Few of us have not read or heard of the increasing number of "discipline groups" that nourish behind locked doors, stimulating sexual appetites and often triggering sexual climaxes through the medium of corporal punishment.
Imagine, as has Chaucer Cartwright, an entire society which has structured its family, neighborhood, community and state laws to provide corporal punishment, public and private, for all human failures-from simple family discourtesies, through traffic violations, to incivility toward a superior!
In this place, referred to only as "the Territory" and never delineated geographically or politically, there is a pecking order within the family group which involves "both cane and pecker," as Alec Reddick might readily admit.
There is a modification, in the Territory, of what we know as disciplinary sex. Certainly algolagnia is involved in both cases, for definite sexual pleasure is derived from the infliction and the suffering of pain. In the Territory, however, it is always the more specific mastigothymia which applies, for whipping is the only accepted method of inflicting the pain. More importantly, the punishment often exceeds the point of sexual stimulation for the victim. As a result, many if not most of the females in the Territory have more tingles in their behinds than in their befores.
In this very definite patriarchy there are gradations of punishment. Therefore canes and other implements of selected materials are graded by their pain potential. The implication is that a proper choice of implement can achieve a controlled punishment, if the wielder knows his own strength and the resiliency and pain threshold of the victim.
One comes to realize that there is a very exacting art to the application of the cane, but that there is no guarantee of artistry in any particular whipping. Indeed, all too many of the hair-trigger cane wielders lack either the expertise or the wisdom of judgment to control their punishment within the limits our heroine deems proper.
The moment we discover that traffic officers in the Territory deliver on-the-spot punishment, we suspect that this is a society in which male authority blossoms and thrives. For not only is Papa the executioner for punitive paddling in the family unit, but all females, child and adult alike, are accountable to authorized whipsters in schools and other civil institutions. And the men are required only to pay fines for their transgressions-unless they wish to save money, in which case they can offer their wives as whipping surrogates!
Which male among us has not at some time deplored the Momism which offers him only a choice of bachelorhood or the tension-shortened life of the provider who has less than a full vote in family elections? There may be food for thought in the literature of those historical societies which believed that since it was Papa who paid the bills, Papa must govern the family unit and mete out punishment as he saw fit.
And, considering the pendulum effect observed throughout history, we may well extrapolate that the days of Momism in our society are limited. From today's extreme permissiveness toward both children and wives, whither can we go but toward strict paternal discipline?
In this magnificent erotic novel, has created an unusual fantasy. He takes us into a shockingly believable society which is isolated by normal immigration controls, but armed with citizenship requirements that should make a female immigrant think twice before signing her papers ... or thrice, as did our heroine.
Cartwright's voyage into this land includes a fantasy within a fantasy, but the manner in which he handles both confirms his right to such literary license, and provides extra thrills and thought-food for the reader.
Whatever one's reaction to "the Territory" and its inhabitants, it can hardly be one of indifference. The male reader may rejoice in the vicarious thrills provided by this highly sexual patriarchy, deriving compensation for the real society in which he now lives, where he is, at best, limited in the exercise of the authority he feels God intended him to have.
And female readers will include many, according to the consensus of contemporary psychologists, who are no more enthusiastic about Momism than the average male. These may also enjoy many a delicious shudder or two as they journey through "the Territory."
-Martin Weidemann, Ph.D.
CHAPTER ONE
Thwikk!
The good-looking American woman paused in the upstairs corridor of the big colonial house. It was early afternoon, and Africa slept. The dry rapping sound behind the closed door had drawn her short. There was something categoric in the sound. The door was that of her niece's bedroom.
Thwww-lllk!
There it was again. This time it was followed, after an interval, by a moan. "Ow!"
Her heart beat a little faster. Unmistakable. Once more she heard the muffled snap, like a twig bent in two, and at the sounds of subsequent movement she went on. She was sitting reading an old copy of The Tattler in the chintzy living room when her sister came down a minute later.
Cynthia Reddick strode down the stairs into the room in a bleached settler's shirt and fitting chino slacks. Her jodhpur boots clomped on the floor as she crossed to a table and poured herself a drink. It was foaming beer. At thirty-two she looked in the flower of her blonde beauty, thought Joanna summing up the strong back down which the nearly white braid hung. The hips were firm and well defined. Cynthia patted them as she drank.
Until arriving in the Territory two days before, Joanna had actually only seen her junior sister on one occasion since her marriage to Alec Reddick. That once had been an unsuccessful visit to New Hampshire, during which Cynthia had first counseled the divorce which Joanna was now consummating. Despite her own three years in advance, her sister, she could not help thinking, looked somehow much more stable and, yes, mature. Cynthia's hair had bleached in the sun-Joanna's was close to jet black-and she had put on weight in the chest. Moreover, as was again apparent when she turned, Cynthia didn't wear bras. Joanna felt a faint embarrassment as she saw her sister run a palm over one of those shamelessly thrusting mounds, crowned with a medallion of rubbery nipple that prodded like a thumb at the slightly sweaty shirt.
"I enjoyed that," Cynthia Reddick said.
"What? The beer?"
"No. The dire execution, I fear."
"Meaning?" Joanna asked noncommittally, yet with beating heart.
"I had to cane Pam."
"Good grief! What for?"
"Dirty nails at lunch. Didn't you notice?"
"But, gracious, isn't that rather," she faltered, "severe?"
Still feeling her nipple, Cynthia gave her sister a long and level stare. "Darling, if you're going to stay with us out here, to get over this emotional tangle you're in, you'll have to accept from the start that we do have a rather special society here. These days we're rather proud of it. We have certain customs, however."
"Of course. I'd heard."
"One of them is corporal discipline. We believe in it. I won't ask you to understand it all right away, but I do suggest you scrap any of Reddick's psychology stuff about raising one's hand against poor defenseless children and the like. I gave Pamela four cuts with a very whippy cane across her bent and delectable bottom. It'll make her think twice about failing to wash her hands before lunch again. Hence, it's in her interest, isn't it?"
"But ... didn't it hurt?"
Cynthia laughed outright. Froth clung in a strand to her curved upper lip. "I have that general impression, yes. I also have an idea that the next four are going to, even more."
"The next!"
"Yes, you see, I found that with all the excitement of your arrival and everything, milady hadn't waxed her cane. She's supposed to do that every night. So there's nothing for it but another dose." She rubbed her chino-shod rump with a grin. "Oh my aching back." Then she glanced at her watch. "Just as soon as time is up she'll be down to request it. Pam knows I hate to be kept waiting."
"But...." Joanna stammered weakly. "I mean, isn't it a bit ... Mother never...."
"Darn right. We didn't get it enough. Oh come on, Jo, I'm not going to hang, draw and quarter the kid. Look. Since you're planning to stay with us, it might be as well if you came and watched." There was a pause. "That magazine's upside down in your lap anyhow."
Flushing, Joanna was about to straighten it when footsteps sounded on the stairs and Pamela Reddick hove into view.
She was thirteen, and, thanks to Territory conditioning and life, well grown for her years. "Unlucky thirteen," she liked to call it, after a beating. Her fair hair was cut short and she had a chubby body of whose hinder parts Joanna had, since arrival, found herself somehow continually conscious of. Most of the day the girl seemed to wear, as now, the brief tunic affair of her school, the skirt of which emphasized her behind. She had taken an immediate shine to her new-found aunt and, foot trailing on the last step, she looked the epitome of healthy girlhood.
Except for an apprehension behind her clear blue eyes.
"I'm ready, Mother."
Cynthia Reddick drained her beer. "For what."
"To be punished."
"Oh come, Pamela. Mrs. Swanne's interested. Tell your aunt exactly what is to happen to you."
Expressionlessly the girl said, "I'm going to be chastised for an Omission."
"Pamela. Please." She turned to Joanna. "This is important. Her imagination has to be involved."
The girl frowned. "I mean I'm going to have to bend over and be beaten across the bottom with a cane."
"You can do better than that."
She took a breath. Looking straight ahead, she tried again-"When I've been a naughty girl I have to bend over so's to tighten my butt for the beating. My buttocks are then bared and across their naked, stretched surfaces, I get a good cutting with the cane."
"Yes, that's better. Caned across the buttocks. Hard. Did those last four hurt?"
"Very much, Mother."
"The next will more. You don't feel any injustice about being punished in this way, Pam?"
"Injustice?" The girl looked puzzled. " 'Course not."
"Fine. I'll be right up. As your aunt is going to watch you swished, try to put up a decent show." At this information the girl's foot trailed again on a stair, but she went up without a further word.
Cynthia Reddick flexed her arm. "I really must remember to follow through this time."
"I must say you...." Joanna began with a confused and nervous laugh, but let it die. "Well, don't you think we should ... go up?"
"A little suspense never did a sinner any harm."
When some minutes later they entered the girl's prim and tidy bedroom they found her sitting on her bed, twisting a length of string. She stood up as soon as they came in. A cane lay across a table at the side. It looked long, lean, and very yellow, Joanna remarking that it had no handle, rather a knob at the gripping end. She found it strangely fascinating and embarrassing.
But Cynthia, ignoring her daughter, drew Joanna to the wide windows, which opened on the upstairs veranda and a view of the estate and the mountains beyond. She could see Alec's offices to the left, the swimming pool, tennis court-on which she had already played with Pamela-and the stables. A few Negroes slapped contentedly about the courtyard to the right. The sun poured down.
"The cane, Mother," said a voice behind them. Cynthia, however, continued to talk until she slowly shed her pale shirt. Then she turned and faced the girl.
What a pair, thought Joanna with a jolt. Her sister's breasts were thick through and firm, tremendous outward-thrusting mounds with hard, wrinkleless brown nipples and huge aureoles. They might have been in milk so tensely did they swing. Pamela, whose eyes were on a level with their long slopes, seemed to regard them with awe. She looked extremely frightened.
"This is a number one, or classroom, cane," Cynthia said, taking it and flexing it across her thighs in front. "Ours are all graded. This is light but stingy, especially at the tip." With a smile she raised it and bent it across her inflated chest, then thrashed it through the air twice, wickedly. Joanna felt her mouth go dry. "Perfectly designed for connecting with what portion of the anatomy of naughty girls, Pamela?"
"The buttocks, Mother."
"The bent buttocks, please." Pensively she sucked a second on the holding knob. Her eyes met Joanna's, who quickly dropped hers. Cynthia laughed. "It is phallic, at that. Pammie, have you ever frigged your clit with this?"
Joanna caught her breath.
"No, Mother."
"Sure?"
"No, Mother."
"No, you're not sure, or no, you have never...."
"I've never masturbated with the cane handle," said the girl hurriedly, staring at the floor.
"Well, dear, as your aunt has never seen you punished before, I'll offer you a deal. Four on the bare or you can keep your teddies up for six." She turned to Joanna. "Quite a poser, actually. On the skin I can see the marks and place 'em accordingly. On her knicks I might space them out more. That is, unless I chalk the cane first."
"Will you, Mother?"
"Unnecessary. You're going to have a warm enough tail as it is, anyway."
"Then," came out after a frown at the floor, "I'd rather keep my things on."
"Vanity, vanity," laughed Cynthia in reply. "Six of the worst it is. Bend over and let me get at you. Let's have that bottom stuck up tight."
Without further ado the girl went to a table and stretched across it, arms in front of her, legs together. Her mother peeled up her skirt and drew tight the soft navy panties.
These, Joanna soon saw, biting her lip, would afford little or no protection. They defined the sturdy cheeks closely, and indeed, a dull weal of dark red led eloquently out from the right.
"Push it back and spread them out. Come on, you know what I mean. Don't be so bashful, Pam. I'm sure your aunt knows how a woman's made ... behind."
The girl arched her back. At the base of the cheeks the slit fruit of a pulpy vulva pushed at the material. Joanna thought it seemed moist there.
"Oh good heavens," said Cynthia, striding forward and feeling. "I do believe you're all wet." She rolled her eyes expressively at Joanna. "She's incorrigible. But we'll soon stop that monkey business."
With the concentration of a golfer she addressed her target; the measuring stroke wobbled the buttocks slightly. She took a pace back, and swung.
Phhhfwckk!
The swing was slower than Joanna expected but the cruel crack with which it was completed on impact evinced how wristily, expertly, and thoroughly painfully it had been driven home. Her own fists bunched. There was a soft gasp but whether it was her own or the girl's she could not truly say.
The second cut clung a second to the flesh before it bounced back elastically-there was even a sense of dust drawn up.
"Ow!" The girl shuffled her feet.
There was a longer pause before the third one, which fairly splattered into the cringing fat.
"Hou!"
"Brace your knees back."
"S-sorry, Mother."
Joanna was amazed at the girl's stoicism as much as anything. The fourth and fifth whipped round the bent buttocks regularly. The legs rubbed, the cheeks clenched, but otherwise she controlled herself. She let out a stifled pant "Oooo-uuuuuuuh!"
"And one makes-six!" said Cynthia cheerfully, belting into the bottom twice as hard.
The girl squawked, rose on tiptoe, but remained where she was, wringing her hands together with a contorted face.
"She has to stay down," Cynthia explained pleasantly, "until Permission. Pain from a cane mounts. It's worse several seconds later. All right, dear, all over."
Joanna had been looking at her sister and the sight that greeted her at the table's edge all but took her breath away. Pamela was arched erect, speechlessly kneading her bottoms, her face red and twisted. She arched her back in some crescendo of pain.
"May I go to the bathroom, please, Mother."
"No, let's see you enjoy yourself here for a moment."
Miserably the girl turned from them, still clasping herself behind and now hopping in pain. It was clear it had anything but subsided. Indeed, with pounding pulses, Joanna saw one spasm squeeze the young body almost uncontrollably, tears squirting from her eyes.
"Come on, hands at your sides."
For a second it seemed that the girl wasn't going to be able to obey. She looked hopelessly at her mother.
"Take your hands away from your posterior portions, Pam, or I shall order you back to that table, take down your pants and give you three as hard as I can."
The girl clutched desperately at her thighs.
"That's better. We believe in control in the Territory. All right, get along with you then."
There was a rush, a slammed door, and the sound of water running.
As Cynthia slipped into her shirt, Joanna saw that her chest was sweating.
"Well? What did you think? like to try some?"
"I thought it was extremely severe," she answered in as level a tone as she could summon.
"Nonsense, she'll be as right as rain in a jiffy." Tossing the cane on the bed she stood up straight. "However, ten strokes across a fairly small fanny tend to hurt. I think you'll find Miss Negligent more careful in future. If she has more than a dozen in a day she gets a black mark."
"What's that?"
The blonde goddess pointed to a chart over the bed. Joanna noticed two black stars, like asterisks, and writing next to them.
"Blacks are paid off the first Saturday each month. Each one involves three strokes. Er, with the birch."
"Oh no."
"Listen, darling." Cynthia came close, her hands on Joanna's ample hips. "We want you to like it here. Relax, Alec and I have promised to do everything we can to see you through this time. But you have to accept us as we are. We're an open, frank and free society. No hang-ups." Her hands slipped lower, cupping the slabby seat in its trim skirt. "You've got a lovely bottom, Jo. It'd be a heavenly one to beat."
"What!"
"Oh come on, don't pretend. Admit it excited you too."
"Did it you?" she answered unhappily, turning her face.
"Not during, of course, I was simply doing my dity then. Justice. But before, and after-that's what we call our moment of honey. Oh God, there's nothing like it on earth. And I have an idea you know that, Jo. I have a strong suspicion I'm not the only one standing here with a wet snatch."
"Cynthia. Please!"
"like to let me feel?"
"No."
The younger woman smiled wryly. "Well, I don't mind telling you that I'm sopping. And I'm going to my room to enjoy myself."
"What!"
"Toss myself off, silly. Unfortunately Alec isn't around with the necessary length of gristle, but I do have an admirable vibrator. Lend it to you any time."
