Joanna looked at her watch and then shifted impatiently in her seat. What was the big deal? She picked up the Attainder Notice again and re-read it.

The indictment read, petty fraud, tax evasion, failure to report to a hearing, failure to pay preliminary fines and assorted other picky little offences. Well the tax, late interest and all the fines had been paid now, both her manager, agent and even her damn family had insisted upon it.

No doubt they wanted to give her another financial sanction or maybe some community time, but the speculation about jail time was a joke. Joanna laughed as she remembered some of the lurid press speculation. There was no such thing as bad publicity in her game. Nevertheless these justice department people were taking their own sweet time to see her.

Joanna Gatsby gave a heavy sigh and got to her feet and went to the large picture in the waiting room. The glass plate on it gave her a reflective surface to work on her lippy; not that she needed to.

The wide-eyed ‘innocent’ that stared back at her had a practiced pout and neatly groomed piled up business-like blonde hair. The hat was a nice touch too; old-fashioned and told the world she was solid and not just another 23rd century bimbo.

It was the image that had fronted a dozen albums, three movies and a TV show on the Tri-vid; she forced a smile. What the hell, if they didn’t buy her excuses this time she would pay them off again. After all money was no object.

*

The man behind the desk wore all black. Even his hair was slicked back and shiny jet; a bureaucrat right out of central casting. The hint of grey at his temples was a nice touch though, very theatrical, he must have let it remain as a sign of authority. Maybe if this went well she would give him a date.

“Ms Gatsby,” he said officiously, “I am so glad that you deigned to attend this time.”

Joanna returned a tight smile and felt like poking her tongue out at him.

“So what’s the damage this time?” she replied in a bored voice.

“Damage?” he frowned.

“Cut to the chase, I am busy,” she yawned, “How much?”

The man regarded her with disdain and then leant in close.

“There are no outstanding fines,” he said wearily, “But you have three consecutive transgressions to your name. This time there will be… other sanctions.”

The man opened a floating console on his right and regarded the scroll of options. Not that Joanna could make them out. But for the first time she allowed herself a hint of apprehension. She thought of the serious po-faced editorials about celebrity excess and how an example was needed. She thought too of the jail option that many had thought was a forgone conclusion. Joanna decided to say nothing and sat back defiantly as if untouchable.

Finally the bureaucrat turned his attention back to the arrogant starlet and seemed to weigh something up.

“You were found guilty in absentia,” he said carefully, “You know this?”

Joanna pursed her lips and nodded.

“And you have declined an appeal and have resolved matters by pleading guilty?”

She shrugged and looked bored.

“So all that remains is the sentence,” the man said brusquely as if confident that they were making progress.

“Sentence?” Joanna asked nervously.

“Your lawyer explained?” he suddenly looked concerned.

“Y-yes,” Joanna ventured uncertainly. She had sat through a boring meeting with the lawyer and her agent and manager. “Be polite and accept the lesser option,” they had all said. That had brought her here.

“Okay then,” he sighed with relief. “Assuming you want the psychotropic-temporal option and not prison?” he waited for her to nod or agree but she stared at him blankly. So he continued, “Anyway I have to give you the prison options before you disregard them.”

Joanna gaped and was suddenly alert.

“Thirty-six months in an open prison set against 6-24 months dependent in a punitive regime; dependent on good behaviour that is,” he told. “You can apply for either and as a first-timer they would probably accede to your preference.”

Joanna blanched. Three years could kill her career but what did ‘good behaviour’ mean? A possible two years did not sound good at all.

“And the psycho what-not, what is that?” she asked with an almost eager panic.

“Yes, your preferred option your representative tells me,” the man stabbed the air, presumably set open a screen option. “It is experimental and takes between nine and 28 days,” he told her suddenly warming up to a lecture.

“Nine days,” Joanna said breezily and nodded enthusiastically.

“Well that depends on you, on your subconscious so to speak. But as you know temporal…” he launched into another boring set of words about procedures and emersion therapies that went over her head.

It wasn’t until he said “effectively it is a personal time machine” that she began listening again.

“A time machine?” she gasped.

“You must have seen the news and the hoo-ha about military training by visiting past wars and the like, well this is a peaceful application of the same technology,” he said.

“Oh yes?” Joanna thought it actually sounded fun.

“We have three options for you, it doesn’t matter what you pick, not at the moment, although opinions differ about offering choices to future candidates,” he continued.

“More options?” she said wearily. Sometimes she wondered why they didn’t just get on with it. All these choices seemed a bit mealy-mouthed for a justice department.

“Yes, you can be an inmate at a Victorian women’s prison, or at least a 23rd century idea of one, obviously we can’t actually interrupt the timeline,” he explained.

“Well obviously,” she agreed sarcastically.

He looked at her disapprovingly before continuing.

“Or there is the young ladies’ Prussian School circa 1780, quite a favourite of mine, our last young lady had an interesting side trip to 18^th century Vienna and had a bit of a grand tour…”

Joanna didn’t like the sound of either Spartan history and began to feel her heart sink.

“I can see that… well this one is our least popular strangely, but it might suit you…” he ventured.

“Yes?” Joanna leaned forward.

“You can visit the past as an exchange student in 1950s America,” he said, “Subjectively the scenario lasts at least for the duration of one summer, which is why I think it is not popular, although frankly on average they all come out the same. You see the time spent interacting is determined by the participant. But I can say that this one usually completes within two weeks real time…”

“Never mind about subjective scenarios, you are saying that this one lasts no more than two weeks?” Joanna cut him off. She wished he didn’t talk so much.

“Usually… that is… well we don’t have all the data yet, but this is the shortest real time scenario yes,” he agreed, “But there are no guarantees.”

“What if once I am in… or down whatever… what if I don’t cooperate? I mean what if I just take off and follow my own agenda?” she asked.

He frowned and looked at her hard.

“The set-up is quite robust, but if you go too far off-piste then… well you will be extracted and then I am afraid we will have to explore the prison option.

“I get it,” Joanna said quickly, “But I guess I’ll take it.”

*

For a long time Joanna was in kind of a dream. She remembered who she was and everything that had happened but somehow it wasn’t real. What was real and increasingly so was a 20-year-old New Yorker also called Joanna who was on some kind of summer exchange from college in the so-called bible belt of 1950s America.

“Is it real?” she asked no one in particular and a blurry voice answered her.

“Oh yes,” he said in a distant voice, “But don’t worry, remember you can’t be harmed or change the past.”

“But how is that possible?” she asked fuzzily.

The same voice had told her that was classified but that was a memory now and this time another answered her.

“What did you say Joanna?” The speaker was young a feminine.

Joanna blinked and worked her mouth. Her face was pressed up against glass and through blinking eyes she saw fields of wheat race by. She groaned and shook herself.

“You slept then?” the girl who had spoken was speaking again.

The inside of the bus was vivid Technicolor and smelled of bleach and lavender. The people looked like characters in a period movie only, she gasped, the details were too real.

“Oh my God,” she gasped, “This is amazing.”

Several people glared at her and the young woman sitting next to her shushed her with wide eyes. The most disapproving looks came from two middle-aged black women who immediately began talking between themselves.

“Don’t curse,” the girl next to Joanna scolded her in genuine shock. Lesley-Anne, Joanna remembered, the girl’s name was Lesley-Anne or Lanney as she was called at college.

College, she was in college with the girl and at Easter she had visited with Joanna and her folks.

“But I am Joanna Gatsby,” Joanna protested, “I didn’t go to…”

“I know that silly, mercy you have been in a deep sleep,” Lanney giggled.

“Yes,” Joanna said absently, “Yes I was, Jesus though, this is f…”

“Joanna,” Lanney exclaimed punching her arm.

Thank God I didn’t complete that sentence Joanna smirked inwardly. Then she saw the sign on the inside of the bus.

“State law requires all colored passengers to ride in the rear of the bus,” it read.

“Christ on a bicycle,” she gasped, “You are shitting me.”

There were more glares this time but not from Lanney who only blushed and looked into her lap.

“It is kind of crazy ain’t it?” she whispered, “I guess we aren’t in New York anymore.”

“Or even Kansas,” Joanna quipped.

“No silly, this is Missouri.” Lanney found her giggle again.

*

The family Joanna and Lanney were staying with weren’t related to Lanney, although she was from the state and lived in a nearby town. As the Linklater’s were good church-going people Lanney’s folks had agreed to it readily.

The Linklater’s were eager to support young people and further their education which was why they had joined the Interstate Educational Programme and were taking in students. They had a son in the army, a married daughter and one still in college like Lanney and Joanna.

Joanna knew all this as well as she knew the street in New York where she hadn’t grown up or the school she hadn’t attended and the parents she had never ever met. But under it all she was Joanna Gatsby, famous for being famous and several TV shows to her name off the back of it.

“Now girls I don’t know what you are used to in New York but here you will observe a curfew of 10 o’clock. You will be at meals on time and your rooms will be spotless,” Mrs Linklater told them pleasantly as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Joanna snorted with amusement at the quaint posturing but nodded politely and even muttered ‘yes Ma’am’ a beat after Lanney did.

“I know I don’t have to tell you not to smoke, cuss or anything like that do I?” Mrs Linklater added.

“No Ma’am,” Lanney said earnestly, but she shot a look at Joanna hoping that she wouldn’t slip up and tar them both.

“Your folks wrote to me Lanney and said I had full permission to take you in hand,” Mrs Linklater said sternly, “You know what that means?”

Lanney blushed and nodded.

“I use much the same methods I think you know, in fact your father and I had quite a talk on the telephone,” their host continued. “Yours too Joanna, your Pa said you would fit in with whatever we thought best and that it would be good for you for a change.” The woman smiled pleasantly and then added in a bemused tone, “Then he said something about Romans or Rome or…”

“When in Rome do as the Romans do,” Joanna said having no idea how she knew that, “That sounds like Dad.”

Not my Dad, Joanna bristled inwardly, but had the sense to stay quiet.

“That was it,” Mrs Linklater beamed, “What a clever man your Pa.”

*

A week had gone by and frankly Joanna was bored. I get it now, she thought, this whole time travel gig is to bore me to death. The coffee shop chatter between Frankie, Mr and Mrs Linklater’s 19-year-old daughter, and Lanney was inane. These kids don’t know anything, she groaned inwardly.

Still she had an uneasy feeling she wasn’t getting it. For one thing she had had time to think about subjective days versus actual days out there in the future. Joanna was beginning to think that although two weeks away from her precious career didn’t matter she could be stuck in this historical theme park for weeks from her perspective.

“Hey, what do you say we skip out and find us some action later,” she said suddenly to the two dumbstruck girls. “There must be a bar in this town or what about a movie house? Maybe we could hook up with some boys.”

The last thought made her grin. Of course, this place was full of young men not getting any. And she had been told point blank that she couldn’t alter the past. Sex with no consequences, what a hoot, and this was supposed to be a punishment. Hell, with what I know I could rule this planet if I had long enough.

But even as her fantasy played out in her head she was suddenly aware of the look of anguish on Lanney and Frankie’s faces.

“Are you nuts?” Frankie gasped, “My Mom would slay us.”

Joanna scoffed at this and rolled her eyes up.

“What is she going to do? Ground us?” she snorted.

The trouble was that the experience of this 1950s Joanna from New York was lacking in certain areas; mainly areas on which they were all at that moment sitting. It was an embarrassing and painful fact of life which any self-respecting unmarried woman living in Missouri was all too aware.

“I-I had better go,” Frankie muttered and without waiting she hastened off.

“I know you were only kidding Jo, but go easy on the kid will you? You know perfectly well what will happen, you heard Mrs Linklater,” Lanney chided her.

Joanna frowned; she didn’t entirely as there were subtleties that a 23^rd century girl could not quite compute even with the heads up from her counterparts acquired knowledge.

*

Much later Joanna wondered if the parameters of the scenario were pre-programmed in some way. She knew there was no script, on her first day she had written out two or three paragraphs of future history and pulled a couple of dance stunts that no one in this world would ever do. There was no metaphysical balance of nature, she knew that much. To the universe a blade of grass was as important as a war. True history was deaf, dumb and blind. If she could alter little things then she could alter big stuff, except that is it wouldn’t stick so it didn’t matter. However, had she been set-up to fail here, set-up to crash the social system and real the consequences?

The day after the coffee shop discussion Joanna came home to find Frankie standing in the hallway. She was facing the wall with her hands on her head like a toddler doing a time out.

“What the hell are you doing?” Joanna asked her new friend.

“Joanna,” Frankie gasped in horror, “Go away.”

Mrs Linklater wasn’t sure if she had heard correctly so decided to let the H-word go for now. Instead she came into the hall and motioned Joanna away.

“Frankie left her room in an awful mess for the third time this week,” she told her older charge and guest, “I have warned her. Now as soon as Mr Linklater gets home she is going to get a spanking.”

“Jesus H, are you kidding me?” Joanna blurted.

“Joanna Gatsby, I will not have that language in my house nor will you question me with such disrespect. I thought I heard you cussing just now but I… I chose not… well I never. Joanna go to your room at once,” Mrs Linklater all but roared at her.

Joanna jerked back and almost obeyed. Then her true self reasserted itself and she felt a sense of true outrage.

“What the f… now you are seriously joking. Who do you think you are anyway?” she snapped back.

“What did you say?” the older woman gasped. She was beyond shocked for a moment.

“I said…” Joanna began.

“I know what you said,” Mrs Linklater bellowed, “I heard you, but I don’t believe it. Very well, if you won’t go to your room you will go and stand in the corner next to Francine.”

Joanna opened her mouth to protest and then she remembered where she was. What would her 1950s counterpart do? As she considered Mrs Linklater seized her by the arm and projected her to the corner.

“Alright, alright,” she said angrily, “This is nuts but I get it.”

“Oh you’ll get it alright, just you wait until Mr Linklater comes home,” the indignant housewife scolded.

Facing the wall with it just an inch from her nose Joanna suddenly felt very silly and about a foot high.

“This is crazy,” she muttered.

“Don’t Joanna, you’ll only make it worse,” Frankie whispered.

It was only then that something began to gnaw at the pit of Joanna’s stomach.

*

Mr Linklater was 45 going on 60 to Joanna’s eyes. But he had this stern paternal manner that up to now she had quite liked. In some ways she wished that she had had a father like him and since coming to his home she had quietly realised what her own society was lacking. For one thing, although he was friendly he didn’t try to be a friend or indulge in undignified ingratiation with the girls. But as soon as he came home Joanna felt nervous.

As it was Linklater took one look at the girls and snorted before ignoring them.

Two minutes later Frankie and Joanna heard a rather shrill Mrs Linklater telling her rather calm husband what they had done or so they presumed. The details were lost in dark tones and muttering but after a few minutes they heard well enough.

“Francine, get in here,” Mr Linklater barked.

Joanna waited with baited breath while an unheard stern lecture was given. Then a few minutes later there was the sound of clapping. No not clapping, smacks; a dozen short sharp ones at first and then they alternatively were fast and then slow while a scolding male voice berated his daughter with deep tones and unheard words.

A little after this the spanks got louder and Frankie began mewling and giving out with little squeals and yelps. There was a solid definite thwack to the sounds and Joanna guessed that a hand had been substituted for something else.

By then of course Frankie was crying loudly and even from the hall Joanna could hear a chorus of “I am sorry daddy, I’m sorry.”

Fifteen minutes after it began Frankie was brought back and set to face the wall again. Only this time her skirt was rolled to her hips and her panties were at her knees so that her bare bottom was left red and exposed.

Joanna gulped and steeled herself for a concerted round of denials, refusals and objections.

“Miss Gatsby, please come in,” Mr Linklater said in a reasonable voice.

Joanna took a breath and obeyed.

“Now Mr…”

“Joanna,” he cut her off, “May I ask why you were so rude to my wife?”

Joanna blushed and worked her mouth to futile effect. She had been rude hadn’t she? Shit, why hadn’t she just rolled with it and kept her mouth shut?

“I… I’m sorry Mr Linklater, I… was just a little surprised at… well I am sorry.” She sounded sincere and after a fashion she was.

“And did you cuss at her and then refuse to go to your room?” he pressed her; a study in calm reason.

Joanna resorted to mouth breathing and could only nod.

“Hmmm,” the paternal man offered as he studied her over his glasses.

The latter he removed and polished for a moment as he considered something.

“Can you think of a reason why I shouldn’t deal with you just as I just dealt with Francine?” he asked matter-of-factly.

“Don’t you think I am too old for that?” Joanna squeaked. She felt like a schoolroom ninny and wondered where her scorching temper and attitude had fled to.

“No,” Mr Linklater tossed back casually, “As a matter of fact I don’t.”

“Oh,” Joanna winced and scoured her brain for something else to say.

The next series of events happened too fast for Joanna to consider. One moment she was upright and the next she was hauled across the room and down over Mr Linklater’s lap as he sat on padded couch at the end of the room. Her voluminous skirts and petticoats were tossed carelessly over her back in a trice her panties were efficiently pulled down her thighs to expose her pert neat bottom.

“Whooo-at?” she gasped in surprise. Then it got worse.

Punctuated with a solid volley of spanks to her bottom Mr Linklater growled, “I will not have disrespect in my house. You will not, I repeat not abuse my wife.”

Joanna was robbed of breath as she felt more spanks than words blasting on her bottom. But as soon as the initial shock left her she let go with a cascade of yelling until these were overtaken by her struggle to breathe.

By then her bottom was two stinging domes of fire and she kicked her feet in tight little pumping motions.

“Your behaviour is an outrage and I won’t have it,” the man scolded her as he spanked on, only pausing to take up a hairbrush that had been left on the couch by his side.

Joanna’s eyes widened as she guessed what was coming.

The next round of biting fire was beyond words or shouts and for the next 10 minutes she would have happily converted to every religion on Earth just for the chance to pray for her bottom. Now devoid of dignity she bawled like a half-pint brat until her cries might have been heard out on the street.

“Right,” Mr Linklater finally barked at her, “Go and stand next to Francine in the hall and don’t you dare move. Like her you will stay there until we have had supper and then you will go to bed without. Am I perfectly clear?”

“Yes Sir,” Joanna wailed miserably.

She knew instinctively not to cover her bottom as she danced from foot to foot. In fact at that moment there was not one solitary thing she would do without an instruction.

“Good and no rubbing mind, get those hands on your head,” he growled.

