by DJ Black
The Russell Corner is an exploration of erotic discipline. At its core is love and the unconditional love of various submissive women for their dominants. Women are very much at the heart of the story. Indeed the only man to be more than cursorily treated is the nominal hero.
Richard Russell is a patriarch who loves his wife and daughters and genuinely values his friend and faithful secretary, while his secretary can only envy the severe punishment he hands out to his two eldest daughters at his office. It is her obsession with the corner in his office that gives the story its name.
But the true narrative of the story is carried by Catherine Raven and her relationship with her stepdaughter Eleanor. Although she secretly yearns for the submission of her former married life, widowhood has forced her into the role of dominant. She is on a mission to complete her late husband's will to mould Eleanor into her father's worthy successor.
Eleanor herself is an intelligent, independent woman who clearly need not submit to her stepmother's tyranny, but at heart must because it is the only way that she can address her submissive needs. Again it is really love and a desire to gain Catherine's respect that motivates her scheming.
For most of the women in the story it is necessary to pretend to be reluctant submissives, even to themselves, or else their world will be exposed as a game and come crashing down.
The story is set around Easter 1990. This removes it in time while still allowing it a contemporary feel. This not only serves to provide it with sense of unreality but is a world before mobile phones and the Internet, which could otherwise inhibit the plot.
The plot itself is not a detailed one. It often merely serves as a hook on which to hang various punishment scenarios. But more importantly it allows for characters to be developed through an exploration of their motivations.
The Russell Corner stands as a metaphor for each of the submissives in the story and their quest to be loved and protected for the price of submission.
Dr David Roman, Hampstead, London, 2009
Annie sat quietly at the Blake household breakfast table and nibbled at her toast. Mr Blake had already left for work and Amy was stomping around the next room in a foul mood as usual.
"Is there something wrong with your breakfast?" Mrs Blake asked.
"No, everything is fine," she replied unconvincingly.
"I don't think her mum is very happy that she stayed over last night," Tiffany added helpfully.
"Nonsense. It was far too late for you to get home by the time you arrived here last night, you had to stay," Mrs Blake said.
"I think that's the trouble," Tiffany replied.
"Mother says she will speak to me about it tonight." Annie spoke in a voice close to a whisper while biting her lower lip.
"I see, paying the piper later are we? You won't be alone, I think Mr Blake wants to 'speak' to Tiffany later as well," Mrs Blake smiled grimly at Tiffany.
Tiffany's jaw dropped in horror. "Mum, it wasn't our fault; we missed the last train."
"The last train goes at 11.30, you were supposed to be on the 10 o'clock train," her mother said firmly.
Tiffany scowled at her across the table. The band had done three encores and then there had been those boys with the motorbikes. They had managed a taxi in the end and luckily her father had been in bed when they got home. She had hoped he hadn't noticed that she was still out. Her eyes shifted nervously to the corner of the dining room where she would no doubt be standing that evening instead of having a family meal. Amy will love it, she thought grimly.
Similar thoughts were running through Annie's mind, but at least she took some comfort from the fact her mother would be dealing with her. Her elder sisters were usually dealt with by her father. His methods were more painful and infinitely more embarrassing.
"Come on, we'll be late," Amy called from the hallway, angry as ever.
"Yes, girls, I'll drive you to school."
Janet Russell was furious with her youngest daughter. She was supposed to have been home by 11 the previous evening. When Amber Blake had phoned her at 11.15 to say that the girls had not arrived there yet, all her husband had said was 'she'll be along, don't worry'.
He was always amiable and indulgent with his youngest. She wondered if he would ever take on responsibility for disciplining her now that she had turned 18.
She wasn't going to be indulgent when Annie got home. After a long firm 'talk' someone was going to eat the evening meal off the mantle. It particularly irked her because Richard had been working late in recent nights and with Alice and Charlotte away at college, she would be sitting at the dining table alone that evening.
