the case we were all probably exaggerating, either deliberately or through the vagaries of memory which increasing age brings.
The youngest member of the group was a striking blonde girl, probably only in her twenties, who I didn't know. She was describing how as a young teenager she used to escape from her bedroom window onto the branches of a tree that grew in the back garden of her parent's house. This enabled her to come and go at times they believed she was in her room, and she regaled us with a dramatic account of how difficult it was sometimes to get back into her room late at night, especially after some underage drinking.
She was a good storyteller and it made for highly entertaining listening. That was when I said it.
"It sounds to me as if you needed a good spanking!"
As I have already mentioned, it was a cheap throwaway remark intended to gain a cheap laugh. It certainly achieved that - everybody laughed heartily and the girl looked at me and smiled broadly.
"Yes - you're absolutely right. I certainly deserved that!"
In fact I was already thinking that it had sounded dreadfully pompous and wondering how to soften the effect, but at that moment Jan, our hostess, came over and announced that the buffet was ready, so before I had a chance to say anything else we all dispersed towards the dining room or the toilet or whatever.
About half an hour later I moved back through to the other room and saw her sitting on a sofa with a cup of coffee. She was on her own so I took the opportunity to go over and introduce myself. Her name was Caroline - Caroline Graham - and at her invitation I sat beside her.
"I particularly wanted to speak to you, Caroline. I really wanted to apologise for that dreadfully pompous remark I made just before supper. It was meant as a joke but somehow it didn't come out the way I intended. I do hope you will forgive me."
She looked puzzled for a few seconds and then laughed.
"Oh, you mean my deserving a good spanking! Oh goodness, there is nothing for you to apologise for. I understood completely. And in any event, as I think I said at the time you were absolutely right. I DID deserve a good hiding. I shudder to think of the number of times I nearly killed myself. I suspect if my parents had been firmer with me I would have had a safer childhood!"
She laughed again ... very prettily. She really was an attractive girl and I was happy to sit and chat to her. And that would have been the case even if it had not been the fact that unwittingly she had pressed the right buttons.
Because, of course, I was very interested in spanking. I had been for years. As a youngster I had been disciplined fairly regularly at home, although I have no idea if that sparked my interest. It certainly didn't reappear until much later in life. I was belted a few times at school - Scottish tawse on the hands, no English public school caning on the bottom at my schools. I had spanked both my own children at various times when they were young - probably up to about the age of ten - and very much as a matter of routine discipline. There had been certainly nothing kinky about it.
So how had it started? Well, I recall buying a couple of magazines on one of the rare occasions I was in London on business - maybe that started the interest although presumably it was already latent in me by then. I had found them incredibly erotic. Then of course the internet explosion made all sorts of things more readily available and I found myself looking for, and finding, websites with stories about spanking. That got me hooked. Then I found a couple of chat rooms and spent far longer than I should have done chatting away merrily to others with similar fantasies. On occasion that would even take the form of pretending to spank others while on line. Cyber-spanking I suppose they call it.
While Susie (my wife) and I were still having sexual relations I had tested the waters once or twice by giving her a slap on the bottom at appropriate moments. She had made it fairly clear, however, that she didn't like it so I had never actually spanked another adult in real life. Furthermore I had never met anybody, as far as I was aware, who was interested in the same thing as I was.
Caroline and I chatted for quite a while and I went and collected another glass of wine for us both. I discovered that she was single, lived in a flat in Marchmont and worked for a bank as a customer adviser. I expressed some interest, explaining that I was also in the financial field, being a Partner in a firm of financial consultants and we chatted about personal financial matters for a while. She found out about my personal circumstances - it would have been very odd if she had not but made no comment about them. I'm sure she was well used to discovering that men and women divorced!
Then as sometimes happens at such parties our conversation drifted into a mild form of flirting. That allowed me to say eventually, "So Caroline Graham, neither of your parents ever spanked you at all - even when you were very young?"
She responded without hesitation, giving no hint that she might think this a strange question.
"No, not at all. I think they just disapproved of the whole thing - as is the modern thinking, of course."
