by Steve Rayer
Anika was sulking, sitting alone and sulking. All around were people talking, laughing, enjoying drinks served on the lawn and yet the garden chair next to her was unoccupied, the only one in that gathering not taken, emphasising, mocking her isolation. Apart from her hosts, Penny and her husband, Alistair, the army major, she had never before set eyes on anyone there and she was much too shy to stand up and try to join a group in conversation. Penny had done her best to make her feel welcome, but it seemed everyone knew everyone else and Anika was not the type to chat easily to strangers. So, spotting two chairs on the edge of the crowd suddenly become vacant, she had wandered over trying not to hurry and gratefully sank into one of them. Another half hour of this and she would be able to make her polite excuses and leave without any affecting rudeness.
She knew what the problem was, or thought she did. She was too pretty and her light copper-coloured skin in all that white predominance did rather set her apart. What man under the watchful gaze of that respectable group would want to be caught out chatting up a pretty Indian girl? And the ladies? Don't even think about it! They weren't being deliberately unkind but with true English reserve simply didn't know how to handle her, what to talk about, fearful of saying the wrong thing... or so she thought. The idea that no one might want to approach this sulky creature never crossed her mind.
The newspapers recently had been full of a new trend they'd picked up, something they had dubbed 'The Swinging Sixties'. Oh yeah, she mused, fat chance they have of swinging for me!
However, sitting all alone gave her time to think over the little scene she had accidentally stumbled upon.
Penny, Irish to the soles of her feet, was a physiotherapist at the general hospital where Anika worked as a staff nurse. They were both second generation immigrants, a coincidence which had drawn them together from the start even though their financial circumstances were so different. What a contrast was Penny's comfortable home to the tiny house in a mean side street, which Anika and her mother shared! When occasion demanded, Anika would baby-sit for Penny's two small children, leaving her own little boy, Thomas, in the care of her mother. If nothing else, it helped to supplement a nurse's meagre salary.
And how fascinated she was by the loving tactile relationship between Penny and Alistair, so different from her own experience. More than once she had seen Alistair deliver a playful sharp smack to his wife's backside and Penny would jump with an 'ooh' exclamation and then laugh and kiss him. Sometimes that smack could be altogether more serious when needed. Penny had a natural sharp temper, prone to display far too often and Anika was secretly amused at the resounding wallop her friend would receive, followed by the command, "Stop that, behave yourself!"
It always worked. Penny would massage her bum, then that rueful little smile appeared followed by the forgiving hug and long drawn out kiss. Anika always pretended not to notice. Love of such intensity had quite passed her by.
One incident left her wondering. Penny had asked her to baby-sit and suddenly, just before the day shift was over, had come onto the ward telling her not to bother, her services were not wanted that evening, thank you very much. She seemed reluctant to leave, chatting of nothing in particular and then muttering, "Well, I suppose I must go face the music," had departed. Next morning Anika was watching her work, moving from patient to patient along the ward. Something was not quite right, not her usual flexibility, particularly when she needed to lean over and take some of the weight of the patient.
"Back problems was it?" Anika had asked in all innocence, only to receive the puzzling response, "Think lower down plus strap!"
She didn't know what to make of it.
She hadn't particularly wanted to come to the garden party today but she knew Alistair and Penny were trying to be kind to her, so what better than to show appreciation by arriving an hour early to help out with the arrangements? Being a regular visitor, she had her own front door key and let herself in, to be startled by the sounds from the kitchen. Peering round the door she beheld Alistair, seated, with Penny stretched across his knees, skirt up, knickers lowered and his hand coming down again and again, hard, on her upturned bare bottom. Smack, smack, smack... this was no playful spanking, this was the real McCoy.
"I warned you, I warned you," he repeated, without interrupting his task.
"Please, please, I promise, I promise," she gasped in return, legs kicking in a curious scissor movement, helpless in her husband's firm grip. Anika gaped, fascinated: no one could accuse Penny of being overweight, indeed her figure was toned and trim but just look at the way her bottom bounced and quivered in time to the rhythm of the spanking! Red it was and would be even redder before this was finished.
Smack, smack, smack... Alistair had grabbed a wooden spoon from the kitchen table and was now using that in slow time. Penny squealed, kicked, knickers went flying, bottom rippled. Anika crept quietly from the house and walked down the drive.
What should she do? What could she do? Could she, a coloured girl do anything? Who was going to listen to her? Obviously Alistair and Penny would never live together again, how sad, and those poor children! Hey and the other guests would be arriving in less than an hour. What would they make of it all? Better to take a walk round the neighbourhood and wait for them.