Joanna obeyed at once and in a tumble of sobbing she scampered out to the hall trying to shield her nudity half bending as her scarlet behind trailed after her.

*

For Joanna it was a wakeup call. No one had ever treated her like that and never had she been so embarrassed. Not only that but when it came to it and against all expectation she had just caved in to a scolding and gone along with it. Then to top it all she had been sent to bed without an evening meal like an errant teen. It was so early that there wasn’t even the comfort of darkness to hide her shame.

Now the night was dark and hot and somewhere a cicada gently sang in a chirruping throb. The sound matched the ache in Joanna’s bottom and she felt her face flush as she relieved the very public spanking earlier that evening.

Her mind raced even as her fingers oh so slowly explored the tender curves of her bottom. With the sheet pulled down to her thighs the relative chill of the night air cooled her prickled skin to afford some comfort, but not much. Cupping both buttocks with her hands she weighed them and marvelled at the illusion of increased size. Despite her shame there was some sensuality to the act and she blushed unseen in the darkness.

As she tossed things over in her mind she could not recapture the sense of justified outrage at either Frankie’s or her own treatment. It was almost as if she had deserved it, but that was crazy. They were crazy and come to that the whole damn… she swallowed hard. ‘It ain’t you girl it is the others’ she thought.

“You can’t just do what you want and let the whole world go hang,” her mother had once told her.

Well it was crazy, that’s what it was, just effing crazy. Then she giggled. Even alone she didn’t dare swear in her thoughts properly. Man this place was getting to her.

*

The next morning it was almost as if nothing had happened. Oh for sure Frankie couldn’t look her in the eye, but then Joanna felt the same. Only Lanney seemed to risk a curious look or two in their direction. But Mr and Mrs Linklater were all smiles and patience as if wayward young women were a fact of life.

The least said, soonest mended. Now that was something her father had always muttered after a family row. Or was that her other… she sighed and shook herself. It is not real, not really real, she told herself, but the smell of bacon gave made that a lie.

The days passed and thoughts of spanking faded like a closing wound leaving things much as they were before. Well almost. Joanna had stopped voicing rebellion and instead of coasting around town she kept a weather eye on the clock least she be late.

This is worse than prison, she thought, here I am my own jailer. It is almost as if they make me responsible for me, she railed inwardly. But she didn’t dwell on the thought, it made her too uncomfortable.

It was a week after her first spanking that things went awry again.

The girls had gone to a party. It was kind of kooky (kooky was a Lanney word) that there was no booze of any kind, but the wall-to-wall crinoline, bobby socks and pony tails made it the ultimate 1950s theme event.

Lanney had thrown herself into it with an infectious wild abandon so even when Frankie had made her excuses and gone home Joanna had just joined in with the fun. So it was that 10 o’clock came and went and then 11 before either girl noticed the time.

“We are so busted,” Lanney wailed.

“You think?” a grimaced-faced Joanna asked, “I mean we are only…”

Lanney shot her a pitying look, but then added brightly, “But maybe they went to bed already; once Frankie got in I mean. You know, we are older after all.”

Joanna shrugged. What had happened before had been a one-of. She had been taken unawares and this time she would tell them where to get off. But then maybe if the Linklater’s had gone to bed then there would be no issue. After all they were only an hour late.

Two hours after curfew two young women crept toe-before-toe up the garden path with shoes in hand. On account of the heat, the back window was ajar and it was a simple matter to reach in and unhook the backdoor too.

The screen door was a bitch, the hinges screamed like a night jar and both girls froze for a second. Then hearing no other sound they edged forward until they were both standing in the kitchen.

“Well good night,” Lanney whispered as she crept away.

“Good night,” Joanna replied.

The sudden light was blinding. Mr Linklater was just a dark outline from the hall, but even in silhouette they could see his dour demeanour.

“Good evening girls, or should I say good morning?” he growled.

“Mr Linklater we…” Lanney began, her hands nervously wringing.

But he just pointed sternly up the stairs and then folded his arms.

“I’ll speak to you both in the morning,” he said.

*

This time Joanna and Lanney faced the wall in the family room rather than the hall. They had been divested of her PJ bottoms by an uncompromising Mrs Linklater and before either girl could string a word of protest they were nose to the plaster with their bare bottoms cooling in the breeze.

“They can’t do this to us,” Joanna whispered, but not so loudly that anyone but Lanney heard.

Lanney risked a turn of her head to make a face that yelled, ‘oh yeah right.’

“Stand still,” Mrs Linklater snapped. “If either of you move, just once or give me any backtalk… I swear I’ll send you both into the yard to cut a switch just as you are.”

Lanney gulped in a way that convinced Joanna to take the threat seriously. Why am I going along with this? She berated herself, if anyone could see me now… but they could, they really could. For one thing the drapes had already been drawn back to greet the morning and the nets were French-style half-lengths. It didn’t take much to be seen from the street. Also Frankie, and when came in Mr Linklater, were well able to view their shame. Nor was it a comfort to Joanna to tell herself that it wasn’t really real. It was as real as the coffee that assailed her nose.

“You can stay there until after breakfast,” Mr Linklater said when he finally put in an appearance. “I will deal with you then.”

“Yes Sir,” Lanney agreed sullenly.

Joanna worked her mouth but no word of support or contrary would leave her lips.

*

“Is this really necessary?” Joanna asked some 20 minutes after breakfast with still no resolution. With her bare behind hanging in the breeze, so to speak, and with her face hot against the wall the submissive posture was really working on her nerves. She was utterly mortified.

“Yes,” came the terse reply from Mr Linklater.

The man nonchalantly tapped his pipe on the mantle and then carefully began thumbing tobacco into the bowl. His demeanour was Solomon-like as he weighed up the girls’ sins. Then coming to a decision he placed the bit in his mouth and paused to light his pipe.

“Now girls have you any idea how disrespectful your gallivanting to all hours was?” he asked. “Not to mention the risk it posed to both your reputations and your personal safety. My wife and I are responsible for you, what were you thinking?”

He sucked down and allowed a huge ring of blue smoke rise to the ceiling.

“And don’t get me started on the example you have set for Frankie,” he continued.

Lanney bit her lip at this point and managed to feel even more ashamed.

“Yes Sir, sorry Sir,” she groaned.

Joanna merely rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Joanna,” Mr Linklater barked.

“Yes Sir, I am sorry too,” she said huffily.

Joanna wanted to be more genuine about it, but under the circumstances her attitude was her only defence. Anything else was an admission he was right and she was wrong and she wasn’t ready.

“I think you will be,” Mr Linklater sighed. “Miss Gatsby, you first I think.”

He didn’t say anymore but put down the pipe and took Joanna’s arm. Then like before she was manoeuvred across his lap on the couch with her bare bottom uppermost.

The spanking was quick and fast to begin with and Joanna greeted the onslaught with sustained and unseemly wail.

“We haven’t even started yet,” Linklater scolded, his hand slapping down in shorter hard burst that really connected.

Then after five minutes or so he stopped and reached for something. Joanna glanced back over her shoulder, shocked at the twin red hills looming there. The hairbrush in his hand was no surprise.

“I’m sorry, I mean it, I’m sorry,” she pleaded.

The brush didn’t listen and in moments pistol like shots really shook the room. They even rivalled Joanna shrill yelling as over the next 10 minutes or so the fire redefined her bottom for her.

She didn’t hear much of Lanney’s spanking. Once returned to the wall it was all she could do not to grab her behind as she hopped and danced in time to some hearty sobbing. It was only when Lanney joined her again at the wall did Joanna become aware of the rest of the room.

“I am sorry,” she said in a miserable voice, hiccoughing out a sob.

“I know,” Mr Linklater said somewhat kindly. “Think on it for a while.”

A while turned out to be the rest of Saturday morning.

Saturday was not a good day to be in the corner at the Linklater’s. For one thing some of Frankie’s friends dropped by. The hoots of laughter and supressed giggles made Lanney start to cry again, although Joanna just glowered into the wall.

At least the fellows stayed outside, although from the masculine chuckles when the girls finally left, Joanna was in doubt that they had been fully put in the picture.

Nor did things get any better after that.

Around 11 Mrs Linklater’s friends dropped by for a coffee morning.

“Oh my, someone has been a naughty girl,” observed one of the women.

“I haven’t seen bottoms like that since my cousin and I were caught skinny dipping,” chuckled another.

“Oh I think my Marnie sported as much the weekend before last, I caught her kissing that Taylor boy you know,” said another.

This prompted a discussion on the youth of today and lax morals. This was accompanied by not a few stories of spanked teenagers and the need to give even college girls a good sound spanking now again.

“If my Marnie sees that Taylor boy again then she won’t sit down for a month,” Marnie’s mother told the group.

“My Jenny is seeing a nice college boy over at Stanford. But even she has let her grades slip and after I found out she went to a hop three nights running… well let’s just say that I know a girl who is as indisposed as these two over at her sister and brother-in-law’s place.” There was a disapproving sigh before first woman added in an amused voice, “Well I couldn’t leave her in the corner alone at home, her little cherry tail might have got lonely.”

“Doesn’t your son-in-law have the boys over for… well on Saturday’s before the game?” the skinny dipping woman said.

“Oh that is later, but I wouldn’t care if they did see her tender hiney, it will do her good, like these two here. They all get far too big for their boots,” the first woman explained.

Joanna wanted to die and Lanney was so beside herself that she had begun gently crying again.

The rest of their corner time was excruciating and by the time they were released Joanna was ready to obey any rule anyone ever made for her.

*

Both Joanna and Lanney had real issues sitting down for about a week after that and neither of them were quite comfortable at Saturday coffee mornings again. Although any embarrassment about being around Frankie’s friends soon faded as the girls learnt that most of them were spanked at one time or another and as in the Linklater’s home, that usually came with rather challenging corner time for everyone.

Other than that the matter with the missed curfew seemed resolved and neither Mr nor Mrs Linklater mentioned it again.

Of course that summer the girls were all spanked several more times for one reason or another, both severally and individually. Joanna soon found that fessing up and a level of acceptance often got her a more discreet session over Mr Linklater’s lap and after these spankings she always felt much better.

So in the end far from dragging the summer was soon over and Joanna almost forgot that there was no college waiting for her in New York.

“Why don’t you both come back later in the year?” Mrs Linklater gushed. “We can even light a fire maybe if it is cold and roast some marshmallows.”

“That won’t be all that gets roasted knowing you Ma,” Frankie giggled.

There was general laughter at this but although Joanna and Lanney were blushing wildly they both joined in.

“I would be glad to,” Joanna said, but in her heart she knew she never would.

Did these people even really exist? They certainly wouldn’t remember her after she had gone if they did. That thought weighed heavy with her all the way to the bus station and well into the journey back north. Then finally Joanna slept.

She was awoken in what looked like a hospital room.

“Was there a crash?” she asked.

Then she remembered.

“I guess I won’t be going back then,” she said ruefully on seeing the same stern bureaucrat from before. “Was I even there?”

“Oh yes,” the man smiled, “Did you learn your lesson?”

Joanna blushed and nodded. Then she grabbed his arm and asked again, “Were they okay? I mean did things work out fine for Lanney and the Linklater’s… the town?”

“As far as I know about this time line, as for the one that was created by you and your actions… well what do you think?” he asked.

“But you said… you said there would be no consequences,” she said animatedly.

“There are always consequences, I said there was no danger,” the man shrugged, “But you seem concerned, would you like to go back some time and see?”

“Could I?” Joanna asked; she was suddenly excited.

“We could call it a holiday and it would be invaluable to our research,” the man replied.

“Has anyone ever done it before?” Joanna said now rather puzzled.

“It is more common than you would think,” the man said quietly, “Some don’t even come back.”

Joanna gaped. “But you said…”

“I said ‘usually’ and that ultimately it was up to the individual. You found what you needed and completed your rehabilitation. This time anyway.”

Joanna frowned and looked away.

“If I had told you before would you have agreed to go?”

Joanna shrugged.

“Are you sorry?”

“Not about going, no,” Joanna gave him a tight smile.

The man picked up his notes and turned to go.

“You seem changed, less of a…” he shrugged and left without finishing.

“Less of a brat, yes I know,” Joanna said wistfully to the door.

It was only then that Joanna realised that she hadn’t asked how long she had been away. But, she supposed, it didn’t really matter. After all, she had all the time in the world.

Our story began here.

Before the girls returned that afternoon, Alice had been permitted to go to bed early with a ‘headache.’ This not only spared her blushes but spared her the ordeal of sitting down for supper. That is to say not sitting down and letting everyone know what had happened. Not that she had any energy or appetite to spare for something as prosaic as a meal. Instead she had limped gratefully to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

Nor did she rise for breakfast the next day, being too mortified as she was to face anyone much before noon. This normally wouldn’t have been tolerated but for once Muriel Baxter very much wanted Alice to be able to save face to preserve her authority.

Finally and just before luncheon Alice donned a loose fitting skirt and putting her best face on made her way downstairs. Even a day after her spanking and woodshed experience just walking was an ordeal. Each step flared in her bottom, which felt tighter than a jazz drum being struck three to the dozen in some relentless and reckless rhythm. Alice had to take slow careful steps with a practiced look of neutrality clinging to her face less she openly wince with each movement.

“Feeling better?” Jenny asked sympathetically on seeing the governess.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Alice said, as she startled.

“Mrs Baxter said that you had a headache?” Jenny put in uncertainly.

“Oh eh, oh yes,” Alice said quickly with a tight smile, “I-I’m feeling much better now, thank you Jenny.”

“Mrs Baxter says we might go back with her for a visit. To Sinclair Ladies’ College I mean.” Jenny still sounded uncertain.

“Yes I know,” Alice said pausing where she stood and desperately wanting to massage her bottom. “It is not exactly a school, more a house like this one but with a few more girls and some trainee governesses. But how do you feel about that?”

Jenny frowned.

“Is it because I have been bad?” she asked.

Alice laughed and shook her head. “No of course not,” she replied.

“I am not completely dumb,” Jenny said carefully, “I mean I do know that Mrs Baxter is the head honcho so to speak and I bet she is much stricter than you. I mean to say… well I know I behaved like a brat at first but isn’t Mrs Baxter’s place more like a reform school?”

“No, it isn’t like that, but you are right there will be higher standards. It is usually where the older girls go, the volunteers. Is that what is worrying you? Are you nervous that things will be stricter?” Alice was frowning now. Jenny didn’t have to go, but if she did she would effectively be a volunteer. Did that mean she could leave? Alice was suddenly nervous for the girl, she wasn’t ready to brave the world alone and if she went back to that aunt of hers she would fall into bad habits.

“No,” Jenny said slowly with some thought, “I’m not scared of worst punishments… well I am, but it is not that. I probably deserve stricter punishments. It is just… well I have a feeling that I belong for the first time and… and… no it’s not that either. I just don’t want to fail and I don’t want to fail you.”

“Oh you haven’t, really you haven’t,” Alice sighed, “If anything I have failed you.”

She remembered her own slip in standards and the previous day’s punishment. Also she didn’t want to say that Mrs Baxter wanted her to focus on Katherine and Mary. That would sound as if Jenny and Janet were less than they were.

“You haven’t failed me, or Janet, even I can see what we were like before,” Jenny gushed. “I couldn’t go back to how it was before I just couldn’t.”

“Then don’t. But all things change,” Alice said kindly as she took half a step forward, and the suppressing a wince she added, “Just think about it alright?”

“I will,” Jenny said brightly and smiled.

*

Alice was attempting to read with one leg tucked under her thigh so as to keep her bottom off the window seat. It was an uncomfortable enough posture, but not as unpleasant as allowing her behind take her full weight even with the soft padding on the bay window’s surface.

She was still wincing and squirming when she noticed Katherine approaching.

“Miss Bowman, can I have a word please?” Katherine asked politely.

Alice gave her a fixed grin and with a surreptitious stiffness adjusted her posture.

“Of course,” she said, the grin not leaving her face as she indicated the seat next to her.

Katherine sensed something was wrong but decided it was better to say nothing as she obeyed and sat in the opposite corner of the bay.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Alice asked seeing that Katherine wasn’t going to speak.

The younger woman sucked in a long slow breath and drew herself up to reply.

“I hear that Janet and Jenny are to return with Mrs Baxter,” Katherine said at last.

“That hasn’t been settled yet, but they may be,” Alice answered, “But Mrs Baxter has made the suggestion, yes.”

Katherine nodded.

“So what is troubling you about that?” Alice pressed the girl.

“Isn’t… isn’t that where Mrs Baxter trains governesses in the Sinclair Method?” Katherine was looking down into her lap.

“That’s right, it is where I was trained, but also a great many girls who are not following that path receive guidance there too,” Alice replied in a neutral voice.

“But I thought… that is… one day I thought I might too become a governess like you,” Katherine said, still not looking up.

“And so you shall and Mary too I think,” Alice said. There was a half-supressed urgency in her voice and now and a hint a puzzlement crossed her face.

Katherine looked up now, a wild expectant look dancing back and forth with her eyes.

“But…” she whispered.

“That is why Mrs Baxter wants Janet and Jenny to go with her, so I can further yours and Mary’s training somewhat. When you go to Mrs Baxter’s establishment it will be as a trainee governess I expect,” Alice told her.

“Oh,” Katherine squealed and launched herself forward to hug Alice.

Alice groaned as she was shoved back on to her bottom and had to grit her teeth.

“I won’t let you down, I am ever so grateful,” Katherine violently enthused, “I can’t tell you how… oh… oh, wait until I tell Mary.”

“Well yes, but do wait until it is settled won’t you?” Alice chuckled, “But Katherine, you do know what this means don’t you?”

Katherine nodded and smiled and then nodded some more before she giggled, “No, not really.”

“That with just Mary and you here I will have a free rein to bring you task,” Alice replied now suddenly serious.

Katherine flushed a little but the smile didn’t leave her face. “I know but… well I know… I think I do… you mean things will be stricter around here.”

Alice’s smile became a firm tight line and she nodded as if in regret.

Katherine shrugged.

“I guess I’ll cope,” she said ruefully. “But in for a penny…”

To be continued.

An advert for quirts in a Sears Roebuck catalogue back in the day included an introduction for the ‘lighter’ model. Apparently the shorter ‘third-weight’ size was perfect for applying to difficult wives as it could be felt through heavy prairie clothing without ‘harming your lady.’ Perfect apparently for those quick corrections.