The disgruntled redhead let out a long sigh of exasperation, her hands neatly clasped in her lap as she reviewed recent events.
Janet knew that her husband had to work later to make up on recent lost orders. It was nevertheless still hard being home most of the day on her own. It would be another week before Charlie, as she liked to be known, came home and another two before Alice's Easter break.
Richard sat at his desk trying to make sense of the latest sales figures, but the delivery dates didn't match all the orders. Apparently half the stuff had been delivered before it had even been ordered and most of the rest had been delivered before it had even left the depot. He would have handed it back to Sarah, but she hadn't yet arrived. It was no doubt her error in the first place. Everywhere he looked there were troublesome women.
He was not oblivious to Annie's latest escapade. He had been opposed to her midweek concert in the first place, but as usual Janet was too soft on the 18-year-old. He was beginning to wonder if it wasn't time he stepped in. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the trouble they had had with Charlie.
"Good morning, Mr Russell," Sarah called form the outer office.
"So glad you could join us," he replied.
"Dental appointment," she replied, puzzled by his tone.
"Dental... ah yes sorry I completely forgot. In that case why are you here already? How did it go?"
"No problems and I went straight in."
"Glad to hear it. Sarah, can you have a look at these figures, they appear to be... well nonsense frankly."
Sarah Hope had been Richard Russell's PA and general assistant for almost three years. At 24 with five years' work experience, she felt equal to the task of PA. The trouble was she was not equal to the task of de facto deputy general manager, which effectively she was.
Their office was a large glass box high above the warehouse floor where goods came in and went out again. Much of her job was working out what came from where, when, how much it cost and how much it sold for. She had been trying to get to grips with the new software for weeks, but it was confusing when it came to dates. The clerks down on the floor all had their own system of entering in the figures, which didn't matter with a manual system but it started to be a problem when she came to enter the figures into the computer. She really needed to get everyone to standardise or spend two or three nights working late to make the system compensate. However, recently Mr Russell had kept her working late and she hadn't found the time.
Not that she minded. The petite blonde loved her job. The thing she found most interesting was managing Mr Russell's time and making his work schedule fit around the soap opera of his family life.
It had been quiet on the home front for a few weeks, which was just as well as it was far from quiet at work, but over the next few weeks his daughters would be home and it would begin to get interesting again. Charlie was sure to get into hot water sooner than later. That would be too good to miss, so no wonder she had turned down Mr Russell's offer of time off over the Easter holiday.
The Fairbanks Academy was as exclusive as it was unusual. Margaret Spencer had been teaching in public schools for 14 years before a chance meeting with Miss Amelia Fairbanks whilst on holiday in Switzerland. She had been 34 and increasingly disillusioned with her career in education. At that time she was considered too young to move up in the average public school hierarchy and the thought of teaching over-privileged brats for another 25 years had been a depressing prospect.
She had met Amelia Fairbanks, the only other women travelling alone, over breakfast one morning and soon discovered that she ran a small private school in England. Miss Fairbanks had been closed-lipped about the school but had seemed most interested in Margaret's views on education for young women.
"The most I can do with these stuck-up brats is to set an imposition or send them to the head for a dressing down. The most she ever does is send a note home to daddy," she had moaned, glad at last to unburden herself of her growing frustration. "Then most of them are sent off to some over-expensive finishing school, where it is already too late to improve their obnoxious disposition."
Miss Fairbanks had sympathised but had added, enigmatically, that it wasn't necessarily too late. She had asked what Margaret would do if she had a free hand. Margaret had replied, at the risk of seeming unfashionable, that she would like to give them a good thrashing.
Miss Fairbanks had asked if she had been disciplined that way when she was growing up. Margaret had blushed and admitted that she hadn't, adding with bravado that perhaps it would have been better if she had.
