This short story is an entry in the 2001 Soc.Sexuality.Spanking Summer Short Story Contest and is copyright by the author and commercial use is prohibited without permission. Personal/private copies are permitted only if complete including the copyright notice. The author would appreciate your comments
Category: Child
Apsley Church
By
Valerie Meilong <VMeilong1@excite.com>
It was a fine sunny day, a rare event in England in April. As I drove past Apsley Church, the clock struck eight. I noticed that just outside the main door a man in a frock coat was standing with his left foot pointed down so as to lift his knee. A young girl was draped over that knee, and he was vigorously beating her with a stick. At first I thought I was dreaming, and was well past the church before I pulled myself together. But I was curious, so I turned around and went back. No sign of the man or the girl.
Imagination?
The next morning I happened to pass the church at the same time. I heard the clock strike, and suddenly the pair appeared. I stopped, spellbound with horror now. She had her skirts pulled up high, and I could clearly see that her bottom was bare. My God, he was thrashing her soundly. I watched for a little while, then made up my mind. "This is just not on," I thought, and got out of the car.
Apsley Church is a small but magnificent ancient stone building, much of it being of the original Norman construction. It had a splendid old roofed gateway to the churchyard, a perfect example of a medieval lich-gate that was formerly used at burials for sheltering the coffin until the clergyman's arrival. The latch was rusty, and I had a struggle to get it open. I rushed forward down the pebble-stone path towards the brute. "Hey! Stop that," I shouted. As I ran forward, he and the struggling girl began to fade, and by the time I got to them they had vanished. I stood there completely bewildered. Was I going mad? Was I hallucinating?
I was uneasy all day, and I didn't sleep well that night either.
The next morning I got to the church early, parked the car, and sat on the lich-gate bench, waiting for eight o'clock to strike. I was keen to solve the mystery of the vanishing pair. I was also determined that the girl should be spared any further punishment. I stared at the place where I had seen the apparition.
The hands of the clock crept nearer to the hour. Suddenly it sounded, a rich mellow sonorous bong.
"Good morning," said a polite refined voice. I nearly jumped out of my skin He had on a black old-fashioned frock coat, and wore a white dog-collar. Was it *the* man? Possibly. He was similar, but I couldn't be certain. I glanced up at the church. No sign of the girl or her tormentor.
"Oh, sorry, vicar," I mumbled. "You startled me." He smiled, but offered no apology. I looked at the church again. Nothing.
"Er…vicar, tell me. Is the church haunted by any chance?"
He smiled, "Do you believe in ghosts?" he said. I blinked. "I'm not sure," I replied with hesitation. "Do you?"
His smile broadened. "Of course," he said, and vanished.
The End
© Copyright Summer, 2001
***READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!*** This story is for entertainment purposes only, and it does not necessarily represent the viewpoint of the author. All characters are fictional and any resemblance to any real person alive or dead is purely coincidental. The Copyright of this story is held by ESP Publishing Ltd., Beijing, China. All Rights Reserved. Free distribution via an electronic medium such as the Internet is permitted as long as the text is not modified, and the name of the author and this copyright notice is clearly included. Any other form of publication is expressly forbidden unless authorized in writing by ESP Publishing Ltd.
Reviews
John Benson <johnb(at)ssec(dot)wisc(dot)edu>
The ending is abrupt, but it's a pleasant startle. A ghost story. How nice. What a truly naughty little girl that must be, to have to reenact that nasty whacking down through all eternity.
I might have liked a bit more prurient interest or at least ambiguous and guilty fascination on the part of the narrator. But of course with the word limit, too much attention on her interior state might have taken away from the effort lavished on the setting, which was quite fine.
Welcome to the ranks of the amateur writers of kinked esoterica. Your style seems well suited to a larger format, so maybe when the contest is over you'll grace us with a longer offering. How the narrator discovers the back story of this ghostly drama and somehow gets caught up in it might be an afternoon's delight.
Pablo <Pablo(dot)Stubbs(at)newsguy(dot)com>
The oddly abrupt ending of this otherwise compelling tale left me as a reader dissatisfied for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it perhaps leaves too much mystery remaining. Who is the girl? Why is she being beaten? Secondly, it feels like it doesn't quite fit with the carefully written and constructed first two-thirds. There's some good stuff here, and plenty that's intriguing, but it's not quite finished, I think.