The repercussions of discovery can be simply too painful to contemplate.

Here's a case in point.

My mood could be best described as simmering, at worst, explosive: I was not a happy Harriet. The Inland Revenue had, as the Inland Revenue does, lost my tax form and then sent a letter chastising me for the fact; the zip of my favourite skirt - black, short and guaranteed to distract the attention of anyone with whom I was negotiating - had come apart; and a glance at the cellulite in the mirror clearly indicated the reason for this calamity. Dispirited by thoughts of a hamster food diet for the next month, followed up by mindless hours on an exercise bike, I slammed the front door behind me and headed for work.

It was raining. My umbrella was in the office.

The train was late. The platform was exposed. The rain continued to fall.

The tea tasted like parrafin. A greasy boy tried to chat me up. A gorgeous woman with bright red lipstick didn't.

The rain became a storm, replete with thunder and lightning.

The train was cancelled.

I know a lot of swear words. I rehearsed most of them on the long, wet, miserable walk back home, muttering and mumbling, remonstrating with lampposts and barking at trees. People avoided me, dogs backed away. As I reached home and opened the front door I felt I had plumbed the depths of dudgeon.

Ha ha.

It was oddly quiet. He should have been at home; he should, in truth, have been in the kitchen, washing up, doing the laundry, baking bread. That was what I kept him for. Silence. The bastard's gone back to bed, I thought. Here was I, bedraggled, bothered and bewildered, and he was lying in bed, snoring. I'd sort him out, I vowed. I slipped out of my heels, catching sight of my sad reflection in the hall mirror: mascara running, hair plastered flat to my head, clothes soaked and DKNY bra showing through my blouse, as though I were the posh candidate in a wet tee-shirt contest. It did little to lighten my mood. I tiptoed upstairs, hoping to catch him in the act.

And catch him in the act I did. But not the act I was anticipating.

I peered round the door frame and saw him seated on the edge of the bed, with his back to me. He was wearing a tee shirt and socks, but nothing else. His hands were at his face, and at first I thought he was blowing his nose. I noticed that my underwear drawers were open: the top one, with my panties, opened only narrowly, and the second one, with my bras, opened wider, permitting access to both at once. Perhaps it was my ill-temper affecting my reasoning, but it took me some moments to figure out what was happening. He reached for the top drawer and pulled out a thong - moonlight silver, from La Perla, one of my favourites - and held it to his face, inhaling. I walked into the bedroom and saw, arranged around his feet, my bras and panties, and stockings and suspenders, my green stretch lace basque and even the turquoise Pergola strapless bustier an optimistic beau had once bought me. My drawers were nearly emptied, the contents scattered on the floor as props in his fetishistic fantasy.

The depths of dudgeon descended several metres lower.

"What in the name of fucking christ do you think you're doing?"

He turned and yelped, involuntarily tossing a pair of blue knickers in the air, his hands twittering, fingers finally resting on his mouth in an almost comic intimation of shock. His startled eyes appraised me, and I doubt whether my manic appearance did much to assuage his fear.

"Harriet," he said.

"Don't you Harriet me, what the hell d'you think you're doing?" He stared at me open mouthed. "Well?" No reply. "It's not a rhetorical question, fuckface, what d'you think you're doing?"

Okay, I'll accept I wasn't making this easy for him.

"I 3;"

"You 3;"

"I was looking at your things."

"So I see. What for?"

"I 3; I like them."

"Aren't they better when they're draped around my body, rather than stuffed in a drawer?"

"Yes but 3;"

"But?"

"You're not here."

"I bloody am. Just look at me. Large as fucking life and twice as mad!"

"You weren't."

"No, I wasn't. So you thought you'd just start rummaging around in my undies did you?"

He looked down at the carpet, shamefaced.

"You dirty little bastard. I suppose you've been sniffing them as well, have you? Pressing them to your face and sniffing? Do you do that as well?" He didn't answer. He was hunched pitifully on the bed, small, inconsequential and largely naked. Which made me wonder.

"Is your dick stiff?" I shouted. He looked at me, startled. "Is it? Was this making you hard? Let me see!" Reluctantly, he sat back on the bed, resting his hands behind him on the cover, and revealed himself to me. His cock was rigid and standing to attention. I looked from his cock to my underwear, spread before him like so many pieces of pornography.

"What were you going to do?" I asked. "If I hadn't come in, if I hadn't caught you with your trousers off, fiddling with my knickers. What would you have done?"

"I don't know."