"I attended my mother's school in Hampshire during the war and for some time after as a student teacher," Miss Fairbanks confided. "As a child my father had spoilt me, much to Mother's chagrin, and as a consequence I had a poor disciplinary record and even worse academic one. Then my father had gone off to the war, never to return as it turned out, leaving me to my mother's tender mercy."
"The school she kept was a finishing school that specialised in educating young women who had been an embarrassment in some way and lacked discipline. You see my mother had been sponsored during the 1920s by my father's parents. She had been charged to take to task wayward flappers, including their own daughter. Having had a stern Edwardian upbringing, complete with an uncompromising Prussian governess, her methods were very much of the old fashioned kind."
"She believed that punishment should be prolonged, painful and as embarrassing as possible. My grandparents were greatly impressed and from small beginnings her informal establishment grew into the school it is today."
"I learnt first-hand from 16 that it is never too late to set a young woman on the right path. Then at the age of 26, I became my mother's deputy and five years after that I assumed the headship."
"Surely such methods are not allowed today," Margaret had asked incredulously.
It being then 1976, Margaret thought it was the fashionable thing to say. But she had been assured that there were many families that shared Margaret's analysis of modern education and were prepared to send their 18-year-old (or older) daughters to the right kind of establishment.
Miss Fairbanks had explained that the school was divided into a modern educational establishment where young women came for short courses and a long-term residential 'more disciplined' environment.
Margaret had listened intently as the story unfolded and over the following days Miss Fairbanks and Margaret had become friends.
What had also become clear to Miss Fairbanks at this time, was that Margaret fell woefully short of her aspiration in terms of self-discipline and her own personal achievement. When she pointed this out, Margaret had blushed and whispered quietly, "I know."
Then Miss Fairbanks had told Margaret that her mother had continued to discipline her until shortly before her death 11 years before. Margaret had gasped, both amused and embarrassed at the idea. But also she had been intrigued.
"You mean..." she could not say it.
"I had my last thrashing from my mother shortly after my 40th birthday in 1964. I had treated my mother to an outburst of whining and general negativity about my short-comings and other inadequacies that had been entirely within my control," Miss Fairbanks confided firmly, adding: "An attitude much like the one you displayed the day we met."
A long silence had followed and Margaret had scowled angrily as she stared off to the serene scene of the Alps on the other side of Lac Lehman, acutely ashamed and knowing Miss Fairbanks was right.
"What... how... exactly... I mean your mother... that day...?" she had said finally.
"I think," Miss Fairbanks replied, "I am going to show you."
She had shown her; long, painful and as embarrassingly as possible. Her punishment had taken place over two days in the semi-privacy of Miss Fairbanks' chalet. Then afterwards she had offered Margaret a job.
Margaret rubbed her bottom absently and smiled as she sipped her morning tea, remembering. It had been three years since Amelia had retired, making her a full partner and head of Fairbanks Academy.
Not that it had been easy. Her own deputy, the 33-year-old Samantha Benwell, had been difficult to recruit given the nature of the more discreet side of the school. Although she was effective enough in her own way, being especially good at handling the more public educational side, she was woefully lacking in other ways, much as Margaret herself had been at the same age.
All this Margaret began to ponder as she put down the tea and picked up the recent academic reports.
It hadn't been her fault, well not entirely. If Bex and Zoe hadn't started on the whole vegetarian thing at breakfast, then the food fight would never have begun. Charlie now found herself standing outside the house mother's office facing the wall alongside Bex and Zoe.
None of the girls dared speak; they were for it with no chance of reprieve, but a repentant attitude now might just buy them a stay of execution until after classes. Although it was less than half an hour before class, they were under the supervision of their house mother, Joanna Michaels, until they were dismissed.
Any lateness would be reported to Ms Benwell and that meant at least one demerit. Demerits meant punishment and 10 demerits meant a visit to Ms Spencer's office. Charlie would almost rather face her father, almost.
The door opened and Ms Michaels ushered them into the office.