She forced herself to stay away for an hour before daring to approach the house. Strange: cars parked in the drive and in the road, everything normal. Inside, she found a party in full swing: Alistair, his usual urbane self, Penny, a little flushed it was true and her eyes brighter than usual but otherwise delighting in her role of hostess. She was sporting a pair of white trousers, fashionably close-fitting round the hips and Anika wondered how she got her bum so smooth, neatly curved, with no knickers outline on show. She looked radiant and it tickled Anika to think that apart from Alistair she was the only one present to know of the soreness those trousers concealed.
Someone had put a glass into Anika's hand and she was sitting, alone, sun in her eyes, making her drink last out until it was time safely to escape, when this tall shape stopped in front of her; she couldn't see him properly for the sun.
"Good afternoon," said the shape, "the chair next to you is the only one left vacant. I've been on my feet all day and the chance to sit down would be most welcome. Would it disturb you unduly if I sat for a while? I promise I won't say a word. I could of course move the chair further apart from you but that would make us both look plain silly, don't you think?"
Now this was a chat-up line new to her, quite startling, and not knowing what to make of it, she'd uttered some sound of acquiescence which the stranger clearly understood as a reply in the affirmative and without further comment had settled himself in the chair and because she couldn't think of anything to say and the stranger had promised not to say anything, there they both sat, quiet and still, two human statues.
This couldn't go on. Anika was becoming more and more uncomfortable. Say something, say anything, English white society always talked about the weather didn't they? Worth a try.
"Turned out nice, hasn't it."
Was that a stifled laugh from him? The cheek of the man! She'd made the attempt, done her best.
"Yes but they're forecasting rain for tomorrow." The tone was mockingly serious.
Right then, think I'm being funny do you? Ok smarty pants, two can play that game. "It rained yesterday don't forget," she said.
"True. April is the cruellest month."
He'd quoted the first line of a famous poem, one dear to her heart. Scarcely bothering to think, she supplied him with the next line: "Breeding lilacs out of the dead land."
"Mixing memory and desire," he responded.
"Stirring dull roots with spring rain."
She wasn't going to give way, neither was he and so they continued line by line in a sort of spoken antiphon until he simply had to laugh.
"Alright," he said, "we've proved to our mutual satisfaction we both know our T.S. Eliot; do you like the part that begins ..." and he was off, quoting whole passages from memory. So was Anika. At last, at last she'd found someone to whom she could really talk, someone who shared her delight in the word imagery they were tossing back and forth. How many times she had cursed herself for turning down a place at university, instead of which...
Three years she could have spent studying words, literature, poetry, language, creative writing: all that opportunity thrown away.
"Richard, phone call for you, urgent they say!" Penny had hurried from the house to where they were sitting.
"Oh darn it! Back in a minute," he said to Anika. "Keep my place for me."
She watched them go. Middle thirties or above she placed him, not a bad looker, academic type, well he must be with all that knowledge, a college lecturer perhaps. Odd how Penny had come to know him; certainly they seemed on familiar terms.
Penny was looking fantastic in those white trousers, no denying it, a vision of cool elegance: the way from the stretch at the hips they fell loose to her ankles, displaying her perfect bottom for all to admire. Poor, shy Anika could only marvel at her self-confidence. Next time she baby-sat for her, and the children tucked up in bed and asleep, she would sneak them from her wardrobe, try them on for herself, wriggle into them. She was about the same height and shape as Penny so they should fit ok ... see how her bum looked, see how it compared to Penny's. There was another reason: all nonsense of course but it would be interesting to imagine what a sore bottom would feel like in them.
And now her college lecturer was returning, full of apology. He was so sorry, he had been called away urgently, such a pity, he was enjoying their conversation, they must get together sometime and have a jolly old chin-wag.
"You never told me your name. Anika you say? Lovely sound: is that with an i or an e in the middle? Anika with an i. Right, got that. I'm Richard by the way," he said, and then he was gone.
Penny wandered across. Anika tried not to smile at the way she half knelt on the chair. Clearly, the act of sitting down had its problems for this lady. That wooden spoon was broad and solid enough to cause bruising.
"Congratulations," said Penny, "you certainly seemed to have impressed the colonel and he's not easily impressed, believe me!"
"The who?" For the second time that afternoon, Anika was gaping open mouthed.
"The colonel, Alistair's boss."
"But... but I thought he was a college lecturer!"
"Yes, he's quite the intellectual isn't he? I'm told he was destined for an academic career but the army got him for National Service. He managed to distinguish himself as a young lieutenant in Korea but then he was taken prisoner, escaped, caught again and the Chinese guards gave him hell and solitary. Worse still, he was posted as missing and when he got back to this country, the girl he fancied had gone off and married someone else."
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