A quirt is a thong like whip that could be used with one hand on recalcitrant cattle as an instant guidance tool.

One has to ask, what is wrong with an old-fashioned over-the-knee spanking? I know it is a chore but surely there is always time to bare that bottom and do a proper job. Save the junior grade wife-quirt for when she is really in trouble.

I know you ladies (and gentleman) always have time for a quick western spanking. Luckily I have another post on this coming soon.

Part I

The winter got very much worse before it got better and by the end of January their food supplies were low and they were left with only the grimmest fare. It was a situation that did little to aid the humour of Sofia or Ivan and within the confines of the small house short sharp words left their mouths at the least provocation. As it was barely a week would pass without a confrontation and the diminutive princess would frequently find herself stood bare bottomed in the corner following the soundest of spankings.

Not that she resented such treatment, not once Ivan’s anger had passed anyway, as such rough handling tended to clear the air and even Sofia could not remember who had been in the right after the fact.

But on other occasions there was no doubt and the spoilt noblewoman of old would reassert herself to give in to rages about the food or the lack of home comforts. At these times Ivan would sigh heavily and take up a rod from the corner before beckoning to his winter guest with one stern finger.

“Oh come on, please Ivan I’m sorry,” she would wail as she backed away as far as the small room would allow.

But once the woodsman’s mind was made up all protests were futile.

If she were feeling brave and repentant then she would dip her gaze and meekly lower her breeches before bending across the table to present her bare bottom. The fiery bite of his lambasting rod was bad enough on such occasions and afterwards she could not sit down for days. But at other times she would refuse his correction and strike out at him with her small fists and call him a beast.

Then he would spank her soundly until she wept and then set her in the corner until she was ready to ask for her true punishment. This would follow with a will until she wailed and begged as she was truly mastered with a kiss to the rod. Then her raw buttocks would throb like hot coals in the corner again and she would rue the day that they had ever met.

But such emotions did not cling to her long and despite the fact that she was often left unable to sit until he had cause to spank her again, she could not truly blame him or hold a grudge.

So the days passed, each one a little longer, and as the long winter shadows shortened, each one became a little warmer. If Sofia had not been so distracted by the other heat in her bottom she might have noticed this change and perhaps regret it.

*

One day Ivan returned from one of his increasingly frequent sorties with a huge stag across both shoulders. Even Sofia could see that outside there were green shoots were breaking from the snow and finally she sensed a change in the air.

As Ivan stood framed by the doorway he seemed to regard her with something like sadness and Sofia gripped her throat as if it were her heart. The space between them was no more than 10 feet but suddenly it felt like a thousand miles.

Then Ivan shook himself and tossed the carcass onto the table and turned away. Nor did he meet her eyes as he said, “March is upon us so in a week or two, I think we can set off for Molotov lands.”

Sofia felt as if she had been struck. For weeks it had been all she had thought of, well almost all she had thought of, but now… home? She swallowed hard as if choking something down. The castle that had once seemed so large now shrank in her memory. She thought of high confining walls and the guarded gates. She thought of the narrow rules and the even narrower path that her life would now follow.

“Aren’t you happy?” Ivan asked in an even voice.

Sofia blinked hard and shook herself to a forced smile.

“Of course,” she said, but her words carried little conviction.

Ivan gave a small grunt like a bear and turned away. It was for the best, he thought, of course it was.

As it was the snow retreated almost as fast as the days that remained and when at last Ivan gathered some food and belongings for the journey the grass was more abundant than the ice and fierce buds covered every branch. Here and there even the first spring flowers forced their way from the hard ground as they stretched for the sky like yawning men awaking from a long sleep.

“It is a long walk without a fast pony and it will take most of a week to get to Castle Molotov,” Ivan told her, “But we will make good time now.”

Sofia nodded. Somehow she was happy that there were no horses and she thought of her rapid escape. Such reckless racing seemed so immature now.

“I have the last of the nuts and some dried venison,” he told her for something to say. “And we may find some game along the way.”

Sofia gave him a tight smile and a single nod.

“But we could…” he thought of fishing in the pool. It would be good eating and might delay their departure for several days, but it was a pointless agony. So instead he said, “Never mind, we will leave tomorrow.

*

They did indeed make good time and for a while it was if the world belonged to them. After weeks in the small shack the forest was coming alive with birdsong and dancing squirrels that darted hither and thither among the stout trees. Even Ivan’s mood was lifted and he would often stop to identify the chirping cheep of this bird or that or point out bear tracks on the damp ground.

On all sides of the path the cathedral-like woods stretched out under the wild green roof in a tapestry of light where dark pines stood with the birch in its new spring coat. Even when Ivan had got ahead of her, he was an ever present guardian relentlessly placing one certain foot before the other. The forest was wild but no wolf or bear would trouble her while she had such a man.

“I could live here forever,” Sofia breathed.

“What was that?” Ivan called back.

“I said the woods go on forever,” she replied.

“From the Urals to Siberia,” he answered, “We are a long way from Peter neh?

“I have never been,” she whispered with true regret.

“Bah, one day some young man will take you there,” Ivan snarled patting the air dismissively with one arm as he strode ahead.

But all she could think was that St Petersburg could not be as beautiful as this place here and now.

By the time they broke for the night Sofia had legs like lead. The endless tranquillity of the trees had long since surrendered their charms and she fell onto the blanket Ivan had set on the ground like timber felled.

“Missing your horse now I’ll bet,” Ivan chuckled.

But Sofia was already asleep and it was an hour before Ivan roused her with some food and a small fire. But it was a short reprieve from her slumber and by the time it was full dark Sofia again surrendered to her dreams.

*

On the afternoon of the fourth day they reach some high ground where the snow had not yet melted and the dense forest gave way to more open rocky ground that afforded the couple glimpses of far mountains and cultivated land beyond the valley. Here the slope was gentle and seemed to end at a granite ridge just ahead of them. Not that they were completely out of the woods. To the right and behind of them was a fence of denuded silver birch trees, their white paper trunks forming a haphazard border to the deeper timberland they had just travelled through.

“I know this place,” Sofia gasped.

Ivan frowned and waited for more but the tired princess was still.

Sofia was vaguely aware that she must have ridden this way at some time and the aspect of the hills looked rather like those viewed from her room at Castle Molotov. She was still pondering this idea when they gained the ridge. There across the sunlit valley like a fist of stone stood her father’s fortress. The curved walls and onion domes glowed in the dying spring sunshine like a glimpse of heaven in the wilderness so that her heart leapt and she could scarce draw a breath.

“I’m… I’m home,” she said wistfully.

“Yes,” Ivan growled.

“Oh shit,” Sofia said suddenly.

Ivan rounded on her with half an eye to the forest and raised one quizzical eyebrow.

“I just remembered,” she said ruefully, “I am in so much trouble.”

As she spoke her hand made an unconscious move to her behind. But this only drew a chuckle from the bear-like woodsman who merely muttered, “I bet you are,” he said with amusement.

*

At first her father had been pleased to see her. He had wept as he swept her into his arms.

“Where did you find her?” at last the Prince demanded of Ivan.

Ivan shrugged. “The forest, where else?” he said.

“And she has been with you this whole time?” the prince demanded suspiciously.

“Where was I to take her, to the Kelch perhaps, or the Kern?” Ivan shrugged again.

“Father Ivan has been…” Sofia began.

“Be silent girl,” her father roared.

The Prince eyed Ivan Ivanov carefully but the woodsman did not blink. He stood like a rock not quite meeting the nobleman’s eye but not quite avoiding his gaze either. He stood like one who had rendered service and now expected reward.

“You are a free man?” Prince Molotov asked him.

“I am by my lights, but Count Kern may have a different view,” Ivan said gruffly.

The Prince nodded and weighed this up. “I am not one to listen to such a bastard,” he said, “and you have done me a great service here. For that I am grateful, although through her reckless actions my daughter’s reputation is shot. But I see you are an honest man and I bear you no grudge for your part. I have good kulak lands south and east of here. It is rich bottom land in need of restoration. It is yours together with 100 roubles and three years free of tax. Make it pay and I will grant you the rank of rystar with legal tenure over the serfs there. Treat them well and they will serve you in kind.”

Sofia gaped and then grinned widely.

“Thank you my prince,” Ivan bowed.

It was a great reward but somehow it seemed a hollow one. He bowed again and backed away.

“As for you my girl, you have a reward of another kind coming,” Prince Molotov rasped angrily, “Go to your room until I decide what to do with you.”

Sofia blanched but offered him a deep curtsey and hurried away. If she hoped to see Ivan she was thwarted. No sooner had she slipped away than her old governess stepped forward and took her by the arm.

“Come with me you foolish girl,” the rather severe dark-clad woman barked.

Sofia bristled at being so handled, but Baroness Moskova’s sharp visage and scraped back hair silenced any protests.

“You won’t sit down for a year by the time your father finishes with you and if you resist I will thrash your backside raw before Prince Molotov even lays his first stroke,” the Baroness hissed.

Sofia drew herself up proudly but seeing no hope she snatched away her hand and imperious walked to the staircase that led to her room.

“If you are lucky your father will find a poor baron to marry you to, the very idea, running away like that,” Moskova said with more sadness than anger.

Sofia rounded on her at the very suggestion, but what did it matter if she married prince or duke, baron or pauper, none of them would be Ivan? There, she had said it, if only in her heart.

“Go to your room,” the baroness barked.

Tears pooling at her eyes Sofia nodded and did as she was told.

*

Sofia stood with her hands clamped to the back of her neck and her elbows at right angles. Her nose was so close to where the two walls met at the corner of the room that she was effectively blinkered. Her bottom had been left bare and facing the room, but it was the light chill and not fear that left her shivering.

The night before the maids had come to bathe her more thoroughly than she had ever been bathed before and every inch of her skin had tingled from their ministrations. Then after a crude repast she had slept the sleep of ages until the strong spring sun had stirred her from lonely dreams.

It was not until Baroness Moskova had come to supervise her morning toilet and dressing had Sofia got a first hint of her fate. For one thing she had been permitted only a high cut corset and stockings to dress in and for another not one of the maids had giggled when she had been sentenced to the corner. Her father must still be furious then, she thought.

It was a shameful and uncomfortable predicament but with the door left wide and the constant sound of footsteps out in the hall Sofia dared not move or even risk a quick glance over her shoulder. So an age passed before anyone came to her directly.

“Sofia, turn around,” her father’s voice was a sudden shock as she had not known he was there.

The blood rushed to her face and she gulped hard before obeying, even then she quickly covered her front with both cupped hands as she did so. She needn’t have bothered just then as her father stood facing the window with his back to her and it was the Baroness who watched her hawk-like from by the door.

But Sofia could not miss the multi-tailed short whip grasped at her father’s back nor the copper bucket of birch rods at the baroness’s feet. She gulped and averted her gaze. For the first time since sneaking off she actually felt sorry for her sins.

“Father I…” she began.

“Be quiet Sofia,” the Prince barked.

She could only nod at the solid wall of her father’s back.

“Before I thrash you I want you to know that I am so disappointed in you. Your behaviour is…” he sighed and bowed his head before straightening again. “Well what is done is done,” he sighed, “I have arranged a marriage for you. A certain count… anyway, he is loyal and the best you can expect under the circumstances.”

“But…” Sofia began.

“Be silent,” the Prince barked. “News of your disappearance has even reached St Petersburg, your reputation…”

For one vital moment Sofia thought her father would cry but then steel returned to his voice.

“Sofia, get on your knees on the bed and present your bottom,” he said at last.

Sofia swallowed hard but nodded. She shot a glance at the baroness for any sign of satisfaction, but saw nothing but grim duty written on her face.

“Yes Sir,” she said.

The nerves that clawed at her belly were worse than the embarrassment now and she dipped her head as if making herself small. Still her father did not look at her, but whether this was out of respect for her partial nudity or from disgust Sofia could not tell.

The bed creaked as she mounted it and hastily she pressed her legs protectively together as she kowtowed to the headboard. She hadn’t even considered that this elevated her bottom so and in her haste to hide her face in the bed pane she had obeyed her father so perfectly.

When he finally turned and saw his humbled daughter he grunted in some non-committal way as he took some small pride at least in her obedience. Damn the girl, why had she been so wilful? But at least… something welled up and took him by surprise and in a rush all the nightmares that had assailed him that winter filled his head to the point of nausea.

“I thought you were…” the word held and he could not speak it as tears filled his eyes.

The baroness chose the moment to take an unwavering interest in the floor while keeping her face blank.

“Damn you girl,” the Prince roared and falling upon his daughter he hauled from her knees and across his lap.

In half a minute his hard leather hands blasted Sofia’s bottom with a hundred hearty spanks as he poured out his rage and relief.

“Damn you,” he spat, choking back a sob.

“I’m sorry Daddy, I’m sorry,” Sofia wailed and hugged into her father as of old.

“Do not think… do not think…” he repeated unable to complete the threat as he lambasted her, “do you know what you did? Do you know?”

But he let his hand do the talking and the spanking lasted perhaps 15 minutes until the Prince finally wavered. By then Sofia’s bottom was sunset red and she was sobbing gently into the space between the back of her father’s shins and the smooth wood of the bed.

“Oh Sofia,” Sofia’s father sighed giving her an affectionate squeeze. “I had such… the Tsar’s son perhaps… oh well this count is not so old and poor…”

“My lord… shall I…?” the baroness’s interjection was to ask if she should go and she pointed to the rods in the bucket by way of asking if she should take them.

“Would you?” Prince Molotov sighed, “My heart is not in it.”

But before the baroness could leave the weary man said casually, “thrash her well for it is needful.”

Sofia was not surprised by the command, for once she knew she well-deserved it and at the back of her head a braver version of her knelt and begged to be soundly thrashed beyond all endurance. But with still undried tears from the spanking and a persistent sting in her bottom such requests would remain unspoken and it was all she could do not to beg for mercy.

As soon as Prince Molotov had gone Baroness Moskova ordered Sofia to take up the position on the bed again and Sofia meekly nodded. Then with her bottom high in the air Sofia’s governess took up the first rod and stood poised behind her exposed bare bottom.

“Sofia attend,” she said sternly, an old custom between them at such times.

Then the rod swept down like fire and where once Sofia would have glared angrily in silence she now responded with a grunt of distress into her pillow.

No pride now, have you? Baroness Moskova thought, a small pleasure for her after years of prideful defiance from the girl. Then she eyed the bucket still full of bitter rods. The Prince had not countermanded his earlier order and the governess saw no reason to go easy as she struck the sore up-struck bottom again. There were a great many rods and the baroness intended to use them all.

To be continued.

Sam is a contributor who from time to time sends in some interesting snippets and pictures. This old picture is unusual not only because of the subject matter, two young women about to be caned in public, but because the faces have been pixelated out.

Sam reports that the picture came from a family blog with some genuine old family photographs on it and that the faces were blurred to protect the innocent. Sam doesn’t know the back story but says the caption read ‘Grandmother (pictured in white) at her old Alma Mata back in 1928.’

Who knows the truth of it, but the use of the cane and the posture does suggest that this is not just a posed-for birthday spanking picture. But maybe it is a ladies’ college or some such as the girls look too old for high school.

The stranger bothered her almost as much as Jason Kincaid did. He was a large man with searching dark eyes that never seemed to rest. Also there was something about the set of his jaw reminded her of her father and that determined way he had. It was a cinch that the stranger, whoever he was, was here for Kincaid. But the question was, was he another hired gun looking to cash in or had he come for a showdown?

Kathy sighed and unconsciously tugged at an unruly blonde lock. Damn, her father would have known at a glance, he could smell wrongdoing at 100 miles. That thought brought back uncomfortable memories and past confrontations.

“But Pa I am a woman grown now, I am way too old for a spanking,” she had wailed just a year before.

Her father had regarded her with sad eyes and a firm set of his jaw.

“Kathy, as long as I am your father you will never be too old for a good sound spanking,” he had replied.

It wasn’t as if he had ever cut her some slack when confronted with wrongdoing. She had tried and failed with that line since she had graduated school, but it was always worth another try. But it had ended in the traditional way.

One moment she had been backing away protesting and the next she was upended across his lap with her gingham skirts getting bunched up into the small of her back.

“Please Pa,” she had whined as he tugged at the drawstring on her bloomers.

“Hush now, what kind of spanking would it be if I didn’t bare your bottom?” His voice had been warm and firm with a slight chuckle at its edges as if he didn’t quite take her protestations of being a woman grown seriously. “And if you don’t stop wriggling I’ll send you out back to cut a switch.”

It was a threat often followed through and even almost a year after her father’s death Kathy blushed to her ears. She remembered how in former times she had been made to go into the yard with her skirts pinned to the small of her back while she trimmed a switch or two from the hickory that grew there. More than once a passer-by had seen her and laughed, Kathy could have died.

That last time she had submitted quickly as Pa had bared her bottom. She had been a kid again as he tapped her naked hiney twice as a prelude to spanking her. His hand stung worse than any hairbrush or razor strop and within a half a dozen swats across her behind she was yelling up a storm past caring who might hear her. Hear her they did of course, they always did. It was a small town and the sheriff’s house was in Main Street just down from his office. Everyone knew when Kathy Earhart was getting a spanking.

A sound spanking from Pa always took an age and she was beyond merely sorry long, long minutes before he even thought about stopping. Then with her very red and very bare bottom still on display she had to stand in the corner of the parlour with her behind directed at the front door. The man who kept the towns justice was not ashamed to let the world know he knew how to keep the peace in his own home so many a time a neighbourly busybody would call shortly after Kathy had been spanked, an especially mortifying experience when the neighbour had a son or daughter in tow.

It might have been a shame from which Kathy would never had recovered but the young folk and most especially the grown-up daughters of the town were mostly handled the same and teasing had never lasted beyond a day or two.

A tear rolled down Kathy’s face as she remembered almost fondly such rough handling and would suffer any amount of spanking if she could have had Pa back. But enough of that, she thought returning to the present. Jason Kincaid was up to something and now she had this stranger. With her father dead the job had fallen to her.

“But being sheriff ain’t no job for a woman,” the mayor had protested.

Kathy had agreed but she noticed that Jedidiah Smith, the mayor and storekeeper, was in no hurry to step up himself or find a replacement. Nor had they needed one until Jason Kincaid had come to town.