"And you ... oh!" Joanna hid her head in her hands. "And Pam ... what about her? If you caught her masturbating you'd probably whip the daylights out of her at this rate."
Cynthia exploded into laughter. "Are you kidding? Masturbating? Pammie? What in heaven's name do you think she's doing now?"
CHAPTER TWO
By the time Pamela Reddick came down an hour later Joanna Swanne had had three cold Tuborgs, and listened to her sister Cynthia expounding The Territory. It was a very special place, with a certain "scene", a way of life all its own.
She herself, as she listened, felt weepy and hot and wet. She realized she too had perspired freely in that swift upstairs moment. Perhaps it was her state-they had said she would be unstable for a while-but while Cynthia chatted on, she suffered a profound and soul-searching fantasy in which she felt herself breaking down, suddenly bursting into tears, turning to her sister and shouting: All right, then, I confess it. I practically came up there just now, so bend me over and give me six of the best or the worst or whatever you like-whatever you do, beat me hard. Please!
"What?"
Pamela came down. The girl had put on tennis things, a short crisp pleated skirt and clean sneaks, and she went cheerfully, if somewhat shyly, up to her mother and kissed her cheek.
"Thanks, Mumsie."
"No hard feelings?"
"Except where they hurt most!"
They laughed and hugged. Joanna looked on, trying to swallow. It seemed inconceivable that this happy, insouciant teener had just been writhing under the flailing of a long, glistening willow wand. There was a trace of redness round the eyes, that was all.
Cynthia read her thoughts. "Hardly the picture of oppressed childhood, would you say, Jo?"
"I must say," she stammered awkwardly in reply, "she does seem awfully phlegmatic about it all."
Pamela laughed. "I didn't feel ... phel-mag-tic ... whatever you said ... at the time, Auntie."
"No resentment?" Cynthia asked.
" 'Course not, Mother." The girl frowned. "That second dose really brought me to my senses."
Cynthia slipped a hand in the girl's white panties. "Still beating warm, eh?"
"And tingling, Mummy."
They grinned together with complicity.
"Darling, do you think you would ... since your aunt has never seen...."
"Oh, sure."
She turned, flipped up her skirt behind, drew down her tennis panties, and bent. Joanna saw a strong series of red lines drawn, as if with a ruler, across the boyish buttocks. These parallel stripes darkened into angry ridges on the right, where several had overlapped. The whole bottom seemed covered. She stared, aghast yet attracted-fascinated by her own fascination.
"Blue, black, purple, yellow, green," chanted Cynthia, observing her closely, "they'll turn all colors of the rainbow, in fact. Pam was right to keep on clothes. I could have placed much better. Also, I was long."
"Long?"
"Yes. These strokes, here," she pointed, "lapped too far over on the right. We call that hitting long. The tip should ideally fall well into the right side of the buttock, but not round the hip."
"It stung like billyho, all the same, Mother."
"Why don't you write a letter to the New Statesman about it, dear." Cynthia patted the outstretched flesh. "Now run along, you young monkey."
"You find this method effective?" Joanna asked as the girl adjusted her dress.
It was Pamela who answered-"All I know is, I don't want any more like that in a hurry."
"Juvenile delinquency is unknown in The Territory," Cynthia said dryly. "So is adult-delinquency, come to that."
The girl snuggled up to Joanna. "Auntie Jo, do you think ... I mean, I was hoping you might give me another lesson perhaps?"
"Well, yes," Joanna answered, "if you're sure you feel like it."
"Oh I always play better after a few stripes across the fanny," was the answer, accompanied by a squirm. "Thanks a heap. I'll get my racquet and be out on the court." She darted off merrily.
"Playing with you," Cynthia said, "is going to bring her game up a lot. You still play darn well, Jo."
Joanna stood up slowly and straightened her skirt. "Just now ... what did you mean by that word?"
"What word?"
"Experience."
"Exactly what I said."
"You mean?"
"Absolutely. I get it myself. Bare ass and all."
"You ... like it."
"I hate it."
"Then why ... ? "
Cynthia shrugged almost pityingly. "Oh Jo, it's nothing I can explain. It's a ... thing. It's The Territory. Currently we have no complaints. To feel totally subject to someone, to obey rules and regulations under penalty, you don't know how wonderful that is for a woman. How exciting. Incidentally it makes sex about eight hundred times more sensational. You feel well and truly fucked if you get it up you after a hiding. Here," she ended, reaching for the side of her slacks, "do you want me to prove it to you?"
But Joanna was already taking the stairs two at a time. "Have to change," she called back hastily, and there was a catch in her voice as she did so.
CHAPTER THREE
Confirmation came soon. These were moody, confused days for Joanna, who spent them in her room, reading, or discovering the grounds with Pam. Twice she went out horseback-riding with the teener, who made no further allusion to her correction, nor did another occur. Joanna began to think, it had all been a bad dream. Or did she mean a good dream?
She got to know the large house and its dusky help, with the aide of the colored giantess, Bella, who ran the staff of pretty girls who mopped and dusted in aprons and who always seemed to be in fits of giggles.
Alex Reddick himself was busy on the estate-there was hop-picking on, it seemed-and he rose early, to return later for his "sundowner" and dinner. She was grateful to be alone. Then came the reminder. Several reminders, in fact. The first was at the tennis club.
This was a cheerful, if modest, establishment some five miles of bush away and Joanna, who had been told to take as much physical exercise as possible these days, was delighted to be taken there, introduced around, and made a member. It was, in a sense, her first tentative affiliation with The Territory. The place was pleasantly informal and she quickly found herself one of the best lady players, with a number of games on her hands. It was returning to the changing room from one of these that it happened.
Two ladies were inside, one showering, another drying off. She knew neither. Suddenly she heard:
"I say! Who gave you those? Pete?"
The woman addressed had just come out of the shower and was toweling herself briskly. She was a compact brunette with her black muff clipped close in front and across her tough, lithe buttocks, just above the tan line, several lurid weals. In answer she looked over one shoulder with a grin-"And how!"
"Old tried-and-true?"
"Alas, he prefers a perfectly horrible and quite hideous-looking little leather thong."
"Um. Thought so." The other bent to examine-professionally, Joanna reflected, her heart starting to hammer. "Hide for hide, eh? Broke skin on the right, I see."
"I'll say."
"Well, mine still holds to hickory, dammit." She gave a hearty laugh and moved into the main room. "Those look to me as if they might have hurt."
"They did. And they're going to even more tonight, 'cos I'm due for four more carbon copies. I forgot His Highness' Scotch, in town."
"Good night!"
"It was, actually. He made it up to me rather nicely, after."
"Don't they all? It's at the time it...."
Joanna dashed for the shower. Lustily and long she let the hot drops hit her throbbing breasts and by the time she had finished the two had left. But another had entered and was changing into tennis "togs". A friendly redhead with a perfect body, she too-Joanna saw-had had a recent tanning.
"I'm Sally Benson," she said, advancing with a smile. "I don't think we've met. You're the Red-dicks' house guest, aren't you?"
"Jo Swanne."
'"I've heard about your game. I'm Club Treasurer. Delighted to welcome you and my first advice, if I may, Jo, is to shave some of that fuck off in front. You'll find it much cooler as a result." Pensively she ran two fingers through the flossy dark red tendrils at her own parted crotch. "The only reason I keep mine so long is that my husband-likes it that way. Shaving makes it prickle so." She grinned.
"I don't have that problem, thanks. I'm in the midst of a divorce."
"Oh, sorry to hear that. Though in my case it's not that he worries about his prick, and God knows there's enough of that. It's when he starts trying to get his balls and all up there at once...."
Joanna gulped and turned to dress. She was still rankly unused to this frankness about sex within The Territory. Two nights later she learned even more about the different attitudes.
They were all going out to another settler's house for a late dinner. Joanna had changed into a short linen sheath and was reading to Pamela on the sofa out of Henry James-the girl's favorite reading, it seemed. She was intellectually far ahead of her years. Alex Reddick, looking very tanned and terrific in a blazer and white turtle neck, had been pacing the hall impatiently, when Pamela's eyes started to stray.
" 'Thus Kate used her body because it was the very form of her will....' "
"Cynth! Are you ever coming?" came Alec's angry shout. "We're ten minutes late as it is."
" 'Milly resorts to her spirit....' "
Pamela gripped her wrist. Alec Reddick had just passed across the end of the room by the stairs and he was carrying a long, golden cane. Joanna continued reading, or tried to. It quivered like a fish in her vision. The grip on her wrist tightened. Cynthia was coming down the stairs.
She had on a short dress of smoky pink with dark tan stockings. In her heels she looked almost as tall as her husband.
"I'm ready, dear." Her eyes followed anxiously along the passage where he had vanished, into his den. Her face changed. "Alec, please...."
"This is the third time you've...."
Joanna saw Cynthia disappear worriedly toward him, there came sounds of an altercation, a door opening, the man's final-"Come in here."
Pamela stretched and pressed beside her. She felt her own hand clasped in the teener's now. Suddenly the whole house seemed enveloped in a silence like thick fog.
"Mummy's going to get ... it," said the girl softly, looking very directly at Joanna.
She shut the book. Awkwardly, in a hushed voice, she asked, "By 'it' you mean ... ? "
"A thrashing with the cane."
"How ... can you be so sure?"
"I know. Listen."
The silence seemed to last forever. Suddenly it was broken by the sound of brusquely drawn curtains. But this whirring of air, this beating of big wings, was completed by the same snapping of the dry twig she had heard upstairs her third day, and it struck into her soul now as it had then.
"One," said the girl staring at her steadily.
Thwhhlcck!
"Two."
Joanna groaned and sat back, closing her eyes. She heard what she knew she heard-bare female flesh cut into four, five, six times by hard whippy wood. There was a lava inside her. She felt herself tottering. After a long pause there were two more sharp strokes, a stifled cry, a man's placid growl. She realized that in some manner she seemed to be practically sitting on Pamela's right hand which had insinuated itself under her, under her skirt hiked against crushing ... she stood up hotly.
Alec Reddick came along, whistling. "All ready? Let's go."
He led the way out to the car. At the turn by the stairs Joanna nearly bumped into Cynthia and gasped. It was one thing to see a teenager like Pam in the extremities of corporal correction; it was another to see a grown woman, her hands clasped under her skirt behind, gasping with twisted face, half-doubled.
"Bad luck, Mumsie!" said the girl.
"Cynthia," she began with shock.
"Oh it's all right. I just need a moment."
"But isn't there anything I can ... ? "
"Alas, no. You go out to the car. I thoroughly deserved it. It was just those last two that hurt so bloody much. I got them for moving and they happened to be rather low."
It was dark outside. Alec's main car was an old Lagonda, very upright and distinguished. Pamela and Joanna got in the back. Cynthia, still squirming, sat beside her husband in front. Joanna could only see their outlines, almost one-dimensional, against the lights on the bush road ahead.
After they had gone some miles Cynthia gave a tired "Phew!" Turning to Alec she said softly, "Golly, you do know how to belt it in, don't you. If only...." She snuggled to him and kissed his cheek. He muttered something tender in reply. She bent forward, over his lap. "Darling ... you really can't go to the party in this state." Alec changed gear hastily as the sound of a ripped zip came to Joanna's beating ears. "Alec, dear! That's lascivious carriage."
He looked dead ahead as she bent over him. Pamela leant forward.
"No," came her mother's voice, "sit back, Pam. You've seen your paternal prick often enough, my dear. And before too long you'll be getting one up you with regularity, I don't doubt."
Her head vanished from view and Alec gave a murmured, "Christ!"
Joanna was scarlet. She tried to shut out the sucking sounds that ensued but though the car picked up speed she was unable (unwilling?) to do so.
Beside her Pamela said excitedly, "Do you like the taste of it, Auntie Jo? I love it. So salty." She rubbed her hands between her thighs, rocking forward on the seat. "Dad does a terrific lot. I mean, it's fantastic. If Mumsie doesn't catch it all quick, it'll be spraying over the windshield, you know. And all thick and gooey, like porridge."
Alec groaned again, sat up straight-"Yes, that's it!" Joanna closed her eyes, half fainting with emotion. When she opened them what seemed like an age later she saw Cynthia's turned-back face. It was smiling, and satisfied, like a cat after cream.
"Anyone want a rather spermy kiss?"
And Pamela bent forward with a "Goody!"
And after that it was only two evenings later that she was in the living-room with her sister and niece when Alec came in for his sundowner. Both mother and daughter stood up promptly and Joanna, after a second, followed suit. For a moment the man's eyes flickered on her as she rose, but Joanna felt a strange relief at accepting, almost despite herself, this first of The Territory customs-that of women rising when a man entered, just as they followed behind out of a door. Cynthia went to make some stingers. She had on an abbreviated shantung mini and looked very cool and beautiful.
Joanna looked at Alec. He was, indeed, the typical Territory settler, lean and rangy, with brown hair and a deep tan. His bush shirt and slacks were stained with both hops and sweat, for he had come straight to the estate office from the fields, where he worked long hours beside the coloreds. He threw Joanna a nod and, accepting his ice-dewy glass, gave Pamela an affectionate twinkle. . "Sorry I'm a trifle late but I had to straighten out my staff."
Cynthia paused. "Mrs. M.? You don't mean?"
" 'Fraid so." He turned to Joanna. "Mrs. Morrison. She comes to clear up my paper work twice a week. Accounts, letters, the like. I hate all that. But I found she'd got awfully behind."
"I could make a pun out of that," said Cynthia. "But I won't."
"Besides, there were several errors." He sighed and drank thirstily. "I'm afraid there was nothing for it."
"Gosh," gasped Pamela, her blue eyes sparkling, "how many lashes did you give her, Daddy."
"Eight."
"Bare ass?"
"Bare ass. I fear I hit her ... rather hard."
"Golly! Was it a number two?"
"Curiosity killed the cat," he replied to his daughter's fervid insistence, laughing. "Yes, if you must know, Miss Inquisitive, it was a number two, bending over tight. I can't recall when I've had such a satisfactory feeling with a two."
"Poor Margot. She hates the cane." Cynthia mixed herself another stinger. "Don't we all."
"Do you mean to say," said Joanna, who felt she knew them better now, "that this ... your secretary ... and you just...."
"Asked her to come through to have a drink, as a matter-of-fact," he answered nonchalantly, "and meet you, Jo. You'll like Mrs. M. Heart of gold. She's recovering right now."
"Won't she want to go straight home, dear?" asked his wife.
"Dunno. Up to her. I don't think she's going to relish sitting behind the wheel of that sports car of hers with what I just gave her underneath, and a drink might help set her up."
"But," Joanna started again.
Cynthia said soothingly, "Not to worry, Jo. All secretaries and office staff get c.p. here, it's understood."
"CP.? "
"Corporal punishment. Even in Shaftesbury, our capital."
"Especially Shaftesbury," said her husband. "Margot's husband made a point of it when I took her for this part-time work. He'd like her to be whipped even more. Yes," he mused a moment over his glass, "she has a nice relaxed buttock."
"But where?" Joanna persisted hopelessly. She felt she was sinking into some glutinous quagmire of emotion.
"What do you mean where? On the backside, of course."
"No, I meant-where did this take place?"
Cynthia supplied the missing information. "Oh, Alec has the usual punishment room off his office. Out of the west wing. I'll show it to you one day. I don't go there as a rule without wanting to run as fast as possible in the opposite direction."
At that moment there were steps and the woman with the "nice relaxed buttock" came in. A well-set figure of about forty, Mrs. Morrison had on a neat fitting flannel two-piece and sensible low brogues. Her hair was drawn back in a bun, her face un-made-up but for lavish eye shadow, and altogether-to Joanna, watching agog-she looked the classic picture of a competent Wall Street secretary. She was introduced and Cynthia mixed more drinks. Margot Morrison chose a Daiquiri. They stood chatting and smiling. It could have been any New England evening. Then Pamela said suggestively, "Won't you sit down, Mrs. Morrison?"
