by Jacqueline Scott
Alice Oakley was puzzled and confused, not to mention having feelings of guilt. Married to Charles and with two lovely daughters, Matilda (known to everyone as Tilly) and Anne, there was on the surface at any rate, absolutely no reason why she should be experiencing any of these emotions. Money was not a problem ... Charles was qualified in both law and accountancy, had risen rapidly through the ranks of one of the major accountancy practices and had been in a perfect position to take advantage of the explosion in business consultancy. He was ten years older than Alice and came from a wealthy background quite apart from the money he earned professionally.
Earlier that year they had celebrated their silver wedding. Tilly was spending a year at a college in Switzerland prior to going up to university in the following autumn while Anne was in the sixth form at a small but exclusive boarding school and both girls were clearly highly intelligent as well as attractive. The whole family was healthy and there seemed no reason for anything to be disturbing Alice. And yet somehow she felt dissatisfied in a way she found difficult to explain to herself never mind articulate to anybody else. Indeed part of her confusion related to something she did not want to articulate to anyone, even Charles.
"Get yourself a job dear! Or take a lover! Or better still - both!"
She had, probably mistakenly, partly confided in her good friend Caroline Farningham who she met for lunch each Tuesday. Alice smiled - Caroline was always quite dramatic.
"I mean it! The alternative is to go nuts! You just said that yourself."
"Oh for goodness sake, Caroline, what on earth would I do?"
"What ... with a lover? My God, Alice things must be much worse than you've told me if you don't know that!"
"Behave yourself, Caroline! You know what I mean. I've never had a paid job in my life. What on earth could I do?"
"Lots of things. You've a good degree. And you've been organising Charles's home life for over twenty five years now, not to mention the whole family. That doesn't just happen, you know. You must have plenty of skills. You're attractive. You could probably work for any professional firm. Receptionist would be ideal, to start with at any rate - or something like a job-share with somebody similar. I'm sure there are a number of opportunities if you want to look for them. For example I'm sure you could be somebody's PA with a bit of experience. And an office-type environment would mean that you got to meet lots of different people. That would be good for you. Might get you a lover that way too!"
"Oh yes! I can just see mousey little me doing that!"
"Well maybe, but at least you would be meeting people. The internet. That's another way. Get on the internet and find yourself somebody. I'm told that's the way to do it these days. Internet dating - that's what everybody is doing."
They sparred and joshed each other for ages in this vein but eventually Alice admitted somewhat reluctantly that a part-time job might be more readily available than she had ever imagined.
Later, turning the conversation over in her mind again she reproached herself for not challenging Caroline on how she had solved the problem. In many ways they were very similar. Maybe Caroline had a lover. And indeed why not, as she had been divorced now for about eighteen months. Alice found herself intrigued at the possibility. She, herself, had certainly never dreamed of such a thing!
In many ways Alice was quiet and unassuming, shy really. It was true that sex with Charles had all but dried up. He was away so much for a start, sometimes for weeks at a time, and when he was home he always seemed to be so busy that their sexual activities had more or less stopped. It was something that she had accepted, assuming that after twenty five years most couples would be like that. That wasn't what bothered her. It was a much darker thing she dreamed about.
For reasons that she could not understand, Alice had become fascinated by the idea of spanking. And she was sure that Charles would NEVER have anything to do with that. He had always been a straightforward 'missionary position' man and really very strait-laced. He had met Alice when she was still at University and her experience of men before him had been very limited, so her own expectations of sexual activity were fairly low. Why then she had developed this interest in what Charles would certainly regard as a perversion, was beyond her. Her mother had spanked her occasionally when she was quite young but she didn't think it could be anything to do with that - she had never thought of it as odd at the time and indeed had never thought about at all for years!
She did know, however, exactly when this fascination - obsession, perhaps - had started to take hold of her, but not why. Around six months previously they had received a letter from her younger daughter's school. The letter explained that Anne and a number of other girls had been caught one evening 'rather inebriated'. The letter did not go on to elaborate on the specifics of the incident but informed them that the whole group had been severely punished in line with the school rules. Any repeat offence would result in expulsion.
Charles had shown little interest in the matter, treating it as if it was the sort of thing that happened to teenagers and that presumably Anne would have learnt a lesson from the incident. Alice, however, had felt that at the very least she should ask her daughter about it and so when Anne came home for the holidays she had challenged her.
"Anne, what was this letter that the school sent to your father and me all about?"
Her daughter went pink and tried to shrug it off, but pressing from Alice eventually led to her confessing.