Kathy reached into the folds of her dark grey skirt for the reassuring weight of her father’s pistol. These days her attire was more sombre and rugged, a vague attempt to be taken seriously. Then pulling down the brim of her mannish hat she made her way to the saloon and the stranger.

*

Jack Stone re-crossed his boots and shifted back in the chair on the porch where he had been seen sun-up. So far there had been no sign of Jason Kincaid, or anyone much. It was almost as if the good people of Mauston knew what was coming down.

In fact the only people he had seen were the preacher, who had crossed the dirt track street to avoid him, the storekeeper that doubled for mayor who had asked him his business in town and small young woman in dark clothing and an overlarge hat who had watched him.

She might have been pretty he thought, but not a smile had touched her face since he had seen her and she had hung around outside the sheriff’s office watching him. Maybe she was after the law as well, but Jack had tried first thing and to his certain knowledge no one had come or gone from the jail since then.

The one thing that did hold his attention about the girl was that she was packing. From the way she kept checking and rechecking her piece she was none too comfortable with firearms either. If she had ill intent towards him then that made it all the more dangerous as amateurs were apt to spook easily. For the longest time he considered approaching her, but she was probably skittish enough. No if she had business with him then let her make her move first. And so it had proved. After an hour or so the girl seemed to make-up her mind about something and started in towards him.

“Hey mister, what you doing here in town?” she blurted.

Jack’s eyes narrowed at her rudeness. Didn’t she know to talk more respectful to her elders? Well he was at least a decade her senior he figured so it was just about his due by now.

“Right now I am just setting ma’am,” he replied with a tip of his hat.

“You know damn well what I mean,” Kathy countered.

Jack’s eyes narrowed and he was genuinely shocked at her cussing.

“What business of yours might that be ma’am?” Jack asked in an even tone.

Kathy reached into her pocket and pulled out her father’s badge. She felt a fraud wearing it, but it was the only authority she had.

Jack saw the badge and sat up straight. He was still studying it when Jason Kincaid chose that moment to ride in.

“Excuse me ma’am,” Jack told Kathy, but his eyes had already dismissed her as they followed the rather dour hard-looking man on the horse.

Kathy too was watching Jason and her hand tickled at the handle of her pistol under her skirts.

“You have business with Jason Kincaid?” she asked.

“You might say that ma’am,” Jack muttered.

As he spoke Jack slowly got to his feet and adjusted his own pistol belt. Then before Kathy could speak further he said, “You know where the sheriff is ma’am?”

Kathy looked up at the man who was as broad as an oak as he stood more than head and shoulders taller than her. But there was something else, where his jacket fell open he saw that he carried a badge of his own, one bearing the legend US Marshall.

“My father is dead,” she said woodenly, “I am just about the only law around here at the moment.”

Jack turned and for the first time gave Kathy an appraising look.

“No offence ma’am but… well let’s just say Jason Kincaid is no lightweight maybe you should leave him to me,” Jack said with an easy smile.

Kathy frowned, that was just about typical of the condescending attitude she had come to expect from men. It didn’t matter that she had been hoping and praying for a proper lawman to come to town or that this one hadn’t said very much except the truth.

“This is my town and you will follow my lead,” she shot back her pistol now levelled.

She wasn’t entirely sure if the pistol was for this Marshall or Jason Kincaid and the long barrel hovered uncertainly in space.

“Put that away unless you mean to use it,” Jack said sternly.

There was an edge to his voice and Kathy couldn’t again help but be reminded of her father. Before she could say another word Jack turned and heading across the street to where Kincaid was tethering his horse.

“Just one minute you,” Kathy snarled at Jack’s back, and then seeing he didn’t turn hurried after him. “Hold up.”

If Jason Kincaid hadn’t been aware of them by then he was now and before Jack and Kathy had crossed the street he was standing arms akimbo on the opposite planked sidewalk watching their approach.

“You looking for me?” Kincaid yelled over.

Jack stopped but was immediately assaulted by Kathy running into his back and then staggering backwards to fall hard on her tail.

“Ow,” she squealed, “Look out you oaf.”

Instinctively Jack half turned to offer her a hand up a short sudden movement that hung in time and space, which as soon as he made it he knew his mistake. At that same moment Kincaid saw the flash of sun on Jack’s partially exposed badge and his hand slid to his gun.

Look out, Kathy thought and tried to shout, but all that left her throat was a scream.

It was less than half a second since Kathy had crashed into Jack but Kincaid’s pistol had already cleared his holster. His first shot whistled past Jack’s head as he ducked down behind the hitching rail. It was scant cover from a six-gun but this time it served as a shot from Jack blasted a chunk out of the wood between him and the bullet.

Somehow Kathy’s own pistol was still in her hand and a stray shot discharged into the ground. Jack tried to ignore it but the distraction made his second shot miss too.

Jason Kincaid hesitated. He know had two targets and for the longest quarter of a second his barrel hovered between Jack and Kathy. For the Marshall this time it was enough. Kincaid never heard the shot that smashed into his chest, he didn’t even know he had been shot until he hit the deck and could no longer grip his pistol.

“Damn,” he said in a resigned voice, the last word he ever said.

“Are you alright ma’am?” Jack asked a rather shocked Kathy as he helped her from the ground.

“No thanks to you,” she replied huffily as she gained her feet and dusted herself off.

Jack frowned.

“No thanks… you almost got us both killed,” he growled.

“I almost… well I like that…” Kathy rounded on him, but a sudden nausea got the better of her and she averted her eyes from the prone body of the late Jason Kincaid.

“What authority do you have here exactly?” Jack barked squaring up to the now white faced girl as she rocked unsteadily in the street.

There were others now and the mayor, Jedidiah Smith, emerged brandishing a shot gun.

“Someone call Doc Hollister,” he yelled authoritatively.

“He’s beyond a doctor now,” Jack said.

Jedidiah nodded sagely and then noticed Kathy’s demeanour.

“She don’t look too good,” he murmured, “Best if you take her home, I’ll set things a right here Marshall.”

Remembering the exchange Jack swung around to confront the brat who had almost done for him and then saw for the first time the way of things. He took one step forward and swept the girl into his arms.

“Unhand me,” she muttered, but with no conviction.

*

“I guess I am not cut out for law enforcement,” Kathy said ruefully as she brought out a coffee pot and set it on the table in front of Jack.

“I guess you’re not,” he agreed, “What would your Pa have said you toting a firearm like that?”

“Not a hell of a lot,” Kathy replied archly, “But he would have done plenty.”

Jack’s jaw tightened at her swearing, the second time he had heard it from her that day.

“Does that go for the cussing too?” he said dryly.

“I guess,” Kathy sighed. “I kinda miss his firm hand these days.”

“He spanked you?”

Kathy blushed and gave Jack a small nod.

Well you go cussing around me, or go packing a gun for that matter and I’ll show you what a firm hand can be,” Jack said menacingly, “I’ll spank that bare bottom of yours until it is the colour of a polished apple.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Kathy said defiantly setting her hands on hips, adding “You damn well wouldn’t dare.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed and he slowly got to his feet.

“You know, you did nearly get us both killed and by rights I owe you something for that. On top of that we have the small problem of your foul mouth,” he growled.

“Oh no, y-you… you wouldn’t…”Kathy said backing away.

“You said it yourself, it is something you have been needing,” he sighed as he worked the buttons at his cuff and began rolling up his sleeves.

“Not from you,” Kathy blustered.

“Well in the absence of your Pa I am the law around here now,” Jack said.

From long custom and training Kathy yielded somewhat as the Marshall took her arm and pulled her too him. Her tottering heels on the rug resisted for only a moment before she was tumbled headlong across Jack’s lap as he sat back on the kitchen chair.

“Marshall… you can’t, you just can’t,” Kathy wailed. But her eyes were already saucers and her mouth formed a shocked O as one by one her skirts and petticoats were flipped up into the small of her back.

There was a long appreciative pause as Jack gazed upon the tight cotton drum of Kathy’s bottom and then he asked, “Did your Pa take these down?”

A flushed Kathy rolled her eyes back like a wild colt and tried to twist from the Marshall’s lap.

“You wouldn’t?” she wailed.

“I will if your Pa did,” Jack said sharply, “Did he?”

“No,” Kathy lied sullenly, but her voice carried no conviction.

Jack chuckled. “And what did he do when you lied?” he asked.

Kathy blushed furiously and thought of the hickory out back and the customary shameful display.

“Answer me,” Jack demanded, “and I strongly suggest you don’t tell me another lie.”

“He’d have me cut a switch,” she mumbled.

“What was that?” Jack pressed her.

Kathy clamped her mouth shut and defiantly prepared for an onslaught to her behind.

“I bet the mayor knows, or one of your neighbours?” Jack offered.

“You heard what I said,” Kathy replied somewhat sharply.

“Switched you, did he? On the bare bottom?” the Marshall asked.

“Yes,” Kathy hissed through gritted teeth.

“And when spanking you?” he pressed her.

“Yes,” she said again, this time with rather less vehemence and a whole heap more nervousness.

Jack tugged at the draw string of Kathy’s bloomers and despite a sudden animated bucking on her part her drawers soon went south.

“You can’t do this to me,” she shrieked.

But she soon found that he could as the first mighty swat landed on her bare bottom.

“Ooh,” she squealed and kicked her legs.

Outside the mayor and two or three others looked up. They were surprised to hear pistol shots coming from the Sherriff’s house, but after a moment they were grinning as they realised the true nature of the sound. In any case, by way of conformation the sharp retorts were soon followed by Kathy’s lively hollering.

“I guess the Marshall is dispensing some more justice,” the mayor chuckled.

Meanwhile inside the spanking lasted a good 10 minutes until the globes of Kathy’s bottom were bright red and mottled and earnest tears were streaming down her face. The spanks fell in rapid earnest blasts covered her thoroughly rounds like a cannonade beginning at the top of her cheeks and rapidly descending until they beat down where her bottom met her thigh tops before repeating the action.

“Are you going to be a good girl?” Jack asked her not missing a spank.

“Yes Sir,” Kathy sobbed, she took comfort now that this was how her Pa had handled things and that this was how she had always responded.

“Good girl,” Jack sighed setting the crying woman on her feet. “Now I am guessing you have somewhere to go for a spell?”

Kathy nodded miserably and looking at the floor she pointed to the corner. It was exactly where Pa always sent her.

“Off you go then and no rubbing hear, I want to see that shiny red bottom of yours as it cools off,” he said sternly.

“Yes Sir,” Kathy sniffed.

Then without a word she took careful steps to the corner and put her nose tight to the wall.

“You move before I tell you and I’ll have you cut that switch,” Jack warned.

“Yes Sir,” Kathy said hastily and hiked up her skirts in back as her Pa had always made her.

It took less than 10 minutes for the mayor to come looking for him and he didn’t even bother to feign surprise at Kathy’s predicament.

“Just like old times,” Jedidiah chuckled.

Kathy sucked down a sob and shifted in the corner as she prayed that the floor would swallow her down. For a moment her face felt hotter even than her bottom.

“I’ll meet you at the jail as soon as I am done here,” Jack said disapprovingly.

The mayor glanced at Kathy’s exposed bottom and nodded, but he left only slowly.

Jack poured another coffee while Kathy recomposed herself and then took out his watch. He guessed another 30 or 40 minutes would be enough.

“Marshall,” Kathy said shyly from the corner.

“Yes,” Jack acknowledged.

“You sticking around in town long? I mean we need… the town I mean… we need some law,” she asked tentatively.

“Aren’t you afraid I might take you in hand again?” Jack chuckled.

“I guess I’ll risk it,” Kathy said ruefully.

“So long as you know I deal out justice with an even hand,” Jack said slowly, his tongue pressing against his cheek.

“I felt that about you,” Kathy said tartly as she risked an appraising glance back at him.

Jack winked and made a gesture with his finger that told her to turn back around. “You’ll feel it even more if you don’t mind me,” he said.

“Yes Sir,” Kathy sighed.

Here are a few interesting pictures. The first two are Argentinian. There is a touch of authenticity to the first picture in which the man’s wife appears embarrassed as if this is a genuine candid shot. The second might be a what happens next.

The third picture is interesting too as it appears to be of a genuinely spanked woman and not just a ‘posed for’ shot or a studio fake.

For more vintage pictures including new finds and old favourites see All Our Yesterdays.

This is from an early 1970s magazine article called Pop Goes the Music. This partial cutting, a poor photocopy, was sent in by Emmy Z, so thanks to her. It was hard to read and mostly concerned interviews with long forgotten music acts in an article about parents’ reactions to the music business and their pursuit of it.

Under the sub-heading ‘spanking’ were these two contributions.

A dancer called Jaclyn Jazz said: “Encouragement, not exactly. In fact when my Pop found out I had quit college to take up dancing he spanked the bejesus out of me. I mean I was almost 21 and thought I was beyond such crap, but Pop didn’t see it that way. It was about four years before he even came to see me in a show.”

Elisabeth Anne Dee, a backing singer with a group called the Psychedelics, told of her home town’s reaction to her chosen career way back when she started in the 50s.

“Back home in those days even girls out of high school got a spanking for cursing or any bad behaviour. My elder sister even got a bare-bottom switching after being caught smoking when she was 19. Even so I didn’t expect quite the reaction I got on a visit home after my first tour. I was around 19 or 20 myself back then and I remember getting off the bus and sashaying down Main Street in a pair of skin tight ski pants and some pretty full-on make-up. My parents weren’t best pleased but you should have seen the looks I got from folks around town. I thought I looked cool until my old high school teacher pulled up alongside me and told me to get in. She took me to her place, all the while she was driving she was bawling me out about my look.”

The next part was too dark too read clearly, but it later continued.

“Before I knew it I was over her knee getting the spanking of my life. When I complained and told her she was crazy she yanked my ski-pants and panties down and let me have it bare-bottomed. Later she even put me in the corner while she fished out a skirt before driving me home. I didn’t argue.”

“I didn’t sit down easy for a day or two but you can bet I didn’t tell anyone. But that was how it was back then.”

Part I

The finger of morning sun pierced the small castle windows with a cascade of beams like an accusatory fingers, each landing in a pool of golden light at intervals along the passage floor marking Sofia’s passing like theatre illuminations on a stage. Even now she felt as if her behind had been polished raw with a grinding stone and the rounds of her bottom still throbbed and stung even though it was two days since her whipping at the hands of her father and Baroness Moskova.

Nor had the baroness spared her shame afterwards for no sooner had the birch rods stopped searing her tender curves than she had been sent to the corner for a good long cry with her bare bottom exposed while the door to the room had been left wide for the edification of any passing servant.

This penance was meant to confirm that far from being a pampered princess, she was just another naughty girl who had been spanked and sent to bed without supper. This last sanction had been yet another humiliating sufferance for the noblewoman, not that she had much of an appetite once the baroness was done with her.

Instead she had thrown herself face down on her bed while a maid dabbed wet cloths on the twin domes of her empurpled bottom as she had bawled noisily and without dignity into her pillow. Throughout this thoroughly shaming ordeal all she could think of was that she would never ever see Ivan again.

Such thoughts troubled her still and even now it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other as she made her way down the passage having been summoned by her father.

“I may never sit down again,” Sofia sighed, but under her breath she muttered that she would have suffered a thousand such fates if Ivan so decreed.

Speaking thus aloud, even if softly, gave the words power as if she were invoking God in prayer, which in a way she was. She thought too of Ivan’s stories of the whippings his sisters and girl cousins got, a thousand biting lashes before the whole village for their shame. A harsh life, she thought, but one she would gladly share.

Then she found a smile. Perhaps it is the destiny of the women of Russia never to sit comfortably, she giggled at the thought. She thought too of the old proverb: never strike a woman’s face when God provides a better place. Perhaps a woman’s bottom is God’s decree that she should be whipped, Sofia pondered. She was willing to bet that Ivan thought so.

Further thoughts of Ivan brought a frown and she bit back a bitter tear. Then with another step the pain flared again in her bottom and she decided to save her tears for later, it looked as if she may need them if the baroness had her way.

*

“The Dvorsky family are an old and noble family,” her father was saying, “Above all they are loyal,” which was to say their loyalty was in question, knowing political speak like she did.

Sofia had eschewed the offered chair and was now standing dutifully before her father while he made what sounded like a speech. In due course no doubt he would get to the point but the state of Sofia’s bottom held her obedient for once and she inclined her head politely.

“The Count is not a young man but… nor is he old,” the Prince said evasively. “He served with my father as a boy and was still among the retinue when I came in to my father’s lands…”

Sofia risked a squeeze of her bottom under her skirts and winced at the contact.

“So I have decided that you and he shall marry…” her father continued.

Whatever else was said was lost in a faraway hubbub. Sofia neither knew nor cared about the details. But what had she expected, she had always known this day would come and once she would have been excited. Now all she could think of was Ivan.

“Sofia, attend,” her father barked, “Are you even listening to me?”

“Count Dvorsky is not a young man, but he is loyal,” Sofia said woodenly, “You are going to marry me to him,” she continued, “yes Father.”

“Yes well,” the Prince harrumphed, “It seems that a whipping did you some good after all.”

“Yes Father,” Sofia agreed dutifully.

*

The wedding was hastily arranged and consequently was a small event. Castle Molotov’s chapel could accommodate only 50 or so people and in any case given the speed of the affair most of the far flung family could not have arrived in time.

The highly ornate but rather gloomy chamber was not how Sofia had pictured the pivotal event of her life. In her drams she had thought of the cathedral in St Petersburg and a young prince or even an Arch-Duke or a future tsar. Less than a year before she would have been devastated to marry the ageing Count Dvorsky, but now it barely mattered, not really. The child in her had gone and what did she cared if she were given to a prince or a count, none of them would be Ivan? She was no fool, even elevated to the rank of rystar, the man she now knew she loved was far beneath her. That was just the way it was.

At least her father had made some effort for the big day. Even the priest had taken a bath, the thought of which made her giggle. She pictured the hirsute old man scowling as he viewed a steaming tub, perhaps his first such encountered since he had grown a beard.

Her own costume was garish to say the least, whoever had decided on wedding gowns had definitely had no taste. The headdress was a complete fright and sat on her head like the patriarch’s mitre. It cut into her brow as it tugged at her high piled hair, making it quite the most uncomfortable thing she had ever worn. The rest of the costume was scarcely much better. She particularly hated the way the heavy brocade parted at the back so that she had to stand and walk with an exaggerated care or else it would open up behind and shamefully expose her.