She paused before replying, "Thanks, I'd rather stand."
Pamela giggled, but her mother frowned disapproval at her.
The small talk continued and Joanna's eyes slipped to the woman's back. The skirt fitted snugly over a sloping behind and it was altogether impossible to believe that this mature woman had just bent over and bared herself like a schoolgirl ... for eight cuts with the cane.
"I really ought to be running," the woman was saying.
"One more," Cynthia suggested. "It'll help."
As she mixed it Alec said slowly, "I'm sorry if that was a bit severe." He rubbed his chin ruefully. "Hit harder than I'd intended, actually."
"That's quite all right, Mr. Reddick," the woman returned seriously. "It was an excellent caning. I felt punished right through. All over."
"I hope he didn't cut you quite in two," Cynthia said.
"Umm. It felt like it after the fourth. I haven't had such a thorough beating for a long time. And Ben doesn't let me off lightly, either."
"You took it very well," said Alec.
"Did you blub?" asked Pamela impetuously. She was growing even more excited on the sofa.
"Pamela!" her mother scolded again.
"I'm afraid I wobbled pretty badly at the end."
"Can I see?" piped the girlish voice. "Oh, do let me see...."
"Don't be so cheeky!"
Husband and wife exchanged looks and their offspring sat up as if stung by a wasp, her face falling.
"A complete lack of respect," said Alec Reddick sternly. A slim maid was moving through the room in her satin uniform. "Lina, bring me a cane, would you."
"A number two, sah?" the girl asked without expression.
"Father, per-lease!"
"Yes, a number two."
"Very good, sah. Nummer two, 'tis." She went off, smiling. "I'm sorry."
"You'll apologize to Mrs. Morrison...."
"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Morrison."
"After six of the best."
"You don't have to do this for me, Mr. Red-dick," said the secretary, but she said it with a brightening of her eyes.
"You will also write out a hundred times, T must not be cheeky to my elders and betters.' You will further give yourself another black, for impertinence."
"That's the stuff." Cynthia took Joanna's arm and pressed it close. "Quite a transformation, eh."
For the girl had stood with all color drained from her face. She shuffled forward to a low coffee table in front of the sofa to which Cynthia now drew her sister. "Ringside seat, come on." They sat down together and Margot Morrison smiled and said, "I still think I'll stand, thanks."
The maid came with the cane, handed it to her employer and went out. Pamela's eyes followed its springy gait with wretched eyes.
"Dad. That's a number three, I'm sure it is."
"Take down your panties and roll up your skirt."
The girl did as bid. The navy panties lay in wrinkles round her ankles and the skirt was slowly rolled up and fucked into the broad leather belt. The girlish buttocks jutted chubbily, a compact little pair with, Joanna noted, faint brownish-blue lines discernible from the earlier caning.
"You're about to be beaten for being cheeky. Have you anything to say."
"No, Father."
"Bend over."
The girl placed her palms on the low table. A tap of the stick indicated that she should put her feet back a pace, so that she inclined in an inverted V.
"That's an excellent position, Alec," Cynthia commented, tucking her right arm round Joanna. The hips were well bent, raised high, but still wobbled at the measuring tap.
"Would you prefer to give her them yourself, Mrs. Morrison?"
"I'd much rather watch you, Mr. Reddick. I know exactly how she feels. And I haven't seen Pam catch it for quite a while."
"She has a nice whippable little bottom," said Cynthia, "which is just about to be whipped."
The phone rang.
Alec crossed to answer it, holding the cane, which he prodded at his boot. "Hello ... yes ... Bill? Oh sure ... thirty-three and a half, okay ... look, I'm just in the middle of caning a cheeky daughter...." He laughed. "Yes, six. I'll call you back."
Too hard! was what Joanna wanted to shout as the stick hissed and spat into the bare puppy-fat before her.
The girl gasped at once. There was a pause as the raw red line bisected her skin and grew darker at the right. Again it whistled in-"Ooo-oh oh!"
She rested on her hands, her bottom cringing in from the pain. This was twice as bad as before.
"Give her plenty of time, Alec," said his wife.
The third cut up in a long slash that dug into the under-bottom.
"Wheeew! God!"
This time he accorded a long interval. The three watched her panting like a runner.
"You're in form tonight, Mr. Reddick," murmured Margot Morrison.
"It's an excellent technique, Alec."
"Keep your behind still and brace your knees."
After the fourth had sunk in, a stifled whine escaped the girl, mounting to a cry. She rested one knee on the table and then rose, albeit in a composed fashion, holding her striped bottoms up and rolling them in her fingers.
"Please, Dad. I can't stand it like that."
"Two extra for rising during correction."
Joanna clenched her knees. The flushed face trembled at its edges, and the teener began to cry. She herself became aware that Cynthia's finger was absently, yet expertly, rubbing her right nipple, which had hardened demandingly.
"Better bend over soon, old thing."
Mrs. Morrison joined in the kindly advice. "Best to get it over with, m'dear."
Pamela Reddick's face made a picture as she wrestled with herself. In an obvious effort of will she hobbled knicker-fettered feet to where her father stood, pointing with the shivery stick.
"It's so ... beastly like that, Dad. You don't know how it half hurts that way."
"Four more."
Looking back dejectedly, the girl tried to bend, and only did so halfway. With a laugh her mother rose and doubled over instead.
"like this, darling. Feet well back. Rest your whole weight on your hands. So's he can cut right up into you."
The miniskirt slid up the golden thighs of the tall woman as she bent there a moment, the division of her deep soft cheeks visible. Joanna's breath came fast. Things were happening to her. The elastic stick rippled with light, seemed to be absolutely asking to thrash into that mature buttock before it. Suddenly she knew that it would be very exciting indeed to see Cynthia caned.
"That really is a good position," said Margot Morrison appreciatively. "With the weight forward like that, you can't jink about."
Cynthia resumed her seat on the sofa with a smile and whispered in her sister's burning ear-"I know just what you're thinking. A nice juicy stroke just across ... where I'm juiciest...."'
"Cynthia, please ... please take your hand away from there."
"I knew it. And I'm sopping, too," came the heated whisper back. "I always am, watching. You needn't think Mrs. Morrison isn't ready to come, either."
"Dad, please," the girl begged, "let me off the extra, at least."
"Hurry up and bend over."
WHHHHHHHHHCK!
"Eeeeuuu!"
Joanna gasped at the intensity of the slap. The plump cheeks swayed as the streak rose angrily across them. Alex Reddick took his time and cut again.
"Aaaahh-auuuu!"
"Good stroke," said Margot Morrison. "That was a lovely one."
The first of the extra was even stiffer. With clenched teeth the girl absorbed it bravely, her knees writhing.
"Self-control is the essence of all character," Cynthia said sententiously into Joanna's ear.
The last was a full-blooded Swipe that wrapped round the hotly wealed hips and jacked the young culprit erect, speechless. She stood fighting to find breath, then, with a wail, toppled onto the table where she doubled, hands under her.
"A ... aaaah ... houh!"
Cynthia's legs straightened slowly. "That was one beauty."
"Mine were all like that," said Margot Morrison with feeling.
"Now get up and apologize," instructed Alec Reddick.
Flooded with pain, the girl wrestled to respond. "Say you're sorry."
Clasping a buttock in each hand she got finally to her feet and stretched a stiff curtsy in the direction of the Reddicks' smiling secretary.
"I'm ever so ... s-s-sorry, Mrs. Morrison."
"And I must say you look it, dear."
"Show your bottom."
"It looks very sorry, too."
"Now go upstairs and stay in your room."
"Poor kid." Margot Morrison smiled shyly. "After all, she did ask. And since it was a pretty strict one, I don't really mind."
Without ado she turned, tucked up her neat pencil skirt, slipped thumbs in a white spandex panty-girdle. Even through this the weals were visible, but when she had eased it to her knees and bent over, Joanna gaped in awe. Each weal across the white bottom, a trifle flabby though shapely at the base, was heavy and sullen in appearance. The caning had covered the lower buttocks.
"Ouch!" said Cynthia, in the silence.
Alec prodded. "That's what I call a sound caning."
"I found it effective." Mrs. Morrison pulled up her girdle and adjusted her skirt with a smile. It was a smile of pride, Joanna saw, and oddly enough she could understand it. "I certainly knew I'd been beaten this evening."
"Th-thank you," said the girl, who proceeded to trail forlornly upstairs. She still rubbed behind gently.
"I hope Ben won't think I've hit too hard," Alec said when they were alone.
"Alas no," the secretary laughed. "I fear he'll appreciate them all too well."
"I know just how," Cynthia put in with a grin. "It ought to make for a damn good fuck."
Smoothing her skirt, Mrs. Morrison blushed prettily. "It almost certainly will. After eight like that I must admit...."
"That a little consolation helps? Just don't serve dinner in a transparent shortie gown."
"I've spoiled more roasts."
"I know it. All that bending over the oven."
They shared a moment of mirth before the secretary excused herself-"I do have to run, or I'll only be getting another." She rolled her eyes expressively.
"More than those I'd not like to get," Cynthia said, seeing her out.
When she came back, she slung an arm around her husband and kissed his cheek.
"Well, you brute, Pam's nice and warm and I must say-So am I! You were an absolute devil as usual, darling, and of course I loved you for it. Really must try that position myself."
"The trick is to cut up."
"Under the, ah, underneath."
Joanna stood nervously, not knowing what to do with her hands. Alec smiled.
"Well, now you know some of our Territory terrors, Jo. I suppose you imagine us a bunch of sadists."
"That's a dirty word around here," Cynthia said. "Seriously. Not allowed to be used."
"Right. Chastisement of our kind has nothing to do with popular conceptions so current in your country." He was still holding the cane and now he studied its soulless length an instant. "Matter entirely of justice. I felt nothing during that correction, beyond the duty of having to inflict pain."
"You certainly did that," said Joanna.
"It was fun-watching," Cynthia added.
"It's only afterwards, now," he said, patting the stony outline under his flies, "that I have a hard-on."
"About which we have to do something, fairly soon," said his wife.
"Truly," he persisted. "What did you feel, Jo?"
"I don't ... know," she mumbled, red-faced.
"She felt excited," said Cynthia.
"That's hopeful," he said. "Show her your marks, dear. From the other night."
"Certainly."
"It ... isn't necessary," Joanna protested. "Assume the position, dear." Cynthia slipped down her panties, lifted her skirt and bent with liquid ease to touch her toes, her large breasts hanging. In contrast with her gracefully slender thighs, her rear was well-fleshed above the firmly sliced cunt that pouted invitingly back. These lines were less livid but they spoke of but one thing-punishment. "Oh," said Joanna.
"I wear the pants in this household," he said, smiling.
"That's because mine are mostly down," said his upended wife.
"And you'd hate to show them in their present state, I'll bet. No, I fear I'm just a typical Territory wife-beater."
"And I love the monster for it."
"Pete Salmon has this custom. Every time his kid daughter gets it, he gives it to his wife as well. Instituted it a year ago, and evidently the idea works wonders."
Cynthia stood up sharply. "I think it's about time to attend to that hose Jike object in the front of your trousers, dear."
"But doesn't it hurt?' Joanna objected, lost.
"I'll say. At the time I hate it. After, I wouldn't want it any other way. If you'd care to watch while Alec puts this young crowbar...."
Her voice ended in some whispered susurration again and Joanna, glancing, saw it. Released from the confines of his clothes, the man's member stood up like iron, a straining soldier with a scarlet head that looked as if it wished to rip every quim in sight to shreds.
"Christ! That's a good one, darling."
Joanna saw her sister's hand grasp the pedestal as if testing its solidity, her greedy squeeze oozing a bubble of sperm from the distended eye of the sulkylooking organ. Then she had fled the room with a choking sob. What in God's name was happening to her here? Why, ever since she'd arrived....
Slamming the door of her bedroom behind her, she found Edna working there. This was the charming, coffee-colored maid the Reddicks had lent her for her stay. About seventeen years old and slight in build, the girl was said to be "in training" to domestic service from the fields and, like all house staff, wore a uniform of a tiny black satin skirt, smaller lawn apron in front, and an even smaller cap, above.
"Wuz jus' tidying up, Miz Swanne. I put your laundry over there."
She indicated a pile of perfectly washed and ironed underclothes on the dressing table. In her high heels, black stockings, and minute micro-skirt, the maid was a delicious morsel of femininity. Joanna studied her, disturbed, as she moved about. She remembered what Cynthia had told her-she wasn't to let Edna get "slack", in case of trouble to "give her a sound tanning ... she expects it." She had already discovered the canes in the cupboard and the curious tailed straps. But for a second all she could see in her mind's eye was Alec's muscular monster. She could feel its veined shaft pressing at her bottom....
The girl was bending over, straightening the bed. Under the tight satin skirt her suspender snaps were visible. The lithe fanny moved in an agile arch. Standing up, she caught Joanna's eyes upon her.
"If there's anything else you want, Miz Swanne?"
"I don't think so, thanks, Edna."
Why was it she could not keep her eyes off the bulge of bottom as the girl turned and walked to the cupboard? Edna extracted one of the canes.
"I'll replace this for you tomorrow, Madam. There's a slight crack in the tip."
A slit like an eye in the head of a....
"Very well," she said. Her throat was dry.
"It's the tip that hurts so, Mistress."
"I imagine it does."
The girl still hesitated. "I polished the other two for you, Ma'am. They's nice an' shiny now. Was I to polish the bit of board, too?"
"What do you mean?"
"Paddle, ain't it?"
"It doesn't matter."
The girl dropped her eyes. Finally she got out, with obvious effort, "Ma'am, Bella she tole me to say ... 'case you might not, being new here an' all ... you can cane my behind whenever you desire to, Miz."
The rod would be hard, thrusting and throbbing, up Cynthia's wet....
Suddenly, in a daze of heat, she heard herself saying, "Very well then, Edna, since it's expected of me. We might as well start off on the right foot. Stand out over there and touch your toes."
"T-take my clothes off, Mistress?"
"That won't be necessary," Joanna said, accepting the limber stick. "I'm going to give you six and from now on you can look forward to a second helping whenever I find anything wrong."
She cut as she knew she could, whipping into the insolent rounds as hard as Alec had hit Pamela. When she went into the bathroom after it was over, Edna was on her knees, moaning and clasping.
Joanna was shuddering all over. In the bathroom she stripped completely and looked at her back. Her powerful bottom, with its ample overhang, confronted her head-on, like an accusation. The sight made her quake inside. Yes, my beauties, she wanted to say, you're going to get it soon enough....
The girl had got up when she returned with the towel. This she tossed on the bed.
"I want you to shave my bush," she said, lying back and extending her legs. Already the outburst had relieved her intensely. "Not all off, but a little."
"Yes, Ma'am," said the maid, as she went dutifully into the bathroom.
Joanna swam on emotion, writhing and grinding her hips. When Edna returned with the old-fashioned brush and bowl of soap she glanced down at her swollen and saturated sex and wanted to laugh, crazily, hysterically-a new kind of instant lather, indeed!
"Oh God," she goaned without shame as the soft brush softly stroked her parted lips, "ye-ess ... deep . . .up ... unhhh ... ooooogh."
CHAPTER FOUR
The snickering lisp threaded through her dreams.
It was a dream, a deep one.
Buck-naked, she was bent over while a grinning colored thrashed her ass with a thin cane. Alec Reddick looked on, chuckling ... thwlckk!
Sweating, she squirmed on the sheets. It was a week later and Joanna lay soaked with perspiration under the mosquito netting over her bed. The windows of her room were opened to the veranda, but Territory nights were close this time of year, and her sheets had become no more than gluey bonds. She sat up quickly at the third quick snip, rubbing at her eyes.
Thwip! Four ... and a caught cry. A man's growl.
