by Frank Limadere
Kimberley Kennedy accepted payment from Clarkstown's Spank Shop's most recent satisfied customer and watched the still sniffling client mince his way out of the shop, his hand tightly held by his mother. The adolescent receptionist smiled to herself and then sent a nervous young lady into her mother's parlour, where Gabrielle Kennedy no doubt had a blistering spanking waiting for the unfortunate girl.
The blonde girl entered the details of the recent punishment into her meticulously kept spreadsheets and kept one ear listening to the muffled sounds of smacking and howling coming from the room Gabrielle occupied and similar noises emanating from the shop's owner, 'Aunty' Andrea Mahoney, and had the other on the conversation that three of the ladies in the shop's waiting room were engaged in.
All three were known to Kimberley. Her family were long time residents of Clarkstown, and very little happened in the community that she and her mother did not know about.
The recently married Millicent Campbell was here to see Andrea. Kimberley did the books so she knew that the young bride was going to have her bottom smacked by the experienced and accomplished disciplinarian, but she didn't press for details, as it wouldn't be the first time she had taken a trip over Andrea's knees for being too inquisitive. Desiree Price was the mother of the young man over Andrea's lap at present, and twenty-two year old Misty Kendall was having her situpon warmed by Gabrielle while her mother Fiona waited to escort her no doubt distraught daughter home again.
"More tea, ladies?" Kimberley asked brightly.
"No thank you, Kimberley," Millicent said in a weak voice, she was obviously rather nervous about her upcoming appointment with Andrea.
"I will, Kimmy," Fiona said brightly, holding her empty cup up.
"As Tony's likely to be a while," Desiree murmured. "I'd like a freshen up too, dear."
Kimberley nodded, and as she got up to fill the orders asked the women, "Can you please keep an eye on the two in the corners and if they try anything let me know and I'll reheat them."
When Kimberley returned with fresh hot tea for Fiona and Desiree the three ladies were talking in hushed voices. "They were taken right off the line, Desiree?" Fiona asked the buxom brunette.
Desiree accepted a cup of tea and nodded.
"Mine, too," Millicent said glumly. "Not every pair, but two of them definitely went missing."
"That's extraordinary," Fiona marvelled, sipping her tea gently.
Kimberley sighed as she returned to her desk. She knew what the three women were discussing. Not a lot happened in the sleepy hamlet of Clarkstown ordinarily, but of late a curious phenomenon had taken place. Underwear, ladies underwear to be precise, had been disappearing from clotheslines all over the town. Even from the line of the wealthy and aristocratic Veronica Dixon-Thompson, who lived on a fenced property out of town itself. No-one knew how it had happened, although it was suspected that someone, not something, was doing it.
Andrea believed that it was more than likely the work of a gang of local kids, trying to get a reaction. She'd promised to blister the seats of whoever they were when they were discovered, even though her line had not yet been hit. Kimberley's mother, Gabrielle, thought it was what she referred to as a 'snow dropper': someone who got a kick out of filching lingerie. Kimberley shook her head and wondered what sort of person got a thrill out of that.
The older sister of one of the corner occupants came to collect him and paid Kimberley. The receptionist excused herself and asked Desiree to watch her son and the girl still in the corners while she went to put some rubbish in the bins outside.
Kimberley wrinkled her nose as she closed the large plastic garbage bin and then heard a noise in the garden. The blonde frowned and decided to investigate. She had some aprons on the line, it would be just like some disgruntled youngster to invade the yard and dirty them up again to spite her. She'd roast their behind if that was the case. Then again it could a bird, and much as Kimberley may have wanted to, she couldn't exactly paddle their tails.
The girl's eyes opened wide as she entered the back yard and saw the actual cause of the disturbance. A tall, skinny, scruffy young man dressed in rather threadbare and hard worn clothes was unpinning some of Andrea's panties from the line. He turned as Kimberley gasped. He gulped and ran, his ill-gotten gains crumpled in a grubby hand.
"Stop!" Kimberley shouted. "Stop thief!" then she gave chase.
The 'snow dropper', as Gabrielle Kennedy would have no doubt referred to him, had height on Kimberley. The girl was, by her own admission, petite, but she was fit and had been a cheerleader in high school, so the thief found her harder to shake than he would have first thought.
He bolted out of the alley that ran between the yard and Andrea's garage and hit the street, then legged it down the pavement. Kimberley shot out of the narrow opening, looked in both directions, then saw her target and went after him.
The thief chanced a look behind him as the crazy little blonde was gaining. He didn't see the woman with short blonde hair coming from the opposite direction.
"Tania!" Kimberley yelled at the newcomer.
Constable Tania Wheeler, a member of the Clarkstown Police Department, looked up at the sound of her friend's voice.
"He's a thief, Tania," Kimberley insisted, pointing to the fleeing man. "Stop him!"
Tania assessed the scene professionally. The so-called thief was taller than her, but she had police training and knew how to take down people larger than her. She stuck out a hand and grabbed the boy's arm, then used his own momentum to swing him around and pushed him into a wall, with his arm wrenched up behind his back. The boy struggled and swore. "Leggo, you stupid bitch!"