"Come off it, don't tell me this is the first time you've ever done this. What were you going to do?" I think he was genuinely in shock. He seemed unable to answer. "Were you going to wank? And sniff them? Is that what you were going to do?" He wore an enigmatic expression, and I couldn't read whether he was agreeing or not. And then a thought, unsolicited but shocking, shivered through my mind.

"Were you going to wear them?" I roared, marching into the room and standing directly in front of him, hands on my hips in melodramatic fashion. He didn't reply. I gripped his chin and pulled his face up, forcing him to look at me.

"You were, weren't you? You fucking pervert. D'you get off on wearing my clothes?"

I was in a steaming rage by now, taken completely unawares by the notion that he might do that. He remained mute, but his silence simply served to fuel my anger, and by now I didn't care whether that had been his intention or not. And then another thought came to me.

"Okay, let's see it!"

I could tell from his eyes that my meaning hadn't registered. "What?" he said.

I was gripped by fury. I may be small, but I can exert considerable strength when called on. Pincering my fingers round his jaw I pulled him to his feet and drew my face close to his. " Let's see!" I repeated. "Get them on. Let's see the little man in my underwear!" I pushed and he fell to the bed, his still erect cock flouncing around his midriff. I looked for something which would fit him and saw the perfect item lying on the carpet: my cream, stretch lace french knickers, two pairs for £16 at La Redoute and therefore dispensable. Bending over, I grabbed them. "Here," I said, turning to him. "Get them on!"

"No, Harriet, please. I wasn't going to. I've never done that."

"I don't believe you. I bet you do it every morning when I go to work, don't you? Prance around the house in my panties like a little girl. Is that what you do?"

"No," he replied pathetically.

I knelt in front of him. "Leg! Lift!" I hissed, holding the knickers open at his feet. He made no move and I slapped his face, only a gentle blow, but a reminder of who was in charge. He recoiled, but instantly raised his leg, and I slid my knickers over his foot. "And the other one." Without objection he lifted his right leg and allowed me to slide the knickers to his shin. "Stand up." Wordlessly, he rose to his feet and I pulled the knickers to his knees, then up his thigh. Adjusting my hold, I gripped them from the front and yanked them upwards, the material beginning to strain against his bulk. I slid my hands round to the back and tugged at them, pulling them all the way over his arse. His dick and balls remained exposed, the knickers gathered unceremoniously beneath them, and I pulled them forward and up, covering his erection and sliding the knickers into place. The shape of his dick pressed ridiculously through the sheer fabric and the legs, usually airy and roomy, clung tight against his thighs. But no matter, he was wearing my french knickers.

"There," I said. "It's like dressing a little child, isn't it? Turn round." He stood still and I slapped his thigh firmly, a red blush appearing instantly on his skin. Immediately, he pirouetted for me, my french kinckers straining to conceal him. "What a pretty girl," I murmured and squeezed his balls hard. He yelped in pain. "Aren't you?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"A pretty girl."

"Who is?"

"I am."

"Tell me what you are?"

"I'm a pretty girl."

"Excellent. And what else do pretty girls wear?" There was no reply. "I'll tell you," I said, growing impatient. I had to confess, I was getting a little turned on by this situation, and the thought of forcing my man to dress up in my underwear was making me moist. "They wear a bra. Here's one." I reached for the lacy bra which matched the knickers and spread it before him. "Not sure if it'll fit, but there's not much to you, so it probably will. Arms out." I got to my feet, but he made no move. His expression was one of glassy panic, and I figured that somehow a bra was even more humiliating than the knickers: we all, men and women, wear knickers of some description, but only women wear bras, and so forcing him into one of mine was profoundly shaming. I slapped his arse again. "Put your arms out!"

Reluctantly, he did as he was told and I slid the straps of the bra over his hands and up his forearms. "Turn round." He turned and I pulled the bra to his shoulders, securing the straps in place and tugging it hard across his back. I had to force it to get the hooks together, but finally managed to fasten it securely. I'd probably never be able to wear the thing again, the way it was being stretched, but I felt it was a worthwhile sacrifice. "Perfect," I said. "Let me see."

Once more, he turned on the spot for me. The bra was straining hard, biting into his flesh, the cups flattened against his chest. I grabbed a couple of pairs of panties, scrunched them into a ball and slid them into the cups.

"Turn, turn," I ordered. "Dance on the spot. Let me see you dance for me, in your nice bra and panties." Morosely, he turned on the balls of his feet in a desultory dance. But even though his face and demeanour elicited no sign that he was enjoying this humiliation, the erect cock bulging in my french knickers suggested otherwise.