She bit her lip.
Silence seeped through the sleeping house.
Her heart was pounding. It had been a week in which almost nothing had happened and she had begun to forget the shadows that moved through The Territory. Now it was happening again. It was all coming together again. She knew it in her blood, like some inward consummation.
Along the balcony, which ran this side of the house connecting the bedrooms, there was a light. The sleeping house faced the watchful pine barren.
Slipping out of bed in her sodden shortie she went to the full-length windows and stood behind the muslin there. It was as she thought ... as she knew. The light came from Alec and Cynthia's room.
There were voices, running water, a protest. She was about to turn back when suddenly her sister strode out in the softly illumined night clad in a diaphanous pink nightgown of near knee length. This she held bunched up behind as her hands massaged her bottom. Her great chest rose and fell.
"You needn't have...." was all Joanna heard when Alec Reddick came out, smiling. He was naked, holding in his right hand a cane and in his left his prodigiously engorged cock, which he rubbed lazily.
"Please, Alec, please ... you know I hate it like that...."
Slowly he turned her, and slowly, consentingly, she let him do so, bending over the ironwork balustrade with her legs apart.
"Please, darling, not out here ... we'll be seen, they'll see us ... ow!"
Once, twice, thrice he cut her buttocks with calculated care, the cane circling her hips with fiery red, his prick bobbing as he hit. She mewled with pain, rising and holding her cheeks. For a second she gazed at the steadily swaying beasthood before her, then she pursed her lips, spat on its swollen head and bathed his glans with saliva. After which she turned, grasped the balustrade firmly in her hands, and bent, her legs parted widely.
"Please ... only the head ... I can't take any more than an inch...."
She was in profile to Joanna, but even thus, seen through milky muslin, the expectantly clenched teeth of her face could be seen as she awaited her husband's assault. This was not long in coming. Alec drew near, parted the offered butt with his ringers and nuzzled his slippery cock between the cheeks.
"Arch ... back," he grunted, guiding his pole at the center.
Cynthia hissed, half crouching, then her head came back with a cry as the stiff member sank into the lush tallow of her bowels.
"Aaaah ... no more ... that's enough ... please, darling...."
The man eased forward, then withdrew. Joanna saw for a second the slimy length of gnarled cock, before he thrust hard forward into her. Cynthia twisted, tried to turn as he began pumping rhythmically, driving her into the balustrade.
Faint, frightened, yet very awed, Joanna turned on tiptoe to her room.
She was first down to breakfast. Alec took his early in the estate office at one side of the house. Pam descended next, kissed her aunt, asked for another tennis lesson, and some high-diving practice in the pool. Then she helped herself liberally to cereals, saying, "Mumsie got it again last night."
Joanna restricted herself to an automatic, "Oh?" and continued with her eggs and bacon. The girl had been subdued for a day after her paternal caning but soon became her spirited self, once insisting on showing her aunt her "marks" in the poolside changing room.
With a sidelong glance she added, "I hear you gave Edna a great good going-over."
"If I did she deserved it," Joanna said primly, but with an odd flush of pride.
"She showed me her sitty-billies and you could have put a ruler over most of them."
"That's enough. Now you get on with your breakfast, Pam."
Bandbox neat in a fitting white sharkskin suit-they were going into Shaftesbury that morning-Cynthia sailed in and kissed them both. Then she too tucked away a hearty meal. Pam's eyes quickened as her mother sat, but she risked no cute comments this time, Joanna observed.
Shaftesbury was the capital of The Territory, a pleasant, sprawling, tropical town. Joanna had arrived at its bush airport and been there for shopping once since. The Reddicks stocked up from its stores each week and today Cynthia had a list as long as her arm. The three of them had been invited out to the Bensons that same evening.
As her sister pushed the Lagonda down the divided throughway, Joanna could not shake off the darkly obsessive thing that inhabited her mind, filling her thinking as completely as Alec had stuffed ... stop! This groomed vision of womanhood beside her had just....
"Pammy mentioned," she started nervously, "I mean, did you get 'it' again last night, Cynth?"
"As if you didn't know." Cynthia shot her a wry smile.
"But for Pete's sake what was it for."
"Oh, stepping out of line," came the offhanded reply. "I deserved it and I got it, that's all. There's nothing very complicated about it." After a minute she put in, "I can't say it's my favorite way of making love, but Alec-likes it sometimes. I know women here who love it."
"Love what?"
"Being buggered. Weren't you? Didn't Tom."
"Of course not," she answered, indignantly. "All right, don't get annoyed. Look, there goes another."
"Gladiator Guard."
"Right."
A strong colored woman had just cut by on a colossal BSA. She was dressed in tight, white cotton breeches, black leather boots and tunic top. She was part of the Gladiators' highway patrol. To get into them, you had to be over six foot, it seemed. Cynthia had explained earlier how these policewomen punished corporally, carrying at their belts thin leather switches, one of which could now be seen whipping back over the pillion of the specimen in front. In The Territory traffic rules were strictly observed.
"Oh, don't forget. Whenever you come to town, for Christ's sake watch the parking rules. Only in the white spaces, or else. That's provided you really want to go through with this Immigration Visa bit you told us about last night, Jo."
"I do."
"Well, they don't mess with paperwork here. You simply find a note inviting you into the nearest Guard House promptly. A perfectly horrible time ensues, over a trestle. They use a penal cane in there."
"What's that!"
"Much longer and heavier. After six you feel as if your backside were peeling off. Anything more is murder. It's years since I got a Guarder, thank God, but I recall I spent the rest of the day in bed. No, it's quite different punishment from anything you've soon so far. Different in kind, not only degree."
"This-only applies to women?"
"You guessed it, dear. The men merely pay a fine, though a whacking one, I agree."
"But not so bad as the beating?"
"Right again. They can offer their ladies for that, in lieu. We're the privileged here. Grin and bare it, as they say." She added quietly, "But you don't have to worry, so long as you're only a visitor."
Something condescending in her tone caused Joanna to retort hotly, "You know I want to be more."
"I wonder."
"I know."
By the time they had completed their purchases, the stores were already closing. They decided to have a beer and a sandwich before setting out on the scalding, two-hour drive back. "Alec's not in to lunch today, so it won't matter us being late," Cynthia explained.
Cynthia gave a vigorous wiggle on the Lagonda's sunbaked seat and Joanna found her tongue unlocked-to one purpose.
"About that whipping you got last night...."
Cynthia chuckled as she drove off. "Across the nekkid fanny."
"Weren't you even wearing a nightie?"
"So you saw too, did you? No. somehow he felt that I didn't require that. It was lifted. Looking pretty, as usual, but being useless."
"But ... didn't it hurt?"
"I thought so."
"More than those paddlings we had?"
Cynthia frowned. "You mean, by the sorority? Initiation? What years ago it seems. You know, there was a story told about you, Jo, when I got there and they rushed me for Sigma Chi. I never did know whether it was true and I guess I just never had the guts to ask you outright. Then our ways parted."
Joanna sat brooding. "You mean ... that I got a real shellacking."
"Um-mn. But that the Senior who did the damage apologized and asked you back to her room after...."
"Yes, it was hell night for me, all right." Joanna dropped her head into her hands at the memory. "Oh Cynth, I feel so ashamed."
"You needn't, here. Frankly, I wonder if this silly guilt isn't the root of all your troubles with Tom. Out here we have no such complexes and hang-ups, thanks. The Indians may have reservations," she concluded with an attempt at humor, "we have none. And then the story went that this girl let you whale into her and that you and she used to meet once a year and give each other this terrific hiding."
Joanna chewed a knuckle. Perverts, they'd been called.
"And that you continued it for a time after school."
They had. The Women's Republican Club in Albany, a small hotel in Boston ... two club ladies walking out of the revolving doors with hot bottoms under their dutiful creaseless skirts....
"Do you think it ... horribly odd?"
"Of course not, Jo. If you wanted to, that is."
"It was always ... a sensation of release. Tom would have never understood."
"Well, we do here. Haven't you noticed? There's a special intensity of existence here. Hell, directly I saw you again at the airport I couldn't help thinking what a perfect bottom you had for beating."
"Heavens!" Joanna laughed. "In what way?"
"Oh, simply spankable. Can't describe it in words. One knows."
"Oh dear."
"And then I saw you on the diving board the other day. You're still nice and springy behind. Frankly, I'd like to see you caned."
"You would?"
"Sure. I'd like to do it too, but first I'd like to watch. I fantasied that it was you instead of Pam the other day."
"Cynthia!"
"Come on. Admit you enjoyed seeing me cooling off my can on the veranda last night. Did you go back in and play marbles?"
"Please." She dropped her eyes.
"I hope one day you'll be my guest. Only, not too soon. Oh, come on," she said suddenly, "you know you gave Edna a beauty of a beating the other day. I was delighted when I heard, and so was Alec. That girl needs lots of attention. But if you're planning to stay on out here with us, as you say, Jo, you're going to have to realize a lot of things. We have a very privileged community this day and age. We plan to keep it that way. We happen to have evolved a harmonious relationship with our coloreds, to whom we deeded a lot of land lately, as you may have read. We simply bring our young up to know they're lucky. Punishment unites us all."
Hitting the throughway they drove in silence awhile. Inside the car the heat mounted, despite open windows, and Joanna found herself mopping her face with a Kleenex.
"This whipping you had last night, Cynth. Was it ... I mean did you ... ? "
"Oh, all right." With a laugh Cynthia cut the Lagonda to the right and parked in a widened section, under overarching beeches. "We're not supposed to stop here, but just for a second."
Turning, she sat up on the seat, leaning over its back. She lifted up her skirt and pulled down the elasticized panties to which her stockings were tethered tautly. The silky ovals were threaded with long weals, less violent than Margot Morrison's perhaps, but painful-looking all the same, especially on the right where more than one met in an inky contusion.
"I see," said Joanna dumbly.
"Love pats only, dear."
"May I touch?"
"Okay, but make it snappy."
Wondering fingers traced the stripes. They were real. It had happened.
'"That's enough." She pulled up her things and slid in position behind the wheel. As she started the engine there came a prowling growl from behind and her face paled beneath its tan.
"Christ, no!"
With a contemptuous gesture a patrolwoman pulled in ahead, antenna snapping from her bike. "God! That's torn it."
Joanna's stomach turned. Her sister looked seriously scared. The Gladiator Guard stationed her cycle securely on twin stiff legs and strolled toward them, easing off her helmet and letting loose, as she did so, a mane of tawny hair. It cascaded down her jacketed back. She was immense, mulatto, and uninterested in expression.
"Please, officer, I," Cynthia began as the huge woman sauntered abreast.
"Let's see them."
The woman seemed in her twenties as she stood examining the papers Cynthia passed out. Beside the aggressive thrust of her profiled buttocks in the tight white breeches, the black eel of a leathern quirt dangled like a deadly snake. A meter of trimmed rawhide, it was clipped to the belt and looked well used.
"Please. I only stopped a minute."
"That's what they all say, sister." She was consulting a book. "First offense this month?"
"First offense this year. Please. I had to ... go."
The Gladiator guffawed. "That's another excuse they all have. Care to show me the turds? Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to learn to hold it better, Mrs. Reddick." She shut the book with a snap. "Friend with you?"
"My sister. She's visiting The Territory. From America."
It made no impression. "Is that right? Then maybe she'll appreciate a little lesson in our justice. I'm giving you four for Illegal Parking. Get out and get 'em off."
"Four!" came Cynthia's desperate croak. "I thought it was only three first time in a month."
"Law's been changed. Only applies to under thirties now. Under thirties and over sixties. You're in the age group, missus." She unclipped her switch and smacked the back of one boot with it, hard. "Four it is, sweetheart. Slap across that nice fat butt of yours. Step lively now."
With an expression of woeful dismay the blonde got out of her car and started fumbling under her skirt.
"Everything off. Skirt as well."
"Everything?"
"I want you buck naked, baby. Mos' 'specially that handsome heinie of your'n."
Tall as Cynthia was, the Guard towered over her. With a chuckle, she cut the air with her quirt and dust spouted. Joanna saw that the tail was a braided thong and she saw too that Cynthia could scarcely keep her eyes off it. She began to feel queasy and sick.
"Don't you people ever let anyone off?" Cynthia mumbled. She was nearly nude now and, though a car sped by, it did not stop. Heads turned and there were male smiles; that was all.
Finally she stood bare, her great breasts swinging outward, the darkish down at her center curling under her crotch as she paced first on one foot, then the other.
"Stand still."
"I can't. This tarmac's hot."
"Not as hot as that tookie's going to be in a second. You've got a great pair of knockers, kid. What's the magic measurement?"
"Forty-one."
"Not bad at all. Now turn round and let's see it."
Cynthia's hips seemed slim in clothes, since they fell straight, with the fat padded high, below the waist. Yet they were deep and soft and long, tender-looking in the fold which only slightly extended the vertical plus sign either way.
"Who gave you those?"
"My husband."
"Bully for him. I like my meat tenderized. Did you get it up you after."
"Yes."
The Guard chuckled richly again. "Tell you what I'll do, Mrs. Reddick. You squat down-yes, right here-and if you can produce two turds for me, two nice hot smoking turds, I'll let you off, understand."
Joanna blinked, breathless. After a second's pause, however, Cynthia squatted in the dust by the edge of the road, hugging her knees. She frowned in concentration, straining, dog-like.
"Shit," said the Gladiator Guard. "Come on."
She strained again. But to no avail. A scummy string made her stand up abruptly-"I can't."
"So you were back-scuttled after your little beating, were you?"
"Yes."
"And you lied about wanting to go."
"No. I wanted to go. But I can't now. I'm too frightened."
"Do forty squat-bends. Loosen your butt muscles up."
"Can I do them at the side? This tarmac's scalding."
"I'll make you sit on it if you ain't careful."
When she had completed the exercises under the eye of the switch-swinging Guard, she was made to touch her toes as many times. Several more cars passed by, but none stopped, and then there came another ascending low and a second patrolwoman drove up, gunned her cycle, cut, and got off it with a wide grin, shedding both gauntlets and helmet. She had long fair hair and was completely white.
"Having trouble-or just plain fun?"
"Ain't that one cute can?" said the first, "And all marked up for me already."
"What's the damage?"
"Four. Parking."
"You ought to get four nice marks across that pair." She yanked Cynthia forward by her bush. "Over here, Fat Ass," she ordered.
Could this conceivably be happening? Joanna asked herself, dazed with the heavy sunbeams pouring down. A thirtyish housewife, a mother and club member, hauled along an open civilized highway, to be whipped naked by an immense black woman. It was worse than any dream, much. But her curiosity held her riveted, to see if Cynthia's virtual terror was justified....
"In the sun, Lou."
"Cunt up, huh."
The two Guards went into action, working efficiently and fast. The first pushed her vast bike into a patch of light, anchored it firm with extra struts, and made some adjustments to the rear wheel. Then she peeled off her leather top, revealing a massive chest slung in the hammock of a white aertex bra.
"That's quite a nice thatch, all things considered."
"Yeah. Set good and low, too. Ought to get a good exposure when she's bent."
Watching riveted in the furnace of the Lagonda, Joanna understood, her face nearly in tears as the second of the pair extracted a wide black leather belt from a saddle bag, strapped it round her waist and forced her wrists into cuffs sewn into it in back. With her shoulders drawn tight, her breasts juddered, streaked with runnels of sweat from the exercises and with dust from the passing cars.
Slowly, lethargically, with an indolent smile, the first Guard drew the cruel quirt behind her in the roadway and hewed it into the drum of the pillion, which it lashed with a pronounced thud, indenting the leather there. Cynthia seemed unable to move and her legs shook. The power of her fear struck Joanna with its ineluctable logic, its tremendous excitement. This big woman, that lean leather ... then the first Guard was making a sarcastic bow.