That sort of talk wasn't going to endear him to Tania Wheeler, and as a breathless Kimberley caught up to her, asked, "Aside from needing a cleaner mouth, why exactly have I apprehended this creature, Kimberley?"
"He's the panty thief," Kimberley explained, spots of colour standing out on her cheeks.
"Really?" One of Tania's eyebrows rose at the accusation.
"Look in his hand," Kimberley said, glaring at the young man who Tania had pinned to the wall.
"Open the hand," Tania ordered.
"Get fucked!" the boy answered.
Tania sighed and wrenched the arm further up the back. The young man gasped and opened his hand, revealing some filmy undergarments.
"Oh my God!" Tania exclaimed. "Are those...?"
"Aunty Andrea's, yes," Kimberley confirmed, snatching the panties out of the thief's hand.
"We better get him and you back to the shop and see how Andrea wants to handle this, Kim," Tania decided.
"Kimberley Susan!" A stern faced Andrea greeted her receptionist when she walked back in the shop's front door with Tania and the panty thief in tow. "What exactly is the meaning of this, young lady? You leave the shop to put some rubbish out the back and you're gone for ages, leaving clients to watch the corners. I had to interrupt a session to answer the phone."
All the colour drained from Kimberley's face. An angry Andrea was not something anyone wanted to face at the best of times, and the girl could feel a familiar tingle rising in her bottom. The fact that her mother was also standing in the room with a leather paddle held in her hand, only exacerbated the about-to-be-spanked feelings washing through the adolescent receptionist.
Tania stepped forward, yanking her prisoner with her, his hands were now cuffed behind his back. "I can explain this, Andie," she said. "Kim found my foul-mouthed 'friend' here, removing underwear from your line. She chased him, and I happened to be out patrolling on foot."
"You took my panties!" a furious Millicent Campbell accused.
"Mine too!" Desiree Price coolly backed up the young married girl, her teacup still in hand.
"And now mine," Andrea said as she accepted the items of underwear from Kimberley.
"Does anyone want to press charges?" Tania asked.
"I do," Millicent confirmed.
Desiree nodded gently.
"Most definitely," Andrea agreed. She fixed the uncomfortable young man with her jade eyes. "You also caused young Kimberley a good deal of stress, young man. The police may not be able to charge you for that, but if things work out the way I hope they will then I think we'll meet again, and you'll pay for that as well."
The thief tried to hide behind Tania. The chestnut-haired woman with the green eyes scared him. There was just something about her stance, her expression and her voice that told him she could cause him a great deal of discomfort. The name on the shingle outside the shop had not been lost on him either. The red-bottomed, sobbing blonde girl in a corner of the room and the paddle in the hand of the stunning blonde older lady told him exactly what the name outside meant.
Although the crime was met with a bit of good-natured joking down at the police station by the mostly male officers, they all agreed that stealing was a serious offence, and Tania's 'collar' deserved to have the book thrown at him. As one remarked, anyone stilly enough to cross Andrea deserved whatever he got.
"Name?" Tania asked the surly boy in the chair across from him.
Silence.
"Look," Tania sighed. "You're not a local, I know everyone from here. You look like a repeat offender to me. I'm guessing you're around twenty and have probably done time in juvie. You can tell me your name or I'll check online records and get it that way. I'd advise cooperating; it will make things easier on everyone."
The boy looked at the feisty little policewoman and said in a soft voice, "Ryan. Ryan Smith."
"Thank you, Ryan. I'm Tania. Constable Tania Wheeler. If you promise me that you're not going to bolt I'll take the handcuffs off too."
"So what's his name?" Andrea asked Tania over the phone later that day when she had processed the thief.
"Ryan Smith. He's got an interesting history."
"Really? Do you mind if I link Kimmy in? She's got a bit of a vested interest here."
"Not at all."
"Hi Tania!" Kimberley's cheerful voice came on the line.
"Kimberley, we've spoken about this before, young lady. This is police work," Andrea scolded her assistant.
"Okay, sorry, ma'am. Hello Constable Wheeler."
"That's cool, honey. As I was saying to Andrea, his name is Ryan Smith and I was able to get a fair bit of information on him. He was a foster kid, even he doesn't know who his parents were. The Smith is a random name, and I'm not even sure who gave him the name Ryan, but that's how he's legally registered. He bounced from foster home to foster home and from institution to institution..."
"That's a little sad," Andrea said softly.
"It still doesn't mean he can just take stuff off people's clotheslines!" Kimberley said hotly.
"No, it does not excuse his crimes," Andrea agreed.
"Once he was sixteen and no longer able to be cared for by the state he became a drifter. This isn't the first time he's run foul of the law. There are a few shoplifting charges, drunk and disorderly; this is the first time I could find the ladies underwear connection, although one of the shoplifting charges contained a package of panties."
"Do you think it's a sexual fetish?" Andrea asked.
"Ummmm... I'm not sure," Tania answered, blushing hotly. "I'm having him assessed by Dr. Sutcliffe at the moment. She can probably answer that. What I want to know is, if I can get him in to be seen by Judge Thornley today, do you want me to? I've spoken to some of the other victims and they're happy to have this dealt with quickly and will abide by whatever Sandra agrees."
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