"Now then, what else do pretty girls wear, huh? And if you don't answer me this time I'm going to thrash you. Believe it, buddy."

Panic revisited his eyes while he thought. "Stockings?" he whispered.

"Yep, stockings would be nice. Are you asking to wear stockings? Do you want me to dress you in my stockings? And think very carefully before you answer, considering what you're already wearing." I squeezed his cock. "And what it's doing to you. Lie and I'll thrash you."

He paused for what seemed like minutes, his brain calculating, the horror of the scene being inflicted on him burning into his consciousness. I squeezed his cock again, very hard, to rouse him from his thoughts. He looked at me in resignation.

"Yes," he said.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, I'd like to wear your stockings."

"You want me to dress you in my stockings?"

"Yes."

"Jeez, what a pervert. Sit on the bed, pretty girl." I had some hold-ups which were, if you'll pardon the pun, on their last legs, and since whatever I put on him would be ruined I figured these would do. They were black, 10 denier and sheer, utterly ravishing. I slid the first over his left foot and slowly began to roll it up his ankle, up his shin, to his knee and onward to his thigh. It stopped rather shorter than would be considered decent, and he would have looked extremely interesting in a short skirt, but it served the purpose of the moment. I repeated the act with his right leg, ensuring that my fingers floated about and caressed his thighs, brushing against the lace of his knickers, deliberately provoking him, turning him on. Making him stand, I settled the stockings properly into place, and as I sat back I was surprisingly impressed: a good pair of hold-ups can make even the most lardy, unattractive arse look moderately arousing.

"There we are, then," I said. "There's the pretty girl all dressed up in my underwear. There's the pretty girl in my bra and knickers and stockings. Walk up and down for me." He did so immediately, self-consciously and awkwardly. "Pity I haven't got high heels that would fit you. That would round things off nicely."

He looked at me as he walked up and down before me, and again I couldn't quite fathom the thoughts behind his expression. "Maybe you can buy some for yourself?" I added casually, noting how he started at the notion, his body tensing for a fraction of a second.

I was, admittedly, quite turned on by seeing him parade for me in my bra and knickers, but I was still livid with him for playing in my drawers, and wasn't ready to forgive yet. Not by a long chalk. I rose to my feet and walked towards him.

"I hope you don't think that's the end of it." He looked confused. "I hope you don't think you've got away with this." He shook his head. "Too damned right you haven't, you pervert. Look at you, dolled up in my underwear, fishing around my drawers. D'you think I should have to put up with that?" Again, he shook his head, and I noticed his hand was trembling. "Right again, pretty girl. So what am I going to do?"

I took off my jacket it and flung it on the bed, then turned to face him. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you that thrashing I've threatened you with twice already. I'm going to teach you not to go behind my back and sniff my panties, or play with them, or wear them, or whatever it is your sordid little fantasies are. Alright?"

"No."

"What?" I shrieked at him, like a valkyrie on helium.

"Yes," he corrected, panicked.

"You want me to punish you?"

"Yes." He was looking more and more miserable by the second.

"For wearing my bra and knickers and stockings?"

"Yes."

"Okay, over my knee." I turned away casually, as though I had uttered nothing more shocking than a casual greeting. He froze. This was all happening so fast his fevered mind couldn't keep up. I sat on the edge of the bed, in the very spot where I had discovered him perving over my drawers, and waited frostily. "Well?"

He stood before me, his still erect cock encased in my french knickers, my bra straining across his chest and my hold-up stockings bestowing an unwonted elegance on his legs. He was visibly shaking, nonplussed by the turn of events. I don't think he could believe that I was serious, but with the lack of any evidence to the contrary he finally deduced that he had no escape. Quietly, he stepped towards me. Stooping, he folded himself across my lap, trying to steady himself. I grabbed his waist and pulled him towards me, settling his crotch against my skirt, feeling his erection pressing against me. His feet were still on the floor and he was reaching forward with his hands, trying to place them, too, on the carpet. I shook my body beneath him and raised myself onto the balls of my feet, lifting him in the air and leaving him helpless in my grip. He yelped in trepidation.

"You're a filthy pervert," I shouted. "What are you?"

"I'm a filthy pervert."

"And you need to be punished. Don't you?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"I need to be punished."