"Umm, well, a few of us bought some booze in the town and, like well ... you know, had a bit of a session that evening. We weren't that bad ... I mean not totally pissed or anything. But a Prefect discovered us and we were all hauled up before the Head."
"The letter said you were severely punished. What did that entail?"
"Oh Mum ... you don't need to know. It's over."
"Well Anne I do want to know. I don't like to think of you misbehaving at school. I don't like it at all. So I want to know what happened. For all I know it wasn't that severe a punishment and your father and I should add to it to bring home our displeasure properly. It costs a fortune to keep you at that school you know. I think the least I can expect is for you to behave properly."
Alice hadn't really meant to go on in a slightly pompous way like that but Anne's attempt to shrug the whole thing off had annoyed her. It had the required effect however, and Anne flushed crimson.
"Well if you must know we were all beaten."
The word sounded so archaic that Alice didn't understand at first.
"Beaten? What do you mean beaten?"
"Oh God Mum. We were bent over a chair and had our bums paddled. Surely you know what the rules are ... you sent me there!"
Now it was Alice's turn to flush. It had never occurred to her that such a thing could happen to a girl. She certainly had never taken much interest in the rules of the establishment that Tilly and Anne had been attending.
"You were spanked on your bottom? Bent over and spanked over your skirts?"
"Jeez Mum! Must you have all the gory details! Each of us in turn went across a chair, had our skirt raised, knickers taken down and whacked with this leather sort of paddle thing. Six times. And if you want to know - it was bloody sore!"
Alice was so taken aback that she readily dropped the subject and let Anne go. Her mind was in a turmoil and all that day she kept thinking of these girls being spanked on their bare bottoms. She didn't mention it to Charles but in her mind images kept appearing and that night in bed she found great difficulty in getting to sleep. Ever since then the subject had been in her mind like an itch that needed scratching.
On a Saturday morning about a week after her lunch with Caroline she received a call from her.
"Alice, have you thought any more about taking a job? Because I may have found something for you?"
It transpired that Caroline knew one of the partners in a firm of solicitors based in Oxford, the nearest town to the village. She had discovered that they were looking for a part-time receptionist / general office worker to cover for a forthcoming maternity absence. When her friend mentioned that it would be good to get somebody with a bit of maturity rather than a youngster who would probably find it difficult to relate to the clients and then leave after a couple of months, Caroline immediately thought of Alice.
"Oh, I don't know, Caroline, I would need to talk to Charles and I'm really not sure if he would approve ..."
"Come on Alice Oakley! Start taking some responsibility for your own life!"
Caroline sounded quite cross with her.
"I'll tell you what I'll do. Why don't you meet Sarah and me for a drink one evening and we can talk about it quite informally. How about Monday? I'll ask Sarah if she can come here about 8 o'clock."
Despite feeling a bit pressured Alice eventually agreed and Caroline rang off. Charles had been playing golf that morning and came home about 1.00 looking quite happy with himself. Alice took the opportunity over lunch to raise the question of a job. To her surprise he made no objections at all. In fact he was quite encouraging about the idea, especially when she said that it would almost certainly be part-time only.
After dinner the following Monday, therefore, Alice changed into a smart trouser suit and walked round to Caroline's house, arriving just after eight o'clock. There Caroline introduced her to Sarah Fox-Martin who, it transpired, was responsible for staffing matters at Jobson, Rawlings and Smith, the Oxford firm of solicitors that Caroline had mentioned.
"There are five partners and each of us takes responsibility for one area of the business, quite apart from our general client work," Sarah explained.
She was quite a bit taller than Alice, around 5' 10", and carried her height with elegance and poise. Her colouring was a total contrast to Alice's fair complexion, having very dark, almost black, hair and brown eyes that looked straight at whoever she was talking to in a sort of penetrating way. She appeared to be about the same age as Alice and her friend and it later became clear that she had attended the same school as Caroline.
The next couple of hours went very quickly. Sarah described the practice and in particular what was involved in the job about to become vacant.
"To be honest, Alice, what we are looking for is somebody with plain common-sense. There is not much more needed - anybody can learn the systems and procedures we use very quickly. None of it is exactly rocket science. Far more important is an ability to face members of the public pleasantly and with intelligence and thereby keep us partners happy."
After that the conversation appeared to move on to more general topics and it was only later that Alice realised that she had been answering a lot of questions from Sarah. Sitting in a comfortable room over a couple of glasses of very pleasant wine it was easy to forget that she was going through almost a practice interview.
Eventually Sarah drained her glass, stretched, stood up and said, "Well one of us at least has to work tomorrow. I had better get going. Caroline, thank you for the hospitality - it has been a very pleasant evening. Alice, give me a ring at the office, I would really like to talk to you again."