At least she had been allowed tight linen leggings against the cold, but they only partially aided her modesty. The material was so thin that her flesh shone pink from beneath and the slightest moisture upon it would leave all but transparent.

Still it was more than many peasant girls got and even some of her contemporaries were made to wear even more shaming attire. Sofia blushed at the thought of it. It was a peony complexion that did not leave her face right up to the altar.

Every girl knew the purpose of such attire. At her wedding she was supposed to present her bottom to her father’s whip for the last time and accept at least one lash before he gave the rod to her new husband.

Often this was just a ritual affair and very much a token but in Molotov lands it was sometimes carried out more earnestly. Sofia had seen peasant girls and even lower noblewomen whipped raw on the bare by both father and husband while friends and family looked on with approval.

She tried hard not to look at the whip in her father’s hand as he escorted her and instead fixed her eyes firmly on the old priest and the hunched grey man standing next to him. Oh Lord, is this your will? It was a miserable prayer and she tried to square it with her revelation in the forest. Surely that had meant something? Why show her that life and give her that shameful ordeal if she were not to profit from it?

Finally they reached the altar and the priest bowed to her father, then ignoring her presence both count and prince bowed to each other.

Sofia barely heard a word as the priest intoned the sacred words. Only when it was her turn to speak did she look up at all. Then her father stepped forward and in a daze she found herself bending to the whip.

As the back of her gown parted before a full chapel she felt almost as exposed as if she had been bare bottomed. Then in three quick swipes her father lashed her bottom and she had to grit her teeth. These were not just for show.

It seemed to take an age for the quirt to be passed to the count and she braced herself. Maybe he was man enough for her after all she hoped. But his strokes were feeble, just a token of force, and Sofia’s heart sank. So she was married.

*

Spring was not yet fully upon them and the road to the count’s home, her home, she amended, was not yet free of mud. Even in the winter they would have made better progress. The coach and four was a ridiculous way to travel the forest roads anyway and Sofia had suggested that they travel on horseback like the three outriders. But Count Dvorsky wouldn’t hear of it.

“My dear countess,” he said expansively, “I would not hear of it.”

For a moment she wondered whom he was addressing and then she remembered. She was no longer a Molotov, she was the new Countess Dvorsky. Damn the man, she thought as she saw him leering at her. Sofia doubted he would wait until they gained his stronghold before he claimed his marital rights. She pictured some sordid inn at the roadside while his men and a few peasants listened at the door cackling drunkenly.

She averted her eyes and instead tried to pick out deer and other beauties among the trees. Most of all she thought of Ivan, although to do so made her feel sick. Luckily the count took her evasion as modesty and smiled indulgently as he patted her knee. She cringed.

Neither of them saw from where the arrow came. They didn’t even quite believe the twang-thunk of it as it cut the rear outrider from his saddle. It did not help that the man hung for a moment in space before dropping with a heavy thud to the ground. By then two more arrows had skimmed the party, the third jutting hideously from the first outrider’s neck.

Although she hated herself for it, Sofia screamed and reached for the dagger that had been her companion since childhood. Of course it was not there, Ivan had it. She smiled sadly to herself, taking comfort in that. It would have availed her nothing in any case, she was quite sure of that.

Instead she prayed and watched the last of the outriders tumble into the mud. The count was standing up now and had managed to draw his sword. There was courage in his eyes and she took some comfort from this too but by now there were men in the woods on all sides.

She was strangely calm in the face of death. Then something fell hard against her and she half turned. The coach driver who had been sitting behind and above her up front was slumped backwards. His eyes were wide and staring sightlessly into the sky. From somewhere there was blood, but this time Sofia could see no arrow.

“My lord,” she screamed as she turned back to look for her husband, but he as gone. For a moment she feared he had left her but then she saw his inverted boot hanging over the side of the coach. She followed a leg down to his slumped body. Not consummated then, she thought wistfully as if it mattered, I wonder then if I am married.

*

Ivan hung back from the large group of men gathered in the courtyard of Castle Molotov. Even though he held the rank of rystar, he did not yet feel as if he was one of these men. Although if the truth were told, most of them were as ill-educated and as unkempt as he was. But more than that, they were here merely to do their duty at the Prince’s summons and instead of showing concern they laughed and swigged vodka as they waited for the prince.

Ivan for his part felt sick and it was all he could do not to set off at once. The trouble was, as yet little was known. Count Dvorsky and his men had been found dead, but of Sofia there was no sign. Also it was not yet known who had attacked the party.

At first glance it appeared to be the work of bandits, but although ready valuables were taken the count’s expensive clothes were left with him and no serious attempt had been made to ransack the carriage and the bodies. All this suggested that the purpose had been other than robbery and the thefts were either opportunistic or a crude attempt to cover the attackers tracks.

Ivan’s only immediate hope was that Sofia had been the target of a kidnapping and that this had something to do with Prince Molotov’s enemies. That would mean that she might yet be alive and the subject of a ransom. However, if the count’s murder had been the aim then taking Sofia had merely been another opportunistic act and… Ivan bit back a sob and stopped his mind drifting any further in that direction.

He looked around hastily in case anyone had seen his weakness but his fellow landsman and retainers of the prince were fully absorbed with their revelry and vodka. It was almost as if they had gathered for a day’s hunting.

It was another 20 minutes before the Prince came and the mood in the courtyard changed abruptly.

“Gentlemen,” the Prince growled, “We suspect the Kern, but we cannot rule out the Kelch or some other party. Count Borsky will lead a party to the Kelch lands and look for evidence while the rest of us will make for the Kern territory.”

Ivan stood straight and reached into his coat for Sofia’s dagger. Its solid presence comforted him Prince Molotov explained his response. The men with the best horses and arms would go with the Prince and ride directly on Castle Kern, they were told. While the others would skirt wider looking for a trail and taking in some of the outlaying Kern villages to see what they could find. Ivan was depressed to find that he was to be part of this second group and all his instincts told him to follow the prince to take immediate action. But the Prince was right, the best organised and faster men should mount an early assault rescue and men such as he, those with better woodsmen skills, should scout more widely.

No sooner had the prince stopped talking then all Castle Molotov broke into a commotion. Bells rang as men leaped onto horses and by the time Ivan had clawed his way clumsily into the saddle most had already rode hard into the woods leaving the former woodsman among the stragglers.

It pained him to admit it, but he was no match for men who had been born to the saddle and had trained for war all their lives. No the forest was his domain and he would make it work for him.

To be continued…

This snippet is from the Toronto-based publication, Justice Weekly, in 1949. It is taken from a letter from a woman who recounted her experience as a clerical worker in an office during the Depression.

She it she tells of how she was caught stealing from her employer and was almost dismissed. Her boss was so moved by her apologies and her genuine contrition that he offered to handle the situation as if she was his daughter.

He made it quite clear that if she had been his daughter that he would have put her across his knee and given her a sound spanking on her bare bottom. As she was guilty she received this news with some grateful relief and readily agreed.

She does not say explicitly that he carried out his threat of a bare bottom spanking but admits that it was a thoroughly embarrassing and painful experience. Even some years after the event the woman expressed gratitude to her boss for spanking her and in the letter she tells that despite her embarrassment that they remained friends.

It has been said that the first spanking in history was when Eve went over Adam’s knee after they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. However, before there was even a Bible the ancient Egyptians had already incorporated spanking into their religion.

To the followers of the goddess Isis spanking was actually a sacred duty. In the temple female slaves had their bottoms whipped to honour the goddess of motherhood and fertility. This made such an impact that centuries later the Greeks and Romans adopted the habit and held their own spanking parties to promote fertility.

The interesting thing about spanking and other forms of corporal punishment centred on the buttocks is that rather than being directed at children the practice was original reserved for women.

As a recent article points out, “Spare the rod, Spoil the child” is not from the Bible but was in fact written by Samuel Butler in his satirical poem Hudibras to ridicule the Victorian lifestyle.

Another article written in 1966 by John Barry said:

Spanking has a long history, probably as long as the Oldest Profession. Documented incidents even date back to Ancient Greece. Then it was customary for childless women to visit the temple of Juno in Athens, to be cured of sterility by the priests of Pan. The women had to lie face down on the temple floor, and be whipped with a lash made of goat’s hide. The priests clearly were aware of the erotic powers of the whip, but history does not tell us whether or not the resultant children were sired by the whip-wielding priests.

It goes to describe how the Roman story-teller, Virgil, describes the feast of Lupercalia, where naked men danced in the streets beating every woman they came across.

Also, as my previous article said the Romans followed a tradition for ensuring the fertility of brides to be. The girl was placed across the knees of the ‘sponsor’, and then the girl’s bottom was bared and strapped to the accompaniment of clashing cymbals. This theory that whipping would make barren women fertile was popular right up until the sixteenth century.

Indeed Queen Claude of France was said to be barren and remained childless for the first 15 years of her marriage. To counter this severe threat to the French state she was soundly and regularly spanked. In fact after undergoing a daily spanking on the bare bottom for some time it was said that her ordeal was occasionally augmented by using rods.

After 15 years of this treatment she did have several children!

The curious thing about this period in French history is that at a time when belief in flagellation for fertility began to wane erotic whipping became more common in the French court. Ladies bottoms were even frequently whipped in public. This was particularly curious because at the same time the Church had begun to advocate whipping for the purging of sins.

The church even defined different types of whipping; superior was whipping on the back, usually reserved for men, while an inferior whipping referred to spanking and chastisement on the bare bottom, generally reserved for women.  It was common for women, after confession, to retire to a priest’s room and have her bare bottom birched while resting on a specially designed kneeler.

This dichotomy of religious and erotic practices seems to have been confused even at the time. A 50-year-old Jesuit, Father Giraud, wound up in court for spanking the very pretty 25-year-old Catherine Cadiere, an alleged French witch who he had confined to a nunnery for this very ‘service.’

In fact the later trial of Catherine Cadiére in 1731 formed part of the basis for the pornographic novel Thérèse Philosophe.

Nor was he the only priest to follow this practice. Father Cornelius Adriason founded a punishment called the Cornelian Discipline, and became famous for flogging female bottoms. In the 1550s he became involved with Marie-Ann Leveque, a niece of the Mayor of Bruges, Belgium. As her confessor he customarily whipped her and other young women half-naked, but for him Marie-Ann deserved an extra-special penance. He stripped her completely naked and after her whippingis said to taken advantage of her.

Around the same time Catherine de’ Medici’s favourite sport, to quote from her biographers, was to order serving girls and ladies of her court to be stripped naked and thrashed in front of her. This seems to have begun as a punishment but as time went by this custom evolved into a kind of spanking party. At a banquet in 1577, she made the most beautiful and noble ladies of the court serve half naked. She personally spanked them on the buttocks with the palm of her hand, with great blows and fairly rough handling.

It seems that spanking has been ambiguous at the very least when it comes to motivations.

Part I

The storm was bad. It was perhaps the worst storm Ivan could remember for the time of year. Not that it was any worse than those he had lived through over many a winter. But he did understand why many of the Prince’s men quailed in the face of it.

The rain fell almost horizontally and as they passed great trees bowed down to them as if in supplication for their plight. So low did the great branches swing at them that whips of birch lashed at them and after too long most of the men had to dismount and all but drag their horses along the paths through the trees.

“We must find shelter until the storm passes,” their captain bellowed.

Ivan nearly laughed at this until he saw most nodding and the grim chuckle died on his face.

Just then a sudden burst of wet wind sent several horses rearing and two men were dragged along in mud until they could gain control.

“There is a village near here, we will hold up there for a few hours,” the captain decisively announced.

With horses it made sense but Ivan could only think of Sofia and in any case he was no rider and knew they could make better time afoot. But it would do little to protest for most here stood higher than he and his word carried no weight.

*

The sky broke in great shouts of pain as rain-laden thunder tore through the dark clouds in protest. Sofia wondered if God had not sent the storm in his anger at her treatment, but if God was so angry why had he let her suffer so in the first place?

Not that she could see much of the sky. The room had two high windows and unless the sun shone on it directly it was almost as night in the chamber. Therefore she was only dimly aware of the bars facing the outer wall and had as yet had no idea what was beyond them in the gloom.

Also it was cold where she was, the stone floor was hard and she lay shivering in terror as she reassembled the pieces of her broken mind. They had given her but a single fur to hide what was left of her attire and she had struggled to know whether to cover herself or use it to soften the icy ground. So instead she curled in a ball on the floor staring at the windows, half under and half on the fur.

She had no idea where she was or how exactly she came here. She remembered only blood and crowing warriors standing around the body of her husband. Then had come hard fast riding through close razor trees, much of it bundled under a sheet and all of it bruising to body and soul. By the time she had been dragged through the castle gates she had been half conscious and certain that she would die.

But they hadn’t killed her, not yet. They had merely stripped her outer clothes and anything of value and thrown her in this chamber. If they meant to kill her why would they have taken her? For a second she stopped mid shiver and set her eyes wide and alert. It was but a pause in her chill-trembling huddle but she took comfort from it and began to strain her gaze to the room.

There was a jug of what she presumed was water to the right of the windows and in the corner facing it was a privy with a narrow chute to the outside. She knew the kind and although there were many grim tales of smelly escapes through drains, she knew there would be no succour there, even for one as small as her.

So instead she sat up and studied the bars. She could see now that the room was an open cell with one wall that was all bars opening out onto another as unlit area. Not a cell for a Countess, still less for one that was a daughter of a prince, but yet here she was. Did they know who she was and what her father would pay as a ransom?

What would he pay, she wondered? After all she was no longer his concern and even if she had been, she had been a disappointment and a runaway. She hardly thought he would rouse his warriors on her account. But perhaps that was not her captor’s business then?

Sofia hugged the fur tight and refused that train of thought.

Outside the storm had eased somewhat and although the light was still a dim bluish grey, the sound had settled down to a hard rush of a million droplets tumbling over stones. It was the kind of heavy rain that cut the dust and gave off a bitter odour. Sofia crinkled her nose. She smelt none too good herself and lamented the amount of water so close at hand when she had no bath.

*

Ivan had opted for leaving the horse and trudging onwards through the rain. At least he was again his own master and the paths he took through the forest led efficiently towards his quarry. He did not dwell on the fact that his quarry was no more than his captain’s guess. It was his earnest prayer that the Prince had fared better and had had the right of it. He also doubted that Prince Molotov would have been deterred by a little rain. Ivan grinned. Water fell like God’s piss and had the ground not been well-drained he would have been wading waist deep in mud. He had been hard on his comrades, the devil curse them, this was no small rain.

But still he strode out, one leg lunging ahead of the other by sheer force of will. Mile after mile he went scarcely looking up as he scanned the rising ground for a sure footing as he picked his way through the trees to the top of a long slow ridge.

He knew that out in the open where the horses were most useful there was no shelter and men would be huddled around fires drinking mulled ale and vodka from flasks. For a moment he envied them and cursed his stubbornness. He would be still scouring the forest days after the issue was settled at this rate. Then he thought again on Sofia and his hand gripped his sword hilt. His steps fell a little lighter then and he pressed on.

Ten minutes later he crested the hill in triumph. From the top he saw no great fortress or bandit camp. Instead, bellow the ridge was another line of trees rising to yet another; a day’s stride encompassed in a single gaze. Well what did he expect? Then with a grunt he took another step.

*

The rain fell more gently now and the light from the windows penetrated the gloom. Not that she saw much more grounds for hope. The only thing she had missed was a hunk of rye bread next to the water jug and that didn’t look worth the gaze.

But perhaps because of the softer rain, or because it had not been there before, she now heard the sound of iron and boots on hard floors. As she listened she was sure it was coming nearer and despite herself she huddled back into the fur like a frightened child. She prayed then to God, muttering familiar words under breath as she asked for help and daddy and… her lip trembled and tears came… and Ivan.

The chains were distinctly audible and something else… there were tears that were not her own which she could clearly hear above the sound of tramping boots. But why would men in boots be weeping? She pondered it in her befuddled mind and listened at the sound as it drew ever nearer, more curious now than afraid.

Under the tramping and chains and above the gentle sobbing was a slapping sound like… she thought of fish flapping on wet stones by the river and of the steady applause in an alehouse. No it was not that. It was the sound of bare feet on stone.

Just then light swept the chamber beyond the bars and a large hairy fur-clad Cossack strode into the room carrying a flaming torch. In his wake came a line of huddled naked women all walking at a hunch and cowering in chains. Sofia could see them clearly now. None of them were old and most of them were very young. And only from their hair could Sofia glean some idea of their rank. Although she knew at a glance that most of the women were peasants, some Sofia could tell, must have been higher servants or even rystar’s wives.

Victims of a raid then, but what use were they for ransom?

As Sofia watched she saw a woman of 20 or so dragged half resisting from the line, her legs buckling as she dug in her heels and she tugged on a chain that held at the wrists. It was a brief resistance and the willowy blonde was soon pulled forward and thrown face down over a barrel-like affair that stood against the wall. The device had only come into a view with the light of the torches and Sofia could now see other odd contraptions and racks of knouts there. There were even pokers and iron brands on hand, but mercifully there was no brazier lit for these. But the knouts and whips were fearful enough.

The blonde was now bent double over the barrel with her pale bare bottom glistening in the torchlight as a Cossack moved behind her with a stout birch rod braced in his fists. The girl was more stoical than Sofia would have been and even from her place in her cage huddled under the fur the newly widowed countess could hear the naked woman’s tight breath.

A moment later the birch lashed down with hissing crack that landed with a sharp thwack upon the girl’s bottom. Only her fellows squealed, no doubt knowing they were next, because despite the sudden rash of angry red that now marred the blonde’s bare behind the blonde made no sound.

Thrice more the birch lashed down and only then did the birch-wielding Cossack become frustrated at the woman’s stoicism. So in a rage he thrashed his arm more than dozen times in a frenzy until the girl made a scream.

Sofia remembered Ivan’s words and how his cousins and sisters had been thrashed a thousand lashes at times and she feared the worst for the girl. But within a half a minute the Cossack seemed satisfied and pulled the girl up with her hair and sent her staggering towards the end of the chamber. Although her bottom was grazed and raw, Sofia knew that even she had had worse and she relaxed a little. The scene might even be called fun if she hadn’t been so afraid. An unworthy thought soon supressed as another woman was hauled forward for the same treatment.