I slapped my hand on his backside, feeling the soft, elegant surface of the french knickers on my palm, and beneath that the firm, warm flesh of his arse. He screamed, more through surprise than pain. "Hah," I snorted. "That's nothing, wait till I've finished with you, dirty little girl." I proceeded to thrash him, giving him about twenty spanks with my hand until it became too sore to continue. Looking around, I saw his slipper at the foot of the bed.

"Hand me the slipper," I told him, and slid him sideways so that he could reach it. Reluctantly, he grabbed it and passed it to me.

"Please don't," he pleaded.

"Why not?" I replied, letting fly with the slipper and startling even myself with the sound it made as it connected with his flesh. He screamed. I spanked him again, and again, and again, three blows on the identical spot, at the base of his right cheek. Lifting his french knickers, I saw his flesh was red and angry, some of my fingerprints still clearly visible. He was moaning almost permanently now, a low, pathetic series of snuffles which made me all the more determined to administer his punishment. I turned my attention to his left cheek and slowly spanked it until it was the same shade of red.

My arm was getting tired, and I felt he had nearly had enough. Besides, I had one more trick to play. I pushed him from my lap and watched him fall helplessly onto the floor, landing on the panties he had so carefully placed there earlier, before his fantasy took on nightmare connotations.

"There," I said. "Naughty little boys who play with girls' bras and panties need their punishment, don't they? I hope you've learned your lesson."

"Yes, I have. I'm sorry."

"Stand up." He struggled to his feet. I got off the bed and approached him, bending over and inspecting my french knickers. As I had anticipated, there was a small damp patch on them where a drop of pre-cum had leaked from his cock. I looked up at him reproachfully.

"Look what you've done," I said. "You've stained my good french knickers with your filthy cum. Haven't you?" He looked shamefacedly at the carpet. "Haven't you!" I screamed.

"Yes, I'm sorry."

"That's not good enough! They're ruined." I rushed at him and he recoiled in fear. "Pull them down. Immediately!" Without waiting for him to respond I grabbed the waistband and yanked them to his knees. Pushing him in the back I bent him forward. "Grab your knees," I yelled as I reached for his trousers, hanging on the wardrobe, and pulled the belt from them. He saw what I was doing and screamed, but nonetheless bent over and gripped his hands against the back of his knees, as I had instructed. I let fly with the belt, timing it completely wrongly and causing it to flail impotently against his leg. Grabbing it further down, shortening its length, I tried again and was rewarded with a perfect hit across both cheeks, the crack resounding round the bedroom, closely followed by his scream of pain. I whipped him twice more, watching with delight as parallel bands of livid red appeared across his tortured backside.

I could see that his cock was still erect, and indeed his helmet was pulsing purple and sleek. Despite the pain, he was clearly aroused by the experience.

"Grab your cock," I told him. He did as I ordered, and the action caused him to bend his legs slightly, parting them at the knee and opening his arse cheeks wider. That was convenient, I thought: it gave me more to aim for.

"Wank. Wank your cock while I thrash you." I unleashed another blow with the belt, streaking it across the previously untouched flesh of his inner cheeks, while his fist thrust up and down his engorged cock. I flayed him again, and again, landing my blows on different places each time, and he was moaning with each assault on his bared arse. All the while he wanked his cock, his muscles tensing in anticipation of every blow. He was breathing hard, his eyes screwed shut and mouth drawn in a grimace of pain. Or was it pleasure? I could sense he was close to coming, his hand working harder and faster with each stroke along the length of his cock.

Aiming carefully, I struck him once more, low across the back of his thigh. The way he was bent over, with his knees wide apart to accommodate his wanking hand, meant the rear of his balls was exposed. With a deliberately exaggerated downward projection, I flashed the belt against him and as it struck it flayed directly across his balls. The flash of agony that this caused to erupt through his nether regions sent him over the edge and with a piercing scream he tensed, his buttocks clenching, and he started to come. A huge globule of semen erupted onto the carpet in front of him, followed by another and another. All the while he was chanting "no, no, no" in time to his ejaculation. I gave him two final thrashes while he played himself out, taking time to admire my handiwork on his bruised arse and his on the carpet.

"Well then, pretty girl," I said, "would you like a collection of bras and panties of your own? I think you would." He merely whimpered, and I was left to ponder whether his moans were affirmative or negative. Not that I cared. I had already decided.

And so there you are. As I write, he is out buying size nine high heels, seven bras - assorted colours - seven pairs of panties, stockings and suspenders. While he is at it he is buying lipstick and mascara and blusher and foundation. And the moral of the story, dear reader, is don't get caught out on a day when tempers are frayed, because tempers frayed lead to backsides flayed.