"Won' you step fo'ward, Mrs. Reddick? I'd like for to take the skin off your seat an itty bit."
The second slammed her over the saddle. With arms tethered behind, no complicated securing was entailed. Cynthia knelt on twin struts for the purpose to which she was fastened with straps. Two rings in the front of her belt were clicked into place either side of the riding saddle. Her body bucked with a cry. "Ouch!"
"What's wrong now?"
"The gas tank's scalding."
"Too bad."
She cambered wretchedly, raising her hanging breasts off the metal. The arching increased as the pillion was tilted till her whole pelvic area was thrust out on display. The tan of her legs finished high and between it the silken purse of her sex pouted back, slit and squeezed, clearly veined and hairy. Cynthia threw back the bleached vision of her face.
"Please, officer. Give them fast."
"For Illegal Parking, four."
"Real hard, Lou. This is one sweet butt."
Cynthia turned back her head and tried to cringe as the long switch flailed overhead and then whipped with venom across the stretched center of the hips. Joanna even heard the vigorous grunt as the Guard struck. The tail clung there, biting, then dropped to leave a vivid line. Cynthia sucked in breath with a jerk. It looked like an inconceivably painful stroke.
"One," said the second Guard.
There was a pause, then the leather ripped into the skin an inch lower, eating into the thickly fatted flesh either side of the cunt and welting the bruises from the last beating. Cynthia gasped loudly, clenched in a spasm, jerking the bike. But she seemed intent on not giving her tormentors the satisfaction of a cry.
"Two."
These were experts, Joanna saw, as Cynthia's leg muscles relaxed and she slumped back limp and the second Guard urged, "Now, Lou, quick."
The third agonizing slice cut in.
"Aaaaa ... noooooo!"
She spasmed back this time, tensely, spreading widely, her vulval lips contracting, and a thin bubble of dribble forming at her anus and bursting as she squirmed forward, gargling.
"Amazing how they do wriggle," said the first.
"You'd almost say they like it. One more time, Lou. Jus' the same. Right behind the you-know-what."
The switch whickered sickeningly in again. Once more the fleshy hips tried to rear and Cynthia emitted a strangled, animal cry.
"Four."
"Enjoy your ride, lady?" said the Guard who had done the whipping. She was already donning her tunic in a business-like manner. "Nex' time it's six. I can make six with this baby real pleasant."
Released, Cynthia writhed, doubled for a minute, her hands still strapped behind her.
Suddenly Joanna saw her jerk straight.
"No! No! You don't have to do that. Please!"
"Right up, baby. All the way."
Her legs threshed, she rose to tiptoe a moment as the second guard appeared to goose her behind. Then her wrists were unstrapped, the belt taken off, and she was urgently massaging her scored behind, face twisted.
"Help you to go in earnest, honey. Give you practise in holding it, too. Now get your clothes on. Real neat."
Knowing that Cynthia would be in no mood to drive, Joanna had shifted behind the wheel. The big guard, who had given the beating, lolled in at the window.
"How you like our methods, ma'am? They sure get results. There's one dame don't park on a throughway in a hurry."
Joanna found a trembling voice. "I thought ... it was much too severe."
The Guard simply shook her head. "Nah. Let her off too light. Now with six you can work 'em.
And eight. Oh boy. I've had 'em crawling over the road for five minutes after eight." She stifled a yawn with a ham-like hand, already regauntleted. "Young and old, big and small, they all get it. Guess you get to find one beating looks like another."
"Not that one, officer."
"Funny thing. There was this little ole lady ten days ago. Doing a few miles over, at night. I tell you, when I saw who it was I din't rightly want to do it. Speeding's six. But I had to make the charge. So there she stood, flush in the heads, while I fixed the bike for her. This short white hair, all trim and neat, but with the kin' of can I jus' knew this stinger would whup right through it. And then you know what?"
"What?" Joanna echoed sullenly.
"She lost her water."
"She what?"
"Piddled on the pavement. Jus' like a kid. She didn't look that frightened, but there it was. So I rubbed her nose in it a bit and said that's three for soiling a public highway and then I put her to it and she spread beautiful. I must say I laid on. She took it terrific, a real lady. After the six I asked would she like a rest, before the three, see-'cos I aimed to make them cutters-and she say, 'Put them across me, officer, let's get it over with.' An' I tell you those las' three were real...uh, sign here, would you, lady."
Dressed once more, Cynthia had got back in the car, and signed the Guard's book before Joanna, to an ironic salute from the second one, drove off down the right hand lane.
"JesusBloodyFuckingChrist, that hurt." She twisted actively on the seat.
Joanna was dry-throated. The two Gladiators duly overtook them, their spraddled breeches thrust aggressively back, one gauntlet waving sarcastically as they passed. She climbed to a few miles below the limit and held the car steady there.
"What was it ... what she did to you afterwards?"
"It was totally unnecessary."
"But, what?"
"If you must know she put one of their blasted punishment suppositories up me. We can't leave this highway at limit speed for half an hour. I suppose I can hold it, somehow. Gee, it was a good big thick one, too. Seemed to slide up under my ribs." She writhed one nyloned leg against the next. "They always manage to make it degrading, and coarse. It's their bit. I told you it was another kind of punishment, not just a matter of degree. Christ, but that switch can half take the starch out of you. The trainer's made of sinews."
"Trainer?"
"Tail, dearie." Suddenly she arched with a gasp. "Hell, it's beginning to take effect. I suppose you can't go any faster, Jo. But you can't, can you? Not unless you want six with that brute."
"I'm willing to risk it, Cynth."
"I wouldn't ... I may just be able to ... ungh! God. Mavis has a place ... just off ... take the right at the next clover-leaf." She doubled with a wince, and an accompanying grimace of disgust. "I can't ... it's coming down ... sorry, Jo. Don't mind me if I do this. But it's the only way to beat it. And no pun intended."
Joanna stared straight ahead, her mind in tumult. Her foot eased down a fraction on the gas pedal. Cynthia moaned and squirmed.
"Uh-uhh ... it's too much for me ... I can't ... I've got to go ... there's a shopping bag in back ... oh mercy me!"
Grabbing a handful of Kleenex from a side pocket, she climbed heavily over the seat to the back. Joanna heard her gaspingly emptying a paper bag of its contents. She heard the "adjusting" of clothes, and cut back, compassionately, on the speed. Pink in the cheeks herself, she stole a surreptitious glance in the rearview mirror.
Cynthia's face was tense as she squatted on the seat, gripping the front for balance. Joanna shot her eyes away. There was an intense poignant silence, finally broken by a little grunting whine and a papery thump. Another pause and Cynthia groaned, "I knew these things gave bulk, but this is ... aaah....crazy."
There was again the sound of a potato being dropped into a bag. Then Cynthia said, "Christ, not another!"
Then there were adjustments, rustlings. "I think I'll stay back here for the moment, darling. I guess that's what they call beating the shit out of you, huh?"
Soon she pulled off the auto route onto a leafy lane where, after some miles, Cynthia directed her up a gravel drive to a typical white frame house, similar to their own. She flung open the door and led the way to the steps, insouciantly swinging a paper shopping bag. It made a thud when she dropped it in a trash can. Cynthia commented wryly. "We'll just put this here, shall we."
When she walked up the steps, Joanna noticed that a line of red had seeped through the material on her sister's right hip. She followed her dully into an empty, well-groomed drawing room. She felt she was entering another world.
There was no one there. Cynthia had gone on ahead. Joanna picked at some periodicals when a jingling made her turn. A charming woman of about thirty was coming forward in a light tropical dress. Her pure little-girl face was smiling shyly and she was walking in mincing steps since her ankles were fettered with a golden chain.
"I'm Mavis Smith-Peters," she said wistfully. "I'm sorry I can't shake hands with you properly, but you see how it is."
Her hands remained at waist level. She had on, Joanna saw, a wide leather belt of the type Cynthia had had strapped on her by the Guard, and through a golden ring in front of this a similar narrow chain kept her cuffed wrists closely confined.
"I'm in Restraint for today," she said, smiling sweetly as if that explained everything.
CHAPTER FIVE
"If you don't mind," said Cynthia Reddick, strolling in cool as a cucumber minutes later, "mine's a large Scotch and soda. The things that go on in a Lagonda."
"Help yourself, darling," said Mavis Smith-Peters. "Jo?"
"Thanks. I could do with one, too, a double."
"Mavis?"
"Yes ... but." The smaller woman rolled her eyes, and from the drinks cabinet Cynthia smiled sympathetically.
"That's right. Not supposed to assist anyone in Restraint. Under penalty, that is."
Joanna gratefully took her glass. Her senses were still swimming. She had sat and swapped small-talk with this lovely, soft-haired, small-shouldered woman who had her wrists and ankles fettered like ... like a prisoner.
"Those bitches can really make you feel beaten, you know," Cynthia said, joining them. "Really lay it on."
"That's true," said their hostess sympathetically, "but they can also take it, too."
"Right," said Cynthia, moving her jaw. "Gee, gritting one's teeth makes the muscles ache. Mavis means this special training school. It's, well, Spartan. We got Bella from the Guard."
"Several of them go into service later," said Mavis, chinking her wrist chain. "You ever seen a Gladiator flogging, Cynth?"
"No, but I'd love to."
"Love to?" Joanna echoed.
"Oh sure," came the answer, after a long swallow of Scotch, "they must be tremendously exciting."
"They get their backs scratched," said Mavis with a smile.
"There's this great gleaming triangle, you see, and a big sweaty Gladiator's back hanging from it like a side of beef and a Corporal cutting in...."
"And behind her there's another whose duty is to give the whipper two with a switch, then and there, if the stroke isn't deemed hard enough by the officer in charge."
"Alec tells me that's become somewhat of a formality by now. Though every so often there'll be a couple ... just for show. It's tough to get into a Glad flogging."
"I've seen the usual parade punishments, though."
"Aren't they something? I saw a meaty giantess getting six across her breeches and she didn't so much as shiver her butt throughout. Oh they're trained, all right. Amazing. What is your Restraint for, Mavie?"
"Too many martinis before dinner, actually."
"Ah, me. They do make the punishment fit the crime. Any thing ... er, accompanying?"
"Yes. Six at noon."
"Dear, dear."
"Only it was a little more."
"Do you mean to say," Joanna burbled, her tongue now loosened by the drink, "you have to be like this ... all the day? I mean, what do you do for ... ? "
The other two exchanged glances and a communal chuckle. It was explained by the Victorianly demure dame, chained on (if not to) the sofa that there were set times for physical needs, when she could apply to her head maid, also an ex-Gladiator, Ida.
It transpired that her husband Simon was a businessman in Shaftesbury, who liked to supervise his wife's corrections personally. As a consequence the following scene had-as recounted to a goggling Joanna-taken place at the stroke of noon. Her wrists released for the purpose, Mrs. Smith-Peters had picked up the receiver of the telephone in her husband's study, or den.
"Put me on to Mr. Smith-Peters, would you please."
"Who shall I say is calling?"
"This is his wife."
"Very well, Madam. Kindly hold the line."
"Mavis? Hallo. What can I do for ... oh yes, it's just twelve, isn't it. Fine. Where are you now."
"In your den, Simon. As you told me."
"Good. Is your bottom bare."
"It is."
"Is Ida there."
"Yes."
"Put her on, would you."
"Ida. My husband would like to speak with you."
"Yes, Mr. Peters?"
"Just wanted to say, make these six stiff ones.
Right up and down. She marks easily as you know, but don't let that give you pause. I do have a luncheon appointment but take your time. Space it out over two minutes. Three a minute, or four and two ... you know. I want to see her really contrite tonight. All right, give me her now, would you. Dear? That you? So you're standing with your legs facing the side of my desk, that right?"
"Yes, that's right, Simon. The desk's been cleared."
"Fine. And you're well and truly stripped behind?"
"Completely."
"Skirt tucked into your belt."
"Yes."
"Been figged."
"Yes."
"First-class. Right up."
"Right up."
"Excellent. I want this to be a memorable experience. What's it for."
"Getting up late."
"Lean forward on the desk, still holding the receiver so that I can hear you. Right down with your heinie shoved back. In position? Tight? Fine. Now-feeling sorry for yourself?"
"Very, Simon."
"Look at the cane and say a prayer."
"Please God make this punishment severe so that I may be fully cured of my fault."
(Joanna shuddered when she heard this part.)
"Tell Ida to get cracking. And I mean cracking. Count the cuts."
"You may proceed, Ida, when you wish."
"Vair good, Miz Peters."
Zzzhh-upp "One!"
"Hell, I hardly heard that at all. It can't have hurt a bit. Tell her to start again, and this time hold the instrument away from you as she hits."
"Simon?"
"Go on."
"Mr. Peters would like you to give me that stroke again, Ida."
"You seem to be panting nicely now. Beginning to hurt?"
"Intensely, Simon."
Zzzzzzhhhhlpp!
"Ouw ... foo-uuu...."
"I didn't hear that count."
"FOUR!"
"You'll have to take that one over."
"Please, Simon."
"Let's have some better enunciation now."
"Please, it hurts ... a very great deal."
"Well you shouldn't be so lazy. Three more and tell Ida to make these low."
"I'm to have that stripe over, Ida, if you please. And Mr. Peters suggests you strike ... low down."
"Right in the fold."
"In the sulcus, Ida."
"Yes indeed, Ma'am."
Zzzhhhwitttl "FOWR!"
"Nice long pause for it to sink in. That one hurt?"
"Oh. Oh. Oh."
"Silly girl, aren't you!"
ZZZZHWTTT!
"Fiiiii-yeeeve!"
"Press back with your knees, please, Ma'am."
"Oooo-uuuh!"
"Hey, you don't have to deafen me, darling. Really, you sound like a grampus in labor."
"Ouwhh."
"ZZWHTCK! "Ho Auh ... six!"
"Sounded as if that one belted home okay. Well thanks, Mavis. Hope it did you a world of good. Better than a mid-morning martini any time. Bye now."
The three women were standing, waiting for Cynthia to finish her third and final Scotch.
"The brute! I bet he was beating himself off all the time. That or having his secretary do the honors. The only thing I don't get, darling, is about the martinis. Was it for that, or getting up late out of bed?"
Mavis Smith-Peters smiled softly. "One and the same in a way. I over-imbibed. I overslept."
"May we peek?"
The fettered hands moved expressively. "Not much I can do about it, I fear."
"There isn't, is there? And since I showed you mine in the bathroom just now."
In a trice Cynthia had the thin skirt tucked high. The woman was not wearing panties or stockings and Joanna found herself confronting yet another well-wealed bottom. Despite her slender shoulders, Mavis had a sloping figure which filled a pair of richly flesh buttocks that thrust out staunchly from the thighs. Even though these stood plumply together, a strong clump of soft dry fur thrust back through them from in front. The weals seemed punctuated by small blotches, deeper in hue and tender-looking. Cynthia touched one apprisingly.
"Simon-likes to use a malacca. Notched, you know. Some thinks it hurts a little more."
"I do," said Mavis. She shivered as Cynthia parted the heavy cheeks and exposed the crinkled amber of the anus. Set in the shadowy valley it was a demure dimple, sweetly vulnerable and yet chaste in appearance. It touched Joanna sharply and suddenly she knew she would very much like to see this woman well beaten.
"Oooh, you were figged, weren't you?" Cynthia was saying. "Any rate, you don't have to wear a saddle strap."
"What's that?" Joanna asked.
"Goes between the legs. Horribly tight and most discouraging. Let's take a look at the view from in front. Oh boy, what wouldn't that naughty little juicer do for a length of greasy gristle right now. Mind if I pay homage, Mave? I owe you hospitality."
So saying, her great plait swinging like a club, Cynthia dropped to her knees in front of her hostess. Weakly, dazed in confusion and excitement, Joanna sat on the sofa behind the woman, whose whipped behind was on a level with her eyes and whose faintly downed surfaces began to undulate and buck as Cynthia went to work.