This girl was older, perhaps 30 or so and already she carried pockmarks on her thighs and her belly was a little sagging as if she might have been a mother. She too took her thrashing well but had the sense to cry out at each biting stroke and was let up after perhaps only two dozen.

And so it when on, 20 in all Sofia counted, one after the other bent over and soundly birched. Then without a word of anger the Cossacks shoved at the last of the women and left.

For a long moment Sofia waited as the women sniffed and sobbed to themselves huddled in the half-light. Then seeing the second woman standing to comfort one of the other girls she decide to speak.

“Hey you,” Sofia hissed, “Who are you?”

The woman wheeled around and immediately curtseyed. She knew nobility when she heard it.

“I am Anya Ma’am, from the Village of Ansk,” she answered, again incongruously dipping at the knees and averting her eyes. “There was a raid and we…. we… the men are all dead,” she almost sobbed.

Then the woman shrugged.

“We will be fine, after all we are just serfs,” she said bitterly, “We will be sold to a new lord. Our lives will not change so much. But my lady, who are you? What are you doing here?”

Anya found the courage to look up now and regarded Sofia quizzically.

“I am Sofia M… Countess Dvorsky, my husband too is dead,” Sofia replied.

Anya shrugged.

“Where are we?” Sofia asked.

“Who knows? The Cossacks frequently take captives in these lands; if you are truly a Countess then they will seek a ransom. Did they use you?” Anya sniffed.

She sounded bored now and was rubbing idly at her bottom.

“Use me?” Sofia frowned and then she realised and shook her head.

“Then you have some value. Lucky you,” Anya sighed.

*

Ivan had slept in the hollow of an old tree and was as stiff as old bear skins. But at least the rain had stopped and with greater visibility he had made better time. His comrades would be on the move again, although how they would find Sofia in this dense forest was beginning to trouble him.

Ahead of him lay yet another ridge of dense trees. He didn’t need to ask God what lay beyond it.

“Maybe I have died and this is hell eh Lord,” he chuckled. “Is this the endless toil of hell, wall after wall of trees? Well lord this is had been my life and there is no forest on earth that can best Ivan Ivanov.”

However, after two days of thick undergrowth the going at least had become easier, as if perhaps a village lay nearby. But all the same the narrow path wound crossways to the slope so that for half an hour Ivan had to zig-zag back and forth to gain the top of the next ridge.

From the top he just knew there would be another vista of trees, but he cared not. Bring it on, he said inwardly as he placed one foot soundly before the other.

Finally he reached the summit and even he had to pause to lean on a stout tree overhanging the valley; a small victory in all his travails. But as he looked up it was not another sea of trees that he saw but a ruined castle which still stood at three sides still containing intact towers. Before this upon some open ground were two dozen tents and many campfires.

“Cossacks,” Ivan cursed and dropped to a crouch.

But although he had no logical reason for hope his heart soared. If there was a God in heaven then he had guided Ivan here, he prayed. No there could not be two groups of raiders in these parts, not bearing banners of the Count of Kern.

To be continued.

Bristol 1896

Dear Mr Bradshaw,

I am sure that you think me a silly little thing and of no account at all, and who is to blame you? My behaviour at our last meeting could only have confirmed any low opinion you may have formed of me. But the truth is I hold you in a very high regard.

I hope I can disassociate myself from what Mrs Bateman and her daughter said, although I realise that on Sunday after tea my courage failed me and for form’s sake I said some harsh things. I very much admire your stance on the common failings of our society and whole heartedly support your remedy for them.

Far from shocking me, your tales of how you tamed the wilful and disrupted young women in Indian thrilled me and engendered in me such admiration that I can hardly tell you. I hope you realise how difficult this admission is and accept my sincere apologies that I expressed any other view at our last meeting.

I hope you understand that your radical views are very much frowned on in some circles and it is difficult for a young woman in my position to be associated with them. Reading this last sentence back I am appalled at my feeble excuses for my behaviour. I hope you see now what a dreadful little coward I am and how I would benefit from your severest attentions.

This brings me to the point of my missive.

If you can find it in your heart to forgive me I would submit wholly and totally to any punishment you can devise. I am quite certain that any treatment of me, no matter how humiliating, would do me the power of good.

Yours obediently,

Miss Amelia Johnson,
Hartcliffe, Bristol, 3^rd March 1896

These were Amelia’s words of as sent to one Major John Bradshaw after a certain tea party at Clifton. This was his reply.

Dear Miss Johnson,

I am heartened that you have seen the error of your ways although I cannot think that you truly understand what you are saying and still less what you are asking.

When I spoke of young giddy girls comporting themselves like hoydens even though they were above the age of 21, I very much had young women such as you and that dreadful Hortensia Bateman in my mind.

Perhaps you think that I spoke figuratively when I talk of birch rods and the application of the cane to a naked posterior. I suppose you imagine that I am some dashing no-nonsense sort who makes girls go weak at the knees from a scolding. The truth is, what you and more especially Mrs Bateman and her daughter need is a damn good thrashing where it would do the most good in the most public place possible.

I do commend you however for at least trying to make amends and if it will salve your conscience then consider yourself forgiven.

Yours sincerely,

Major John Bradshaw.

-

On receiving this letter Amelia was giddy with shame and it was all she could do not to faint. But nonetheless she steeled herself and gathered up her courage to make a reply.

Dear Mr Bradshaw,

I will not consider myself forgiven, how can I? When you speak of sanctions and consequences I have earned but have not suffered. Indeed, far from assuming you spoke figuratively, I hope and pray you were in earnest.

I do indeed deserve to be soundly thrashed upon my bare posterior and before the Batemans as an example to them, although I doubt if they would benefit from it. I know however that I would, if you I were to be thrashed before them or anyone else you deemed necessary.

I am a giddy girl and very much in need of a firm hand, but I cannot blame you for dismissing my suit in this matter. I suppose I am hardly worth the effort after my behaviour.

Yours obediently,

Amelia Johnson.

-

That might have been the end of it but after a week the good major sent this reply.

Dear Miss Johnson,

I may have spoken harshly to you and see now that you are neither giddy nor insincere. Judging from your behaviour on the previous Sunday I am sure you are right about needing a firm hand. However, I am not sure that a young woman of your sensibilities quite understands the reality and gravity of what you ask. Few young women in this land really do.

If I were to thrash you upon your naked behind you would cry out most dreadfully and not be able to sit down for many days afterwards. Furthermore if I were to take you in charge I could not in all conscience allow you to lapse back to bad behaviour and would consider it my duty to take you in hand more definitely.

I am quite sure after one encounter with me you would not like that.

Yours sincerely,

John Bradshaw

-

Amelia could scarce wait to reply.

Dear Mr Bradshaw or should I call you Sir?

Nothing you wrote could have pleased me more. But be assured I could expect no less than to be thrashed until I cried out and more. For no doubt you would hardly consider my punishment begun until I did cry out.

As for not sitting down for many days could anything be more apt? If I could sit down after a week I would know that you stinted in my pains.

Let us be clear, if I may make bold, we allude to posterior and my naked behind, but I know you would say without shame that I would be whipped upon my bare bottom and soundly.

Yours very obediently,

Amelia

The Major kept Amelia waiting three days for his reply and then it was to suggest a meeting.

*

London 2006

Modern Miss looking for a firm hand. You are an educated professional over 40 and in good shape, but with a youthful outlook. I am a 26-year-old solicitor who is presentable and of middling build and height with short dark brown hair. I am looking for an old-fashioned gentleman with a hand and a resolve that are equally hard.

You will take no lip or cheek from me and if I should test you then I require a very sound spanking on the bare bottom and an extended corner time both before and after my punishment as you decide.

If this doesn’t teach me, or even if it does, then additional punishments with whips, canes and other equipment of your devising can be utilised as you decide.

Please contact Anna Bradshaw at email provided.

Sean Joseph read the post twice before clicking the mail link. There wasn’t much to go on and these uppity wannabe women were often more trouble than they worth. At best they had read 50 Shades and dived into the deep end without a clue what they were getting into; as if that book had a clue about his world.

Still, nothing ventured nothing gained and there had to be some genuine girls out there. He decided on a layered approach by way of a test, the first requirement being a rather more fleshed-out response to his email which he crafted with all the care of a routine business note.

Dear Anna,

You will get more responses to your post than you can possibly handle. So many in fact that it is unlikely that you will get to mine. Nevertheless, if you should persist in your quest long enough not to be daunted by all the clueless losers then let’s do lunch.

I am a 42-year-old barrister with ample experience in dealing with curious brats wanting to test their limits and mine. I direct you to a brief summary on my contacts page and as it says there, photographs are available on request.

Sean couldn’t be bothered to dwell on the reply any more than that, experience told him that even if this Anna wasn’t a time waster then she would undoubtedly indeed get swamped.

Bristol 1896

Amelia was surprised at John Bradshaw’s polite and easy manner this time. He had been most generous at lunchtime and despite her bone-shaking nerves he had discussed India and some mutual acquaintances as carelessly as he might have done the weather.

Then he said, “Miss Johnston, are you sure it wise not to invite a companion, after all I do have something of a reputation?”

“Mr Bradshaw, Sir,” Amelia blushed, “It is your reputation that has enticed me to meet you. I doubt I have a friend in all of Bristol that would understand that.”

“Very well then if you are determined to make your amends we will retire to my house a short walk from here,” Bradshaw replied with an inclination of his head. “There we will test your mettle.”

As he had promised the walk had been indeed short and with every step Amelia’s steps had felt as heavy as her head light. In fact now that she considered the matter she wondered if she wasn’t some kind of trollop. But of course that was foolish. John Bradshaw was a gentleman and experienced in judicial and educational matters and this was no romantic dalliance.

This image of him was confirmed when they reached his house on the edge of Clifton. It was large and well-appointed, with a heavy discreet door in the middle of a quite charming Georgian brick façade.

“Now Miss Johnson, are you sure you wish to enter?” Bradshaw intoned in his best severe manner.

Amelia caught her breath and tried to supress the cloud of butterflies that had taken flight in her lower belly. Both these actions quite took all her attention and instead of being bold she could only return a small nod.

“Very well Miss, come with me,” Bradshaw said sharply, his earlier solicitude evaporating.

A few moments later they swept into an airy tan-coloured hallway and on into his study. In the grate was a grand raging fire that threw up a furious flickering light onto the mantle where carved faces of Pan with an army of imps seemed to dance and laugh at her.

“I don’t suppose you will come here again after today whatever you decide, but I suggest you take a moment to compose yourself,” Bradshaw said with a cough.

“Decide?” Amelia said, now puzzled, how many more delays would there be? She began to doubt that her nerve would hold out.

“I am duty bound to give you every opportunity to reconsider,” Bradshaw said airily as he studied his pocket watch.

Of course a man such as he must be very busy. Amelia worked her throat to a gulp but held her tongue.

“I am going to leave you now and when I return you will be standing sans culottes in that corner like the naughty minx you are. If not, you will be so good as to have departed,” he said imperiously.

“Sans… sans culottes?” she said breathily.

“Don’t be coy,” he sighed, “Your dress, your drawers, everything in your attire between the air and your… lower person.”

Amelia blushed. She had expected as much but even so… but after a pause she nodded.

With that Bradshaw departed.

*

London 2006

Sean had completely forgotten Ann by the time she got around to replying to his note.

“I am not surprised,” she said sheepishly, “I feel a bit of a fool now. You were right about being swamped. I wasted the last few weeks replying to utter wankers and the few that seemed okay… well they weren’t.”

They were sitting in a coffee bar in a narrow alley in Soho. The café specialised in Lebanese coffee and sweetmeats but although it did a steady trade for a wet Wednesday afternoon it was quiet enough.

“I don’t appreciate you calling people wankers, even if they are,” Sean said sharply so that Ann blushed. “Anyway, what makes you think I am any different?”

Ann shrugged and looked uncomfortable. She was as she had promised, of average height with an athletic build and very presentable. She wore her short dark hair straight and cut to a low fringe that served to obscure her eyes.

Although he claimed to be 42 he appeared of indeterminate age, both looking older on account of an abundance of grey hair and younger owing to his solid build and modern tight fit business suit.

“Don’t mumble,” he scolded causing her to blush again.

“I wasn’t, I didn’t even say anything,” she replied in a slightly whiney voice.

“And don’t answer me back, especially in that tone,” he snapped.

“Sorry,” she muttered and then more brightly, “I mean, I am sorry.”

Someone at the corner table looked over and Ann noticed the counter maid smirking at her too. This was a cue for more blushing, but it also made her feel squirmy.

“Listen, I want you to think about this, you don’t need to impress me, you turned up and that takes guts. Although I am not sure I believe you about telling a friend you were meeting me,” he said seriously and carefully gauged her reaction.

“I have thought about it,” she replied in a tight voice that suggested uncertainty. “I think…” she shrugged, “You know.”

Sean gave her a thoughtful pout in a kind of parody of Ann’s own demeanour as he stirred his coffee.

“No, I don’t,” he growled, “Say it.”

“I think we could work out, I mean, you know, I think you could take me in hand,” she said shyly, “I have a good vibe about it.”

Sean considered this for a moment and then nodded.

“How do I know you’re not pissing me about? You took a month to reply to me,” he said sternly. He was actually pleased with her but he needed to keep her off balance, she was too casual and cocksure of herself.

“Please,” she whispered.

“Alright then,” he whispered back. “Take your knickers off and give them to me.”

Ann’s eyes widened and she really blushed this time. She even took a moment to scan all points of the room before she could gather herself.

“I am wearing trousers,” she hissed at him.

The world stood on its edge and she felt herself falling.

Sean smiled gently and shrugged.

“We can do this another time when you’re ready,” he said.

Ann swallowed and shot a glance around her. The counter maid had gone out back and only one customer remained across from them. He was oldish and absorbed in a book with is back half turned from them.

“N-no, alright,” she said quickly.

She lifted her bum off the bench seat and unhooked the clasp. Luckily she was wearing no belt and the zip was an easy one. But suddenly she realised that she would have to get her trousers all the way off under the table before she could remove her knickers.

It took some doing and halfway through the manoeuvre the counter maid came back and then to Ann’s horror came over.

“Is everything alright?” she said, “Do you need anything?”

Ann blanched and shook her head. What could the woman see?

“I’ll have another coffee,” Sean said evenly, adding a belated “Please,” on account of the distraction of Ann.

Ann gaped in horror in Sean’s direction as she blanched.

“You have something to do,” Sean said by way of a reply.

The waitress was about to ask before realising she wasn’t being spoken to and turned away to fetch coffee.

Working her mouth Ann shot a glance at the remaining customer engrossed in his book and then at the retreating back of the waitress. Then quickly and smoothly she stepped out her trousers and with the bob her tugged down her knickers to slide them all the way down her legs. If the man or the waitress turned now they would see a good side view of her naked thighs. But Ann didn’t wait she openly ducked down and hauled on her trousers and was doing them up by the time the waitress reached the counter.

It was with an embarrassed grin of triumph that she handed Sean her knickers.

“You really are a naughty girl aren’t you,” Sean said as he took them, “What with your laxity of reply and your attitude, and now this so readily surrendered. Tell me, have you ever been spanked?”

Ann was all wide eyes and open mouth as her head swung wildly to take in the room. There was no doubt both the customer and the waitress had heard him.

“Well you are going to be,” Sean assured her.

*

Bristol 1896

John Bradshaw entered the room at his leisure. He was only vaguely aware that Amelia was still there but instead of looking directly at her he savoured the moment. For one thing her gown was draped carefully over the back of a chair and upon it was a cloud of lacy cotton comprised of a lady’s undergarments. For another… oh to hell with it, he turned.

Amelia was standing at attention to face the very corner of the room with her hands neatly tucked into the small of her back. She wore only a blouse and stockings so that the fulsome curves of her deep-cleft bottom were well displayed and totally nude.  A veritable goddess that took away his breath and something even stirred within his trousers.

He eyed both her and her clothes for any sign that she had disobeyed him in the slightest regard and noted that among the clothing was a corset. No doubt better off but not strictly what he had ordered.

“You are not accustomed to obedience then?” he scolded her. “I said only remove that which comes between the rod and your bottom.”

Amelia wanted to protest, but upon opening her mouth she found she had nothing to say. She was his and he could thrash her for the crime of having a bottom if he so desired.

“Miss Johnson, come here,” he sighed impatiently as if she had displeased him.

Amelia felt her face surge with hot blood and jerked where she stood. She was certain now that she was nothing but a trollop and deserved all that happened to her. Nonetheless she slowly obeyed after backing from the wall as far as she dared she meekly turned around; an operation that was only accomplished after bowing her head and cupping her hands as her shield before the dark thick triangle of her sex.

“For the corset and to put you in your place I am going to place you across my knee and soundly spank you,” John told her. “Afterwards you will be caned.”

Amelia swallowed and ducked her head respectfully as she muttered, “Yes Sir.”

Then as she watched her removed his coat and sat as if on a throne upon a large padded armless chair as he beckoned to her.

It took an eon for Amelia to totter to him and as she reached him she almost fled. But like a man with a skittish horse handled her firmly and taking her arm tumbled her down across his lap. This so elevated her big bare bottom that she felt that it filled the whole of the room behind her.

Oh why do women have such big bottoms, she wondered? Although it was a truth she was certain was about to be revealed to her.

John dug deep for a sense of genuine outrage, suppressing all prurient thoughts engendered by the proximity of Amelia’s fulsome nudity. Or at least, he decided, that he did so as much as was necessary. There was no sense or honour in hypocrisy here and why shouldn’t a man enjoy his work?

His hand struck her sharply across both cheeks and she squeaked in surprise.

“I am sorry,” she mumbled, “It was a shock.”

John answered her with another firm sharp smack, which he followed with two more.

There was a satisfying handprint on Amelia’s alabaster skin and the red of it had begun to flow like a blush into the dark cleft and across both domes.

Amelia herself was gasping a little as she squirmed, but otherwise strove to be ladylike; an act of bravado even she felt was absurd and unworthy even. After all she was here to be tamed and made to surrender. Her dignity was to be spent cruelly as was deserved and if Mr Bradshaw chose to spank her until she bawled like a hungry brat before a host of his friends then she could never complain. Well she certainly could and probably would, but for such a sin she should be further punished and sent to the corner for an hour or two for humbling.

The spanking was sharp and steady, imparting a sting that set Amelia hissing and kicking her feet like a theatrical heroine. Her bottom soon had the hue of a coal in the grate and burned almost a hot.