"Charlotte Russell, I might have known, and joined by Zoe Bourne and Rebecca Bexhill this time. Having fun with the bread rolls it seems. Term nearly over is it? Well mess-up-week is for school kids and you girls are supposed to be young ladies."
The lecture lasted 20 minutes before they were cordially invited to return, the moment classes were over, to take their places facing the wall outside again. The girls had to run all the way to block B.
"She does it on purpose," Bex gasped.
"Its alright for you. I'm already on eight demerits," Zoe replied.
"Eight! I am on nine," Charlie wailed as she put on an extra spurt.
Catherine was late. And Catherine Raven hated being late. Her driver, Macy Spake, was not going to be sitting comfortably on her seat for the rest of the week once Catherine got through with her that evening. Macy was not going to be sitting much on any seat for some time to come.
Catherine Raven Like her daughter and stepdaughter was beautiful and raven-haired and at 40 she was the head of Raven Developments, her late husband's company. This was a situation that she had known Charles would have regretted, and Charles Raven had regretted very little in his long life, very little that is except that he had had no son.
Catherine herself had started out as Charles's PA before graduating to the position as the 21-year-old trophy wife of her 50-year-old boss. Not that it hadn't been a love match, she mused.
Oh Charles, she thought bitterly, why aren't you here? I don't want any of this. Not for the first time she regretted that Eleanor was not ready.
Eleanor was a daughter by Charles' first marriage and although Catherine loved her as her own, the girl was more than a trial sometimes.
Charles brought up Eleanor as if she were a son, but she had still been too young to succeed him in the company when he fell ill and Catherine had proved more than capable.
Catherine was fiercely loyal to her late husband's memory and fully intended to hand on the reins to Eleanor as soon as she was ready, but that was not to be for some time. She had never found a man to replace her husband and she privately craved to be taken in hand.
"I trust the car will be fully functional by the time I am ready to go home?" she said to Macy as she glided out of the rear passenger seat.
"Yes, Ma'am," Macy replied, knowing better than to show anything but deference.
"Then I shall see you later and we will have words."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Catherine breezed into the office wearing her razor sharp business suit with its trademark pencil-skirt literally cutting through everyone's attention.
The lower floors of Raven House were open plan and the departments in it were overseen by managers reporting only to Catherine. And the only thing she was interested in was results. She did not care how her managers ran their departments as long as they got them.
One of her few weaknesses was that she despised weak men. This, she knew, often impaired her judgement. If a female manager failed her, she provided suitable motivation or ruthlessly demoted her until she shaped up. Few had ever quit and Catherine almost never dismissed a female employee. However when it came to men, they shaped up or shipped out. Consequently her office was largely staffed by women.
This was especially true of her personal staff. Perhaps, she often mused, she was afraid of letting men get too close or having undue influence over her.
As she emerged from the lift into the outer office reception on the top floor she was confronted by Rachel Stark's bare bottom. Rachel was Catherine's loyal Executive PA and had been with Catherine for 11 years.
Rachel had started as the Admin Assistant aged 19 when Catherine had first taken over from her husband. But the girl had risen fast as Catherine had cleared out the dead wood accumulated during her husband's illness.
From the first Rachel had responded well to Catherine's firm-handed methods and at 30 Rachel was often still in need of being put in her place and Catherine was always there to oblige.
Rachel stood hands on head facing the wall opposite the lift dressed in her office attire except for her skirt and knickers, which were folded neatly on her desk. Catherine noted with satisfaction that Melanie Dale, her secretary, and Pippa Jones, the Admin Assistant, were studiously taking no notice of Rachel's predicament.
Rachel had taken her eye off the ball and allowed a junior manager to miss some report deadlines. She had been required to come to work half an hour early and await Catherine's arrival embarrassingly exposed.
"Good morning, girls," Catherine said cheerily.
"Good morning, Ma'am," Rachel replied sullenly.