She paused and then continued, "I take it from the question that you were smacked as a child?"
Yes," I nodded, "although that was a long time ago, of course!"
I laughed and then went on, "This will sound very fuddy-duddy and traditional but I don't think it did me any harm. Nor indeed my children, although they might have a different view, of course!"
She laughed too at that and then said, "Well I've never been spanked, either as a child or an adult!"
Then she laughed again as she saw my eyebrows rise at that remark and asked about my children. I told her that they were 25 and 23 and both worked in the legal field. I tried to raise the subject of spanking again by saying, "We will need to see how to fill that gap in your experience."
At that it was her turn to raise her eyebrows but just then some others joined us and the subject was not pursued. I saw her again just as she was leaving, however, and she asked if she could get in touch with me. I gave her my business card and although I thought about her a couple of times in the next day or so, quite frankly relishing the interplay that had gone on between us, I didn't really expect to hear from her again.
So when a month or so later Mary, our office receptionist, phoned through to say that she had a Caroline Graham on the telephone for me, I said, "Caroline Graham? Is she a client, Mary?"
"No, Mr French, she says it's a personal call."
Even at that I was struggling for a minute or so.
"Put her through, Mary. Hello? Matthew French here?"
The voice at the other end of the 'phone sounded slightly unsure.
"Mr French? It's Caroline Graham. We ... we met at the Aitkens' party a few weeks ago?"
Then it clicked.
"Caroline! It's good to hear from you! How are you?"
"I'm very well thanks Matthew. I meant to get in touch before but I've been changing jobs and ... well you can imagine ... time has not been easy to find."
"Goodness don't apologise! You've changed your job? Yes, I can well imagine that life has been hectic. What are you doing now? It was the Bank you were with wasn't it?"
"Yes - and in fact I still am. It was an internal promotion actually. I managed to get a job as personal assistant to one of the senior executives in Retail Banking."
"Congratulations!" I exclaimed this, it would have been rude not to but I was still not clear why she should have telephoned. "That sounds as if it could be a busy appointment."
"Yes. Actually the night of the party I had just been for the interview and was waiting to hear."
There was a brief pause and then she went on, "Matthew, I wonder if we could meet? There's something I wanted to discuss."
I reached for my diary. "No problem at all Caroline ... would you like to drop in here? Or ..."
"I wondered if we might do it over a drink?" she interrupted, "It's less formal."
My ears pricked up at that but I certainly made no objection. If a young attractive lady wanted to meet me, a man in his early fifties, for a drink who was I to decline! After comparing diaries we agreed to meet in a lounge bar after work on the forthcoming Friday.
It was a bar on the fringes of the New Town - comfortably close to the city centre where we both worked but not one where the hordes of office workers congregated for post-work drinks. Caroline suggested it and when I arrived it was relatively quiet. She was already there even although I had deliberately turned up five minutes or so early, and was sipping a white wine. She smiled and waved as I entered and rose to greet me after I too had ordered a glass of wine at the bar.
I have to say that she looked stunning. She was dressed in a dark business suit with a pale green top underneath the jacket and dark nylon tights or stockings showing under her knee length skirt. The effect was set off by her blonde hair, which appeared scrupulously clean and was possibly artificially assisted in some way and her open features that neither bore, nor needed to, much in the way of make up. She looked slightly nervous and pink in the face and this enhanced the overall effect of a strikingly attractive young lady.
We shook hands rather formally and then sat in comfortable seats at a table in the corner of the lounge at some distance from the three or four other customers.
"This is nice isn't it," I said looking around the bar and settling into my seat. "So, Caroline, how are you? And tell me about this new job."
She smiled and gave me a brief description of how she had applied for and got the PA job and how she was enjoying it, particularly now that the first couple of weeks were past and she was starting to find her feet. Her new boss was a woman high-flyer and Caroline was clearly excited at being able to work for such a high profile individual. I watched her relaxing as she told me the familiar details that she had probably told to a range of friends and acquaintances over the past few weeks.
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