The dead silence of the room was broken only by a sluicing lapping, as of some dog, and quick hisses of breath from the moving woman. Mavis planted her feet as far as the short chain would allow them apart and her bottom, bucking, now thrust the strong fuck surrounding her sex at Joanna, emphasizing its animality.
And when Mavis turned her face with an effort at apologetic smile, Joanna was gripped by it, so rosy and excited did it look, so tense and shiny was the skin. There was such a total carnality in the eyes, they might have been those of some mystic or saint.
"I hope you aren't shocked, Mrs. Swanne." Suddenly she arched, head ducked down, belly retracted. "Oh Cynth, that's ... oh you're practically skinning it like that ... darling, someone is shortly going to get a. . .mouthful." There was a pause and Cynthia's long, well manicured fingers grabbed around her ass-cheeks. Mavis said in a mournful tone, "I'm afraid I go rather a lot ... after a caning ... uuaaaa!" She pumped ecstatically, and went on doing so for some time.
When Cynthia stood up she was licking her lips like a cat after cream. A runnel smeared her chin.
"Not bad as a whisky chaser, but you certainly were copious. Now we absolutely have to run."
"You might pull my skirt down, if you're leaving," Mavis said equably.
"You look sweet with it up like that, my dear."
"Please, Cynth."
As they walked out, laughing, Joanna gave a last glance back. Mavis Smith-Peters was swearing softly and plucking vainly at the material in front with her fingers. A typical hostess, Joanna thought wildly, looking her last at the chains, the ruby face, and the pronounced white dew on the thickly furred and fatted quim in front.
"That was a positively Wordsworthian torrent. I thought it would never stop." Cynthia eased herself gently onto the seat. "As the only one in the vicinity with a virgin can I propose you drive." Joanna thought over the remark all the way back.
The house seemed hung in somnolence when they arrived. She herself took her packages to her room upstairs. She had found some splendid shoes and had also bought a boutique pool dress, a short white terry to show off her new tan. She changed to a sweater and trim bermuda shorts. She ran down the stairs and into the dining-room to join Cynthia in coffee and cake, but the sight that met her brought her to a jolting halt in the doorway. Her stomach flopped and fear clutched her spine.
Alec Reddick had come in for lunch and was finishing a cigar over some brandy at the far end of the table. To one side of it, standing with her hands beside her like some soldier of penitent schoolgirl, Cynthia was staring straight ahead.
"What?"
"You were both very late," Alec said to her explanatorily. "Cynthia forgot I had a guest for lunch. I'm going to have to give her the cane."
"B-b-but ... we ... she couldn't help...."
"Cynthia has told me you stopped off at Mavis'. And what went on there. She had to call to stop."
"That's not so," Joanna answered hectically, she felt she was sinking into some new morass of loss of self. "She'd just been brutally thrashed by a highway Guard, and then given a ... she had to stop!"
"It's no use, Jo," Cynthia said in a low tone, still staring ahead of her, white-faced.
"Yes, she told me about that," Alec went on laconically. "Turn round and show your bottom, dear."
Cynthia did as bid. The stain on her skirt had enlarged. When she exposed her welted bottom Alec merely nodded.
"I think it'll hurt her quite a bit over those."
"But you can't ... it isn't fair ... it was as much my fault," Joanna responded wretchedly while Cynthia pulled down her skirt again. "Anyway you only just caned her last night.
"That was nothing. This six is going to sting. Isn't it, Cynth?" he asked cheerfully.
"Yes," she said hollowly.
"Six of the very best. Nice and low."
Joanna made a final effort. "Please. It's not fair."
The chuckle came from both of them.
Cynthia said, "You don't understand the Territory, Jo. This has to happen. Irrespective of the state of my ass." In a lower tone she added, "God is always right."
"You weren't being sassy, were you, Cynth?" the man said to that.
"No!" she protested quickly. "I'm sorry if...."
"I might as well give you a couple extra just in case you were."
Cynthia's face fell. Alec stood up and stretched his lean, muscular body in a yawn.
"I'll send for you in twenty minutes. Eight strokes with a strong cane." He sauntered out and left them.
In the horrified hush of Joanna's silence Cynthia dropped a rueful, "See? You're beginning to understand about justice now, Jo."
"like learning from behind," she tried to quip awkwardly. "Seriously. I got you into that pickle."
"Pickle is right," Cynthia said, rubbing her rump.
"Then I deserve a ... just as much as...."
She broke off on a gulp. A maid had come in. Expressionlessly the girl asked, "You wish for yo' coffee befo' your whipping, Mistress, or after?"
"Bring it up to my room afterwards, would you, Sheila. With a couple of aspirins, please."
Cynthia began to trail upstairs. Joanna followed her hopelessly. A prick of tears stung her eyes.
"Please, Cynth. I deserve it too."
At the door to her own room they paused. Cynthia gave her a long and solemn look. "You can't fool around with this, you know."
Joanna's rib cage pounded. She opened the door to the shuttered room. Cynthia went in.
"What's this doing here? We don't use them here."
On the mirrored closet dressing-table lay the hard flat sorority paddle Joanna had brought with her. She flushed as Cynthia picked it up.
"Oh, I guess," she stumbled. She would never admit she'd been taking practice swings against a pillow. "Edna waxed it, I think. Maybe she left it out."
"An impact instrument. I'd forgotten. How many did it used to be."
"Fifteen."
"First offense only. Hell night. Remember."
"Twenty."
"On each side. I'm not sure you should get any deeper into this thing," Cynthia said thoughtfully. "I hope you'll keep beating Edna nice and hard "but I don't know if you realize what the Territory really means."
"The shadows," whispered Joanna in the darkened room, as the memories flooded back. Summoned at night. Sickness and ceremony. In front of the whole sorority, the five frosh standing and then those sudden words, Assume the position. The senior with the paddle, a look of dislike in her open, sandy face-Grab pooch, pledge ... The most frightening experience Joanna had ever known, yet the most conscious. A brand in her mind she would never eradicate. As Cynthia stared at her she knew she knew. They were both living with all their senses. She herself was very near tears, too.
In a slow, moody, almost gloomy voice Cynthia said, "After I've been really well tanned, you know, after I've been birched, for instance, Alec sometimes makes me go a couple of days in clothing so tight I can scarcely take a breath. There's this continual feeling of material on the skin. No respite, you know."
Joanna's heart was hammering. She was drifting at the shadow-line of consummation. She had no will to shun it, it was totally terrible and adorable.
"I have to have it too, Cynthia," she whispered miserably. "Don't you see. If you do."
"You sure you really and truly want to go through with this feeling that you have?"
"Yes, yes."
"With us, it's more like a religion."
"Tell me what I have to do," she begged.
Cynthia's huge breasts juddered richly. The right one bounced as she swung. Her palm cracked flat on Joanna's cheek and the brunette staggered.
"Oh, now." She held her swinging head. "You didn't have to do that."
"I'm sorry but I want you to snap out of this, Jo. There is no possibility of playing around."
"I know that, Cynth."
"Then know this. Our first rule. It always has to be rather worse than expected. Remember surfing? The first thing was fear, then a desire to overcome that fear. Then it all turned to an exhilarating emotion as the big one began to work for you. From Alec you'll never get less than six with a number two. I'm expected to stay bent over properly for as many as twelve, and get extra if I don't. I rarely can. I've often had twice nine. Very few of us, you see, could possibly take eighteen, so it's ordered in two doses, with an interval. A group of girls got twice nine's at a party at the Danforth's, just before you came. I saw it. Highly discouraging."
But Joanna had turned off her tear-driven face and escaped the room. Bolting down the staircase she half-ran along the gallery to the wing where Alec Reddick had his office. And the Punishment Room.
CHAPTER SIX
"Are you quite certain you want to go through with this, Joanna?"
Alec Reddick tipped the wicker chair behind the paper-strewn desk in his office and looked at her standing before him-in control of her faculties now and standing as she knew you were expected to stand, hands at her sides, looking over his head.
"Quite sure, sir," she said.
"I won't let you off lightly, you know. In fact, since I'm not sure if you realise quite what you're doing, I shall make it highly unpleasant. If you're doing this out of curiosity, or for a thrill, you'll be cured, I believe."
"If Cynthia is to be punished, I should be," she said.
"Very well. It's your choice." He tapped his teeth a second. "Turn around and take down your things and let's see your bottom."
This was her first test, she knew. Turning, flushing, fingers hooked in the waistband of her snug tartan bermudas, she seemed to hear the heavy beat of a drum. Her pulse was beating heavily behind her eyes. She slipped her shorts and panties to her ankles and stood before him, her senses suddenly heightened and refined.
"Lean forward with your hands on your knees."
"Yes."
"In this room you call me sir."
"Yes, sir."
There was the scrape of his chair as he rose and came behind her. He rolled the still slack fat at the base of her right cheek between finger and thumb. Then he joggled her flesh in his fingers, parting her but not touching the slotted fruit between her legs.
"Um," he said, returning to his desk, "you have quite muscular thighs, but that ass of yours is going to feel it, I fear. Do up your clothes. Now then, is it truly your wish to be subject to our discipline while you stay with us in The Territory?"
"It is. Sir."
"Absolutely certain?"
"Yes. Sir."
"Very well." He drew forward a ledger and began writing it. Punishment Book, her inner self told her. "I shall give you six. Go upstairs to your room. I will deal with Cynthia first, and then you will be sent for."
She paused. In an abstract, remote voice she could barely recognize as her own she said, "I think I should have the same as Cynthia."
He shook his head. "You weren't lippy. Don't worry. I'll see to it that you have plenty with a sixer."
Up in her room, Cynthia had her skirt up, her panties down and was sitting on a long marble coffee table.
"I'm going to get it too," Joanna said faintly.
"Oh you are a fool," her sister replied, but she did so with a quick, grateful, almost shy smile, rising at once and embracing Joanna warmly. "Well done."
"But what are you doing?" she asked with a smile.
"Sitting on something cold sometimes helps beforehand, but not much. Anyway he generally feels first. Any attempt at anesthetizing is highly discouraged. Oh darling, I do hope you won't regret it."
A smile of triumph flew over her face. "I won't," she answered.
"Then I'll tell you what you have to do. Isn't this apprehension ghastly? And delicious? Who was it said he hoped the suspense would go on because it was so dreadful?"
"Oscar Wilde." Again they seized each other in exultance, their fingers wandering wildly.
Ten minutes later, back in her own room, she saw the elegant figure of the slim maid walking down the corridor through the crack of her ajar door. There was a tap on Cynthia's door. "Mistuh Reddick like see you, Ma'am." Cynthia started walking down the passage, biting her lower lip and frowning. Joanna fled to her balcony.
From here, after a second, she could see Cynthia walking along the covered way to the left, along to Alec's office-where she disappeared under the tiled overhang. Joanna felt a deep heat in her head. She moved about aimlessly, her hands roving over her bottom, which felt suddenly twice as heavy. Once she stared at her profile in the mirror-yes, her cheeks looked swollen and sorry already. How big her bottom looked, how taut and foolish and ready, ripe for the crack of the cane.
What you need, my beauties, she hissed to herself, is a damn fine hiding. And you're going to get one, too.
Out on the balcony again, the wait seemed eternal. Was Cynthia never going to reappear? Then suddenly she did, walking quickly toward the house this time, her head dropped, her arms folded tightly across her heavy breasts. She stopped at a wood support, held onto it for a moment, writhing, then continued On her way so hurriedly that the urgent rap on Joanna's own door came before she was ready. Cynthia was running down to her room, holding herself, when Joanna came out and started navigating the staircase down.
As she passed through the living-room a pair of quick blue eyes looked up from behind a magazine. Pamela was sitting there, reading ... knowing. She would have to negotiate Pamela later.
She knocked on the door in a state of trance, hearing his "Come in" as if from some immense distance.
"You are about to be beaten for being late. Do you have anything to say."
"No, sir."'
"Do you wish to appeal."
"No."
She gave her ritual answers fatally, from her depths. The sense of ceremony was exact as he bent his head and again inscribed her punishment in his book.
"Very well. You will receive six strokes with the cane. Go through and I'll deal with you in a minute."
As if some burden had been lifted from her, in a total surrender of her will, she walked to the far end of the room, where there was a door, which she opened, closing it behind her. It gave onto a large, bare expanse of polished wood, resembling a small gymnasium-in fact, Alec used it as a keep-fit room. There were bars, a leather horse, stools and weights, but chiefly her eyes were drawn to the impedimenta hanging on the walls, the straps, well oiled and used-looking, and the rack of canes, one above the other. Chiefly, also, her eyes were held to the short, hip-high structure riveted to the flooring by one wall. That'll keep you nice and tight, she told herself grimly. She was already quivering all over, and perspiring.
It was very simple really, resembling some iron towel rack or such-like. Cynthia had explained it perfectly. The top bar, adjustable, was about on the level of your, well, your lap and you duly bent over it; not before, however, you had stepped between the two ankle-level bars at the bottom. One of these could be opened and closed like a gate and made it impossible to kick back, or forward for that matter! So standing, two further simple bars pressed horizontally at the front of the legs, one at the shins beneath the knees, one at the thighs above them. The culprit's legs were braced ineluctably back, tight. So long as she was holding onto the lower bar in front with her hands she could not reasonably move her parted, tightened ass.
"Shoes off," said a voice. Alec had come in. She shucked them, seeing with a sudden flutter that he had donned tennis sneaks and rolled his right sleeve up high. He went to a wall, selected his instrument, swished it through the air a couple of times, and came forward thoughtfully.
Just like a doctor, she told herself, feeling with sudden panic a desire to pee. She thought of the Gladiator's story, what would happen if she ... the sensation increased dreadfully....
"Stand there," he said, pointing with the cane-tip, "and take down your clothes. Right down, if you please. Now bend over and grip the lower bar."
He did not seem surprised that she knew how to do so at once, but he spent some time positioning her to his satisfaction.
"Get a really good hold of it. I think you know it's two extra every time you leave go of the bar."
"Yes, sir. Thank you."
"Three if you rise before Permission."
His thumb prodded her inspectively. Bent as she was, she felt all buttock. The bars did not merely brace back her knees, they seemed to bend her legs in a bow so that all her weight fell forward, on her hands in front. Her cunt pouched back at the division of her legs and hips, but Cynthia said the cane never hit in there, at least not hard. The hips were always sufficiently curved enough to ... she stared miserably at the peurile wrinkles in her panties at her ankles. Would Alec be able to see the sodden patch in their center?
"Head down."
Ah yes, to draw the flesh up fully at her seat.
The cold cane touched her, measuring.
"This is Canadian acajou. Whippy, but not too."
After tucking her sweater needlessly high, he turned and went from her-perhaps to get some other frightful thing, she thought, when with a thudding rush he bounded athletically at her and into her. The limb stirred the air with a breathless whirr, a strangely peevish sound, and the cane thrashed full across her seat with its now characteristic rap. Her head came back at the shock, but she thought, I can take it. Then the true wave flamed up her skin. She contrived a grunting pant.
Whrrrr-upp!
The second whipped into her after a pause. It was agony. The tip seemed to burrow and she felt herself give an instinctive buttocky wriggle to throw it off. Two.
Hold on, she told herself desperately, hold on.
She did so until the fourth had splatted powerfully, with a ringing echo, round her hips. She tried to stamp, emitted a short, shaming fart. Alec stood behind her calmly. It was like being struck by the sun.
"Aiieeee!"
"Relax," he said. "It'll hurt you less that way. You're trying to fight it."
"I'm s-sorry ... I've never been caned like this ... before."
"Always co-operate with the cane." His fingertips touched her scorching weals. "I'm going to give you these last two hard. Concentrate on your posture, please."
There was that savage swaying in the air again and a fiery razor sliced across her skin-Phhhrr-ruppp!
"Ow!" she cried.