“Mr Bradshaw Sir, oh… ooh I shall… please,” she gasped.

In truth she wanted to beg and beg hard for sobbing mercy. But what if he acceded? Could she forgive him? A spanking was what she craved and no childish smack-bottom would serve for her needs. But hadn’t he promised that this was but an hors d’oeuvre?

In the event she needn’t have worried. Bradshaw spanked her as hard as he might for a good quarter of the hour, his hand as relentless as an industrial machine and as taut as a man hunting at hounds. By then Amelia’s bottom was a dark blasted red and she kicked and howled like hoyden under a brand.

Amelia herself muttered oaths and cries, but knew not what she said. She only knew the cleansing burn and the mastery of a man as she spilled her tears into the carpet.

Finally the spanking was over and the sobbing woman was set on her feet where she clutched at her sore bottom eschewing all dignity as she hopped around the room.

“Enough of this comedy,” John barked as he pointed to the corner.

Amelia sniffed hard and nodded her head in acknowledgment, not yet trusting her words. But wild horses couldn’t tear her hands from her bottom hinds as she struggled to regain composure. But finally she tamed the sting as she had been tamed, well enough anyway so that she could stumble to the corner and represent her nose to where both panelled walls met.

“I am sure you remember the nursery,” John said sharply.

He didn’t explain and merely watch her as she struggled with her shame. It was satisfying to see the grown woman peel away her soothing fingers and place them humiliatingly on her head.

“Would that I could take a photograph for the newspapers,” John chuckled. “Unless you resign my guidance, one day I will have you so in a room of your peers for their edification and your utter shame.”

Amelia gasped at this news and her heart lurched as if she were falling. She would fall to boot-licking begging to escape that fate, but part of her knew she would never complete her life until she was so humbled for this man. Even the knowledge that such things could really happen was a fulfilment her life had not yet known.

*

London 2006

The paddle landed relentlessly as Ann bucked and bawled across Sean’s lap. Her trousers had been left at her ankles and now hobbled her as she clawed at the side of his thighs and shins.

They had arrived at his Warwick Square apartment in a taxi and she had been ushered through the grand entrance without ceremony. The moment they had entered she had been given two choices. Drop her trousers or leave. She had even giggled at the challenge and had poked out her tongue as she fumbled at her waist.

But what had followed was no giggle-game for novices. Sean had promised her a sound spanking and sound spanking was what she was getting.

Even when he had been using his hand she had at once known she was out of her depth and only a sense of futility had convinced her not to call the whole thing off. Never had fantasy and reality been so at odds. But the short heavy leather paddle was a revelation. He might just as well have sat her in a fire and left her there.

“I’m sorry, oh God,” she howled, “I’ll do anything, shit, shit, shit…”

Sean stopped abruptly and pressed the paddle like a sizzling grid iron to her cherry seared bottom.

“You made it clear you didn’t do safe words. Do you want to leave?” His voice was calm and lawyer-like.

Ann sniffed and panted like a dog on the moors.

“No but…”

“Too rich for your blood eh?” he pressed her.

She nodded and then immediately shook her head even more emphatically.

“I don’t want any say in this but… it’s hard,” her lip trembled as she sniffed to a small sob.

“Take a minute,” he said gently, patting at her bottom with the paddle.

“Not wimping out on me are you?” she shot back.

The paddled answered her and he even took it to new heights.

Bigmouth, bigmouth, bigmouth, she cursed herself, but it was great to beg.

“I’ll suck your cock,” she pleaded, “You can do my bum… you can do my bum and then I’ll suck your cock.” It was a litany of shameful release, but her voice was steady and challenging rather than entirely sincere. That was an attitude that would come later after she was utterly defeated.

“You little slut, just you wait,” he chuckled.

The paddle cracked down in a volley that set her to classic yelling. It was going to be along afternoon.

*

Bristol 1896

For the main event Amelia was set to kneeling on the floor and made to bend over a piano stool. The carpet was soft under her knees and there was something satisfying about the way that the padding of the stool pressed into her lower belly. But the posture it placed her in was obscene. Her big red bottom stuck up like a horse’s crupper and heaven knew what charms Mr Bradshaw could gaze upon.

An old school friend had once told her of a device that was used to wash a woman’s intimate parts following a union with a man. It was supposed to prevent issue, she had been told. But she had been quite shocked at the time and why she should have thought of that now was a puzzle.

Instead she considered her bottom and how bare it was before a man. But at least it had cooled down a little and there was no denying that she thoroughly deserved this punishment.

Mr Bradshaw, for his part, had taken up a long thin cane for the next operation and now stood behind her brandishing it as he contemplated the target.

After a long silence he said, “If you call on me again I will birch you soundly as an entrée for the cane. I have quite a collection, some of them quite biting. I once had a whipping-brothel madam sobbing in her gin and quite unseated for a month after a session with a Mandalay Monster. But have no fear this is but a senior girl tickler from a Ladies’ College in Sussex. An old acquaintance of mine gave it to me in remembrance of her school days.”

“You are considerate Sir,” Amelia whispered.

“As it is your first time I will give you… 12,” Bradshaw told her, “and I want you to count them. Miss one and I’ll repeat it.”

“Yes Sir,” Amelia said breathily.

The cane sounded soft and silky as it cut the air. The impact too was sharp and clean and not half so hideous as Amelia had been expecting. But her thought was too previous as the biting stroke cut deep and did not slice properly for a beat or two. Then it was as a sword and Amelia screamed.

“One… nuh,” she choked, then unbidden she added, “Thank you Sir.”

Still it took her half a minute to ride out the pain and compose. It was a luxury she would not have for the next eleven, which came quick and fast at her announcement over the next two minutes. It was an ordeal that caused her to miscount two strokes that had to be repeated. Afterwards the corner had been a heavenly place for a good long cry.

Part I

Ivan sat at a crouch under the lowest branches in a stand of birch trees overlooking the valley. It was close as he dared get to the ruined castle before he made his move. But what move? So far he had counted perhaps 200 Cossacks and the only way in to the castle was across the open ground on which they were camped.

More than that, he didn’t even know for sure if Sofia was inside or what her captors would do in the event of an attempted rescue. A more religious man might hope to God but although the Good Father had brought him thus far, Ivan was at a loss as what to do next.

He thought of tales of Cossacks and heroes jumping outriders and donning clothing to sneak into hideouts. But not only had none of the assembled warriors in the camp conveniently strayed into the undergrowth, Ivan was pretty sure that it would take more than Cossack outfit not be challenged.

The only sensible thing was to find the Prince and come back in force. Ivan didn’t even need to ponder how many days that would take and the lack of guarantees that these men would still be here; he had no intention of turning back now.

What if the Prince were already on his way? After all Ivan had found this place. But again he knew that only a miracle of chance had sent him up this path and not another. There were a dozen valleys all with easier roads that the prince could come by and pass on without ever seeing the ruined fortress below.

As he looked down a large Cossack looked up and appeared to study Ivan’s hiding place. Ivan sighed and backed up to hunker down some more. These men were alert then. The man watching the forest kept up his gaze for some minutes before turning back to a fire he was building.

There were several fires in the camp, all small and professionally made so that only the barest wisp of smoke reached the tree tops. Had they been merchants then perhaps their smoke would give them away and lead the Prince here. In fact the fires were so small that they would barely serve to keep men warm at night and little light would be given off.

Ivan weighed all this without conclusion for some minutes before he winced. He slapped his hand to his head and almost laughed out loud.

“Fool,” he growled, “Damn bloody fool.” Ivan grinned.

*

Sofia shivered back into the corner and withdrawing deep into the growing dark. The small light that had gained her cell through the high slight windows was growing dim. It was the only clue that night fell; her last here perhaps. For there had been some talk among the other women that tomorrow they would be moved on.

Perhaps these men had enough captives from their raiding? She shivered again. It seemed churlish to feel sorry for herself now; whatever her fate, these women would fare much worse. Even now the food she was given was a little better than theirs. Then Sofia frowned. The food was late. The men had been bringing it a good hour before the sun went down. Probably because then they could easily see. But it was now close to full dark and yet no one had come.

She cocked her ear to listen for any sounds of approach but strangely it was quiet. Or at least the passage that led from her cage was. From the windows she heard another sound. A commotion of some sort, very faint but definitely men’s voices conveying some urgency.

“What is it?” Anya called over.

The peasant woman was on her feet now and came close to the bars to listen.

“I don’t know,” Sofia whispered, “But the food is late and…”

“Shush,” Anya hissed, “I can’t make it out, but look.”

Sofia suppressed her annoyance at being shushed by a peasant and looked where Anya pointed.

Beyond the high cell windows was an orange flicker. Camp fires maybe, but none had been seen before.

“Is the castle on fire? Anya asked anxiously.

Sofia answered her in a slow uncertain voice, “No, I don’t think so.” But all the same Sofia kept her eyes fixed on the windows.

Both women stared at the high walls nervously for some minutes until a clank up the passage startled them. No doubt it was the guard with their food.

Sure enough on looking they could see a large bear of a man, a Cossack still dressed for the outside lumbering up the hall. He was certainly carrying something although it looked too big for just a tray of food.

The man walked slowly and it wasn’t until he stepped into the faint light from the windows did they see he held not a tray but a man. Not dead Sofia thought, but from the way the large man dropped him carelessly onto the floor she did not think he cared overmuch.

“Are all the prisoners here?” the man demanded.

Sofia’s heart lurched and she strained to see what her ears did not believe.

“Ivan?” she ventured, and then more excitedly, “Ivan is that you?”

The man lunged forward only stopped by the bars and grinned. For a moment it looked as if even the bars would not stop him and then it did.

“Sofia,” Ivan gasped and then he laughed.

*

It was an act of sheer faith. There had been no way for Ivan to prise the bars. Instead, much to Sofia’s distress, he had run back down the passage and stood guard with his sword drawn to await reinforcements. Of course there was not the slightest reason to assume he would get any. Once the Cossacks worked out he was there he might just stand here in a fight to the death.

His plan, such that it was, was to light a great big fire and hope it spread to the forest. Then whilst the Cossacks were investigating he had seized one from the shadows of growing night to don his hat and coat and had merely strolled into the castle.

Now he hoped that the Prince and his men were close enough behind to see first the smoke and then as night fell the great glow in the sky marking out the edge of the camp.

Luckily the fire had put the Cossacks on guard, but instead of looking for one infiltrator who had already slipped in they grabbed their weapons and prepared to defend against what they believed was an attack; a belief that kept them busy for almost an hour.

Even then when someone did come to check on the prisoners he was alone and distracted.

“Someone’s idea of a joke,” he was muttering, “and why do I have to check on these bloody bitches?”

“What’s happening out there?” Ivan asked as the man approached.

“Buggered if I know,” the man yawned and shot a look back over his shoulder.

Maybe it was Ivan’s accent or the way he had donned the Cossack coat or hat. Or maybe it was just that the man quickly realised that he was a stranger, but for an instant the man froze. A hesitation that was a beat too long and as he drew his sword Ivan raised his and cut the man from should to crotch.

“Hey, what goes on down there?” came a shout and a moment later two more Cossacks came along the passage at a run.

Ivan chopped down the first but the second was too quick and the clash of steel rang through the old ruins. The desperate melee that followed was quick and well matched with slash meeting parry and thrust turned aside.

No more than eight or nine such blows had been traded when another voice piped up. “Oh Madonna, they are already here.”

With that another Cossack who had come to investigate the noise went stumbling back up the passage yelling out his lungs.

Oh well Ivan thought, at least I die for Sofia.

This resignation gave him fresh impetus and in two strokes he overwhelmed his fellow duellist and chopped him down. But now he had only 197 Cossacks to beat.

The men outside were slow to rouse it seemed. Maybe they still looked for an attack. But little by little men came in threes and fours to investigate the intruder.

The first of these fell easily but by then the Cossacks were fully alert and only the narrowness of the stone walls on either side enabled Ivan to stand them off. But swords fell upon him like rain and with each slash he fell back a step or two towards the chamber where the women were kept.

Worst still with each parry and counter blow Ivan’s arm began to tire and here and there he came close to losing an ear or even his head.

The Cossacks were furious and did not even think of accepting a surrender. Instead there were bilious screams of “Get him,” “Bastard,” and “I want his head on a pole.”

Ivan had no breath for an answer or bravado. His head ached, his arm was weak and every step back was one nearer his doom.

*

When at last the men fell back Ivan wondered if he had won or… but then he saw that the Cossacks were grinning and among them was an officer who was a head taller than all the rest. He was even taller than Ivan, an elevation only challenged by the breadth of his smile.

The man had two swords, one in either hand, which he now spun in eccentric patterns as danced forward with a martial confidence.

The only hope now was that the brief halt to the attack had let Ivan gain his second wind. But he did not think he could best this warrior.

“Who are you eh? One of the Molotov’s men?” the man leered. He had a Muscovite accent and carried himself with unusual assurance. “You have come for the Molotov bitch neh?”

“And what of you your honour, you are a long way from Moscow, have you come to die?” Ivan at last found the breath for some bravado.

“The Kern pay well,” he shrugged, “And the Molotov girl is her father’s only weakness.”

So that was it, Ivan thought, not that the knowledge would profit him much. But at least he did not rise to this aristocrat’s taunts and every delay allowed Ivan to get his breath.

It was a false hope for even as Ivan relaxed the man scissored forward in whirlwind of blades and Ivan was forced back yet again. This time only his sure feet as he tottered backwards saved him from evisceration. Oh to be sure here and there he expertly parried one or other of the blades but the nobleman always cut across with his second like a prince of swords.

Ivan doubted that had he two swords and the gift to use them that he could best this man.

“Do you like to ride my friend?” the Muscovite asked innocently without missing an expert beat. “I like to ride. I can ride like a Cossack. Perhaps tonight I will ride you little Molotov girl neh?”

Ivan roared at this and hacked at the man like the woodsman he was. If it was what the swordsman had hoped for he misjudged for in his rage Ivan threw the man back until he had gained almost all the ground he had lost.

“I sense a nerve to touch,” the man tut-tutted with a grin.

But something had changed. Behind him men were peeling off and running back up the tunnel. Ivan didn’t hear what they shouted and just then it made no difference for this was a fight between just two.

“Your honour, your honour,” someone yelled. “We are attacked.”

But nothing more was heard except the sound of battle from the field beyond the ruined walls. Steel clashing upon steel and the death screams of a dozen men all falling at once.

*

Prince Molotov had been the first to see the smoke rising. Not a campfire or a charcoal man, he adjudged. This was too much for that. Even so he might have just sent scouts but as night was falling he knew he had one chance.

“That way,” he ordered as 300 men wheeled at his word and waded into the forest.

The smoke was gone from view almost at once in the thick undergrowth, but as night fell the glow persisted giving a lie to any that said it was hunters.

“It is too big my Prince,” said his captain, “And nothing lays that way to explain it.”

But one of the men remembered the ruined castle and rumours from the past that it had been used by Cossacks.

“Cossacks?” the Prince hissed; his voice redolent with disgust.

He didn’t wait for further words and without a pause he pressed on deeper into the trees.

It had taken an hour to reach the Cossack camp and by then the once alert reception had fallen back inside to confront their interloper.

“There seems to be a fight,” the captain reported, “Perhaps some of our other men have attacked first.”

Prince Molotov stood up on his stirrups and studied the scene. He thought of his daughter and… he sucked in air through his nose.

“My lord, shall we attack?” the captain pressed him.

The Prince tightened his grip on his reins until they showed white. Courage do not forsake me now, he muttered. Then he nodded.

*

Even outnumbered Cossacks never flee. On open ground or without having the numbers one never fights Cossacks. But these men were afoot and in some disarray when the prince struck. He had more to lose than even they, so in the event the battle was a short one.

The first to die did not even see the horsemen charge. One minute there was all glow and smoke on the forest side and then there were horses and men dripping red in the firelight. The more superstitious of them took the attackers as devils and stood to gape and by the time the rest sensed the danger the Molotov’s were upon them.

Prince Molotov did not wait to see to the killing. With one great leap from his horse he dashed sword in had into the castle and the gaping maw of the dungeons.

“Sofia,” he screamed, running on like a man possessed smashing aside anyone in his way.

The tunnels were a maze and dark holes fell this way and that as he stumbled screaming through the dark passages. But finally he found his way and rushed on.

There was only one when he reached the cage room. He stood like a giant hefting a sword like an axe over another large man on the ground.

“If you have harmed her…” the Prince rasped; his breath now ragged and raw.

“My lord,” Ivan whispered. “Do you not recognise me?”

The Prince’s eyes shot back and forth as he tried to comprehend.

“Your daughter is safe,” Ivan said simply. “I have her.”

To be continued.

Part I

Sofia strained to see down the dark dank tunnels. There was something there, something coming for her. All around there were naked women all smiling foolishly thinking they were saved and none of them would listen as she tried to tell them. Tried and failed, it was all she could do but point at something in the dark getting ever nearer. Then she screamed.

The dark exploded with light and Sofia sat-up with a start. She was bathed in sweat and the dread of the dream clung to her like the sticky sheets next to her flesh. Castle Molotov was altogether more airy than the dungeon and as light poured through the lattice glass the tan-coloured wood panels on the walls of her room glowed like gold and the myriad coloured mural above them seemed to come alive.

In her youth she had loved the hunting scene painted there and the deep green forest facing her four poster bed. To the left in the wall were flowers and the same forest as seen in spring and to the right, framing the heavy dark wood door, it was perpetual autumn, where darker brown and gold trees occluded stags at bay and more mythical creatures like unicorns peeking out from the undergrowth.

She was home she realised with a sigh.

Sofia lay back to stretch out like a cat and gazed up at the green velvet canopy draping her bed, as she did so she saw the fourth forest scene on the wall behind her bed where the window was set. This was a winter scene and fur-clad men trudged through snow or laughed at camp fires.

She thought for a moment of the Cossacks and shuddered, but these hunters were smiling like… Ivan. Sofia sat-up and shook herself fully awake. By the time her feet had touched the cool hard wood of the floor she was naked and shucking off the linen nightdress like another dream.

She would have preferred hunting clothes as she had worn the day she had first encountered him, but the maids had left out only a matron’s gown in black brocade silk with a grim headdress. Why black, she thought idly, did someone die? Her thoughts went to Ivan and then her father. There had been a mighty battle hadn’t there?