Catherine had taken 20 minutes to catch-up on important correspondence and check the morning newspapers for any emerging issues that could affect her business. She was now sitting back watching Rachel through the one-way office glass. Although Rachel had quite a small bottom compared with some, it stood well out in profile and was neat and round and an almost perfect dome.
Catherine had disciplined Rachel many times over the last 11 years and she must have spanked her more than 200 times alone, not counting a few dozen harsher sessions. Rachel was always mortified that she had failed Catherine and was always so tearfully repentant. Not like the stoic Melanie with her gasps and groans and her 'sorry Ma'ams' and her 'thank you Ma'ams', who almost never cried.
Catherine contemplated a prolonged two-parter, a 10 or 15 minute sustained spanking with the heavy clothes brush followed by another 30 minutes facing the wall outside, for the edification of the other two girls. Perhaps she would even summon one or two staff from downstairs on some pretext or other. Rachel would really hate that. Then perhaps a letter of apology on top of her work, thanking Catherine for her punishment. She would of course be required to stay in over lunch and after work to make up for lost time, before another session involving the strap.
Outside the office Rachel was struggling to hold back the tears. She would not be able to look the other girls in the eye for at least a week. It made her job so much harder being their senior. Melanie could usually barely hide the smirk, although Pippa always looked pensive as if in fear of her next session or perhaps back to her last.
It was not as if it were the first time, but the humiliation never lessened. She remembered back to the end of the second week that Catherine had taken over. The old office manager had been sacked on day two, the two senior secretaries by the end of the first week. Catherine had summoned her into the office and calmly and coldly listed Rachel's failings, including being caught twice in the ladies' room reapplying her make-up in work time and being back late back from lunch almost every day.
Rachel had been asked point-blank whether she even cared about the job. Catherine had then laid out her whole vision of where Raven Developments was going and what could be achieved. Rachel had felt privileged to be let in on Catherine's private thoughts and ashamed that she had been so useless.
"Please give me another chance, Ma'am," she had begged.
Then Catherine had asked a question that had changed Rachel's life.
"Were you ever caned at school?"
Ten minutes later Rachel was bare bottom over Catherine's knee getting her first ever spanking. Catherine had used an old tennis shoe she had found in a desk and seemed to know how best to use it. At first, despite the acute embarrassment, it hadn't been as bad as either of the two canings she had got at school. Then the sting had merged into one continuous burn that went on and on.
Rachel just clung to her boss's knees, her sobs competing with her howls. All she could think of was what if someone comes in. Then all she could think of was her bottom.
When it was finally over Catherine had sent her to stand and face the office wall, telling her firmly that they would begin over if she either moved or allowed her skirt to cover her bare bottom. Rachel had stood there until all crying had ceased.
When she was eventually released Catherine had told her if she returned on Monday she would be subject to as many spankings as it took to bring her up to scratch. If she were still there after three months she could have a pay rise.
After that Catherine had given Rachel a spanking after office hours every evening for three straight weeks and Rachel knew she had deserved every one of them.
Then Rachel's penitent reminiscences were interrupted.
"Rachel, I will see you now."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Rachel walked shyly into Catherine's office feeling as scared and embarrassed as she had been at 16 entering the head's study. She was still wearing her smart business jacket and black stockings complete with suspenders. Tights were forbidden and although Catherine tolerated hold-ups, Rachel's usual choice, she did not approve of them, so Rachel never wore them when she had discipline scheduled.
"Take your jacket off," Catherine ordered.
"Yes Ma'am."
Catherine was sitting in a low, leather padded armless chair, her favourite for over-the-knee punishment.
Rachel folded her jacket and placed it neatly across the coffee table in the lounge area of the office. She glanced nervously at the corner where she had once spent an entire Saturday afternoon during the first year under Catherine's tutelage.
"Come here, Rachel. Tell me why you are here."
Rachel stood timidly before her boss her hands cupped over her pubis, chin planted on her chest so that her shoulder length chestnut bob obscured her face.
"Look at me."