The last followed crisply on top of it.
"Don't get up until I tell you."
It was the hardest thing Joanna had ever done. The pain became an unspeakable flame, drenching her impossibly. She hung over, mouth open, drooling.
"Ooooh....auuuuu....aaaaah!"
"All right."
She arched erect, hissing, clutching her buttocks and, feet still fettered in the system of bars, sat down heavily on the floor behind her, on her hands.
She looked up at him miserably, beaten, fearful, her cunt lips shimmering as if in the heat waves from her tortured flesh. She saw him reflectively stroke the ascending chord at the center of his being and then he ordered, "Get up and put your clothes on. Let that be a lesson to you."
She stumbled to obey, surprised at her own alacrity. Her body was all instinct and every inch seemed to be suffering. Cynthia said the worst was fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds after-depending on how hard you'd been hit.
"Hurry up and pull yourself together."
She hastened past him, head lowered and holding her engorged, still smarting buttocks, to which the clothes seem to cling closely. Nor was she able, strive as she might, to tear her hands away as she traversed the long living room to the stairs. Pam's eyes were on her all the way.
Up in her room, however, a sense of aching pride came to her as the pain subsided somewhat. It was still all shuttered and dark but, yes, she had come through! She had "taken" it. It with the capital letter. Swiftly she tore the clothes off her sweating body and looked at her behind in the mirror. The parallel weals ran true across her, darkly livid on the right, hot and hard to the touch; she had been caned in earnest. A sense of immense relaxation, almost approaching gratitude, ran through her skin. Then the door opened gently and Cynthia was at her side. Cynthia, clad only in a robe, kissed her. Then she dropped her robe and the two sisters were naked in each other's arms, side by side in front of the mirror, staring into it like two damned souls. It was the younger who spoke first.
"I say. You did catch it, didn't you!"
"I'm afraid I did." Joanna gave a little tearful laugh. With a thrill of abandon she suddenly thought, I'll have something to show them at the tennis club now! "I only got six. I should have had eight."
"Wasn't it enough?"
"Plenty. But ... let's see yours."
Cynthia turned with a smile. Joanna caught her breath. The eight inky weals had been well spaced, but three, at least, had coagulated to a plummy ridge on the right. Joanna touched the spot wonderingly.
"It must have been terrible ... there."
"It's absolute agony where the tip hits in, isn't it!"
They laughed like accomplices, hugging each other for a second again, then Cynthia said, "Look. Lie down and let me rub in some cold cream for you."
Joanna lay on her belly on the bed with an "Ouf!" of contentment. Her bottom was now more of a boiling glow than a burn.
"Part your legs, honey."
Cynthia knelt on the bed behind her. The first generous dollop of cream from the jar felt gloriously cool to Joanna.
"Ooooh, baby!"
A shock ran down her body as Cynthia massaged the cream in the scalding skin of her buttocks. Her palms were strong. Joanna was closed within a spell. Her hips began to buck as Cynthia's strong thumbs ran up the now slippery insides of her thighs and cheeks; she felt the touch of one of Cynthia's pendulous bubs higher up her back, like a slab of liquid marble.
"Feel good, Jo."
"Yes, yessss...."
Cynthia's whole hands seemed to close over the ridged buttocks now as she ran them up and down, up and down. Joanna moaned. There was a volted flame, a pure unconscious ecstasy, moving upwards and upwards within her. The thumbs were running up the buttery insides of her....
"Cynth, I'm afraid I...."
"Relax, darling, enjoy it."
"You won't mind ... " She broke off, arching with a groan as the rubbery thumbs suddenly and insinuatingly ran up the wet walls of her already clenching cunt. "Baby ... I'm bursting!"
"You won't die," said Cynthia from behind her, deep in the swirling water that was rushing on, engulfing Joanna in its total incredible ecstasy.
Then suddenly another voice burst from her lips, "Give ... let ... spend ... come ... cream ... stuff!" She ceased to breathe in the convulsion of pure bliss that lit her entrails, stiffening her to stone on the bed and filling her with a million spuriously spurting quims in the depths of each of which a live fish wriggled.
"Unnnnggggh!" She slumped exhausted.
Cynthia giggled. "What did I tell you, angel? It's twice as good after a beating. You must have been coming for at least a minute then."
"I've never known," she gasped, stranded, "such satisfaction ... fulfillment."
"And with a man it's twice as good," said Cynthia cheerfully. "But lacking one, just roll over and let's get to work, shall we." I always said sixty-nine was a suggestive year."
Joanna was saturated in the contact. The rough tuft of heather protecting Cynthia's cunt was on her chin, the well-wealed buttocks opened before her face, offering their oyster. Suddenly she felt a tough tongue stuck in her like a dart.
"Suck," said Cynthia simply, parting her thighs even further. Joanna's face was smeared with beard, her nose was lost in a slimy dew as the raw nubble was rubbed demandingly up and down her features.
"Suck, Mrs. Swanne," said Cynthia, and all at once hissed. "Christ ... yeees ... there! Darling, deep ... yes, I'd say ... you were deep ... in The Territory ... noooow!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
After dinner they danced. The Bensons' house was shaped like a ship, an old windjammer sailing nowhere under the stars, in the middle of the barren. Joanna thought it somewhat absurd when the Lagonda first drew up on front of the place, but it was certainly luxuriously set out, and most comfortable. It was explained to her that Roy Benson was a retired skipper of the merchant marine, a real salt with an honest-to-goodness peg leg ("And not there only," Cynthia had counseled Joanna, as they'd gone in.).
Already there were several present she knew-mostly from the tennis club, but also Mavis (now unchained), Margot Morrison and her husband, and others. At dinner she found herself next to some delightful people called the Danforths, who played polo. And after dinner a band struck up, just beneath the prow.
The "powder" place was Sally Benson's cabin down below, and Joanna was coming out of its commodious and elegant bathroom when the redheaded Club Treasurer actually bumped into her. Bumped into her bumps, as Joanna put it to herself, recoiling with a hand on her rear and a blushing, "Oh!"
"Darling. I'm so sorry." Sally Benson's amused eyes held hers a moment. "I didn't know."
Joanna pinkened further. But she knew it to be a blush of pride. With a smile she nodded, "Yes, actually I caught it rather badly this afternoon."
"Truly? You? I ... didn't know. I mean that you'd joined us that far." She rested two fingers on Joanna's right cheek and felt through the thin material of her short black cocktail dress. "Um. Alec?"
"Yes. Six." She added brightly, "Quite tight."
"The brute." She slapped her backside eloquently. "Of course, we get the rope's end here."
"I wondered what that was," Joanna stammered. "I mean, hanging up in there."
"In the bathroom? Oh, that's only a small one. Usually they're worse than that, and the thoughtful fellow soaks it in water first, to add to the weight, and the end is bound with twine and toughened with tar. We never get less than a dozen." Her face changed. "For my daughter Do it's one thing. But I'm past the age when I find it a joke."
A slender brunette was doing her eyes at a mirror. Joanna recognized Peggy Walker, an excellent tennis player. The girl threw back a laugh. "Honest, Sal, I don't know how you manage it."
"Alas, there's not much choice. A 'rump and dozen,' as Roy calls it, may be all right for the girl. Youngsters need thorough frightening at least once a month, we find, but although I don't get it as often as some, the very sight of that length of cord is positively petrifying."
"I thought I saw...." Joanna mumbled.
"At the tennis club? That was long after."
"What you saw," said Peggy Walker, working in her eye shadow, "was one of the best beaten bottoms in The Territory. Sally is right. Roy doesn't spare her. I've seen one. She's spliced to the rigging or whatever and then he lams into her with this wet rope till her sit-upon looks like cooked beef, really. Ugh."
"How's your average, Peg?" the hostess asked.
"Miserable, as usual. And I'm due for six after breakfast tomorrow with the switch. You don't happen to have a tube of Nupercaine handy, do you?"
"Outlawed in The Territory," laughed Sally Benson.
"On pain of ... pain," came back Peggy Walker crisply.
"Seriously," Joanna put in, "I thought we had a singles date, at the club at ten."
"Oh that's all right," said the other, standing up and running a hand over her lame pants, "I always play better after a beating."
Pam had said that....
She added, "You may see some decoration 'verso' in the changing room, after, but exercise helps take the pain away."
"What's being figged?" Joanna asked on an impulse.
They both looked at her.
"So you know about that already," said Sally Benson with a smile. "You've really come a long way in the time, Jo. Figging is inserting a ginger suppository up the anus."
"It can be ginger or some other compulsive substance," put in tiny Peggy Walker, still ruminatively rubbing her perfectly shaped posteriors. "They do it to show horses."
"And women," said Sally Benson. With horses it makes them keep their tails up. For us, it has the effect of making you want to spread your cheeks. The damn thing melts, and burns, and makes you push out, as if you were going to ... well ... go. Used on a tight ass."
Used, thought Joanna with a throb of affinity, on Mavis Smith-Peters' closely cheeked ass.
"Used on 'clenchers', " said Peggy Walker primly. "It doesn't do to clench."
"You'd be good to beat, Jo," Sally said solemnly, as the three of them passed out towards the steps. Band music could be heard upstairs.
Joanna paused. "What do you mean by that?"
But Peggy nodded, too. "One knows. It's a fact. Sal's right. I'd love to see you caned, Jo, and you can bet your bottom dollar with no pun intended that every man here would, too."
"Goodness!"
But she mounted the steps with a curious smile, glowing with pleasure. She had indeed come a long way from that airport at Shaftesbury, let alone New Hampshire.
Cynthia brushed past her on the arm of a bronzed young man. "Alec was looking for you, darling. On the upper poop or forward fo'casle or something." She appeared to have had a bit to drink and after what she'd been through in the day, Joanna didn't blame her. She walked out to a deck slung under the stars, suddenly exultant.
Alec wasn't there, but a voice said at once, "Care to dance?"
She turned and saw the tall, almost sad-looking man with the full dark hair brushed wavily back off a lined, teak-tanned forehead who had been staring at her all evening.
"I'm Edward Arborough," he said.
He was quite the best-looking man she had ever seen.
He danced perfectly, threading her through the couples with consummate skill. He was a man-she instinctively sensed-who looked after a woman. He seemed in his mid-forties, evidently single, but with almost a foreign or Latin look. They exchanged small talk awhile, then they danced in silence. Joanna felt her whole body respond, as it never had with Tom.
"I hear you're thinking of staying on in The Territory, Mrs. Swanne. Immigrating, I mean."
"Who told you that?" she laughed.
"Oh, Alec. Said that when your divorce was through, you'd be ... wanting to join us. Personally I don't believe it."
"You don't?"
He shook his head. "Immigrations here are virtually non-existent. Perhaps two or three a year, and those mostly coloreds. It's really ... far too tough."
Her chin came up. "Meaning-you don't think I could take it, Mr. Arborough?"
He looked down at her in a strange way, casually compelling, affectionately-like someone indulging a child, though with a contemptuous curl of his lower lip at the same time. "I don't think you could," he said.
"Oh!" she said, offended. She remembered how his eyes had flickered over her, tawnily, when she had asked for a cushion at her seat in the dining room. She was about to retort hotly when there was a tap on her partner's shoulder.
"Sorry, but you can't monopolize her all night, y'know."
The man's handsome face receded, rather saturnine, and Joanna found herself led off in the arms of the one who, a few hours previously, had bent her over and caned her naked rear. It was strange sensation, piquantly thrilling. Alec Reddick danced cheek to cheek in silence for a while.
She said in his ear. "Thank you for not giving me those extra two for being ... impudent. I don't think I could have taken any more."
"Eight hurts far more than six, and twelve more than four extra to eight. You'd be surprised."
"Not now I wouldn't. Bryyh!" She gave a shudder in his arms, realizing, as she did so, how very close he was holding her. "Those last two really stung."
He shook his head. "Long."
"Long? What do you mean, Alec?"
"I cut long both times. Ideally you should use the tip to maximum effect. When the tip falls too far over it's called 'long'. It hurts the hip on the right, but would hurt more on the great old gluteus maximus. To cut short is the reverse; the tip falls on the center of the right cheek and is deprived of that little extra bit of whip, so important, imparted by the natural curve of the flesh."
"How very scientific!" She remembered now. Just what Cynthia had said.
"One day I must introduce you to 'Benjy'. "
"What on earth's that?"
"Benjy is thrashing an individual cheek-the left if you're a right-hander, like me. The tip whips inside the chosen side."
"Ouch!"
"Yes it can be quite effective, but you know, if you want to see a really thorough caning you should go to the Punishment Shed at six o'clock. Mr. Johns takes care of that. It's punishment worthy of the name."
A small rank of, mostly, coloreds lined up in their field clothes outside one of the barns-all women, all frightened, as a swarthy overseer grinned and took practice swings with his cane nearby. Joanna had seen it once, riding back to the main house.
"Can ... anyone go and watch?" she asked hotly.
"Absolutely," he said with a sympathetic squeeze. "Mr. Johns would be delighted to have you. And I thing you'd realize that what I gave you and Cynth today is child's play in comparison. They use a penal cane."
A tall girl glided by, dancing. She had on a sailor's blouse and tight white sailor's pants.
"That's their daughter Dorothy," said Alec Reddick in her ear. "He makes her wear naval rig all the time. Just been raised to the rank of midshipman or something Perhaps I should say midshipwoman. I'll ask Roy to let you watch one some day. Never less than twelve with a rope."
"I've heard," Joanna said dryly.
"Poor old Do doesn't take her eyes off the ground for two days after one of those." Chuckled in her hair. "Jo, you really are a luscious body. Tom was a damn fool to lose you. Divorces are unknown here."
She laughed shortly.
He went on, "No, but you are good at beating."
"What does that mean? Good at," she asked him. It was a strange kind of desirability this new-found lure of hers.
"It's just that you have a perfect Sitzplatz to whip into. I can't explain it. It's purely esthetic. You probably know it yourself. You have a good solid bottom in the prime of condition...."
She laughed awkwardly. "A little too much of it, I fear."
He corrected her with a well nigh academic precision. "Size is not an issue. You spread well, your thighs are broad and strong, your cunt is well recessed, you show much less cunt than Cynthia, for example."
I'm glad to hear it, she thought inwardly.
Aloud she said, not without a trace of indignation in her tone, "Well, you certainly didn't spare Cynth. You wealed her well and truly."
"I have a feeling Cynth is working up to a big let-down shortly. That remark about God, for instance. Every now and then, as with our young, we have to administer what we call a 'straightener'. Brings 'em to their senses. Clears the air and clears theirs heads, too."
"Highly therapeutic," she sneered.
But he answered earnestly, "I mean it. A good beating stimulates the circulation, and the peristalsis, too."
"I'll let you know about that, Tomorrow," she answered, blushing. "It's not my favorite topic."
"Anyway," she heard, "Cynthia's now been drinking too much and she knows I don't like that. Drunkenness is actually a crime in The Territory."
"Mr. Arborough doesn't think I have the guts to make it," she retorted. "He thinks I'm just going through a gesture."
Alec Reddick thrust her away and looked down at her.
"Quite seriously, Jo, you really want to stay here with us? You really want to put your application forms in?"
"Tomorrow," she answered at once.
He shook his head. "I admire you, but I wouldn't want to be in your place. If you're accepted for absorption by the authorities, it'll mean a special program. You have to go to a Gladiator camp. Complete degradation and vilification, as well as mere punishment. You have to lose your whole previous personality, in toto. You become a thing, an it. Are you really willing?"
"With all my heart," she said. Alec Reddick squeezed her again. There were tears in her eyes as she spoke.
The dance was ending. Alec said, "There's one thing. If you want to go through with this, I mean."
"What? Tell me."
"Should Roy invite you...."
"To dance?" She laughed. "You mean, he can dance with that peg-leg?"