But her father had carried her home and although they had not spoken, Ivan too had been at her side with his sword as if daring the world to attack them. Then she remembered. Her husband had been killed right in front of her. She felt ashamed. He was her lawful husband and he had died defending her. She had no right to think of Ivan. I should be whipped, she thought earnestly, but a vision of Ivan and his spanking hand burst into her mind and she blushed.

“I really need to be whipped,” she sighed.

“What was that my lady?” said a maid as she slipped expertly and quietly into the room.

The woman was around 30 with dark blonde hair coiled tightly around her head and she carried herself with the heavy health of good peasant stock. She must have loitered without for hours waiting for Sofia to stir.

Sofia considered repeating herself and accept the shame as a kind of punishment by itself, but instead she stood up straight and raised her arms so that the maid could pull the first layer of her many underclothes over her head.

*

When Sofia finally made her way downstairs breakfast had long been abandoned, although the maid had insisted that she take something from the tray before she was allowed to make her way to the great hall.

“Your father…” the maid said anxiously.

Sofia had nodded and had quickly dunked a hunk of rye bread into some cabbage soup and eaten it on the hoof. By the time she reached the stairs she was swallowing down the last mouthful and steeling herself for a meeting with her father.

There was a fire in the grate to ward off the cold and her father stood over it rubbing his hands in its glow. He didn’t even turn as she entered and she had to cross the room before he even acknowledged her.

“Father I…”

He nodded and looked faintly embarrassed. For days he had thrown all decorum and prudence to the wind and torn away the forest to find her. But now the old order must be restored and reckless displays of emotion had to be shunned.

“Thank you my lord,” she whispered.

“Pity about that husband of yours,” the prince shrugged, “It will be hard to find another suitable nobleman who will take you.”

“Yes, a great pity,” Sofia said absently.

She could not mourn a man she did not love but all the same he had married her and died for her in good faith, surely he deserved more than… but that was the way of things and not worth dwelling upon.

“I could always marry you to that peasant who saved you,” the Prince chuckled.

“Peasant?” Sofia felt her heart catch in her throat.

“Oh you know that… rystar I promoted, the one that saved you last time.” Her father sounded dismissive but in truth he studied his daughter carefully from the corner of his eye.

“Why not?” she replied sounding equally dismissive, “I mean he is at least a noble now and he deserves some kind of reward.”

The room was still now and Sofia was acutely aware of the breeze from the window and how the morning sun played on the polished black lead of the frames. She could see where the floral detail in the stone around the sill was worn and needed attending to. She couldn’t remember ever even noticing the pattern before.

The fire crackled in sharp cutting sounds as flames danced in coils extending towards her father’s fingers as he warmed his hands. They were hands of a god who held her life more surely than any Cossack slaver.

“The women we captured with you…” the Prince said casually, “Some of them have been offered husbands among my men and a few jobs here at the castle. You see fortunes rise and fall and things can change.”

“That is good father,” Sofia said in a dead voice.

“Oh and that rystar, Ivan Ivanov Illyich, he did put on a good show, saved the day probably,” the Prince shrugged, “I’ll find him some reward for his services as you suggest, but I hardly thinks he rates a dowager countess.”

“No I suppose not,” Sofia said softly, “But…”

“Yes,” the Prince said sharply.

Sofia swallowed and bit back a sob.

“May I not… not marry who I want now?” she whispered.

“No,” her father said sharply. Then to forestall any further debate he held up a hand and bellowed for the concierge.

The man who entered wore a clean smock over loose fitting trousers and beard you could hide a bird’s nest in.

“Bring in Rytar Illyich,” the Prince sighed, and then to Sofia he said, “Let’s get this over with.”

Sofia lost all composure now and clasping both hands she brought them to her face to chew at the back of her thumbs.

Ivan strode into the room like a bear walking upright; his sable coat too adding to the look, although his beard was now trimmed and worn close to his face in courtly style. His face bore no emotion and he looked at neither Sofia, nor really at the Prince to whom he bowed at the prescribed eight paces before him.

“Are Illyich,” the Prince said warmly, “That’s more like it,” he said admiring the man’s new clothes, “All you need now is to learn to read and you could be a courtier.”

“I read well enough lord,” Ivan said with another bow.

Prince Molotov shot a glance at his ashen faced daughter and pursed his lips. “Better than most rystar who serve me then,” he said thoughtfully. “No matter, I owe you some reward I think.”

“I am in your service lord and did no more than my duty,” Ivan bowed again as was the fashion, his eyes fixed firmly staring into space.

“Still… I am minded to make you a baron and double your lands,” the Prince yawned, “especially since you can read. After your current service to me I can use a man like you.”

“I would be honoured my lord,” Ivan said carefully.

This time he didn’t bow.

“But my daughter has another suggestion,” the Prince said in a bored voice and then he laughed as if making a joke. “She thinks you might take her hand instead.”

Ivan slowly swivelled his gaze right as if seeing Sofia for the first time. Her eyes were pooled with tears and she stood as white as fine oriental porcelain and twice as likely to break. He felt sick, like a starving man offered bread who knew it would be snatched away if he reached for it.

“Indeed Lord,” he replied, his throat closing on itself like a collapsing leather bag.

God I would… anything great father if… if… Ivan let his gaze fall softly over the small pale girl standing so near. Her white skin shone in contrast to her raven hair making her seem ghostly in her black brocade gown. The only detectable colour was in her eyes, which were sapphire blue and seemed to plead with the universe for something.

“So let me play at Solomon,” Prince Molotov said heartedly. “I can make you a Baron with new lands or you can stay a rystar, little better than a kulak, and marry my daughter.”

Ivan tore his gaze from his love and allowed a smile.

“Suits me my lord,” he said evenly.

He expected a dozen guards to swarm him for his audacity and strived not to flinch. This was a dangerous game he now played.

Sofia didn’t wait. She exploded with joy and rushed the great bear of a man as if storming a castle.

“You understand that if you make this choice you will spend your life scrubbing floors and I could scarcely welcome such a lowborn one’s wife into this castle,” the Prince’s voice sounded dead.

Sofia looked from Ivan to her father and groaned. Not the petulant sound of her childhood or the brat she could be, but the groan of a woman dying, one last breath of her old life.

“I understand father,” she said firmly.

The prince nodded.

“Do you take this woman and leave?” he said to Ivan.

“Now there is nothing that could stop me,” Ivan growled, deliberately omitting the word lord.

“Sofia?” her father whispered. He was as if one grieving.

She nodded and then said “Yes My Lord.”

“Then so be it,” Prince Molotov agreed.

Before the couple could embrace again he snapped his hands twice in a clap and bellowed with a laugh.

“You think I would have my daughter marry a rystar or some lowly baron,” he roared, “Besides, a peasant who can read is no peasant, so you might as well be a Count.”

Sofia gaped and Ivan grasped his sword as if ready for a fight.

“Father…?” Sofia whispered.

The Prince smiled and stepped forward now to embrace her. Then taking her hand he passed it to Ivan.

“I had to be sure,” he said and kissed her forehead.

Now it was Ivan’s turn to gape.

“Well man, kiss her you oaf,” the Prince roared, but Sofia had already been lifted off her feet and into a great bear hug.

Then the two lovers kissed.

To be continued.

Part I

Sofia stood solemnly in front of the mirror while her maids fussed around her. She was naked and the spring chill set her astonishing white flesh in tight gooseflesh. Every once in a while a maid would tug at her long jet hair or turn her this way and that so that the prominence of her bottom hump could be seen in profile in the glass. With a glimpse of her behind Sofia remembered Ivan’s birch rod and shuddered, striving in vain to be indignant. Knowing the man there would be many more ordeals such as that, she thrilled.

Outwardly this wedding day seemed much the same as her first marriage. As before her sombre visage betrayed no emotion as she was prepared by the women and many might think that as before she was only doing a duty.

But inside she tingled from her scalp to her toes and a whole troop of Cossack’s carried out manoeuvres in her tummy. She could scarce look into the mirror at her own face for when she did the excitement leaked out into a flash of something bestial. It was as if she were possessed so fearing the peasant women would see her gaze she quickly and demurely downcast her eyes.

The women themselves worked fast for the day’s chill was harsh and the naked girl, so cruelly given to a woodsman brute was already vulnerable enough. Already they had scrubbed and cleansed more thoroughly than a chicken for the oven and the girl’s intimate passages must tingle fore and aft following their ministrations. Tradition demanded it.

“My lady,” the elder maid said gently, “There is something…”

As she spoke a younger girl stepped forward with a tray upon which was a curious object like a cake-piping affair alongside a pot of butter. Sofia flushed and chewed at her lips.

“But you have already…” she feared another enema now; the last had been too thorough.

“It is not quite the same my lady, it is butter,” the elder maid offered, “To ease you inside. Sometimes… sometimes men are… well your husband is such a… robust gentleman, perhaps not yet used to the ways of the nobility.”

Sofia almost giggled. The thought of Ivan had already had her more slippery than a fish where it counted and if necessary she would tell them boldly that it was so. But the woman shot a significant glance at Sofia tight behind and then patted it.

“Sometimes men have different tastes,” the maid pressed.

Sofia gasped and her eyes widened. But even before she could comment she was taken gently by both arms and led into a stoop while the girl with the tray moved behind her.

This time the nozzle presented to her intimate place was warmer than before and entered her easily. Sofia found herself wild with the thought that Ivan would use her so and was trilling with the possibility.

“Uh,” she gasped as the warm butter eased into her. There was an awful lot of it and it went in deep.

*

Handsome and magnificent, Ivan looked on impassively at the front of the chapel across the aisle from Prince Molotov. He was splendid in his blue silk smock and sable collar. His hat too was of sable, a finer one than he had worn before, one more fitting to his heavy but well-trimmed beard. He seemed even larger under the eyes of the bishop who read a litany of traditional prayers as a prelude to vows. It was really going to happen then, Sofia thought, her head spinning.

Sofia blushed as she bent forward to accept a token lash or two from her father’s quirt. It seemed as if this time the entire country had turned up to bear witness to the Prince Molotov’s favourite daughter’s second wedding. No doubt they all wanted to see the hero who had saved her and had risen so rapidly to be a count.

But somehow for Sofia it was all the more embarrassing than the last time. The tight cotton pantaloons she had been forced to reveal to the lash clung closely and she was afraid that a hint of butter might leak and mortify her. The obscene little ritual had thrilled her to shame and her head was still spinning with the thought of it. She dared not even look at Ivan as she leaned forward and stuck out her bottom.

As before the lash stung her and she had to bite down on her lower lip trying not to giggle. Tried and failed, much to her chagrin and her father’s scowling displeasure. This was supposed to be a solemn occasion, but Sofia couldn’t help it. Ivan was hers. She giggled again in the excitement and her father gave her a final lash in his frustration.

Then as the bishop stepped forward Prince Molotov sighed and handed Ivan the whip.

One might have supposed that such a lowly born man would have taken the respectful and traditional path of slipping the quirt into his belt as most would. However Ivan tested it decisively in his hand and then took a step forward. Someone chuckled in the crowd and an excited whisper burbled through the church until it died in an expectant whisper.

It was Ivan’s right to deliver a lash or more and why not, hadn’t the giggling girl asked for it with her disrespect? But what happened next drew bug eyes from the bishop and gasps from the assembly. Even Prince Molotov gaped. Determined to start as he meant to continue Ivan extended his hand and seized the pantaloons at their waist. Then in a trice he tore the flimsy material with a rip that left Sofia’s bottom completely bare and only her thighs covered in a parody of stockings.

“Ivan,” Sofia gasped in horror, but instead of rising she dipped her head in shame and hid her face with her hands.

The quirt lashed in hard with seven or eight cuts until the alabaster smoothness of Sofia’s curves were rilled with red angry welts and she hissed and danced under the onslaught.

“I have a tradition of my own and I will have no disrespect from you wench, especially not to your father,” Ivan growled.

Prince Molotov supressed a chuckle and there was small ripple of applause from the congregation.

“Yes my lord,” Sofia squeaked, her face now redder than her bottom.

“Stand up and lower your skirts woman,” Ivan ordered.

He was obeyed at once.

And so they were married, a new Count and Countess holding lands to the south and east of Molotov’s domain, and although Sofia could not even sit down at her own wedding feast without the aid of a pillow she grinned more broadly than she ever had from the first toast to the last.

“Happy?” Prince Molotov asked her in a whisper later that day.

The grin did not leave her face as Sofia nodded.

“Oh yes Father,” she whispered back.

“He is a good man,” the prince said sagely.

“Not so good I think, he will beat me raw,” Sofia said ruefully.

“And so he should,” her father chuckled, adding, “But always with finesse.”

Sofia bowed demurely in acquiescence, but she wasn’t so sure of that either.

The feasting and dancing amid gift-giving and songs went on for three days but finally it was time to go. I will miss Castle Molotov, Sofia thought, she would even miss her governess the baroness, but more than that she felt a passing sadness for the shack in the woods that she might never see again. It had been a pleasant ordeal in many ways and had given her Ivan. For a moment she wondered if the humble life she had been offered as a feint might not have been preferable to setting up court with a man not suited to it.

But in the torchlight amid the gathering well-wishers as they assembled to see the couple off Ivan looked as great a lord as Prince Molotov and Sofia’s heart swelled. She knew then he would serve well as a count and what he didn’t know she would teach him, just as he no doubt intended to teach her. She thought grimly of Ivan’s girl-cousins and sisters and their thousand lashes. Ivan was a hard man, a true stalin. She shuddered, but it was not fear that touched her, not entirely.

*

Ivan had not availed himself of her body that first night, nor any while the festivities still raged. It was not unusual and demonstrated restraint on his part; so much for the fears of her maids and her husband’s brutal ways.

But now they were alone and Sofia only wore the thinnest veil of linen between her and her man. Even that was all but transparent in the firelight as she stood demurely and respectfully next to the bed for her husband to come to their room.

Next to the bed on low table were certain things she had gathered. Some were traditional and others not. There were a rod of birch twigs much like the one Ivan had used on her before over the winter and also flowers with gifts of gold, salt and bread.

To this Sofia had added two small dairy paddles accompanying a churn of butter. She entertained hopes that if she displeased him then he would use softer sanctions than the birch and as for the butter… she had other desires.

Then he was there filling the door frame like a bear at the entrance to a cave. He had a fierce look but as her gaze met his eyes softened.

Ivan swallowed nervously and tried to relax his stance. He remembered how it was with his mother and father, never a kind word and endless love. There were beatings to be sure, but his mother was a peasant without even the pretentions of his father’s lost nobility. Did one handle a noblewoman the same? He remembered the forest and his cruelty. It had been necessary then. The episode with the malt had been reckless of her. But now there was food to spare and silks if she wanted them. She looked so small and delicate, how could she love him?

Before he could take the initiative she spoke.

“Is everything to your satisfaction my lord?” Sofia said shyly.

As she talked she unconsciously motioned to the birch rod on the table. Or perhaps it was something else.

“And if it is not?” Ivan replied, his voice not kind as he had intended but as the rumble of a bear.

“Then you must punish me soundly my lord,” Sofia said proudly, almost with defiance.

“How must I do that?” Ivan asked, his face developing a lopsided grin.

“It is no laughing matter my lord, it is our honour,” Sofia chided, surely he wasn’t going to soften now? “You must thrash my bared bottom as you did before and in any way you see fit. I am not a delicate flower… if your sisters and cousins could take a thousand lashes…”

Ivan roared with laughter, the little brat, trying to manage him was she? She had no idea of what she was talking about.

“A thousand eh?” he chuckled and looked past her to the table, “Hand me that paddle and we will see if you can take 200 with that before we talk of a thousand lashes. What you need is a good spanking to put you in your place.”

Sofia flushed and gulped back her apprehension. Damn, this wasn’t quite the reaction she was hoping for. Nevertheless she reached back, careful to bend seductively as she took one of the butter paddles from table and handed it to him.

One side was smooth the other serrated with small wooden teeth. She wondered which side he would use. She was still wondering when she found herself upended and tumbling across his lap as he sat on the bed. He bottom was bare in a moment and he took the time to give her several light but stinging pats to her bottom with the smooth side of the paddle.

He was about to begin when he noticed the butter and frowned.

“What is the dairy grease for?” he asked.

Sofia felt two pools of hot blood form on her cheeks. She hadn’t expected him to ask, surely he knew? She whispered her reply.

“What was that?” he barked lowering his head to hear.

“The narrow way… my maids said… you might…” she whispered.

He frowned again before truth dawned.

“Why you little trollop,” he gasped his arm lifting to hide his embarrassment.

It landed with a will, not once but half a hundred times before he realised he was spanking her in earnest.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Sofia shrieked her legs kicking like a landed fish tail.

By then of course her bottom was cherry red and polished shiny in the firelight. But he had promised her another seven score and ten such spanks and he would not soften now. To make his point he inverted the paddle and let her feel the sting of the harsher side.

“Sorry are you? Not yet you’re not,” he chuckled.

She announced the impact with a howl and redoubled her shrieks for clemency for a good three or four minutes before he was done.

“Now see what you have done,” he smiled as he dropped face down and tearful onto the bed.

As he spoke he tossed off his cloak and lowered his breeches. His manhood was like a horn with a double headed plum on the end. Sofia looked up with a mouth as a rounded in cave of wonder. Ivan had heard that French women… but he shook his head and looked at the butter.

“Dairy grease is it? Well grease me well and then I’ll do you where your maids suggest,” he rasped. “Then I am going to spank you again for good measure.”

Sofia wiped a tear and knelt up on the bed. She couldn’t have sat there anyway just then. Reaching out she grabbed a handful of butter and eagerly went to apply it to the member that had her attention. But for a moment she held back.

“Wife don’t…” she said huskily, if she was teasing him he would…

But Sofia licked her upper lip and then paused to scoop butter on to her tongue. It seemed a suitable enough way to apply the creamy grease.

“Y-y-you you witch,” he sighed, his voice faltering, “Now I really am going to… to spank you trollop.”

There was a mumble followed by a sucking sound.

“Afterwards… my lord,” she cooed, and as she spoke she took him in her mouth while taking another scoop and pressing under her hind-end and between. “Mmmm-fff… afterwards.”

The End

There is something disturbing and fun about this picture. They look like police, but what is going on? I believe the woman is the Italian porn actress Maria Grazia Buccella, pictured in the early 1960s.