"Ma'am, I'm sorry... Maddy was still finding her feet after you promoted her and I had all those field reports from your stepdaughter to sift through..."
"Excuses, Rachel?"
"No, Ma'am, sorry." Rachel was forgetting her early lessons, but then she often did when Catherine stripped her back to the hapless 19-year-old she had taken in hand. "I am here to be punished for inattention to my work. I ask that you are as severe with me as I deserve, please correct my faults... I..." She fell silent not remembering if she had used those lines before.
Catherine insisted that when being punished she asked to be disciplined but she hated ritual phrases because they sounded insincere. Rachel always struggled to be original.
Catherine had heard enough, and as she had other things to do, she pulled the unresisting Rachel across her knee. The chair was low enough so that Rachel's knees and elbows comfortably rested on the floor. Her bottom was uppermost and Catherine patted and rubbed it with the large teak clothes brush. It was over a foot long with a six-inch-long, four-inch-wide oval flat-backed head.
Catherine had only hand-spanked Rachel once, when she was still 19. She had sobbingly asked, unprompted, to be spanked because she found out a property Catherine was after had been sold when she telephoned to make enquiries.
Catherine had laughed, saying it wasn't her fault, but had obliged anyway. They had both enjoyed it far too much.
Then an authoritative voice brought her back to the present.
"This is going to hurt."
The first heavy splat of the brush took Rachel's breath away. The second, third, and fourth came in quick succession leaving her sobbing both loudly and wet.
The volleys followed hot and hard at a rate of more than one per second for a minute or so. Then Catherine eased off.
Rachel was wracked with sobs and her little round domed bottom was a very familiar burgundy.
"So many tears already and we have only just begun."
The swats continued more slowly but harder than before, Catherine's tennis veteran wrist-flicks communicating with her beloved Rachel's soul.
The office was soundproof and opaque from the outer office. Pippa, unable to concentrate on work, was only able to listen via her dictaphone headphones which were discreetly plugged into the intercom.
She absolutely loved it when Rachel or Mel was being punished. She had been wet since she had first caught sight of Rachel with her nose to the wall that morning. It was a shame she could not watch the main event.
Pippa squeezed her thighs together in time to the spanks on Rachel's bottom. One swat every two seconds as Rachel, who knew better than to beg, kept sobbing that she was sorry.
Mel had almost forgotten Rachel's ordeal. It had happened far too often since she had joined Catherine's team at the tender age of 18. Also she had far too much to do and was far too wise to ever attempt anything as dangerous as Pippa's game. Not that she did not enjoy seeing Rachel brought down a peg or two every now and then.
However, all too often it was Mel herself who was bare-bottomed and facing the wall.
She had begun, like Rachel, as the office assistant. After a childhood in care, Catherine was the first person who had really ever seen her potential. There had been no show of false or transitory affection, she had had enough of that from various care-home staff. Instead Catherine had provided tough love to cure her reckless and self-destructive behaviour and pulled her back from the brink. Raven Developments was her home.
The spanking had continued for over 15 minutes now. As Catherine explained, she did not like the way Rachel had tried to make excuses. If it had been after hours she would have continued for another 15 and then sent Rachel to the corner to await a second instalment. As it was if she didn't stop now, Rachel would unable to work effectively for the rest of the day. She finished Rachel off with one last rapid 30 second volley that left her now swollen bottom with purplish and blood-red bruises on the crowns and rubbery welts either side of her cleft.
Catherine waited a few moments for the worst of the sobbing to subside then explained to Rachel about the rest of her planned punishment.
Rachel quailed at the prospect of a return visit after work, but she had expected it.
"You may leave your jacket off, but I want you to stand and face the wall outside as you are until I give permission to go back to your desk, where you may stand."
After Rachel's bare bottom was back in its place facing the wall, Catherine mused over a list of managers she could reasonably invite up at short notice - one of the more discreet men and young Maddy of course. It was time to set an example.
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