"He can even thrash you with it, too," Alec said, still staring at her solemnly. "But what I meant was ... we have a custom ... droit de seigneur, kind of...."
"I think I'm getting you," she said. "Eskimo hospitality in reverse."
He smiled as he led her to the side. "Sort of. It's a host's tradition. Only one woman a night, however."
"Lucky host," she said, and-with all the other women, she noticed-she waited for Alec to sit down first, then did so herself, albeit a little gingerly.
The evening proceeded, as such evenings did, pleasantly and convivially. Joanna drank more and more. It seemed to have little effect. She was high enough inside. The band redoubled its efforts. Occasional cabin doors could be found locked, from time to time, and couples were missing, only to emerge later looking very satisfied. She herself was standing on the bridge, by the immense, polished and utterly useless wheel there, when a woman said, "What's that?" '
A maid in black satin was walking along the deck beneath them carrying in her hands a jar of water and what seemed to be a child's coloring set, of paints.
Dorothy Benson leant to look, in her sailor outfit, Without expression she said, "They asked Daddy if they could play darts. It's in the playroom, I think. They drew lots for who it was to be."
"Oh, mother," said the woman who had asked the question, "who's the lucky loser?"
"Mrs. Danforth, I think," said the girl.
"Poor Tess. You feel that for a week."
"There's four of them. I think it's a Calcutta."
"Oh, mother and oh, brother," moaned the woman.
"What, what?" said Joanna to the woman nearest to her.
This was demure Mavis Smith-Peters, now released from "Restraint". She beamed, blushing
"Would you like to watch?"
"What, darts?" asked Joanna.
"I'm keeping out of harm's way, thanks," said the other woman.
"The target, or board," Mavis Smith-Peters explained sweetly, "is human."
"Human female," said the woman dryly, "in case you hadn't guessed."
"My husband is taking part, actually," said Mavis, "let me show you, darling."
Following her willowy spine down the gangway Joanna found her eyes caught by the manner in which the pale silk moved over the softly sumptuous posterior. The other turned with a smile.
"I hear you got it for being with me. I am so sorry."
"Oh that's all right," Joanna said, a little awkwardly. "It was unpleasant for a minute or so, but that's all."
"I hear you took it terribly well."
"Who said?"
"I heard. Well, if it's any comfort to you I got another six myself when Simon came home." She drew Joanna down yet another flight of steps into the bowels of the ship, or "hold". She smiled up sweetly again. "However, I'd rather have both punishments over again rather than what Tessa's going to get in here."
She opened a door onto what indeed resembled some happy "rumpus" room. There were some men and women taking drinks at a table one side, and four of the former had, Joanna saw, removed their smoking jackets. But Mavis drew her forward to a low dais one end.
Tessa Danforth was already in position when
Joanna entered. The mulatto maid, a switch clipped to her broad black belt, was putting a last few finishing touches to her "target" from the paints tray.
On the dais had been fixed a board like a door. It was, Joanna learnt, a door. To this thick board Tessa had been fixed. Facing it, her feet-slightly parted-went through apertures made in the base. Her arms went through holes higher up, being secured the other side. Her chin rested on the top. She had dark liquid eyes, boy's-cut thin blonde hair, and, rather like Mavis, an ordinary sloping back which widened to surprisingly heavy, tender-looking buttocks. She was naked but for high-heeled shoes and long, self-supporting black nylons. And she was crying. On closer inspection, Joanna found her to be quivering all over. For at first all she could look at was the woman's lurid behind. Each bottom-cheek had been painted to resemble a target, complete with bull's-eye in its center. Holding the fatty flesh still, the maid was perfecting an outer ring. The cheeks were firmly divided by a narrow, yet strong, leather strap which buckled to the waist belt in back. This latter was especially broad. "Protects the kidneys, you see," Mavis explained, reading Joanna's mind. "But take a look at the darts before they begin."
Before moving away Joanna approached the woman. She felt she had to "see" her. Tears were rolling down Tessa Danforth's anxious, attentive face as Joanna said, "I think we met at dinner."
"Please get them to loosen this saddle strap," came the begging whisper back. "It's cutting me in two."
The darts were at the side. They were not shafted with wood, but gold, heavy feathered things soaking in an antiseptic solution. Joanna took another rapid drink.
"Everybody ready? Have you placed your bets? Anyone bid me another hundred more for Peter? He's got an eye like a hawk."
In the absence of her husband, Roy, Sally Benson was merrily conducting the proceedings. The four participants had all been bought, one of them indeed being Steve Danforth, the "target's" spouse. They drew forward to a line three yards before the dais, preparing their gleaming weapons. The other spectators grouped themselves about, laughing and drinking. Mavis led Joanna to the side for a better view. It had been decided that Steve, as husband, should throw first.
"Four players, three darts each, that's twelve each side," Mavis murmured to her. "Poor Tessa. But it's exciting all the same, isn't it."
"Terribly," admitted Joanna. "I hope it doesn't show." She looked around for Edward Arborough, but he wasn't there. Mavis Smith-Peters giggled.
"I'm afraid my underwear is in a most unseemly state."
"She looks so beautifully frightened."
"She is. Those darts hurt. You watch."
"Get her tight," snapped Steve Danforth, preparing to throw his first.
The maid put a nyloned knee in the middle of the naked back and heaved the saddle strap a notch tighter. Tessa Danforth gasped, "Please!" The straps were tautened on her legs and arms and waist, in particular one thin one just under the buttocks. These were held out helplessly resplendent, a perfect pair bisected by the strap and unamenable to much control, it was evident, thanks to the stricture of the belt around the upper hips and waist. She turned her tear-streaked face, seemed to try to turn into the board, and then the thrower made a feathering motion, there was a whirring of air, completed by a cry.
"Damn!" said Steve Danforth.
The dart had struck true but bounced back and fallen on the floor, leaving a strident scratch.
"They have to stick in to count," Mavis explained contentedly.
He made no mistake the next time, throwing so hard that the spike buried itself in the upper flesh with an eloquent thukk! Tessa screamed. But he hadn't scored. The dart stood out above the target's ring.
The third, however, whistled home and buried itself like a bird's beak on the inside of the cheek close to the bull's eye. Tessa screamed again. There was applause. Steve Danforth went forward to inspect his handiwork, while the maid wrote his score on a slate.
"One inner," he pronounced disgustedly. "She moved."
When he withdrew the two barbs blood oozed. The maid wiped it off solicitously.
The next to throw was Ben Morrison, husband of Alec Reddick's secretary. He thumped three darts home accurately, and was awarded two "in-ners" and an "outer". The third player was a man Joanna did not know. Again his first bounced off, to the accompaniment of a scream.
"She's clenching," said Steve Danforth angrily, to the maid, "give her a couple, please."
"On the thighs, sir?"
"Yes, low down."
"Please," came the begging cry, "I didn't mean to ... I won't do it again ... I can't help it when I hear ... auuu!"
The switch sliced her twice mid-thigh.
"Give her a couple more," said her husband, "she scarcely felt those."
"Noooo-auuueee!"
"That's better," he said, when his order had been effected. "Now let them hang, light of my life. If you stiffen up again while a throw's in the air, I'll ask Roy to baste you with that rope of his. Okay, Pete."
The fourth and last participant was a Tennis Club enthusiast, Peter Salmon. He readied with an underhand action.
"Wildly inaccurate," said Mavis' voice in her ear, "but horribly hard."
Indeed, the first dart whunked into the woodwork wide of the painted hips altogether, but it did so with such velocity it produced a startled hush. Tessa gave an anguished wail, and seemed to try to climb up the board to which she was fastened.
Whukkkk!
The second buried itself to the hilt in her right thigh. She didn't scream. She squealed.
"Sights up, old chap. Trajectory excellent."
He cupped and swung his arm. This time she seemed to know the barb was going to skewer her truly for she fought in her bonds, squirming and wailing, "No, no, no!"
The dart flashed home full in the center of her bottom, scoring a bull's-eye with such force the metal appeared to impale her against the board for a moment.
"Aaauurrrghh!"
There was prolonged clapping. This time the dart was pulled out with difficulty
"Bravo, Pete. You have first throw t'other side."
"Noooo ... nooo!"
"I find these cries distracting. They put me off," said Peter Salmon, readying his darts.
"I agree," said the woman's husband at once, commiseratingly. "They're entirely unnecessary. Next time we'll have a single target of the pair, with her bunghole as bull's-eye. Sally, do you have a brank's?"
"I think so," said Sally Benson, like some society hostess asked for a copy of Who's Who?
"What's that?" inquired Joanna.
"Scold's bridle. Roy has some museum pieces. There." The maid was already advancing with a steel contraption, which she fastened over Tessa Danforth's pleading face. "The beer-can opener device beneath the chin," Mavis continued comfortably, "is, well, a beer-can opener. Modern addition. It scratches awfully if you open your mouth, either to cry out or relieve the pressure of that nice steel hit that's going in now."
"Good gracious," said Joanna. She had been aware of someone pushing up at her behind, from the door, and turned. Roy Benson, grinning and red-faced, was there. She felt a flicker of fear. "I hope I'm not responsible for obstructing your view, Captain Benson."
He put an arm round her waist. In the chunky curve of her right cheek she felt his stony erection. It was immense; it seemed to go on forever.
"I'm afraid you're responsible for that," he muttered, nudging into her. "Frankly, I wasn't watching the spectacle. I've been looking all evening atthese." So saying he handled her buttocks in his gnarled hands. He was terrifically, absurdly strong, for when Joanna tried to turn she found herself gripped, literally, from behind. "Ouch, that hurts."
"I suppose you couldn't do anything about this ... object."
Excitement rippled up her spine. "I might," she said noncommittally. He led her out, tapping away with his wooden leg, on down the passage to a door, which he shut behind her on a half-lit room. He had his clothes off in seconds, while she watched. He was possibly fifty, but in first-class shape, his belly on his backbone, and hard as nails. And between the harness of his artificial limb and the other stood a cock which caught her breath. His sky-high prick bobbed before her startled eyes, plum-colored at its crest and salivating semen in a first anticipatory wink. At that moment she thought she had never seen anything so ... so gluttonous in her life. Her fingers trembled with her under things.
"Pardon the pud," said the old salt, rubbing one grizzled temple, "but frankly I've been dying to get this into you since I first set eyes on you, Mrs. Swanne. Two minutes ago Alec told me you're now his ward, and so are joining The Territory."
'That's right."
"I could ask for Cynthia, if you know what I mean, an' ... "
"I'm perfectly familiar with the droit de Territory, Captain Benson," she said, staring at the monster in some respect. She raised the hem of her skirt reverentially.
He limped forward a pace and his swinging piston clubbed her face. She felt its solid weight.
"Would you like to be buggered, Mrs. Swanne?"
"Not with that," she said decidedly.
"Think you could melt it down in your mouth?"
"At the moment it doesn't much look as if anything could melt down that." She gave it a testing, and only half-playful, slap. It swung back at her angrily.
"In The Territory it's all or nothing, Ma'am."
"It's not all that, not in my throat, sir. I'm no sword swallower, thanks."
Captain Benson scratched his chin. "Of course, if Cynthia refused, I'd recommend to Alec a nice thrashing."
Joanna sat up straight on the bed. "I'd rather you didn't do that," she said. She began taking off her clothes. "Shove it into me from in front, and I'll do my best to take it."
She lay on her back with her knees drawn up and let him ease the prodigy into her. It sank in, inch by thudding inch. The prick seemed to lift her, physically, as he rammed.
"Please, I'm dry," she gasped, staring at the straining ceiling.
"All passionate women reckon to be," he said, "but you won't be soon."
She squirmed away as he impaled her. "Good God, there can't be any more ... please ... you're splitting me ... I can't uhh! Oh! Unh-oh! For Christ's sake, Captain, please, spit it out ... cream ... come ... I can't stand another centimeter ... I swear you're ... AAAAAHHH!"
When it was over she seemed to lie in a molten mass at his feet. He had dressed and was unhooking something from the wall.
"Thank you, Ma'am. I'd like to go through you again."
"The expression is apposite," she panted.
"Only next time it'll be up the butt. Unless," and he tapped her to his knees with his peg-leg, "you'd prefer this up there, instead."
"At least it wouldn't go off like a fire hydrant inside me."
"And now, if you don't mind, I'll just give ye a couple of swats to remember me by."
She darted at the words. But he seized her hair and seized her hands. His hands were fantastically strong. It was painful the mere way he held her, kneeling, her legs apart. She whimpered in anticipation, bracing on her knees, trying to tuck her cunt in under her. Then the hard rope welted her buttocks. She gave a bucking grunt and her head went back with a speechless exhalation, "Haaahh!"
It was a lightning flash of unspeakable pain that unleashed a blaze beneath her. He cut her again and this time she gave a gulping yelp, half-jumping from his grasp. She was squirming like a stranded fish on the floor when his peg-leg tip-tapped out the door, leaving it lightly ajar. It seemed to be minutes before she could bring this monstrous fire under control, and her spasmic squirms seemed to pump his gism from her depths. It clammied on her thigh.
She looked up. Someone was staring at her disorder through the crack of the door. She saw a man's form and the amber eyes of Edward Ar-borough.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Territory nights could be almost cold. Alec drove Joanna home alone in the Lagonda. Cynthia had expressed a whiskey-vague desire to stay at the Bensons a little longer. Some swain would restore her to order and return her, so Alec smilingly informed the handsome brunette beside him. They themselves had left late enough. Dawn was already whitening the edges of the sky. Cool fog of the first of day drifted off the barren ahead, smoky in the glare of their headlights.
"Not a bad party," Alec pronounced at one point.
"I got some of that Territory hospitality you talked about," she said, curling into her seat. "Right up the twat." As she said the words she realized she spoke them with ease; there was a new relationship between herself and Alec now. He merely grinned.
"Also," she added, "two belts with that frightful rope of his, after."
"They say it bruises," he said.
"All I know is, my little tricot pants seem twice as tight. I feel as though I'd been visited by Zeus."
"You're one of us now," he said.
"That's it," she laughed gaily. "My real name's Semele. Screwed by lightning. What a way to go."
"You are of the species," he replied.
"Meaning?" she asked with curiosity.
Alec said, "Oh you know how it is. In your country it's all breasts. They're all very well, and Cynthia's are quite splendid even, but essentially the female bosom serves a function, that of feeding infants."
She sighed voluptuously. "What wouldn't I give for someone to suck my nips right now. A real strong baby. They're both so tense they feel like bursting." She drew her left bub out and peeked at it. Surely it too looked twice the size. Perhaps she was a goddess, after all. But Alec was continuing, eyes ahead.
"You take the backside...."
"What Shakespeare called 'the afternoon of the body.'"
"Bless Shakespeare."
"Amen. But that's different. Its only function in both sexes is as padding to sit on. Monkeys blush with their backsides, did you know?"
"Well, so did I, this afternoon," Joanna affirmed.
"Thus a woman's bottom is non-functional. You might say it's entirely devoted to adornment. Function always makes a compromise with beauty. So why, dear Joanna, were you provided with such unnecessarily magnificent-one might say, impatient-buttocks?"
She laughed in answer. They were approaching the estate gates. It was almost light but she could feel the headlamps prying through her frock as she got out and went forward and opened the lock for him. He parked the car and together they walked into the silent house.
Outside the door to her room, she turned.
"Thanks, Alec," she said a trifle unsteadily. "This has been the most incredible day of my life." She gazed at him. "Unforgettable. I never thought it could happen. I'm very grateful."
"Even though I gave you six of the best?"
"Just because you gave me six of the best. You brought my being awake. And," she added with a smile, "I still insist I should have had eight."
"You'll get what you get," he said. "And one day you'll ask me to give you a hiding. Beg me to. Cynthia does when she's gone too long without. The only thing is, she doesn't often go too long without."
They were speaking in lowered voices.
"I'm asking you to now," she said. "I should have had those extra two."