She handed Alice a business card and after a further few perfunctory remarks she said goodnight and left. Alice was all set to go as well but when Caroline came back into the room from seeing Sarah out she insisted that Alice had another glass of wine.
"Think of it as a night cap."
"Just a small one then, Caroline."
Her friend topped up her glass and then said, "Well - what did you think? Will you 'phone her?"
Alice thought for a little and then replied, "I'm not sure ... I'm just not sure I could cope after all these years of being at home ..."
"Oh come on Alice! You heard Sarah. They're only looking for common sense and you have that in abundance! Of course you must take the job!"
"Oh I don't know ... maybe. Certainly she was very reassuring and the hours would suit - 10 to 5, three days a week would leave me plenty time to do other things and it wouldn't affect Charles at all really." She paused for a few seconds and then went on. "Tell me more about Sarah. You were at school with her?"
"Yes. I didn't know her that well at school - she was a year ahead of me. Also, she mixed with a different crowd. She was always at the forefront of things while I was a quiet little mouse at school. She was always very much a leader ... Captain of Hockey, Head Girl ... that sort of thing. And very bright. I'm not surprised she has done well for herself."
"If you didn't know her well at school, how come you know each other now?"
Alice was slightly taken aback when her friend became slightly flustered. "Oh ... just ... just coincidence really. I saw a little of her at University but ... we sort of lost touch after that. Then when Tom and I came here and needed a lawyer - when we were buying the house, I mean, there she was. She acted for us at that time. She wasn't a partner then, of course, but I'm not surprised that she is now. Then she helped me with the divorce."
"Is she married?"
"No."
Alice looked at Caroline expecting some follow up to this bald statement, but none was forthcoming. Caroline then changed the subject and shortly afterwards Alice went home.
The next day she pondered over that conversation. Caroline had definitely seemed sort of flustered when asked about meeting up with Sarah again. Alice was sure she hadn't imagined it. It was as if she needed to gather her thoughts before coming out with the explanation about meeting her professionally when Caroline and her husband had bought their house. And yet that appeared to be a perfectly logical and natural explanation. So what was there to be flustered about? Eventually she shrugged to herself and decided she was seeing puzzles that weren't there.
Caroline had mentioned that she couldn't make lunch that Tuesday so Alice was on her own all day. After lunch she found herself drawn to her computer and within a few minutes she was signed into an internet chat room under the name of 'curious susan'. It was a chat room specialising in devotees of spanking that Alice had found some weeks ago. Shortly after discovering about Anne's punishment she had found herself sitting at her computer one afternoon and on impulse she had typed 'spanking' into Google and had been astonished at the number of entries. At first they scared her with the number and variety and she avoided the internet for a few days. Then while reading a magazine at her hairdresser's she found an article that talked about how something called chat rooms were becoming hugely popular and how nobody used their real name when in these 'rooms'. That afternoon she had added 'chat room' to her spanking search and after a few false starts she found a site that didn't need a credit card number to join, and made her first tentative steps into this strange world as 'curious susan'.
It had taken a number of visits before she was comfortable with it. At first there seemed to be lots of men wanting to make contact with her, some of whom made extremely lewd suggestions which caused her to blush and, at first, disconnect. Gradually she learnt to ignore these and eventually found a 'room' that appeared to be for women only. Since then she had had a number of chats with other people and had become quite friendly with two other 'chatters' in particular ... 'Pamela36' and 'emma40uk'.
The latter was the first person with whom she had had any sort of long conversations. While Alice admitted that she had no real experience of spanking emma told her that she had been spanked by her mother until she was 16. When Alice expressed astonishment that she should be spanked at such an age, emma began to explain.
"Well I always was a bit of a tomboy and I was forever getting into trouble. My mother was very strict but even though I knew that, somehow I could never turn down a dare. And very often that led me to being over her knees with a bare bottom up in the air!"
"Even so, 16 seems a bit old does it not?"
"Well, that last time was a bit special actually. I had been out with a friend and came home very late and smelling of ciggies and booze."
"Oh! I see. Well then maybe you deserved it?"
"Yes I did I think ... really. But she went mad and took a leather strap to me. God that was sore!"
Alice was reflecting that perhaps Anne's school were not so unique as she had thought when emma messaged again.
"Can I tell you a secret?"
"Go on."
"Afterwards I used to lie face down on my bed and well ... you know ..."
"What?"
"Well ... played with myself. I had some amazing cums like that. If mum had known she would probably have spanked me again! Lol."
Not to be reposted, reproduced or distributed, in part or whole.